City of Blue Island Think Outside the Loop
Walter P. Roche was born in Missouri in 1819 and retired to Blue Island in 1855 after a prosperous career as a cigar and tobacco merchant in Chicago. Roche was instrumental in efforts to organize Blue Island as a village and was a member of the first Board of Trustees after incorporation in 1872.
Roche held 40 acres west of Maple Avenue known as “Roche’s Woods” until his death in 1896, which was later sold by the family and redeveloped into 70 residential lots.
The home is one of several in Blue Island that pre-date the Civil War and is a welcoming example of home styles in the middle of the nineteenth century.
Listed on the Inventory of Historic Structures in Cook County.
continue the tour –> 29. Dr. Aaron Heimbach House
Photo Credits: Christine L. Hawley
