Illinois Oak Park History Oak Park is located on Chicago's western border seven miles from the city's center. It is four and one half square miles in size and has a population of approximately fifty thousand residents.
Oak Park is a residential town.
It has no major industries. Most of its residents earn their living in other towns or in the city of Chicago. Oak Park has never viewed itself as an anonymous bedroom community however. From the beginning it took great pride in things that set it apart from other communities, especially the city of Chicago. Early Oak Park residents believed that theirs was a model community, a city on a hill, that served as a shinning example for other communities to follow.