Elgin History Museum

Elgin’s History on Signs

A brief history of Elgin can be written using some of the city’s street
signs. James Talcott GIFFORD, who arrived with a brother in 1835, was the
town’s founder. Platting his settlement on the east side of the Fox River,
he was responsible for some of our first street names.

DIVISION Street marks the dividing line between his claim and that of
Phinehas Kimball to the north. Gifford assumed that the main business thoroughfare
would be up the hill from the river and out of reach of the spring floods.
He made it the CENTER of his plat. Simon Newton DEXTER of New York bought
part of Gifford’s claim in 1838.

The KIMBALL families of New Hampshire settled on the west side of the
river. Joseph Kimball brought with him graftings from apple trees which
his son, Samuel JEWETT Kimball, developed into a large ORCHARD.

The arrival of the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad in 1850 encouraged
William C. Kimball, Sam’s brother, to erect a resort hotel, called the
WAVERLY, on the southwest comer of State Street and West Highland Avenue.
The rail link to Chicago was a factor in the location of a distillery along
the west bank of the Fox above the dam. One of the proprietors was Benjamin
Franklin LAWRENCE.

Elgin enlistments suffered heavy casualties on the battlefield of SHILOH
during the Civil War. Not long after the conflict ended, Gail BORDEN started
up a factory to condense the milk supplied by the many dairy farms in the
vicinity. Among these were the farms of Cyrus LARKIN and John McLEAN, as
well as the TODD FARM.

The watch industry was once the city’s largest. Craftsmen arrived from
the East to begin operations in 1864. The firm was originally called the
NATIONAL Watch Company. The first president was Benjamin W. RAYMOND, and
one of the Chicago Capitalists who kept the firm going in the early years
was Martin RYERSON. George HUNTER, the production superintendent, 1872-1903,
lived on WATCH Street, as did other company executives. Joseph HECKER was
the director of the famed Elgin National Watch Factory Military Band.

An industrialized Elgin produced more than watches. William Grote, a
real estate sub-divider, attracted several manufacturers from Chicago.
The largest was the Illinois Watch Case Company. The general manager was
Thomas W. DUNCAN, who later ran off with the wife of the firm’s president.
George W. LUDLOW and George R. KEEP opened a shoe factory in the northeastendin
1891. Mrs. Ludlow’s name before marriage was HARTWELL. R. S. DICKIE, Milton
V. KIRK, H. E. HOUSTON, and Philip D. ARMOUR established a plant on Bluff
City Boulevard to print can labels in 1892.

The Elgin Road Races were first held in 1910. The first winner was Ralph
MULFORD, and GRANDSTAND Place is a reminder of the thousands of spectators
who came to this city to watch the grueling tests of men and machines.
For more than fifty years, until they ended in 1979, Carl Parlasca produced
and directed the Song of HIAWATHA Pageants.

In the southeast end are ELGIN Street and ILLINOIS Avenue. Now what
could have prompted those names?

Other Elgins

The oldest of all the communities named Elgin lies along the River Lossie
in northern Scotland. The site of a thirteenth century cathedral, now in
ruins, it was chartered as a royal burgh in 1234. Elgin, pronounced with
a hard “g,” as in “begin,” now provides educational, administrative, and
marketing services for a wide area. Leading industries include whisky distilling,
woolen manufacture, and the production of fish nets. Current population
is about 20,000.

The ancient Scots came from Ireland, bringing with them their Gaelic
language. It is possible that the name Elgin is a combination of Elg or
Eilg, the poetic name for Ireland, and in, meaning little-Little Ireland.
Another suggestion, less probable, is Helgy, one of the Norsemen who raided
the British Isles.

Elgin, Scotland, whatever the source of its name, was not the immediate
origin for the name of Elgin, Illinois, which was inspired by a hymn tune.
Seventeenth century Protestant church music set metrical versions of the
Psalms to tunes which were not attached to any particular psalm. All psalms
of eight syllables in the first line and six in the next could be sung
to these so-called common tunes, some of which were named after cities
and towns in Scotland, including Elgin. James T. Gifford, the devoutly
religious founder of Elgin, Illinois, was a Congregationalist whose Puritan
ancestors had sung common tunes for generations. When be came West in 1835
to establish his new settlement on the Fox River, he chose his favorite
hymn tune for its name. “I had been a great admirer of that tune from boyhood,”
he explained, “and the name Elgin had ever fallen upon my ear with musical
effect.”

Elgin, Illinois, now has more residents than the combined population
of all the many other Elgins in the world. There are a dozen incorporated
cities and villages named Elgin in the United States as well as a few post
offices and crossroads. Several other Elgins which once existed have disappeared.

The frequent occurrence of Elgin on maps of this country is due in part to the relative fame of this city (“Known the World Over”was once a slogan
of our Chamber of Commerce) and to its being suitable as a “railroad name.”
Its brevity and familiarity to trainmen who used the Elgin watch may have
led to its adoption for a new station as lines were extended. Among these
railroad towns are Elgin, Minnesota, founded after a branch reached the
place in 1878, and Elgin, Kansas, which became a major shipping point for
cattle after the tracks arrived in 1885.

The village of Elgin, Ohio, was platted and a post office established
when the Chicago and Altantic railroad opened a depot in 1883. Population
peaked during an oil boom about the turn of the century when there were
three hotels, three saloons, and a dance hall.

Located high in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon is an Elgin that
serves fruit growers and lumbermen. It became a shipping and distributing
point for an extensive territory with the coming of the railroad. This
community was named after the melancholy song, “Lost on the Lady Elgin”,
about the wreck of a vessel on Lake Michigan.

The steamer, Lady Elgin, was rammed during the stormy night of September
8, 1860, by the schooner Augusta about ten miles off Winnetka. The Lady
Elgin, with about 350 passengers on board, was returning to Milwaukee from
an excursion trip to Chicago. The collision tore the steamer’s hull open
below the water line, and the ship sank within a half hour. A total of
155 passengers and crewmen were saved, while 297 lives were lost. Nearly
200 residents of Milwaukee’s Irish Third Ward perished in the disaster.
The song, by Henry Clay Work, was popular during the Civil War years. Here’s
a sample of the lyrics:

Lost on the Lady Elgin

Sleeping to wake no more

Numbered with those three hundred

Who failed to reach the shore.

The name of Elgin, Nebraska, was a second choice. The first selection,
Eggleston, didn’t meet with post office approval. A postmaster in a neighboring
community was consulted. Running his finger down the list of post offices
in the official guide, he lighted upon Elgin, Illinois, for his suggestion.
The village, organized in 1887, is known as the Vetch Capital of the Nation.

Elgin, North Dakota, is a Russian-German town. Its original name, Shanley,
was discarded when the Northern Pacific came through because of its similarity
to another station on the line, Stanley. A new name was being discussed
by a group waiting for a train one day when one of their number, looking
at his watch, suggested Elgin. Like Elgin, Illinois, the North Dakota town
has been ravaged by a tornado. In 1978 a twister killed five and caused
heavy damage.

The Elgin in Pennsylvania was incorporated in 1876 and was possibly
the name of an early resident. The former CeeGee, Oklahoma, had its name
changed to Elgin in 1902. It was proposed by a citizen who had been visiting
the Watch City in Illinois.

Blaney, South Carolina, changed its name to Elgin in 1962 when the Elgin
National Watch Company announced the opening of an assembly plant in the
village. Watch making operations ended five years later, but Blaney is
still Elgin.

“Capital of Iowa’s Little Switzerland,” Elgin, Iowa, was laid out in
1851-1852 by M. V. Burdick, a surveyor who asked permission to name the
new town after his former home in Elgin, Illinois. Located in the billy
northeastern section of the state, Elgin is nestled in the valley of the
Turkey River. Many of the residents are descendants of German-speaking
Swiss settlers. An annual event is Sweet Corn Day.

The only Elgin in the United States to be pronounced with the hard “g”
is located in Texas. It was founded in 1873 along a railroad connecting
Houston and Austin and was named after Robert Morris Elgin. Of Scottish
descent, he was the rail line’s land commissioner. This Elgin’s largest
industry is brick making, and the surrounding area produces watermelons,
cantalopes, sweet potatoes, and cotton. Elgin High School’s athletic teams
are known as the Wildcats.

One of the least pretentious of the American Elgins is the Arizona entry.
About the time this hamlet and the surrounding area served as the setting
for the John Wayne film, Red River, it consisted of a few adobe houses
and a combined filling station, general store, and post office.

Elgins can also be found in Canada, where a Lord Elgin once served as
Governor General, New Zealand, Jamaica, Australia, and the Union of South
Africa, but of course there’s no place like home.

Population of Incorporated Elgins in the United States.

Street Names

Of the ten most common street names in the United States Park, Washington,
Maple, Oak, Lincoln, Walnut, Elm, Jefferson, Highland, and Madison-Elgin
has all but the last. If that name were proposed for a new roadway, it
might be rejected because we have an Addison. The similarity in the two
names could be confusing in an emergency call.

Some of our street names are obviously directional references, such
as the road east to CHICAGO, south to ST. CHARLES, and north to DUNDEE.
The name of the road west to GALENA was later changed to West Highland.
NORTH and SOUTH Streets once defined the town’s residential limits. Part
of the dividing line between two counties runs down the middle of COOKANE
Avenue.

At least three names have, or had, a geographic derivation. MOUNTAIN
has a steep slope on the west side, and there was once a SPRING near North
Street. RIVER Street, which once paralleled the Fox on the east side, is
now North Grove Avenue. LAKE Street, however, preserves the name of William
Lake, a pioneer resident whose cement house still stands on the corner
of Lake and Michigan.WASHINGTON, JEFFERSON, LINCOLN, CLEVELAND, and HARRISON
were presidents, but Adams Street was not named after either John or his
son. It honors August ADAMS, an early state senator. There was GRANT Street,
but it became River Bluff Road.

Vincent S. LOVELL purchased a large claim in the northeast end. His
sons, Edward C. and Vincent Smith Lovell were partners in a real estate
business. Both became mayors of Elgin. Edward was joined in matrimony to
Carrie WATRES, and his brother named ADDISON Street after a friend, Addison
A. Keyes.

If you’re a Chicago Cubs fan, you’ll recognize the names of Whitey LOCKMAN,
Ernie BANKS, Rick MONDAY, Dave KINGMAN, and Bobby MURCER. Among the mayors
of Elgin whose names adorn street signs were Joseph TEFFT, George S. BOWEN,
Arwin E. PRICE, Augustine H. HUBBARD, Walter E. MILLER, and Clyde SHALES.

Many streets were named by subdivision developers for themselves, their
children and other relatives, and their friends. For example, the City
Council approved an addition platted by Silvanus WILCOX in 1890. His mother
was the former Salley SHULER, and be married Jane MALLERY. Other subdividers
were Thomas McBRIDE, James BARRETT, Bernard HEALY, Finla L. McCLURE, Abel
WALKER, Henry SHERMAN, and George L. CONGDON. Seth MOSELEY was a surveyor
and Alfred LAVOIE a realtor.

HENDEE family names were used for several streets on the west side.
The family claimed descent from Captain Miles STANDISH, who came over on
the Mayflower. Mary WASHBURN Hendee had been engaged to Griswold Lord before
his death. She then married Joshua Palmer MORGAN. Her sister, Marcy BILLINGS
Hendee married Samuel N. Brown. (Samuel lost out in this name perpetuation
game. There is no Brown Street.)

The practice of using first names began early. Mary Ann Kimball was the
first settler to die in Elgin. One of James T. Gifford’s sons was FULTON.
JAY, MAY, and STELLA were the children ofOrlando and Caroline (Gifford)
Davidson and Gifford’s grandchildren.

One of the plat makers remembered his homeland. John Webb, an early
dial maker at the watch factory, was born in England and learned his trade
there. WARWICK is the county in which English watch manufacturing was once
centered, and RUGBY is the British version of football.

The signs for HIGH Street, EASY Street, and SEXAUER (pronounced “Sex
Hour”) are frequently stolen. There were so many thefts of LOVERS LANE
that the name had to be changed to Fox Lane. What? No Main Street? We did
have a MAIN Street, but it became a part of State Street long ago.

School Names

Fashions in Elgin school names have varied over the years. The first
public school building was at DuPage and Chapel Streets. Built of brick,
it became known as Old Brick when a New Brick school opened on Kimball
Street.

Other early schools were identified for a time by their ward, such as
the Third Ward and Fifth Ward Schools The Colored School, abandoned when
enrollments were integrated, was the only school named after the students
who attended.

Some schools were associated (at least in the public mind) With their
area. One was the Watch Factory School, which overlooked the main plant
of the Elgin National Watch Company from about 1870-83. It lost that name
when it was moved down to Bent Street. The Old Church or Stone Church School
on Geneva Street referred to its original use as the Baptist Church.

Buildings opened during the 1880’s were designated by street. Examples
were the National Street, Locust Street, Prospect Street, Oak Street, May
Street, and Hill Street Schools.

Streets went out of favor during the nineties, when the names of Franklin,
Washington, and Columbia were selected for new buildings. In 1898, National
Street School became Lincoln School, May Street became Garfield, Hill Street
became Sheridan, and Mill Street (also known as the Slop Hill School) became
Grant. Prospect School, now the oldest in continuous use, was changed to
McKinley after President McKinley’s assassination in 1901.

The name of a local person was first adopted in 1899 when the Abby C.
Wing School opened. Wing was an early academy and public school teacher
who had recently died in a fire. Locust Street School was renamed George
P. Lord School in 1905 to honor the local philanthropist.

In 1913, Oak Street School became Lowrie School, after A.H , Lowrie,
a former school board president and senior publisber of the Elgin Daily
News. Other.school board presidents remembered in school names are Dr.
Edward H. Abbott and Vincent Coleman. Harriet Gifford, T.A. Larsen, Emmie
U. Ellis, and Myrtle Huff were Elgin teachers so honored.

Lords Park, Illinois Park, and Century Oaks schools are so named because
of their location. In 1967 students were allowed to name their new school.
They chose Hillcrest over other candidates-High Point, Towercrest, Knollwood,
and Hawthorne.

Highland is a reversion to the street name. Kimball Junior High School
refers to the original settlement on the west side by the Kimball family
of New Hampshire.

Twenty years ago, when the city’s second high school was nearing completion,
the name Elgin West was suggested. Elgin High School would then become
Elgin East. Another proposal, tentatively adopted by the school board,
changed the older school to Central.

This brought about the biggest school name controversy in local history.
Students and alumni protested, arguing that tradition must be preserved.
The board reconsidered and Elgin High remained Elgin High. Larkin High
School was named after Cyrus H. Larkin, an early pioneer who once farmed
the land on which the school’s 43 acre campus is located.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but school names are
something special—even if they aren’t permanent.

Vanished Names

Once familiar places in Elgin have disappeared and the names of others
have been replaced by new ones, reminders that change is a constant. If
a reference is made today to Sunset Park or Cobbler’s Crossing, many would
know their general location. But where was Lord’s Pasture? This was an
unimproved plot of about 25 acres, owned by George P. Lord, north of Orange
Street and south of Walnut Avenue, between Perry and Billings. The land
remained vacant long after houses were built in the area. It was finally
sub-divided in 1909.

Lord’s Pasture was part of the Dutch Flats area, a table land west of
South State Street, between South and Orange Streets. It was given this
name because it was occupied chiefly by German immigrants. The former Oak
Street School, now Lowrie, was often referred to as the Dutch Flats school.

Colby’s Grove, a site east of the Elgin Academy, was a favored place
for holding picnics and Fourth of July celebrations. It was sold in lots
in 1873. Park Street derives its name from this grove, not Lords Park.
Bent’s Grove, just south of the watch factory, and Joslyn’s Grove at the
corner of Brook and Ann Streets, were other picnic grounds.

The Golden Stairway was erected about 1923 over the Milwaukee tracks
at National Street crossing. The steps and elevated walk eliminated delays
encountered by pedestrians while freight trains blocked the street. When
the steam locomotives began taking on water at Spaulding, the problem was
eased. The Stairway was torn down in 1935 after the walkway had become
a convenient perch for small boys to cast stones upon the trains passing
below.

The first railroad to arrive in Elgin was the Galena & Chicago Union.
It crossed the river in 1851 and ran along the west side bluffs headed
toward Freeport. The Fox River Valley Railroad began on the east side of
Elgin in 1854 and followed the river to Dundee and points north. When both
lines were merged into the Chicago & North Western in 1864, the west
side tracks were referred to as the “high” North Western and the east side
tracks as the “low” North Western. The distinction was necessary because
each line had its own depot, neither one now existing.

Although no Elgin institution has changed names as often as Liz and
Zsa Zsa have changed husbands, some have come close. The Northern Illinois
Hospital and Asylum for the Insane opened in 1872. Its title was changed
to the Illinois Northern Hospital for the Insane three years later. It
became the Elgin State Hospital in 1910 and the Elgin Mental Health Center
in 1975. This state institution should not be confused with the Fox Valley
Mental Health Center, which became the Ecker Center for Mental Health in
1983.

The Chicago & Pacific railroad entered Elgin in 1873. It was later
purchased by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific, a line which
was first commonly known as the St. Paul or Milwaukee and then by the Milwaukee
Road. Today the tracks are part of the Soo Line system, but commuters ride
on Metra trains.

In 1932 students entered what was then called Abbott School on the west
side. When the tenth-grade students were sent to Elgin High School in 1939,
it became Abbott Junior High. Since 1984 it has been Abbott Middle School.

The Elgin Loan and Homestead Association, founded in 1883, became the
Home Savings and Loan Association in 1962 and the Home Federal Savings
in 1969. The Elgin Federal Savings and Loan Association is now the Elgin
Federal Financial Center. The Commercial Club evolved into the Elgin Association
of Commerce and then into the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce.

Churches have not been immune to the name-changing virus. The German
Evangelical Association, for example, became the First Evangelical United
Brethren, and is now Faith United Methodist. Swedish Evangelical Lutheran
became the Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran, and Zion Methodist evolved into
Wesley Methodist.

Changing the names of streets is relatively infrequent because it often
requires the inconveniences of a new mailing address, but old timers can
recall when part of River Bluff was Alexander, East Highland was Milwaukee,
and West Chicago was Bridge. The streets called Lemonade, Pearl, and Broadway
are still around but have different designations.

Life isn’t static, and each generation has a different perspective.
Some day people will ask where Sunset Park or Cobbler’s Crossing was located.

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The Grave Robbers

Today’s medical schools work with bodies donated in the interest of
science, but anatomy students of yesteryear had difficulty obtaining subjects
for dissection. Some cadavers were supplied by grave robbers. A band of
these so-called resurrectionists, students of a St. Charles physician,
were active in 1849. After their operations were discovered, an enraged
mob attacked the home of the doctor, mortally wounding him and a student.

When a body snatching occurred in Elgin in 1878, community revulsion
was quickly aroused. A suicide, Gardner Hazeltine, had no local relatives
and was buried in the potter’s field section of Channing Street cemetery.
Frank Brown, the son of a respected Elgin doctor, was a student at Rush
Medical College. Unbeknownst to his father, he planned to dig up Hazeltine’s
body for sale while it was still comparatively fresh.

Brown and a hired laborer, Sam Johnson, opened what they thought was
Hazeltine’s grave. Working without light in the darkness, they instead
uncovered the plot of a poor German immigrant woman buried nearby. Removing
the corpse from the coffin and encasing it in sacks, they placed it in
the back of a carriage belonging to Doctor Brown. The resurrectionists
then drove off in baste without filling up the empty grave. The yawning
hole was discovered the next morning and attracted hundreds of morbidly
curious citizens to the cemetery.

The body Brown and Johnson delivered to the Chicago Homeopathic College
was so badly decomposed that it was not accepted. Neither was their explanation
about how the body was acquired, and suspicions were aroused. Elgin’s city
marshal, John Powers, traced cemetery mud dropped from the carriage wheels
to the Villa Street road to Chicago. Telegraphing the Police in that city,
be was informed that two suspects already were under arrest.When Powers
returned to Elgin by train with his prisoners, a crowd estimated at five
hundred to a thousand assembled in the vicinity of the east side North
Western depot. Fearing mob action, Powers had the train stop at DuPage
Street and hustled his prisoners from there to the lock up.

The dead woman’s husband seemed indifferent to the outrage. He apparently
accepted a settlement offered by Brown’s family in return for not pressing
charges. The prisoners were freed on bond, and there is no record of the
case coming to trial.

Parade of the Horribles

One of the most memorable Fourth of Julys in Elgin was observed back
in 1878, on the 102nd anniversary of our nation’s independence. “Never
before has our city originated and carried out such doings of the day …
and never before were the multitudes in attendance,” reported the Daily
News. “From near and far they came, having heard that a celebration on
a tremendous scale was to take place, and none were disappointed.”

At sunrise, bells rang and the roar of a cannon and crackling fireworks
announced the great day. National Guard units from Chicago and Rockford,
joined by their drum corps and led by the Elgin company, paraded to Lovell’s
Grove at the head of Douglas Avenue. The program featured patriotic music,
a reading of the Declaration, and an oration by the Honorable J. S. Doolittle,
a state senator from Wisconsin.

After the ceremony, some of the audience stayed to picnic, but the majority
followed the military units to the fairgrounds. There, citizen soldiers
performed complex drill movements that impressed even the Civil War veterans.
In the afternoon, there were boat and tub races between the two bridges,
with prizes for the winners, and members of local gun clubs displayed their
skill shooting glass balls out of the air. The day closed with a fireworks
display at Fountain Square.

This was a customary nineteenth century Elgin Fourth of July. What then
attracted so many visitors to the city, what made the day so unforgettable
that it would be talked about for years afterward?

At half past eight in the morning, before the formal program, the “great
bell of Moscow” in the woolen mill tower tolled the start of the burlesque
Parade of Calithumpians, Antiques and Horribles under the direction of
the Mystic Krewe of Komus. This cavalcade of fantastic costumes and comic
floats, nearly a mile long, wound its way through all parts of the city
past crowded sidewalks. Under the command of Grand Marshall Count De Bong
Whong, the marchers saluted King Rex. They included Sitting Bull, the Barber
of Seville, the Cardiff Giant, the Siamese Twins, Father Time, Monsieur
De Brick Bat, a bear on horseback, and a three-legged man.

Each department of the watch factory entered a float, the most notable
being a large tin watch, about six feet tall, mounted on a wagon. Where
the stem should have been, appeared the head of a masked man. As the parade
moved along, the stem of the watch would keep turning around. Another man
inside the case turned the hour and minute hands.

The lampoon spared neither the public schools nor the town lamp lighter.
Satirized were the press, the Board of Trade, the police force, the Greenback
Party, and Communists. One of the most popular floats exhibited what in
polite language could be called a large donkey surrounded by a bunch of
clowns. Everyone knew what they represented the Mayor and City Council!

Buffalo Bill

The summer of 1896 was drawing to a sultry close. It was late August
and the opening of school was approaching, but small boys were in a fever
of excitement. Colonel William R. Cody, Pony Express rider, Army Scout,
dime novel hero, and showman, was coming to Elgin!

The smallboys exchanged tales of how Buffalo Bill had slain and scalped
Yellow Hand at War Bonnet Creek, had killed 4,000 buffaloes in 18 months
to feed railroad workmen, and had ridden 350 miles in less than 60 hours
carrying dispatches for General Sheridan. Colorful posters all over town
and on rural barns heralded Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough
Riders of the World- “The Only Exhibition in All The World That Has No
Counterpart!” A national institution this year, the show would travel 10,000
miles and play in 132 cities.

Three trains, 39 cars in all, pulled the pageant up from its previous
stand in Aurora and unloaded a herd of buffaloes and 400 or more horses.
A big tent, said to be the largest ever stretched in Elgin, arose in Driving
Park, east of Liberty Street between what are now May and Jay Streets.
The small boys supervised.

In the morning, the small boys pushed to the front of the crowd along
East Chicago Street to watch the parade led by Cody driving a span of horses.
The marks of time showed in his hair and beard, streaked with white. A
cowboyband, real Cheyenne and Brule Indians, and troops of horsemen followed.
All eyes focused on the Deadwood stage coach (“The Most Famous Vehicle
Extant!”), perforated with bullet holes received in attacks of Indians
and outlaws. Six Wells Fargo men were said to have lost their lives defending
the coach’s strong box.

Their elders had cautioned the small boys the show might be an abbreviated
version of the Chicago stop, but Elgin got it all. A solid mass of good
natured showgoers filled Fountain Square by 1:30 that afternoon, waiting
for street cars and horse-drawn omnibuses. General admission was 50 cents.
A crowd estimated at 8,000 attended the afternoon performance and 12,000
came that evening.

A grand review led by Buffalo Bill, astride the magnificent sorrel given
him by General Miles, introduced the horsemen: Mexican vaqueros, South
American gauchos, Bedouins, Cossacks, European cavalrymen resplendent in
their uniforms, and U.S. troopers. Wide-eyed small boys witnessed a thrilling
horse race between a cowboy, a Cossack, a vaquero, an Arab and an Indian;
a Pony Express demonstration; an Indian attack on an immigrant wagon train,
repulsed by Buffalo Bill with scouts and cowboys; and the skilled horsemanship
of the Rough Riders of the World.

Little Annie Oakley’s phenomenal marksmanship with pistol and rifle
prepared the audience for the continuous crack of firearms that followed.
Sharp-shooting was exhibited by Johnny Baker with a shotgun and Buffalo
Bill with a rifle.

The romantic picture of the West and the distorted view of the Indian
brought to town by Buffalo Bill didn’t die. It continued in thousands of
movies and television shows and remains alive in rodeos. But the small
boys of Elgin in 1896 experienced the myth’s development and saw the legendary
Scout in person. For them it was a never-to-be-forgotten live Star Wars.

The Mysterious Airship

Strange apparitions in the sky are not a phenomenon of the space age.
They were seen in ancient and medieval times, long before the first Unidentified
Flying Object was reported over Americain 1947. This sighting was followed
by a series of reports of so-called flying saucers. One of those UFOs,
a “luminous object, throwing off a red glow, traveling at a high rate of
speed, just above the tree tops,” was allegedly seen above Elgin in the
spring of 1950, but it didn’t attract as much attention as the Mysterious
airship of 1897.

There were no airplanes or dirigibles existing on the planet Earth when
a kind of winged cigar with a searchlight was seen over Oakland, California,
in November, 1896. Fueled by rumors, alcohol, optical illusions, hoaxes,
and hallucinations, and powered by suggestion and enterprising newsmen,
the thing traveled eastward. It was sighted in Kansas City, Omaha and elsewhere.

It was inevitable, Elgin being an up-and-coming city, that the airship
would appear here. In fact, its arrival was anticipated. “The mysterious
airship, or whatever it may be, that is hovering over cities in Kansas
and Nebraska may heave in sight of Elgin ere long,” the Daily News forecast
on March 30, 1897, and proceeded to give a description:

“The airship seems to be under perfect control of the navigator, rising,
lowering, and changing direction and speed in prompt obediences to the
steering gear. The ship has a brilliant electric headlight by which the
movements of the airship maybe watched long after the ship is lost in darkness.
The speed of the airship is estimated by those who have seen it to be from
60 to 70 miles an hour.”

Sure enough, on the evening of April 11, 1897, about 50 people gathering
on the Chicago Street bridge watched a bright light until it disappeared
in the northwest. For those who missed the visitor, it conveniently reappeared
the next night when it seemed to be several hundred feet in the air over
the southeastern part of town.Early the following morning, Kerny Hunn,
who lived on South Grove Avenue, heard an explosion and rushing sound like
a small cyclone in his front yard. Then came a thud and crash.  Rushing
out to the littered street, he saw in the dawn’s dim light, a stranger
busy tinkering with an airship that had bellows and wings. Kerny yelled
to wait, but the stranger made no reply and soared away.

The wreckage left behind was carried downtown where it was placed on
exhibition at Frank Lasher’s saloon. The capture comprised two large galvanized
iron tubes, pointed at each end, and secured by a light wooden framework.

There were scoffers who insisted that the light was a small lantern
fastened to the tail of Billy Rahn’s kite, and some cynics claimed the
mysterious apparatus was only part of an abandoned river raft. But those
who believe in UFOs may also believe that Elgin, in 1897, was visited by
an Extra-Terrestrial in a Close Encounter of the Third Kind.

Street Carnivals

Earlier residents of Elgin were fond of recalling some special occasions
they had shared and enjoyed together, such as the Parade of the Antiques
and Horribles in 1878 and the National Guard Encampment in 1909. Among
these memorable events were the street fairs of 1901 and 1902, when the
entire downtown area became the setting for huge carnivals.

The first of these was organized by the Elgin Street Fair Company for
the benefit of the Larkin Home for Children. It was supported by contributions
from businesses hoping to profit from the crowds attracted by the festivities.
Local attendance was swelled by visitors from nearby towns and cities.
Some of the shows were positioned on vacant lots, but most of them were
on the streets where they would block traffic the least. Merchants constructed
street booths in front of their stores to sell their wares as well as soft
drinks, candy, confetti, and souvenirs.

There was a big ferris wheel on DuPage Street. Spectators could gape
at Jolly Joe Grimes, who claimed to weigh 742 pounds, or see Mademoiselle
La Paloma ascend in a balloon and drop to earth by parachute. Those who
paid a fee could ride on a camel at the Streets of Cairo (the mayors of
Elgin and Aurora rode one together), while the Streets of India on North
State Street featured dagger throwing, trapeze work, and high diving
into a tank of water.

How Lunette, the Flying Lady, could sail through the air mystified her
audiences, and daring males were fascinated by dancing girls moving through
colored lights at the Electric Theatre. The Elgin Fire Department, bells
clanging and horses at full gallop, made demonstration runs. A Queen of
the Carnival was selected by popular vote to preside over the six nights
of revelry.

It was all so much fun, especially since the Ministerial Association
didn’t approve, that the Elks Club sponsored another street fair the next
year. The stands and platforms required more than 20,000 feet of lumber.
The Elks strung up more than 2,000 incandescent lights and purchased 4,000
yards of decorative bunting.

The carnival opened with a floral parade of decorated carriages and
floats headed by the Elgin Military Band. Street cars operated until midnight
through packed throngs, and the city’s entire force of 16 patrolmen were
on duty to keep order. There were animal shows, a Congress of Midgets,
and lady athletes. Dare Devil Grant rode a bicycle while juggling electrically
lighted clubs along a tightrope suspended fifty. feet above the street.
One of the most popular attractions was the Great London Ghost Show. Living
people appeared and disappeared before the spectators’ eyes, and no one
could fathom from where they came and where they went to.

One of the sensations wasn’t planned. Chiquita, the Doll Lady, billed
as “the smallest woman in the world,” jumped her contract with the management
and skipped town without paying her hotel bill.

The fairs were not without critics other than the clergy. Some claimed
it was illegal to grant the use of public streets to a private group. Others
were disgusted when the merrymaking got out of hand. The Elks admitted
that the carnival appealed mainly to those whose lives “were not surrounded
by refinement,” and that they were neither a major benefit to the merchants
or the taxpayers.

And yet the paying customers would say they got their money’s worth.
Television brings the world’s wonders to our living rooms, but back in
1901 and 1902 you had to join the crowd in downtown Elgin to see them.

The Guardsmen

Among the most common of the scenes of Elgin pictured on old post cards
are photographs of soldiers. Thousands of these cards were mailed from
this city during the two-week encampment of the Illinois National Guard,
July 10-23, 1909.

Wing Park and adjoining fields leased by the state were transformed
into Camp Deneen, named after Governor Charles S. Deneen, the commander-in-chief.
During the first week, three regiments of infantry and one of cavalry.
based in Chicago, occupied the site. They were followed the second week
by the Third Infantry, which included Elgin’s Company E, the Sixth Infantry,
and an artillery battalion. These units were composed chiefly of troops
from northern Illinois. The number of men and officers coming to Elgin
was about three thousand.

Arriving with the guardsmen were six freight cars of equipment, including
nearly 2,000 tents and 60,000 rounds of blank ammunition. Elgin merchants,
bidding for the contracts, supplied the food: 3, 100 pounds of beef, 4,000
pounds of bacon, 6,600 pounds of sugar, 1,800 pounds of onions, 5,700 pounds
of fish, 2,200 pounds of lard, 1,472 gallons of milk, 1,000 dozen eggs,
and 1,400 pounds of salt.

Prior to the Guard’s arrival, fears were expressed from several quarters
for the safety of Elgin womanhood. The YWCA board passed a resolution suggesting
to mothers that “young girls not be allowed on the streets evenings during
the encampment unless properly chaperoned by older persons” and declaring
that “such gatherings always attract a large retinue of camp followers
of both men and women of evil intent.”

These and similar words of caution were regarded as insulting to the
reputation of the citizen soldiers and brought a protest from an Elgin
doctor serving as surgeon of the Third Infantry:

“Remember that a patriotic heart beats within the breast of every soldier,
and he is ready to lay his life on the altar of his country’s honor and
likewise for a woman’s virtue. That the soldier will flirt cannot be denied,
even with the YWCA if they are so inclined. And who could blame them!”

The golf course became a tent city, and the country club opened its
links to the public while the soldiers drilled and skirmished amid clouds
of choking dust. One mock battle was fought west of town, with the cavalry
of a retreating “Dubuque” army seeking to delay the advance of a “Chicago”
army toward the railroad station at Plato Center. Troops maneuvered around
the Britton farm and up Larkin and Highland Avenues, while officers rode
about shouting commands and buglers sounded orders.

The encampment attracted the largest crowd of visitors the city had
ever known. Hotels were jammed. Stores, decorated with flags and red, white
and blue bunting, did a brisk trade. Streetcars were filled with spectators
going to and from the camp. A crowd estimated at forty thousand attended
one of the grand reviews before Governor Deneen. Among the regular Army
officers observing the training was Major General Frederick Dent Grant,
son of the famed Civil War commander.

The weather was ideal, the absence of rain prevented damage to the golf
course, and no YWCA board member was molested. The Daily News concluded
that “in all its history Elgin has never known two more lively weeks than
those during which the state militia camped at Wing Park.”

The Poultry Show

There was a time in Elgin, remembered by many still living, when a neighbor’s
rooster eliminated the need for an alarm clock. Chicken coops in back yards
were about as common as one and two-holers’, stores offered incubators,
wire, feed scratch, and chick mash; and the Courier ran a weekly advice
column with such articles as “How to Overcome the Scarcity of Fertile Eggs
at Winter Season.”

Annual exhibitions of the Elgin Poultry Association were eagerly awaited.
Its sixteenth show held in 1915 at the old Coliseum on South Grove Avenue
was especially memorable. More than 100 breeders came from seven states
and northern Illinois. Practically every bit of the large floor space was
taken up by decorated display booths.

For an admission charge of 15 cents, visitors flocked in to view 1,846
birds. Some ducks and geese were shown, but chickens were the main attraction.
There were all kinds, including one with three wings, and Japanese Bantams
topped with hair instead of feathers. The most popular breeds were Buff
Wyandottes, Rose Combed Rhode Island Reds, and Black Orpingtons.

Amid a background chorus of clucking, squawking and crowing, the association
awarded 100 silver trophies to winners or prizes in various categories.
Unlike a modern auto show, there were no attractive models present to enhance
the exhibits. Instead Lady Evelyn, a huge White Orpington, reigned supreme.
She was judged the best bird.

The show was filled with excitement for poultry fanciers. On opening
night there was a flurry when a large goose escaped from its cage and ran
up one aisle and down another, chased by one of the judges. Besides the
opportunity to look at arched tails, faultless combs, and sleek feathers,
the week-long show sustained interest with contests. Each day, visitors
were invited to guess the number of kernels in a jar of corn. In the nightly
crowdown, six birds were placed close together in a comer while a crowd
gathered to cheer them on. A White Leghorn, surely a favorite in his neighborhood,
won the title with 38 crows in 30 minutes.

Suspense mounted daily in the egg-laying competition, which began as
soon as the show opened and continued all week. Each of the four Elgin
entrants had a large coop housing four hens and a cock. August Pflaum’s
Rhode Island Reds took an early lead with an output of four the first day,
but they were soon surpassed by Allen Norton’s quintet.

The great 1915 exhibit was something to crow about. It drew the largest
attendance of any local show, and its promoters claimed it put Elgin on
the poultry map of Illinois. For those who may have been inspired by this
description of its events to chuck their digital clock radios and provide
themselves with a ready supply of fresh eggs, Elgin’s zoning ordinance
now prohibits keeping poultry within the city.

The Blizzard of ’18

On January 11-12, 1918, a blizzard-the second in less than a week-buried
northern Illinois in huge drifts that blocked roads, shut down the street
car lines, and closed some factories and stores. The storm and bitter cold were considered the worst since
1881. For about 300 residents of Elgin and the surrounding area, it led
to an unforgettable experience on the Milwaukee Road. Shoppers and commuters
boarded two delayed “Elgin trains,” the 4:35 and 5:20 locals, at Union
Station in Chicago about six o’clock on Friday evening, the 11th. Anticipating
the drifts, the first train was drawn by two locomotives and the second
by three. The trains inched through the blowing snow, finally crunching
to a halt before a seven-foot wall of white about three quarters of a mile
west of Roselle. There they would be mired for more than 40 hours.

The first night was tolerable. One of the trains happened to be carrying
a diner, so everyone was fed, and the steam engines kept up the heat. Card
games were organized, and reading materials exchanged. Quartets, sextets,
and choruses were formed to provide music. When Saturday morning arrived,
the drifts had climbed to ten feet or more, and two of the engines which
had been heating the cars had died. Passengers volunteered to shovel coal
into the boilers, working in relays because of the severe cold.

The food was now exhausted, and other volunteers struck out for Roselle
to purchase provisions or struggled through the deep snow to farm houses
for large cans of water. These efforts solved the food problem, but, one
by one, the engines failed. Householders in the unincorporated little village-its
population was then probably less than 500-welcomed the stranded passengers,
who were carried into town by bob sleigh. Although they slept three and
four to a bed, some had to spend the night in the Roselle State Bank and
the telephone exchange. More than a 100 remained on the tracks, huddled
in one car and attempting to keep warm by burning soft coal in a hard coal
stove. The Chicago Telephone Company (now Illinois Bell) sent reassuring
messages to anxious families in Elgin. Roselle merchants kept their establishments
open, supplying warm clothing at fair prices, and the town’s three saloons
were turned into restaurants. The groceries were cleaned out.

Meanwhile relief efforts were under way from Galewood and Elgin. Snow
plows carrying shovelers reached the stranded trains by three o’clock Sunday
afternoon. An engine pulling a baggage car and three coaches finally arrived
in Elgin at four o’clock. A crowd Of relatives and friends were gathered
to welcome them. Some of the women could not refrain from weeping with
joy, but one of the men called out, AWhat, no band?”

Miss Elgin of 1925

Elgin’s first entry in the Miss America pageant at Atlantic City was
selected at a Pageant of Progress held in 1925. Sponsored by the Boosters’
Committee of the Elgin Motor Club, this was a six-day event aimed at advertising
the Watch City. it featured a merchants’ and manufacturers’ exhibition,
a display of new cars, a carnival and nightly musical review, and a competition
to choose the city’s “100 percent perfect baby”. But it was the bathing
beauty contest that aroused the most interest and controversy.

Considering Elgin’s reticence in approaching something new, this was
a daring venture. Only the year before the City Council had ruled that
both men and women bathers in the new Wing Park pool must have suits with
skirts.

The Boosters took a forthright stand about the display of feminine pulchritude,
announcing that “only real men can sponsor a National Beauty Pageant. Small
ones scoff at it.” They nonetheless assured parents “they could see nothing
but beauty when these young ladies appear in their bathing attire, for.
. . where the environment is cheerful, no smallness of thought can exist.”

Attracted by local prizes and the dream of becoming Miss America, 36
contestants between the ages of 16 and 30 entered, among them a Girl in
the Golden Mask. Each was given an Annette Kellerman two-in-one bathing
suit. To insure impartiality, the judges were all from Chicago, and the
participants were introduced by number rather than name.

A preliminary elimination reduced the number of contestants to 24 for
the final judging. This took more than three hours. It was a lengthy process
considering that present day frosting on the cheesecake, such as demonstrating
talent or answering questions, was not then part of the format. The girls
were rated only on grace of carriage, form and facial beauty. Because the
judges were deadlocked over the final four, however, another standard-one
followed in horse shows-was applied when a dentist was called to the stage
to inspect their teeth.

Lucille Burns, a graduate of Elgin High and a clerk at Swan’s Department
Store, was declared the winner. Miss Elgin of 1925 was presented with a
sash, scepter and robe at a coronation ball. Many of the losers refused
to attend the dance. Apparently believers in quantitative standards, they
held a protest meeting because measurements had not been taken.

The contest was denounced as “demoralizing” and “debasing@ by the Elgin
Ministerial Association. The clergymen’s statement quoted a businessman’s
opinion that “It was disgusting to go up there and see a lot of half-naked
girls parading about.”

The Boosters replied by asking the question, “Is the objective of Elgin’s
citizenry to have a live or dead city? Let us not be prudes but rather
broad-minded and progressive.”

A bobbed hair brunette, Miss Elgin had an extensive wardrobe to wear
at pageant festivities: a red crepe de chine gown with silver stockings
and slippers and a hair band to match; a sports outfit of British tweed
with black hose and slippers; a flesh colored beaded gown, silver stockings
and slippers; a gown of yellow georgette crepe, trimmed with gold and metallic
lace, with gold colored stockings and shoes; and a peach colored silk dress
with filigreed lace covering with matching peach hose and a black lace
hat. Her bathing suit was purple and green iridescent taffeta with black
silk stockings.

Miss Elgin was accompanied to Atlantic City by her mother. No contestants
were permitted to leave their hotel rooms without their chaperones. Lucille
was pleased to report to the folks back home that only at the official
judging did she have to appear in a bathing suit, and the judges remained
at least five feet away from any of the participants.

Although eliminated in the first round, Miss Elgin displayed a resourceful
loyalty to her city’s major industry. In one parade she constantly pointed
to the watch on her wrist, and afterward wherever she went among the crowds,
there were calls for the correct time. The Boosters were pleased.

The Crusader

Despite the growing awareness of the adverse effects on health of cigarette
smoking, there is little mention today of Lucy Page Gaston. Once among
the most celebrated reformers in America, she was too far ahead of her
time. Raised by parents active in the abolition and temperance reform movements,
she never married.

At first she took up the anti-saloon cause, and then became increasingly
obsessed with the evils of cigarettes. A teacher, she discovered that her
poorest students were smokers and later came to believe they would later
take to drink, turn to crime, and eventually die of a dreaded disease.
Gaston published a Harvey, Illinois, newspaper to promote restrictive legislation
and in 1901 founded the National Anti-Cigarette League. For a time her
efforts seemed to be successful, especially in the Midwest and Far West.
Iowa, Indiana, and Wisconsin were among several states banning the sale
of cigarettes.

Gaston came to Elgin in 1910 under the auspices of the YMCA to form
a local chapter of the Anti-Cigarette League. At the organizing meeting
in the First Methodist Church, she explained that cigarettes were perilous
because the burning tobacco and wrapper formed a gas which poisoned the
brain.

Local residents emphasized other evils of nicotine. Principal William
L. Goble testified that no inveterate user of tobacco ever received an
Elgin High School diploma. He claimed smokers lacked concentration and
ambition and concluded that scholarship and smoking do not go together.
Henry A. Rice, superintendent of the Star Manufacturing Company, warned
that “businessmen and corporations pick boys without yellow stain on their
fingers.”

Passing out pledge cards, the crusader pleaded: “I come not here to
fill your heads with laws, but rather to fill your hearts with a sense
of what is right.”

The First World War snuffed out the anti-cigarette campaign as well
as other reform movements. When Lucy Page Gaston formed her League, less
than five billion cigarettes were sold; at her death in 1924 consumption
had risen to more than 73 million. It is one of life’s ironies that she
died of throat cancer.

BACK TO TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Dam

Ancient civilization started up along the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates,
the Indus and the Huang Ho river valleys. London arose beside the Thames,
Paris on the banks of the Seine, and Renaissance Florence along the Arno.
Like these other great cities, Elgin began its development along a river.

One of the reasons James T. Gifford founded his town of Elgin along
the Fox was the opportunity to harness its water power. A dam was one of
the first necessities of the early settlers. The power it generated could
operate a sawmill to cut timber for buildings and a gristmill to process
grain into flour and meal.

The first Elgin dam, a crude log structure, was built in 1836-37 by
Folsom Bean and paid for by Gifford and Sam Kimball. As soon as it was
in place, Gifford had a gristmill running on the east side of the river,
and Kimball put up a sawmill on the west side.

Before this dam washed out in the flood of March, 1849, it spawned Elgin’s
first major industrial enterprise. A woolen mill was constructed in 1843-44
along a race just west of what is now the American National Bank building.

Two large flour mills were operating by 1846. The Stone Mills, so called
because it was constructed of limestone, was at the foot of what is now
Highland Avenue. The Waverly Mills was near the northeast corner of State
Street and Highland Avenue. The Excelsior Mills was built at the foot of
Division Street about 1856. The largest of these flour producers was the
east side City Mills erected in 1858. Two and a half stories high, it had
a capacity of 100 barrels a day. These river industries attracted the trade
of farmers from the surrounding areas, and Elgin became a mill town.

In 1867 the state Legislature chartered the Elgin Hydraulic Company
to maintain the dam and regulate the water level. The firm was owned by
property holders along the east and west side races. When the dam was again
washed out by the flood of April 1881, there was some question about whether
it should be rebuilt. By that time some industries along the races had
converted to more dependable steam power. Pushed by the ice harvesters
who required the deep water upstream, the Hydraulic decided to try again.George
Renwick supervised construction by a small army of men during the winter
dry months of 1881-82. The cost of about $13,000 was paid by the Hydraulic
with contributions from the ice men.

To divert the flow of water from the river bed so that the foundation
could be excavated, temporary barriers called coffer dams were built around
the head gates of the two races. Stones and boulders were wheeled out on
barrows and dumped into the current. Dirt and gravel were piled on top
of this base.

The dam proper was constructed with a framework of timber belted together
with iron rods and spiked by cross pieces. This was buttressed with dirt
and stone taken from the coffer dams. A solid wall of oak, supported by
drag stays and props from below, ran from the foundation to the crest.
A floor of three inch oak planks was spiked on top of the timber frame.
The upstream side of the dam was slightly inclined and began four or five
rods from the crest. The present concrete facing was a later addition.

The reconstructed dam created a body of deep water, extending north
about two miles, which provided good fishing and boating during the summer
and a broad field for ice harvesting in the winter. At the turn of the
century, the dam’s fall of seven feet supplied about 800 horsepower at
an average stage of water.

Elgin Hydraulic Company’s interest in power led to disputes with those
who wanted to use the river for other purposes. Although a fishway was
constructed as early as 1888, fishermen often complained when the upstream
water level was reduced to supply power in a dry period. The power owners
often quarreled with the ice harvesters, who benefitted from the dam, about
their contributions toward its maintenance. In January, 1898, the Hydraulic
let water out of the dam, allowing the ice to sink into the mud, to force
payments from the ice men. A long period of litigation between the Hydraulic
Company and the City of Elgin began after the water pumping station at
the end of Slade Avenue began operating in 1888. An appellate court finally
ruled in 1899 that the dam owners could not infringe upon the rights of
riverbank property owners and that the amount of water withdrawn by the
city was not unreasonable. In the summer of 1916, when the Fox was at low
stage, boaters complained that the Hydraulic was over using the water for
power, exposing the dirt and sewage, and endangering the health of people
who had homes along the shore.

The Great Flood of ’81

The Fox is ordinarily a quiet, slow-moving stream. In drought periods
much of the bed is visible, and it can be easily waded; during the spring
freshets, it becomes a torrent and at times has overflowed its banks. One
of the earliest floods, in March, 1849, washed out the dam and bridge at
Elgin and also damaged or removed bridges and dams at St. Charles, Geneva,
Batavia, Aurora, Montgomery, Bristol, and Ottawa.

The flood of 1857 was very destructive, especially in the lower reaches
of the river. All the bridges from Batavia to Ottawa were washed out, and
several dams upstream gave way. It was responsible for a line in an old
song of Elgin Academy, which had recently opened:

On the banks of the old River Fox, my boys,

The Academy ever more shall stand,

For has she not stood since the time of the flood,

And we hail her the best in the land.

High waters caused some damage in 1872 and 1877, but the worst rampage
came in the spring of 188 1. “The winter of 188081 was the coldest and
longest I have ever witnessed,” wrote C.H. Parlasca at the time. “I had
to clear the roof of my Billiard Hall four times from four to five feet
of snow. The river had over three feet of ice all winter.”

In January heavy snow drifts blocked the Milwaukee tracks between Chicago
and Elgin. A train equipped with two engines and a snow Plow and carrying
more than 300 men with shovels started from Western Avenue on Monday morning
and didn’t reach the Fox River until the following Sunday evening. Beginning
February 27th, a snow storm halted traffic and suspended business for two
days. It snowed again for twenty-four hours a few days later. Rail lines
were completely blocked. Another 8tOrm on March 18th dropped a foot of
snow and some drifts rose to seven feet. Still more snow fell later that
month and, incredibly, six inches fell as late as April 11th and 12th.

The huge accumulations of snow melted quickly in the warm spring rains.
The sudden thaw raised the Fox to flood level and broke the ice into huge
chunks. The river began rising at Algonquin on the sixteenth of April.
By the twentieth the water had overtopped the village dam, and cakes of
ice had knocked out the North Western trestle. Pig sties, outhouses, fences,
and debris whirled southward. At Carpentersville the dam went out as early
as the nineteenth, and by the twenty-first the west side race had broken
in two pieces.

“Dundee, like the other river towns, has been visited by a great flood
… the like of which has never been known to the oldest settler.” reported
the local correspondent to the Advocate. On the eighteenth a span of the
iron bridge which connected East and West Dundee crashed into the turbulent
waters, and the next day the remainder went down with a deafening roar.

The east side, beginning at Main Street in East Dundee, from the railroad
track (now the Fox River Trail) westward as far north as Carpentersville,
was one vast expanse of water. Sections of the track were covered to a
depth of two or more feet, preventing all trains from running. At least
25 houses had to be vacated.

At Elgin, after the force of the current broke the dam, the blocks of
ice began battering the piers of the Chicago Street bridge. A barn, carried
down the stream, slammed into it, bending and twisting the iron work. Two
of the spans fell into the river; but one span, apparently intact, floated
downstream. A crowd of spectators hurried down to National Street, but
the bridge there withstood the crunch of metal and lumber.

The flood took out the supports of the Milwaukee (now Soo Lines) trestle,
and about 80 feet of the track collapsed. The North Western bridge, close
by, was damaged so badly it couldn’t be used.

When the bridge collapsed in the business district, part of the city
was plunged in darkness because the gas main was attached to the bridge.
The industries along the races were inundated on the lower floors, and
from Chicago Street to National Street the water came up to the houses
and flowed across Grove Avenue.

Will there ever be another flood like that of 1881? Predictions are
hazardous, but it is not likely. The river’s banks and flood plains have
been raised by fill over the years. Bridges and buildings have been erected
above the high-water elevation. The dams, improved with brick, stone, and
concrete on rock foundations, no longer give way so easily and act as a
break to the force of the water.

Ice Harvesting

The Fox River was a major source of ice before the advent of mechanical
refrigeration. For a few weeks each winter, when its waters thickened in
the bitter cold, hundreds of men were busy cutting, shipping, and storing
ice for summer use.

Finla McClure, who began harvesting in 1850, was joined over the years
by more than a dozen firms. They were active along both sides of the river
above the dam, where the river was wide and deep. This location also gave
them close access to two rail lines. These advantages gave Elgin a lead
over other communities on the Fox in total tonnage.

A thickness of 16 inches or more was preferred, but cutting often began
when the depth was a foot or less. After snow was removed with scrapers
and teams, the ice was marked out in squares 22 inches by 22 inches and
cut by ice plows to a depth of about eight inches. The squares were then
separated by a wedge like tool which was jabbed into the grooves made by
the plow.

The cakes of ice were pushed along cleared channels by men with picks
to inclined planes leading to the shore. Caught by tongs and hauled up
by horses or steam power, the chunks were loaded on waiting freight cars
or slid down into the ice houses for storage. The lower stories of these
sheds were filled first, and the ice was closely packed to inhibit leaking
during the summer.

Total capacity of the local houses exceeded 120,000 tons, but most of
the ice was cut for immediate shipment to Chicago, where breweries were
among the major customers. Local users in large quantities were the cold
storage warehouse for dairy Products, the Elgin Eagle Brewery, the watch
factory’s National House, and the state hospital. In the warm days of summer,
retail wagons delivered to household ice boxes two or three times a week.

Returns from the ice business were unpredictable and could be maeager
if there were a warm winter or a fast freeze which left dirt and other
impurities close to the surface. There was considerable shrinkage in packing
and shipping. Prices depended upon the supply, and firms awaited the coming
of winter with either hope or dread. Those who had a large quantity of
the previous year’s crop on hand looked for mild weather, while those whose
sheds were empty feared that such would be the case.

By 1908-1909, with the growing contamination of the river by gravel
washers and untreated sewage, only one major cutter was operating. The
Chicago Board of Health had condemned ice taken from the Fox, and harvesting
had shifted to northern lakes.

The Truesdell Bridge

AUrbs Fluminis”, city by the river, has been carried on Elgin’s official
seal since 1859. The Fox River provided power for the early industries
and furnished a water supply. In the winter it was harvested for ice, and
in the summer it was used for boating and fishing.

A river city, however, requires bridges, and their location, cost, and
construction have been frequent subjects of controversy. The city’s first
bridge, a crude wooden span that had to stretch over a river much wider
than it is now, was built at what is now Chicago Street in 1837-38. It
went out in the 1849 flood and had to be rebuilt. This was just the beginning.
Like the London bridge in the nursery rhyme, Elgin’s bridge kept falling
down.

The rambling old bridge, about twice as long as the present structure,
was in poor condition when the voters approved a bond issue in 1866 to
replace it. The contract was given to Lucuis E. Truesdell of Warren, Massachusetts,
for his patented iron bridge.

The new span, completed and accepted on October 31, 1866, cost $13,200.
Its roadway was 18 feet wide and planked with seasoned oak. On the outside
of the adjacent pedestrian walks was a wrought iron railing which, according
to the contract, was “so constructed as to be strong and safe, as well
as appropriate and tasty.”When completed, the contract continued, “the
bridge shall be strong, durable and beautiful, and of suff icient strength
to sustain a weight of one ton to a lineal foot.”

The Truesdell Bridge, for all of its elegant appearance, proved to be
a horrendous civic error. In December, 1868, more than 90 head of cattle,
with a total weight of about 50 to 60 tons, were being driven across the
bridge when it collapsed. No persons were hurt, but butchers had to be
summoned to assist in killing or saving the injured cows.

On the Fourth of July, 1869, a festive crowd jammed the reconstructed
bridge to watch a tub race on the Fox. The east end abutment gave way,
throwing about 150 spectators into the water. Because the river at that
point was not over four feet deep, there was only one fatality, but many
were severely bruised and cut. Others were injured by the falling of horses
and wagons.

“The wildest confusion prevailed for some time,” reported the Chicago
Tribune, “and it required the most strenuous exertions on the part of the
citizens to extricate the sufferers from their perilous position.”

These failures were not confined to Elgin. A Truesdell bridge over the
Rock River was opened at Dixon, Illinois, in 1869. It collapsed on May
4, 1873, causing 46 fatalities.

Understandably some farmers coming from the western townships avoided
crossing at Chicago Street and instead forded the river with their teams.
Circus elephants arriving on west side trains were also wary. The lead
elephant would put one foot on the bridge, then back off and refuse to
move. The rest of the herd followed suit, and they had to be led down to
the river bank and driven through the water to the east side.

The great flood of 1881 forced the dam and once again tore out the Chicago
Street bridge. The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway came to the
rescue, offering to drive the piles for a plain wooden bridge. All the
city had to do was pay about $1,200 for the materials. When completed,
it lacked the graceful arch and delicate railings of the Truesdell, but
it was serviceable and safe. The weekly Advocate, extolling its utilitarian
virtues, called it “homely but nice.”

The strength of the new bridge was tested by the circus Parades crossing
to the performing grounds on the east side of town. The piles supported
lumbering wild animal wagons and hordes of spectators. Not even the fat
lady could break it down.

A Bridge of Sorts

Glaciers that once overlaid the Elgin area left immense deposits of
sand and gravel beneath the soil. The first commercial pits were opened
southeast of the city in the 1890s. Much of the area north of the Milwaukee
Road, now Soo Line, tracks east of Gifford Road and north of West Bartlett
Road was mined originally for railroad construction and some street filling.

One area pit belonging to the A.T. Reed Gravel Company gave the city
a swimming beach and a north end “bridge”. After the turn of the century,
the increased use of concrete in building construction led to the pits
opening in 1909. The mine was north of the city along the west bank of
the river.

A.Y. Reed and his son-in-law, Dr. P.F. Gillette, had a farm, of about
200 acres in the area, with gravel ranging from 20 to 45 feet in depth.
To gain access to a rail line, it was necessary for the North Western to
construct a trestle across the Fox. The eastern end connected with the
main line at the foot of Logan Avenue. This spur to the pit aroused heated
protests from sportsmen who felt it created a dangerous hazard to boating.

Sand dropping from the railroad cars on the trestle washed into the
west bank and formed an artificial sand beach. This became a popular swimming
spot. During the heat wave of 1916, the procession to Reed’s started at
about ten in the morning and bathing continued past midnight. Railroad
cars parked along the siding served as makeshift dressing rooms.

The gravel firm’s busiest days came during the building boom following
World War 1. Night after night, engines pulling 50 to 60 cars left the
pit for Chicago. Output declined after the Depression set in. The last
major activity was the shipment of more than 100,000 tons of black dirt
to reclaim land from Lake Michigan at Lincoln Park in Chicago.

Operations ended in 1933. Tracks were removed from the trestle the following
year. The trestle was torn down in 1937 because, despite signs warning
of the danger, many pedestrians were using it as a kind of northend bridge.
More than 200 pilings had to be pulled up from the river bed.

The property was purchased by Alfred and Nina Bruneman in 1935 for eventual
development as a recreational area. Beginning in 1948, the city of Elgin
]eased the former mine as a dump for ashes, trash, and rubbish. Until 1952,
when Elgin was given exclusive use for five Years, it was also used by
West Dundee and Carpentersville. Unlike the gaping water-filled holes southeast
of the city, the old Reedgravel pit has become a community asset. It is
now a part of the Kane County forest preserve system known as Voyageur’s
Landing.

The Carrie Clark Hole

The Fox River can be treacherous all along its course through Elgin.
The churning waters under the dam are obviously dangerous, but the bend
north of the area impounded by the dam was once the site of numerous drownings.
The area includes a spot known variously as the Carrie Clark Tree or the
Carrie Clark Hole at what is now the Slade Avenue water treatment plant.
Fed by Tyler Creek on the west side and, in an earlier day, large springs
on the east bank, the river at this point is deep. The relatively clear
water, well above the sewer outlets, was one reason the water works were
established there when the city began pumping from the river in 1888. Despite
the cold water, the location also attracted swimmers.

A group of young merrymakers were skating up the river to an oyster
supper in Dundee on the night of January 21, 1869. Carrie Clark, one of
the belles of the town, and her escort, Tom Murphy, were in the lead. A
long spell of cold weather without snow had formed a clean path of ice
about two feet thick except where a big oak tree leaned far out from the
shore. At its roots a spring tumbled into the river and kept the ice thin.
There was a sound of breaking shell ice and a scream in the darkness. The
skating party hastened to the tree and found Murphy struggling in the freezing
water. He and Carrie had fallen into the air hole.

A human chain pulled Murphy to the bank. He was only partly conscious
and one of his hands was clutching part of Carrie’s dress. If she had come
up at all, it was under the ice. Her body was recovered by divers around
midnight. Ironically, Tom Murphy would be one of the seven victims of an
Elgin ferry boat that overturned in the Fox in 1881.

The bend had claimed its toll of lives prior to the Clark disaster.
In 1864 four women and a child were drowned Opposite what is now the D.C.
Cook plant. They had come from the west side in a flat-bottomed boat to
visit a Civil War training camp or, the Lovell farm north of the city.
A partly submerged stump tore a hole in their overcrowded craft.

Among the numerous fatalities near the Carrie Clark Hole were two swimmers
in 1898. Another bather, who went under near the Hole in 1910, left a novel
he had been reading on the shore. He had just finished a chapter that described
a drowning. A canoe battling a stiff wind and choppy waves west of the
Hole capsized in 1919, and three youths were drowned. The Carrie Clark
Tree is long gone, and so is the spring, but the perils of the river remain.





Goff’s Island

Goff’s Island

The swirling waters of the Fox River once formed a one-acre island south
what were then the city limits. The opening of the watch factory near the
east bank and opposite this island led to the construction of the National
Street bridge in 1870. it consisted of two western spans and a 100-foot
section extending from the east bank to the island.

When David Goff and his family first occupied the island in 1873, it
wasn’t much above the level of the river and disappeared ,thigh water.
Goff hauled in hundreds of wagon loads offill, put up a house and stable,
and sunk a well. He planted trees, established a big garden, and raised
chickens and hogs. A boat livery was added later. A son, Herbert, and his
wife also became residents after their marriage in 1881. Harry Goff, David~s
grandson, was born , on the island six years later.

Goffis credited with saving the bridge during the great flood of”81
by cutting trees, securing them with ropes, and letting the branches lap
around the stone piers to keep away the huge chunks of ice.

The Goffs were squatters on the property of the U.S. government, which
owned islands arising in navigable streams. When the island was advertised
for sale to the highest bidder, the Elgin National Watch Company purchased
it in 1888. The reason was probably related to the smell of the island’s
hogs. The company made a generous payment to the Goffs for their improvements.

Herbert Goff bought two acres of land along the west bank of the river
at what is now the foot of Oak Street. The boathouses and small farm structures
were pushed and dragged over on the ice during the winter. The house was
to have been moved the same way, since the bridge was too narrow, but there
was a delay.

With the approaching spring of 1889, it was decided to float the partially
dismantled house over on three flatboats. Ropes and Pulleys attached to
trees on the western shore were to guide and haul the rafts. When the rafts
drew near a fire alarm wire stretched across the Fox, they were to brought
to a quick stop. This dislodged one of the supporting boats. The house
slid into the middle of the river, water lapping at a door, and the rafts
Bank. ‘There is probably no dwelling house in Elgin that feels so much
out of place, and so completely embarrassed by the gaze of Passers-by,”
reported the Daily News.

Observers of this phenomenon-and they came from all over town-were free
with suggestions as well as wry commentary. The solution adopted was to
use the pulleys to drag the house back to the island. The boats were raised,
and the house reloaded On them. This time buoys were attached, and the
opposite bank ‘*as reached at last.

Harry Goff, the only child born on the island, grew up in the house
at the Oak Street site. He was Elgin’s leading bookmaker when he left town
in 1915. The house became part of the American Tower and Tank Company’s
plant. And what became of the island? The channel between its shore line
and the east bank was filled in when a new National Street bridge was constructed
in 1901.

Steamers and the Pearl
Rush

Among the now-forgotten pleasures once provided by the Fox were steamboat
excursions and clam digging. One of the first of the river steamers in
this vicinity was W. S. Clute’s Mayflower, which made its first trip from
the Elgin dam north to Dundee. Running against the current, it reached
its destination in 40 minutes. The Mayflower carried groups to and from
circuses, picnics, and other outings.

The only steamer known to have hauled freight was the Sarah Jane, built
by Henry McBride. It was designed to carry stone up to Elgin from quarries
in South Elgin, and a lock had to be constructed to enable the boat to
pass the dam at that place. This craft ended up on the Grove Avenue horse
car line during a flood in 1887. Unsuccessful as a barge, it was converted
to a passenger carrier and renamed the Dauntless.

On July 4, 1888, Captain McBride’s Dauntless made hourly trips down
river from its dock at the end of Lake Street to the picnic grounds at
Gypsy Landing. At the same time the Britomart, later known as The City
of Elgin, was running north from the Elgin dam carrying pleasure parties
to Trout Park. One of the last of the old steamers was the Thelma, launched
by William Geister and Shirley Harris in 1907. It transported passengers
to and from the picnic grounds at Trout Park.

It wasn’t exactly a gold rush, and there were no roaring saloons or
claim-jumping wars, but visions of sudden wealth once led scores of pearl
hunters to the Fox River. For a few years beginning about 1908, large numbers
of freshwater pearls could be found in clam shells from Carpentersville
south to the Five Island shallows.

Elgin had pearl fever. Clam diggers wandered the river banks and jewelers
were kept busy appraising the finds. Professional pearl buyers made regular
visits to the city. At. the peak of the big pearl rush in 1911, they were
said to be paying $100 to $150 for exceptional specimens, but $25 was probably
more typical. (A day’s wages in local factories at that time averaged about
$2.)

The boom was given impetus by the discovery of a shell below the Chicago
Street Bridge in which there were 342 small pearls. All were pure white
in color and averaged three-eighths of a carat in size. The clam diggers
would wait until the river was low in the hot summer months, then wade
in until their feet touched a clam. They would then reach down for their
prize and toss it in a sack. When they had a bag full, they headed for
shore and opened the shells. They usually found odd shaped slugs, if anything.
Some shells were sold to a button factory.

Although one Elgin digger claimed to have been offered $1,200 by a Chicago
jewelry firm for a large find he picked up in the Fox River, reports of
the pearl bonanza were probably exaggerated. Freshwater pearls are not
as lustrous as saltwater pearls obtained from oysters. Often irregularly
shaped, they were less in demand than smooth, round pearls. While no local
diggers became wealthy, the big losers were obviously the clams. When they
became scarce, Elgin’s pearl boom ended. Today those who seek to get rich
quick buy lottery tickets.

Using the River

The Fox has served other purposes than power, a water Supply, a source
of ice, and an outlet for the city’s sewers. It was a place for farmers
to wash their flocks of sheep. A favorite spot for this was at the foot
of Prairie Street. Farmers often forded their wagons across the river to
water their horses and to allow the wooden wheels to swell and tighten
on the iron rims.

The river furthered religion. A series of revival meetings at the Baptist
Church in the winter of 1858 resulted in a goodly number Of converts. After
an evening service the candidates were taken to the ice-laden waters for
a dipping by Pastor A. J. Joslyn and then hurried homeward by sleigh.

Boat houses once lined the west bank north of the Kimball Street bridge.
They were occupied by male social clubs and were notorious for card game
gambling, drunken parties, and, yes, debauchery. Beginning in the ’90s
summer cottages were erected along the shore, and campers pitched their
tents. The CMP rites were above and below Elgin, but most were located
in Trout Park on both sides of the river. They were given names like Camp
Chestnut, Camp Coney Island, and Camp Hickory. At night the occupants built
bonfires, sang songs, and told stories; during the day they fished. There
was a thriving business ir, renting row boats.

In cold winters, when the ice was thick, the frozen river became a path
for sleighs and a rink for skaters. In hot, dry summers, when the water
was low and the current nearly imperceptible, boys had fun jumping across
from one mud flat to another. This was an amusement seldom appreciated
by their mothers.

Boating and fishing have been popular forms of recreation along the
Fox since pioneer days, and the river has been a source of some big fish,
or at least big fish stories. In 1877 local anglers pulled out pickerel
weighing 14 and 20 pounds. Hans Rovelstad in 1889 caught a 12-pound bass,
and in the same year Joel Hulmes landed a pike at the pumping station that
scaled between 10 and 11 pounds. In 1906 a man fishing with a worm hooked
a five-pound pike. Upon looking at his catch, he discovered a minnow had
taken his worm and the pike had swallowed the minnow. Don Deak, Jr., caught
a 27-pound catfish below the dam on June 3, 1985. It was 40-1/2 inches
in length, and he used live bait on a 25-pound test line. Top that.

Horsing Around

Horses were everywhere in nineteenth century Elgin. Early in the morning they could be seen hauling milk from neighboring farms to the Borden condenser and the butter factory. They drew the wagons that carried freight from the railroad stations to the stores and shops and made household deliveries. They pulled the buses that transported watch workers to and from the big plant on National Street and powered the street cars that began running in 1878.

Many residents were employed in businesses that served horse owners and their customers. The 1892 city directory listed livery, sale and boarding stables; teamsters and expressmen; three trainers; seven harness shops; eight carriage and wagon makers; five shoers; and one breeder, as well as several feed suppliers.
One of the biggest harness shops was established in 1872 by Henry Muntz. At the turn of the century, his Elgin Saddlery and Harness Company had developed into a major wholesaler and employed over a score of men in a two-story factory he had built in 1889 on Brook Street.

The Elgin Horse Protective Society was chartered in 1876 for “the Prosecution and punishment of horse thieves.” Thefts were reported to the captain of the Society’s police patrol. A posse of members gave chase, and if unsuccessful, letters were sent to Police departments in the surrounding cities, and private detectives were hired to trace the stolen horses.

The most widely admired horses were those seen going to fires or rounding the turns at the track. It took about three or four months for afire horse to be thoroughly trained and to know the difference between the daily practice and a real alarm. A fast fire company could slide down the pole from the sleeping rooms to the main floor, hitch up the team, and have the front wheels Outside the door of the barn in less than 22 seconds after the alarm sounded. Then the spirited horses dashed off, the clanging gong clearing the way. In 1892, when the companies operated out of the central station on North Spring Street, near East Chicago, a fire broke out at Laurel and Liberty. The teams and drivers arrived in three and one-half minutes and were at work in less that four minutes.

One of the best known fire horses was Nig, who served for 16 years. He became a favorite of the marshals, pulling their carriages to all the alarms. “He was a natural-born fire horse,~ commented one of the fire fighters when Nig was retired in 1910. “Not all are fire horses. Like the genius, the fire horse is born not developed. The task of picking out a good fire horse is a science, as not one horse out of every hundred, no matter how good or what its appearance, will make a good servant in our department.”

The horse cars were replaced by electric street cars in 1890, and on June 10, 1899, the Daily News reported an event that signaled a new era. “A four wheeled motorcycle, run by a gasoline engine” arrived from Evanston en route to Rockford. “The outfit created much comment as it sped along, accompanied by a bevy of cyclists. Horse teams that were met scarcely knew what manner of thing it was, drawn by an invisible horse and they plunged about more or less.”

The first locally owned automobile made its appearance on October 18, 1900. By July, 1905, there were 60 motor vehicles registered in Elgin; at the end of 1915, the year the city purchased its first patrol car, there were more than 900. A Packard truck moved into Fire Station No. 1 early in 1916, and the last livery closed in 1918. In less than 20 years, the once familiar horse had ceased to be a local transportation necessity.

Cow Town

Elgin was once a “cow town”, although not as uproarious as Abilene and Dodge City, Kansas, where steers driven up from Texas were shipped by rail to Chicago. Our cattle were most1Y dairy cows which supplied milk for the Borden condenser and butter factories in the surrounding areas. Elgin milk was first shipped to Chicago in 1852, four years before the arrival of Texas cattle in that city’s packing plants.

Cows were not confined to the rural vicinity. In the 1850s and 1860s, cattle were fed on distillery mash in pens along the West bank of the Fox River above the dam. S. S. Mann’s farms were near Burlington and Hampshire, but be kept a herd of holsteins in a huge barn in back of a home on Division Street. Butchers once slaughtered cattle in the open air on the edge of the Woods along the road to St. Charles near Poplar Creek. The carcasses were drawn up and suspended from tree limbs for skinning and dressing.

Dairymen’s cattle were herded to and from the Elgin rail stations, and the drovers may have refreshed themselves at the city=s saloons. The stench coming from the holding yards at the west side of North Western on at least one occasion aroused a protest to the City Council.

When the Democrats organized a torchlight parade in the presidential election of 1864, Martin Needham’s wandering cow joined in the procession, much to the amusement of Republican onlookers.
“Seeing cattle so frequently perambulating the streets unmolested causes us to inquire why the city ordinance respecting such freedom isn’t enforced,” commented an Elgin newspaper in 1878. “Several cows strayed into the academy yard this morning.”

Residents on Chicago Street complained in 1885 about, “wild cowboys who insist upon driving cattle over sidewalks, yards and gardens. Then they drive their horses after and play tag with the frolicsome bovines on the lawns.”

When the city fathers impounded strays belonging to Delia Loomis, she bitterly protested, but it wasn’t just one or two wanderers. The poundmaster had rounded up 17 of her animals, including a bull, cows, calves, and yearling heifers.

Cattle breeding became a flourishing local business with the introduction of Holsteins from the Netherlands. Samuel N. Wright, James Hoag, and Dr. Joseph Tefft purchased the first registered Holstein bull in Kane County, Van Spekye 3rd, in 1874, Wright became an authority on Holsteins, serving as an inspector Of imported animals and a judge at state fairs. He was the owner of the famed Bracelet 1567. Tefft’s first registered cow, Z11aan, was a local wonder. When she was ten years old, they weighed her output daily for 293 days in which she was credited with 12,610 Pounds, four ounces of milk.

By 1882, there were 875 head of black and whites in the %n-Dundee vicinity, and two years later, under the leadership of Tefft and Wright, the Illinois Holstein Breeders Association was formed in Elgin. George E. Brown, who was to develop On, of the nation’s largest operations, moved to Elgin ‘In 1875 Another prominent local breeder was Dr. W. A. Pratt, whose farm was just north of the city. Pratt’s Lady Beechwood 3rd gave 1,542 pounds of milk in 30 days in the winter of 1889-90.

Cows were responsible for major property damage in December, 1868. The bridge at Chicago Street, then the only one in the city, had about eight inches of snow on the surface when more than 90head of cattle crossed the span. They weighed from 1,000 to 1,200 pounds each, and part of the bridge collapsed under the load.

As late as 1902, according to the Daily News, the west side “was startled by a long-horned steer that broke out of its barn at No. 66 South Jackson and galloped around the neighborhood for two hours, bellowing and cutting the air with sweeps of its borns.” Just like Texas.

Some Lions and an Elephant

Humans have shared the Elgin space with other animals, In days gone by these included Tom and Prince, the big gentle horses who pulled the fire apparatus out of Station Number 4; the deer who crashed into the window of a downtown shoe store; and the two-headed calf who was stuffed and became a popular attraction in the museum at Lords Park. There were also some lions and an elephant.

In October, 1937, a police patrolman walking his downtown beat along Douglas Avenue was startled by a deafening roar that came from the basement of the Triangle Garage. Shining his flashlight through a window, be discovered three full-grown African lions in heavily barred cages. The lions-Tarzan, Lucky, and Greta-belonged to an animal trainer, Lorraine Wallace, who employed two men to care for them between performances at indoor circuses. Although officials were concerned, the city attorney could find no ordinance prohibiting their residence, and they were allowed to stay through the winter.


King playing in the back yard of 1047 Morton Avenue

Then there was King, who was purchased when just a cub by C.T. Anderson and shared his home at 1047 Morton Avenue. During his sojourn in Elgin, King devoured eleven cans of dog foodand threegallons ofmilk daily. He slept in the basement and exercised in the back yard. King never bit anyone, although he frequently bowled over those who were bold enough to play with him, His claws were an inch long. When neighbors became apprehensive he was donated to Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo in 1952. Marlin Perkins, who was then the zoo’s director, renamed hiln Samson and placed him in a cage next to a lioness named Delilah, Anderson, who also owned a boa constrictor, replaced h’a Pet with an ocelot.

Another lion club arrived at the Lords Park zoo in 1964, the gift of the Franzen family of Libertyville who had used him in their magic act. He was then a year old and weighed about 190 pounds. In a city-wide contest for school children he was named Lord Spark. He became the zoo’s featured attraction. Because of inadequate facilities and the lack of sufficient safeguards for both the public and Spark, he was donated to Brookfield Zoo it, 1968. There he distinguished himself by siring 19 cubs.

Cora arrived in Elgin one night back in 1942 and soon had dozens of men chasing her. She was a hefty 5,200-pound, 17year-old elephant with the Wallace Brothers Circus. About 11 p.m., when the circus was unloading along McLean Boulevard for the next day’s shows, she was frightened by a bellowing cow. Cora broke away in panic and for three hours trampled over two square miles of the west side.

From McLean west to State Street and from south of Grant School to north of Orange Street, Cora ruined gardens and lawns, broke fences and flattened bushes and hedges. The frightened pachyderm ran through obstructions rather than around them. She sprinted through the open door of one garage and continued right on out the rear wall. An astounded motorist, turning into his driveway on South Melrose, spotted her on his sidewalk and gave the alarm. Two police squad cars joined circus employees in pursuit. Finally tiring of her escapade, Cora was cornered and captured at Hawkins and Harvey Streets. Word spread quickly, and the next day Cora was the star exhibit at both the matinee and evening performances of the circus.