Hegewisch (pronounced "heg-wish"), one of the 77 community areas of Chicago, Illinois, is located on the city's far south side. It is bordered by the neighborhoods of Riverdale and South Deering to the west, the East Side to the north, the village of Burnham to the south and the city of Hammond, Indiana to the east. It is part of the 10th ward of Chicago; John Pope is the alderman as of April 1999. It has a commuter rail station on the South Shore Line. The community area is named for Adolph Hegewisch, the president of U.S. Rolling Stock Company who hoped to establish “an ideal workingman's community” when he laid out the town along a rail line in 1883, six years before Chicago annexed the town. Hegewisch has been recently bounded by 106th street to the north, State Line Road to the east, Torrence Avenue to the west, and 136th street to the south. One of Hegewisch's more notable features is its unique demographics, being one of the last remaining predominantly white South Chicago Communities (the other one is Mount Greenwood).
In all, Hegewisch has three distinct areas within the Neighborhood. The areas are commonly referred to as Arizona, it is that area East of Avenue O and north of 138th St. Sometimes this area is also referred to as "the Avenues" and depending on who you ask, Arizona either goes as far as the Trailer Park (the only mobile home park left in the City of Chicago also known as Harbor Estates) or all the way to the Indiana Border. Either way, Harbor Estates (the Trailer Park) is part of the Hegewisch Community. Recently, plans have been implemented to rebuild the area with 950 new homes.
Avalon Trails is North of 130th Street, East of Torrence and West of Baltimore Avenue, it is the youngest part of Hegewisch and is built on wetland area where the original settlers of Hegewisch hunted small game and fished. Next is (Old) Hegewisch; Old Hegewisch comprises the oldest part of Hegewisch and includes the area North of 138th St, South of 130th St., East of Torrence Avenue, and West of Avenue O.
All in all, these communities still yet only make a fraction of the land that comprises all of Hegewisch. Hegewisch is still surrounded by wetlands and train tracks. However, if you’d happen to ask two people where each of these areas begin and end, you probably will not get a consensus.
Today, Hegewisch, remains as one news reporter said, "A Diamond in the Rough". It has all the convenience that you would expect from a big city like Chicago, but all the charm of a small town. Whereas in the past, its distance from downtown hampered its growth, today it only adds to its charm. With the advent of the suburban shopping malls, the people of Hegewisch find themselves living on the crossroads between Chicago, Northwest Indiana and the South Suburbs, yet still isolated just enough to keep its unique identity.
Isolated from the rest of Chicago by the industrial Lake Calumet region, and just a stone's throw from the Indiana Border, Hegewisch is like an independent village inside Chicago's city limits. Officials once eyed its territory as a site for a new airport, but the community rallied to prevent it and in so doing reaffirmed its identity. Today its tightly-knit community and well-kept streets suggest an idea of what many Chicago neighborhoods and suburbs aspire to be: a place both with its own distinct identity, apart and with a unique spirit, but also defined in relation to its environment and the larger metropolitan area.
