Luther Bartlett's 1873 Railroad Deal and the Village's First Windows
Bartlett's original 40-acre town site belonged to Luther Bartlett, a Conway, Massachusetts native who reached Illinois by way of Michigan in 1844, and the settlement took real shape in 1873 when Bartlett offered the Chicago & Pacific Railroad a right-of-way through his land plus a station site in exchange for rail service. The railroad and the Bartlett family then platted and sold the lots around the new depot together, and the Village of Bartlett was incorporated in 1891 -- the original 1873 depot still stands today as the Bartlett Depot Museum.
What the 1891 Incorporation Left Behind
The homes built in the two decades between that 1873 depot deal and the 1891 incorporation sit on lots platted specifically around railroad-era construction standards, which means their window openings were sized for the double-hung wood sash common to that period rather than to any later, standardized dimension. A window-replacement scope for one of these depot-era Bartlett homes should treat the opening size as a variable to measure, not an assumption to carry over from a newer build.