Elgin Wedding

Elgin (pronounced [ldn] (IPA)) is a city 40 mi. (64.5 km) northwest of Chicago, Illinois on the Fox River. Most of Elgin lies within Kane County, Illinois, with a portion in Cook County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 94,487, making it the eighth-largest city in Illinois. Elgin is a diverse and rapidly growing community that was profiled in a 1997 issue of Money Magazine as a microcosm of the United States.

Elgin's population surpassed 100,000 by 2005, and the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission forecasts Elgin will have a population of 162,416 in 2030.

The Black Hawk Indian War of 1832 led to the expulsion of the Native Americans who had settlements and burial mounds in the area, and set the stage for the founding of Elgin. During the war thousands of militiamen and soldiers of Gen. Winfield Scott's army marched through the Fox River valley. Accounts of the area's fertile soils and flowing springs soon filtered east.