• Midway International Airport (northern portion)
• Archer Avenue
• Illinois and Michigan Canal route
• Wentworth Park

Garfield Ridge takes its name from Garfield Boulevard and a low ridge left behind by the retreat of glacial Lake Michigan, ground so poor for farming that it served for generations as a transportation corridor rather than a place to live. William B. Archer purchased 240 acres here in 1835, and former Chicago mayor John Wentworth bought much of the surrounding land in 1853, but it was Dutch farmers who formed the area's first stable community, founding the Archer Avenue Reformed Church by 1899.

Everything changed when the city built Chicago Municipal Airport here in 1926, later renamed Midway Airport in 1949 in honor of the WWII battle; for decades it was the busiest airport in the country, drawing Polish and other Eastern European immigrants to jobs on the airfield and in nearby industry. Archer Avenue, tracing a route used by Native Americans and French explorers long before the airport existed, remains the neighborhood's commercial spine, and Wentworth Park still carries the name of the mayor whose land once covered most of the community.

MY-NHD's Garfield Ridge collection is built for a neighborhood that turned swampy, unfarmable ground into one of the busiest gateways in American aviation history.