Anyone here live in sandwhich? Can you tell me about it? (Chicago: houses, elementary schools)

[eagetal96]

Came through the area last week and looked at houses in Oswego, Sugar Grove and Sandwhich. Sandwhich seems like a nice small community with good schools. Just curious if anyone has an opinion of it.

[holl1ngsworth]

Sandwich*

The schools aren't very good: Sandwich CUSD 430 | Illinois Report Card

[eagetal96]

They are avg at best. It seems the elementary schools do much better than the high school.

[pvande55]

Aside from the skydiving school, never heard of it.

[mattywo85]

Its "out there". It really depends on how far you have to go to work(if you do at all), how close you want to be to Chicago, nightlife, monthly cost of living, etc? Are you looking for a small quiet suburb?

[CCrest182]

It's good if you work in Say, Naperville, Aurora or Joliet or any other West/southwest suburb. Probably not if you work in the city...

[eagetal96]

It will be a 30 min commute to work which is fine for me. I don't mid that it's a small community. I like elburn as well but it's a slightly longer commute. Thanks for the input.

[usagisan]

LOL - I lived there on the weekends back in the late 70s early 80 and maintain some contacts there. At one time it was an "exclusive" community. But the FBI came in around 1980 as I recall and loosened things up. I was just there the other month on business. I note they now have 28 blacks living there and a sizable Hispanic population.

The city has grown with a couple of subdivisions. The downtown is very old and still very charming. It is a very tightly controlled city with a handful of old blood line families calling the shots. Hence the reason little revitalization of the downtown had occurred (they did not want the Federal dollars with all the attachments it come with) so they did it themselves, slowly. Also the old timers are good businessman and realize you need an actual customer base to support a business. So while the ma and pa family ice cream or pizzeria can make it, general retail will struggle.

Like Amboy there is Meth production issue there, but the Feds are on it and do a good job discretely cutting down any criminal elements.

It really is a nice, quiet, Mayberry type community. Diversity is not its strong point, but for many that will be a large plus.

And of course the Sandwich Fair ground is there which means not only is there on of the best fairs in the state and arguably the country(with a cool demolition derby), but there are a lot of awesome flea market etc type events. There is some primitive camping in the area, a wolf breeders farm, Ostrich farm, Buffalo farm, turkey farms in the area.

And there is a place that actually has a beach about 15-20 minutes away (Hi Tide in Leland I think). Season passes use to be very reasonable and the daily rate was cheap also. Kids really love it. The place is a summer camp paradise for kids, mini golf, paddle boats, shuffle board, horse shoes etc. It really is a nice wholesome place to repeatedly take your kids for some summer fun. I bought a bunch of passes for a raffle and I think they were $150-175 for a seasonal family pass.

My point is, if you want a clean cut town to raise a family in, and value privacy and a bit isolation this is a top notch place to consider. There is a wild side to Sandwich also, but it is very discrete and conducted behind closed doors among consenting adults and children are totally insulated from those activities. In other words, some adults get a babysitter and "party" a bit, but it is done privately and not in clubs or bars.

[eagetal96]

Thanks for the input, good stuff!