River Forest Township, Cook County, Illinois

River Forest is a suburban village adjacent to Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, U.S. Per the 2020 census, the population was 11,717. Two universities make their home in River Forest, Dominican University and Concordia University Chicago. The village is closely tied to the larger neighboring community of Oak Park. There are significant architectural designs located in River Forest such as the Winslow House by Frank Lloyd Wright. River Forest has a railroad station with service to Chicago on Metra's Union Pacific/West Line.

The River Forest Historic District is a national historic district encompassing much of the village of River Forest, Illinois. The district includes 830 buildings, most of which are houses as the village is almost entirely residential. The oldest structure in the district is the 1831 Bickerdike and Noble sawmill, the first permanent structure built by European settlers in River Forest; residential development began in the mid-nineteenth century and continued through the 1930s. The district has a considerable number of Prairie School houses, including a rare example of an entire block of small-scale Prairie homes. Several works by Frank Lloyd Wright are within the district, including the Winslow House and stable, the Chauncey L. Williams Residence, the Isabel Roberts House, the J. Kibben Ingalls House, and the River Forest Tennis Club. The Prairie School architects William Eugene Drummond, Tallmadge and Watson, Purcell & Elmslie, John S. Van Bergen, and Spencer & Powers designed homes in the district as well. Examples of other popular architectural styles, most prominently Italianate and Classical Revival, can also be found in the district.The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 26, 1977.

The River Forest Public Library is located at 735 Lathrop Avenue in River Forest, Illinois, a suburban community west of Chicago. It serves a core population of approximately 11,000 residents, and drawing reciprocal patrons from the surrounding area. The library is part of the SWAN (System Wide Automated Network) consortium, which connects libraries in over 80 suburbs of Chicago through a shared catalog and other services.

The William H. Hatch House is a historic house at 309 Keystone Avenue in River Forest, Illinois. Grain trader William H. Hatch built the house for his family in 1882, early in the village's development and two years after its incorporation. The house has a Queen Anne style design, a popular choice both locally and nationally at the time. The design includes three spindlework porches, a tower at the southeast corner, and a shingled gable atop the front and rear facades. The emphasis on spindlework, while common in early Queen Anne designs, is unusual among examples of the style in River Forest.The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 5, 2007.

Dominican University (DU) is a private Roman Catholic university in River Forest, Illinois, affiliated with the Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters. It offers bachelor's and master's degrees, certificate programs, and a PhD in information studies. Dominican University offers more than 50 majors in the Rosary College of Arts and Sciences and 20 programs in five graduate academic divisions.

Trinity High School is a Roman Catholic college preparatory high school for girls located in River Forest, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. Located in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, it was founded in 1918 by members of the Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters. Originally the school was built on the grounds of Rosary College, which is now Dominican University, but in 1926 the campus was relocated a few blocks away from the original site. Today, Trinity High School has an enrollment of 500 young women divided among four grade levels. Trinity students come from 45 zip codes and 144 different grade schools.

Isabel Roberts House is a 1908 Prairie Style house by architect Frank Lloyd Wright, located at 603 Edgewood Place in River Forest, Illinois It was built for Isabel Roberts and her widowed mother, Mary Roberts. Scholars suggest that the house was originally designed for Joshua Melson, the co-developer of Rock Crest-Rock Glen, in Mason City, Iowa. On that site was built one of a collection of homes designed by Wright's associate, Walter Burley Griffin.Over time, the house went through at least two renovations. The first was a renovation by Prairie school architect William Drummond in 1922. In 1958, Frank Lloyd Wright undertook a second remodeling of the house, which brought the design forward so that as it stands, it is a blending of Wright's Prairie Style and his later Usonian architecture. The Isabel Roberts House is privately owned. It is a contributing property to the River Forest Historic District.

The William E. Drummond House is a Prairie School house located at 559 Edgewood Place in River Forest, Illinois. The house was designed by William Eugene Drummond in 1909 using a basic design published by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1907. While the house reflects Wright's principles of design, the details and construction are considered to be superior to Wright's buildings of the era. The house has been called "one of the best examples" of a Prairie School house not designed by Wright and "an excellent example of the 'economy Prairie House'".The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 5, 1970.

River Forest is a Metra commuter railroad station in River Forest, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago, on the Union Pacific West Line. Trains go east to Ogilvie Transportation Center in Chicago and as far west as Elburn, Illinois. Travel time to Ogilvie is 20 to 24 minutes. As of 2022, River Forest is served by 17 of 20 trains in each direction on weekdays, by all 10 trains in each direction on Saturdays, and by all nine trains in each direction on Sundays and holidays. As of 2018, River Forest is the 107th busiest of the 236 non-downtown stations in the Metra system, with an average of 448 weekday boardings.The station is at Central Avenue and Thatcher Avenue. The surrounding neighborhood is mostly characterized by single-family homes, baseball fields and tennis courts. Pace suburban buses stop one block to the north on Lake Street. To the east is an overpass that carries the Canadian National Railway's Waukesha Subdivision into Forest Park where the line rechristens itself to the CSX Altenheim Subdivision (B&OCT). The station building was originally built in 1915 by the Chicago and North Western Railway and is also the River Forest Park District headquarters. The station is to undergo renovations in 2011. The platform will be rebuilt along with the stairways.

The Chauncey L. Williams House, in River Forest, Illinois is a residence designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The house was built in 1895 of Roman brick and plaster. It was one of Wright's earliest Chicago commissions. The house reflects the influence of Japanese design on Wright, who was a collector of Japanese prints. Wright's client, Chauncey L. Willams, was a member of a wealthy Midwestern family; he was active in cultural and literary pursuits. With W. Irving Way, Williams formed the prestigious but short-lived Way and Williams publishing firm (1895–98). Wright and Williams had attended the University of Wisconsin together and remained friends afterward. The two men co-operated in literary pursuits.

Concordia University Chicago is a private university in River Forest, Illinois. Formerly a college exclusively for parochial teacher education, Concordia-Chicago now offers more than 100 undergraduate and postgraduate degrees and enrolls more than 5,000 students. The university is a member of the Concordia University System, a nationwide network of colleges and universities affiliated with the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). Concordia Chicago, originally named Addison Teachers Seminary, was founded in the Lutheran tradition by Saxon German immigrants in 1864.: 7, 9  The university continues to maintain strong ties to its faith-based heritage.

The Winslow House is a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house located at 515 Auvergne Place in River Forest, Illinois. A landmark building in Wright's career, the Winslow House, built in 1893–94, was his first major commission as an independent architect. While the design owes a debt to the earlier James Charnley House, Wright always considered the Winslow House extremely important to his career. Looking back on it in 1936, he described it as "the first 'prairie house'." The original owner, William Winslow, was exemplary of Wright's Chicago clients, which the architect described as, "American men of business with unspoiled instincts and ideals." A manufacturer of decorative ironwork, Winslow later worked with Wright on a number of publishing projects, specifically for Keats's The Eve of St. Agnes (1896), and William C. Gannett's The House Beautiful (1896–97). The men were first introduced through Winslow's dealings with Adler and Sullivan, Wright's former employers. He was in the ornamental iron business and his firm had done the facade on the Carson Pirie Scott building for Wright's previous employer. Adler and Sullivan were not interested in performing residential architectural assignments so Winslow turned to Wright. The house's design is inspired by the works of Wright's mentor Louis Sullivan and anticipates Wright's mature Prairie School buildings of the next decade. Sheltered beneath a low-pitched roof with wide eaves, the home is symmetrical and horizontally divided into a stone section, a golden Roman brick section, and a terra cotta frieze of Sullivanesque ornament. In contrast to the calm and balanced front facade, the rear is a mass of irregular geometric forms. The interior echoes both Wright's own home and the Charnley House, with the fireplace at the center facing the entry with rooms on either side and a hidden main staircase. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 17, 1970.In 2016 the house was sold for $1.375 million. It had been owned by the general manager of a local television station. His family had owned the house for 57 years.