The second largest city in Illinois with a population of 157,000, Aurora is located on the East/West Tollway Corridor and extends into Kane, DuPage, Kendall and Will counties. Located 40 miles west of downtown Chicago, it is known as the "City of Lights" because it was the first village in the United States to use street lights. There...
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The second largest city in Illinois with a population of 157,000, Aurora is located on the East/West Tollway Corridor and extends into Kane, DuPage, Kendall and Will counties. Located 40 miles west of downtown Chicago, it is known as the "City of Lights" because it was the first village in the United States to use street lights. There are six school districts and seven townships within the city limits, four historic districts and a large number of individual landmark designations for many city buildings.
The city provides residents with a wide variety of recreational opportunities. The Fox Valley Golf Club located on Route 25 in North Aurora, features an 18-hole golf course. Other recreational offerings include Garfield Park with two Little League fields, horseshoe courts, a roller hockey rink, a playground tennis courts, a winter ice skating rink and other amenities; Mastodon Island and West Recreation Area in Phillips Park, which features a gazebo, a mastodon slide, volleyball courts and three fishing piers; McCarty Park; the newly-redesigned Phillips Park Golf Course; and the Phillips Park Zoo, which exhibits bald eagles, wolves, foxes, otters, goats, pot-bellied pigs and other creatures.
Kids can also visit Sci-Tech, a hands-on science museum, and residents of all ages can bike along one of the park district's bicycle paths. In their leisure time, residents can also visit Aurora's Paramount Arts Centre to see a Broadway play or to be entertained by a Las Vegas or Hollywood entertainer. They can also shop for a wide array of merchandise at Westfield Shoppingtown at Fox Valley (formerly known as the Fox Valley Mall), or visit approximately 120 retail outlet stores at Chicago Premium Outlets, located on I-88, just north of the Farnsworth Avenue exit.
Aurora is home to bungalow-style residences, Victorians and mansions. Aurora also has 136 authenticated "Sears" homes within its boundaries. These are homes that from 1908 to 1940, were ordered, manufactured and sold to hundreds of thousands of Americans. Aurora boasts one of the largest concentrations of Sears homes in the country.
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