During the middle of the 19th century , Waukegan was becoming an important industrial hub . Industries included : ship and wagon building , flour milling , sheep raising , pork packing , and dairying . William Besley 's Waukegan Brewing Company was one of the most successful of these businesses , being able to sell beyond America . The construction of the Chicago and Milwaukee Railway through Waukegan by 1855 stimulated the growth and rapid transformation and development of the city 's industry , so much that nearly one thousand ships were visiting Waukegan harbor every year . During the 1860s , a substantial German population began to grow inside the city Waukegan 's development began in many ways with the arrival of industries such as United States Sugar Refinery , which opened in 1890 , Washburn & Moen , a barbed-wire manufacturer that prompted both labor migration and land speculation beginning in 1891 , U.S. Starch Works , and Thomas Brass and Iron Works . Immigrants followed , mostly hailing from southeastern Europe and Scandinavia , with especially large groups from Sweden , Finland , and Lithuania . The town also became home to a considerable Armenian population . One member of this community , Monoog Curezhin , even became embroiled in an aborted plot to assassinate Sultan Abdul Hamid II , reviled for his involvement in massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire . Curezhin lost two fingers on his right hand while testing explosives for this purpose in Waukegan in 1904
massacres
Hamidian massacres
Waukegan, Illinois