Private Jet to Hinsdale

Chicago’s wealthy western suburb of Hinsdale, which straddles Cook and DuPage counties, is a short, 22-minute express train ride from the heart of the Windy City.

The quaint town of about 18,000 in 4.6 square miles is truly a mixture of old and new. It has an active historical society that has preserved its downtown. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places, along with several other buildings. Meanwhile, more than a third of its homes are new as buyers tear down and rebuild larger homes and mansions on their properties.

Hinsdale’s median home value is $950,000 and the median household income is $174,000. It’s a well-educated town. More than 40 percent of the population has a master’s degree or higher while less than 10 percent has only a high school diploma.

Like many other suburban towns, Hinsdale owes it's being to the railroad. In 1863, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad decided to run its rail through the area that would become Hinsdale. By the time it was incorporated in 1873, it was already drawing the wealthy from Chicago, many of German and Swedish heritage.

Hinsdale’s most famous native son could be Morris the Cat, whose charisma was discovered by staff members at the Hinsdale Humane Society in 1968. They told a talent agent about the orange tabby. He nailed his 9 Lives interview and became a spokesman for both the cat food and the merits of adopting shelter animals until he died in 1978 when another rescued cat took his place.

Cook County figures prominently on Bloomberg’s 2019 “Richest Cities in the U.S.” list. It’s one of the six counties that, combined, account for more than a third of the nation’s wealthiest towns. To put that in perspective, there are 3,007 counties in the U.S. The other five counties are Westchester, New York; Bergen, New Jersey; Fairfield, Connecticut; Los Angeles County, California; and Montgomery, Maryland.