This small, mostly residential neighborhood on Chicago's northwest side is part of the larger Norwood Park community area. First settled in the 1830s by a man named Israel Smith, who built his home on a ridge, the area was often referred to as "Smith's Ridge" by later settlers. This "informal name would ultimately lose out to the title Union Ridge after the Smith clan left the area," and the land they left behind not only included Union Ridge, but also the neighborhood of Big Oaks, the nearby Ridgemoor Country Club, and parts of the suburb of Harwood Heights.
