The Washburn and Moen Manufacturing Company of Worcester, MA. established a wire mill, the Waukegan Works, east of this location along Lake Michigan after purchasing land for its Illinois operation on January 16, 1891, on the recommendation of advisers Philip W. Moen, Charles G. Washburn, Fred H. Daniels, and Edwin Lenox, including much of the Elisha Wadsworth estate. Construction of the forty-acre mill complex began in March 1891, a galvanizing operation began by September, the company’s Waukegan Highlands subdivision was platted west of the mill in November, and the first wire was drawn in December. In 1892 the company, a principal manufacturer of Glidden barbed wire, introduced Waukegan barbed wire, invented by John D. Curtis. The plant’s establishment led to both an industrial and population boom as workers from Worcester and immigrants from Finland, Sweden, and Eastern Europe moved to the Washburn and Moen Subdivision. Slovenian workers called the area the “Kompanija,” or Company District. First named South Waukegan, the community that rapidly developed near the mill was later incorporated as North Chicago. The American Steel and Wire Company, which later became part of United States Steel Corporation, acquired the mill in 1899. By the 1950’s the plant had become one of Lake County’s largest employers, and in 1979 it closed for economic reasons.