A two-day series on development along the Fox River will run today and Wednesday in the Kane County Chronicle.

Part one: A look at the early history of development along the Fox River.

Part two: We explore development along the Fox River and what’s on the horizon.

The Fox River definitely was a factor in Craig Conn buying his two-story colonial on Bluff Drive in St. Charles Township.

“It was the attraction,” he said, explaining that seeing the home’s sun porch overlooking the river was enough to prompt him to buy.

Living along the river’s west bank for the past 24 years has been a great experience for his family, Conn said. In the winter, they’ve seen red foxes walking up the middle of the river, and – depending on how the ice freezes – ice skating is possible. In the summer, it’s like living in a resort: The family water skies and watches boats speed by.

Although the personal watercraft can be noisy, Conn said he likes it.

“It’s not that intrusive,” he said, “and it simply reminds you you’re on the water, where you want to be anyway.”

The Conns are among a long line of people attracted to the Fox River, which has provided Kane County with power, hunting and fishing opportunities and a landscape supportive of factories, mills and other industries.

In a two-part series running today and Wednesday, the Kane County Chronicle will explore the development along the Fox River since the Tri-Cities were settled in the early 1800s.

Marc Healy, professor of anthropology and human geography at Elgin Community College, said it’s not surprising that settlers inhabited the Fox Valley. With most of the world’s population clusters gathered around water, he said the real question should be why people would choose to settle where there isn’t any water, such as in Las Vegas and Phoenix.

He described rivers as the cradles of civilization and the lifeline to earth.

“Five thousand years ago, civilization rose up along rivers,” Healy said. “We still are dependent upon rivers. We haven’t been able to break away from that umbilical cord with the earth.”

Elgin, for example, draws drinking water from the Fox River – a source the community had stopped using when waterborne diseases became prevalent in the untreated water in 1900, according to the city’s website. The city returned to river water – now treated – about 30 years ago.

The 1888 publication titled “Commemorative Biographic and Historical Record of Kane County, Illinois” contains several sections and flowery descriptions about the Fox River and early life along its banks.

“Fine drives have been constructed along both sides of the river throughout the length of the county, and the visitor to the region is greatly impressed with the beauties which lie spread before him,” one passage reads.

Before white men began settling in the Fox River valley in the 1830s, the region was popular among American Indians. According to the 1888 book, settlers reported seeing Pottawatomie fishermen on light canoes, catching fish weighing 60 to 70 pounds.

“That the red men should select the splendid river and the country adjoining it for a fishing and hunting ground and general dwelling place cannot be wondered at, for it was a most beautiful region, abounding in all things which delight the savage eye and appetite and the civilized as well,” the book reads.

In 1833, Batavia Township was the first place in Kane County to attract a white settler, and the village of Batavia became a manufacturing town, according to the 1888 book.

“The cool and sparkling waters of Fox River lave its feet, as it sits in queenly majesty on either shore of the river, whose gently sloping banks rise to the east and west, and are crowned with beautifully shaded streets, elegant, private residences … and on every hand evidences of taste, wealth and refinement; and, as you look from these elevations along the river and the eye approaches the river’s bank, there rises to greet the eye the great manufactories which send their products to every quarter of the civilized globe,” the book reads.

Although mills also were established in St. Charles, the 1888 book noted that Geneva – while it did have a cheese factory, foundry and flouring-mill – never was “one of the noted manufacturing towns that are situated along [the] Fox River.”

Despite the industry along the riverbanks, the 1888 book noted that, at least in Batavia, there weren’t many columns of heavy smoke rising from the buildings because the river generated much of their power.

Hotel Baker, built in the 1920s, also relied on the Fox River for power. According to a historical overview about the St. Charles hotel, a raceway under the building allowed water to drive two 50-kilowatt generators. Few other hotels worldwide were known to generate their own electricity.

By the 1880s in Kane County, 10 towns had been established along the river, and dams had been constructed in Carpentersville, Elgin, South Elgin, St. Charles, Geneva, Batavia, North Aurora, Aurora and Montgomery, according to the 1888 book.

According to the St. Charles Heritage Center, the natural course of the river and ideal spots for dams dictated where towns would rise up. St. Charles’s first dam was completed in 1836.

“The building of the dam was a crucial point in the establishment of the town due to its role in the production of natural resources,” according to the heritage center’s online history of St. Charles. “A dam provided water control, which allowed for a water-powered mills to cut wood or grind flour, which was crucial to the growth of the town.”

Dams have also physically shaped the Fox River as it is today, said Pam Otto, manager of nature programs and interpretive services for the St. Charles Park District. Without dams, the river would be much smaller and narrower.

Between 1850 and 1880, more and more people called the Tri-Cities home. Batavia’s population increased from 892 to 3,318; Geneva grew from 911 to 1,646; and St. Charles expanded from 2,132 to 2,519, according to the book.

The emerging river towns, however, lacked the centrality that Chicago offered, Healy said, which could account for Chicago’s rise as a metropolis.

People who lived long ago likely would be impressed with today’s development along the area’s river banks, Healy said.

“Any person from an ancient state civilization could come and look and see all our rivers and cities along rivers,” he said, “and they’d be impressed.”