Evanston, Illinois is an first suburb just north of the great City of Chicago.  Located on the shores of Lake Michigan, Evanston was first settled in 1836 and has a total population of about 75,000. It is part of Chicago's affluent North Shore region. Evanston is both a city and township, according to state and municipal charters. 

History
A part of downtown Evanston, as seen in October 2005. Evanston was created out of the larger geographic unit which was called "Grosse Pointe Territory" in the 1830s and retitled Ridgeville in 1850. After being chosen as the home for Northwestern University, the city was incorporated in 1863, and named after John Evans, the University's founder. During the 1960s Northwestern University changed the city's shoreline with a 74 acre lake-fill.

In 1939, Evanston hosted the first NCAA basketball championship final at Northwestern University's Patten Gymnasium.

Today, the city is home to Northwestern University and other educational institutions as well as headquarters of Alpha Phi International women's fraternity, Rotary International, the National Lekotek Center, the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, the Sigma Chi Fraternity and the Woman's Christian temperance Union.

Evanston is also the birthplace of Tinkertoys and (along with many other cities such as Ithaca, New York and Two Rivers, Wisconsin) claims to have invented the ice cream sundae.