The area of Lake Zurich was first settled by Europeans in the 1830s. Two early pioneers were George Ela, after whom the Ela township is named, and Seth Paine, who established a number of commercial ventures in the town. New England farmers moved to the area in the 1830s and 1840s, and German immigrants began to move to the area from the middle of the century. The village of Lake Zurich was incorporated on September 19th, 1896. It remained primarily a farming community; although the village was connected to the railroad in 1910, the line was closed ten years later. However, the arrival of the highway system with Rand Road, US Route 12 in 1922 and Half Day Road, Illinois Route 22 in 1927 established Lake Zurich as a convenient summer resort. The now-defunct Palatine, Lake Zurich and Wauconda Railroad also served the community. Housing development began in the 1950s, with the population expanding throughout the latter part of the 20th century. The nation-wide crisis regarding eminent domain has reached Lake Zurich. The village government intends to take private property in order to increase revenue via new businesses. As of 2004 Lake Zurich has acquired all the property intended to fulfill its downtown redevelopment project. While many protests occurred regularly throughout 2005 near the promenade, the protests failed to garner much attention and ended up failing, which is too bad. The village has already broken ground on new townhouse complexes and started paving on the Illinois Route 22-U.S. Route 12 bypass as of May 8 2006. The bypass has since been completed after over 1 and a half years of extremely snarled traffic, construction delays that the city blamed on all others, and many businesses leaving town due to low levels of customers from the congestion. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Zurich%2C_Illinois