Old Town is a neighborhood and historic district in Near North Side and Lincoln Park, Chicago, Illinois.^[2][3] It contains many of Chicago's older, Victorian-era buildings, including St. Michael's Church, one of seven buildings to survive the Great Chicago Fire.

In the 19th century, German and Luxembourgish^[8] immigrants moved to the meadows north of North Avenue and began farming what had previously been swampland, planting celery, potatoes, and cabbages. This led the area to be nicknamed "The Cabbage Patch",^[9][10] a name which stuck until the early 1900s.^[9]

During World War II, the triangle formed by North Avenue, Clark Street, and Ogden Avenue (since removed) were designated a 'neighborhood defense unit' by Chicago's Civil Defense Agency.^[11] In the years immediately after the war, the population of "North Town" (as it had come to be known by the 1940s) sponsored annual art fairs called the "Old Town Holiday". The art fairs were popular attractions for the neighborhood,^[12] and the name "Old Town" was used in the title of the Old Town Triangle Association when it was formed in 1948, by residents who wanted to improve the condition of buildings that were suffering from physical deterioration.^[10][13]

In the 1950s, much of Old Town was an enclave for many of the first Puerto Ricans to come to Chicago. They referred to the area as part of La Clark.^{[citation needed]}

No legal entity is known as "Old Town", but claims have been made as to the nature of its legally-unspecified borders: