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150 151 LANSING, ILLINOIS Illinois L ansing,Illinois,a village in CookCounty,is a southern suburb of Chicago.It was first settled in themid-1800s, primarilybyDutch and German immigrants who came to the area to build homes,farms,and businesses.In the late 19th century,brickyards dominated Lansing’s economy, and theVillage suppliedmuch of the brick to rebuild Chicago after the Chicago Fire of 1871.While onions,tomatoes,beets, spinach,and cabbagewere common crops grown on its farms, it was onions that weremost prominent; the suburban Chicago area supplied 80 percent of the country’s onion sets in the 1930s and 1940s. Aviation is also a significant part of Lansing’s history. The FordHangar at the LansingMunicipal Airport is a permanent reminder of an erawhen air travel was still in its infancy.Built for HenryFord and designed by re- nowned architectAlbert Kahn,the hangar was built to house Ford’s tri-motor plane using a cantilevered con- structionmethod.The hangar was added to theNational AT A GLANCE LANSING, ILLINOIS WHAT: A village of 30,000 WHERE: Cook County, seven miles south of Chicago WEBSITE: www.villageoflansing.org A COMMUNITY ON THE MOVE