There was the impetus to population growth in Jefferson Park that helped to attract immigrants from Poland, Germany and other European countries.

In 1830-1999 John Kinzie Clark became Jefferson Park's earliest pioneer when he arrived with few personal effects and a team of horses in 1830. He was joined shortly thereafter by Elijah Wentworth, who took up a claim near what is now the Jefferson Park Station of the Metro Station. There he built a hotel of logs and opened a tavern. Traders, hunters, and farmers joined the tiny settlement. All built one-or-two room log cabins until Abram Gale, for whom Gale Street is named, came to the area. He built the first frame house in Jefferson.

In 1970, the Chicago Transit Authority opened its Jefferson Park Transit Station, which now serves approximately 10,000 commuter rail passengers per day and operates at the starting/ending point for over 800 buses per day. This CTA station, along with the Kennedy Expressway and the METRA Railroad, now provides the community with an excellent transportation network.

Jefferson Park has grown to a population of almost 44,000 residents within a one- mile radius of the Milwaukee-Lawrence intersection. In addition to the excellent transportation network, the community features well-maintained residential neighborhoods; the Jefferson Park Fieldhouse and Park; the Jefferson Park Branch of the Chicago Public Library; the Chicago Police Department 16th District (which will soon have a new home on Milwaukee Avenue); the Chicago Fire Department; the Copernicus Civic & Cultural Center; numerous churches and schools; and active, concerned community and business organizations, including the Jefferson Park Chamber of Commerce. In short, Jefferson Park is a "City within the City", it is truly a community, one that has stood the test of time.

Although it has its share of condominiums and multi-units, Jefferson Park has one of the widest varieties of single-family home styles and vintages in the city. Ranch houses from the 1950s are most common but the neighborhood is also home to a number of Cape Cods, Georgians, bungalows and older frame homes. And stately Victorians from the turn of the century, can be found on side streets near the heart of the neighborhood.