pangea -
I flew out of DuPage in the early 1990s. It was at Dupage that I submitted my British licence and got the FAA pilot's licence. I was amazed that the cost for this service was... nothing! Just went along to the GADO center...
There were various FBOs at DPA back then. One I flew with was American Flyers. They were relatively expensive, and ran C172s. I flew one of those to one of the small fields out there - Sterling Rock Falls? But then I discovered Planemasters. They had Pipers - I was happier with those. Flew their Arrow 4, but the FAA (and perhaps the FBO) wanted 15 hours from me before I could solo it. So I just elected to fly one of their Warriors - PA28-161. As a regular customer, they just had me do about 3 circuits the last time I hired from them. I then went on a jolly to Cedar Rapids and back - 165nm in each direction. What I remember about the outbound flight was being distracted by ATC, and inadvertently entering cloud. I dropped 500' and got out of the cloud.... and there, in front of me lay this huge expanse of water. I wondered if I should have brought my life jacket, so vast was this stretch of water! It was, of course, the Mississippi River! Having crossed it, I knew I was into Iowa.
Hehe, ATC had a job understanding me - lol - but I was dead impressed with all the services - Radar Flight Following and all - and that most of those medium sized airports have radar.