For more than a century, the University of Illinois at Chicago has had an extraordinary history, for it truly evolved out of the needs of the people of Illinois. The University of Illinois at Chicago traces its origins to several private health colleges founded during the late nineteenth century, including the Chicago College of Pharmacy, which opened in 1859, the College of Physicians and Surgeons (1882), and the Columbian College of Dentistry (1891).

The University of Illinois was chartered in 1867 in Champaign-Urbana, as the state's land-grant university. The Chicago-based health colleges affiliated with the University in 1896-97, becoming fully incorporated into the University of Illinois in 1913, as the Colleges of Medicine, Dentistry, and Pharmacy.