Portage park

[Britney]

Community Area 15, 9 miles NW of the Loop. [Portage Park] has longstanding connections to water. During wet weather, early Indian inhabitants could paddle their canoes from the Chicago River to the [Des Plaines] on a minor portage along present-day Irving Park Road. They were reported to have built a village on the top of an elevation west of Cicero and Irving Park Avenues. Another ridge two miles west near [Narragansett] formed the natural watershed between the Mississippi and Great Lakes drainage system. Boundaries include Lawrence Ave to the Nrth, Belmont to the South, Cicero to the East and Narragansett to the West. The zip code is 60641. It is predominatly upper missdle class white neighborhood on the Northwest Side of Chicago.