then resold it to white settlers for 1.25 dollars per acre. The Potawatomi would occasionally return to their holdings in Northern Illinois to honor their buried ancestors, but these return visits ended as old villages and burial sites were destroyed by settlers to make way for farming. The descendants of the Potawatomi who once inhabited the land that is now Arlington Heights currently live on a reservation in Mayette, Kansas. West Wheeling Many prominent roads in the Arlington Heights area were built on top of Native American trails: Rand Road was built on top of a Native trail which passed by the property of Socrates Rand, who built a tavern near a crossing on the Des Plaines River. Arlington Heights Road was developed from a Native trail that ran from what was once called Naper Settlement (now Naperville) to what was once called Indian Creek (now Half Day). Around the same time, a trading post was established in the Southwest corner of the township by Frederick T. Miner, the cabins established near Miner’s trading post came to be known as West Wheeling. Dunton In 1837, Asa Dunton, a settler who built one of the first cabins in what was then known as Deer Grove, registered three land claims for himself and two sons in the land in the west of Wheeling Township. In 1845, Asa’s eldest son, William Dunton, married Almeda Wood and brought her to the house he built beside the Potawatomi trail which then became known as Dunton’s Road (and is now known as Arlington Heights Road). West Wheeling then became known as Dunton. The town’s name changed several times before it officially became known as Arlington Heights in 1874. William Dunton persuaded the Illinois & Wisconsin Railroad company to build track through his property. In 1853, Dunton sold 16 acres of his land to the company for $350. The first Dunton train station was built in 1854. The construction of the railroad helped to expand the population of Dunton, as it was easier for settlers to reach the village. By 1850, the area had largely changed its ethnic composition, as many German farmers from Saxony had arrived during the 1840s. John Klehm might serve as an example; he was at first a potato farmer, supplying the Chicago market, and in 1856 began a nursery for cherry, apple, and pear trees, later moving into spruce, maple, and elm,