Des Plaines is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It has adopted the official nickname of "City of Destiny." As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 58,720. It is a suburb of Chicago, and is next to O'Hare International Airport. The Des Plaines River runs through the city, just east of its downtown area. Potawatomi, Ottawa, and Ojibwe native American tribes inhabited the Des Plaines River Valley prior to Europeans' arrival. The first white settlers came from the eastern United States in 1833, after the Treaty of Chicago, followed by many German immigrants... during the 1840s and 1850s. In the 1850s, land in the area was purchased by the Illinois and Wisconsin Land Company along a railroad line planned between Chicago and Janesville, Wisconsin. In 1852, the developers built a steam powered mill next to the river, to cut local trees into railroad ties. Socrates Rand then bought the mill and converted it into a grist mill, which attracted local farmers. The Illinois and Wisconsin Railroad made its first stop in the area in the fall of 1854. In 1857, the Chicago, St.
more