Archer Heights is a community area in Chicago, Illinois, one of the 77 official community areas of Chicago. Archer Avenue runs from south of Chicago's downtown area, through the southwest side of Chicago and beyond into the southwest suburbs, along what was once a Native American trail. The neighborhood is bounded by the Stevenson Expressway to the north, the CTA Orange Line to the south, the Corwith railyard to the east, and the railroad tracks/Knox Avenue to the west. History Archer Heights was originally inhabited by Native American tribes, but they had little use for its swampy prairies. Starting in the nineteenth-century, land speculators and farmers sparked interest in the swampy lands. The land became a primary focus for real-estate developers and manufacturers. It gained exceptional interest from William B. Archer, an Illinois & Michigan Canal commissioner and land speculator from whom Archer Heights gained its name. After speculators came in in 1900 and developed the southern sections of Archer Heights for residential use, railroads sustained control of the north side real estate. Due to horse cars in the late 1890s, and electric streetcars gaining popularity in the early 1900s, immigrant laborers started to pour into Archer Heights. Starting in the 1920s and 1930s, Archer Heights had its largest population growth coming from the Polish, Italian, Czech, and Russian Jewish communities. During this time modern urban groundwork and two Catholic parishes, St. Bruno's (1925) and St. Richard's (1938), helped stimulate population growth. After World War II population began to make a comeback; between 1930 and 1950, the Archer Heights community grew from 8,120 to 8,675. In the following years the population sprouted to 10,584, peaking by 1970 at 11,143. However, by 1980, the population fell off to 9,708, and continued to do so in 1990 falling to 9,227. For over 90 years, the Archer Heights community has been predominantly white (96 percent in 1990), with a large contingent of foreign-born residents (27 percent in 1990), and a strong Polish cohort. In the 1990s, Hispanics, and primarily Mexicans, rose to 8 percent of the population. "While Archer Heights continues to be home to a large Polish community, since 2000 it became the latest swath of the Southwest Side bungalow belt where Hispanics have become the majority." At the end of the twentieth century, approximately 60 percent of the area was dedicated to manufacturing and bulk transportation facilities, 30 percent to residences,