Victoria Station Restaurants in Illinois.

Victoria Station was a chain of railroad-themed steakhouse restaurants. At the peak of its popularity in the 1970s, the chain had 100 locations in the U.S. and Canada.

The concept evolved from a Cornell University Hotel School graduate project, according to original owners Bob Freeman, Peter Lee, and Dick Bradley, graduates of the school.

The first restaurant was located in San Francisco. The chain was designed to attract members of the baby boom generation. The theme of the restaurant was loosely based on London's Victoria Station.

Antique English railway artifacts were used as decor inside, and the exteriors were composed of American Railway cars, primarily boxcars, with a signature Caboose in front. A London-style phone booth was on the "entry platform" for each restaurant.

Prime rib was the featured item on a limited menu that included steaks, barbecued beef ribs, and shrimp done in a variation of scampi style known as "Shrimp Victoria."

Most Victoria Station restaurants used authentic railway cars for dining areas, often boxcars or cabooses. The Victoria Station chain flourished in the 1970s, according to a memoir by former Victoria Station corporate marketing manager Tom Blake.

The peak of success of the Victoria Station restaurant chain took place at the time of the culmination of a joint venture with Universal Studios, which resulted in the opening of Victoria Station Universal City, a location on the "hill" near where Citywalk now stands. At its peak, the Universal City location of Victoria Station was among the highest-grossing restaurants in the U.S. The U.S. operations of the Victoria Station chain began running into financial difficulties in the mid-1980s, causing gradual shut-downs of the franchise restaurants.

They filed for bankruptcy in 1986. The one Victoria Station restaurant in Salem, Massachusetts, was shut down on December 6, 2017.

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INDEX TO MY ILLINOIS AND CHICAGO FOOD & RESTAURANT ARTICLES.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Chicago map of settlement patterns in 1950.

Looking over the map which shows where different ethnic groups settled in Chicago, some of the elements of this map caught my eye as they seem a little off.

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Let's start with the year at the bottom right-hand corner of the map: 1976. Also, the mayor listed on the map is Richard J. Daley, who was mayor in 1976 but wasn't mayor in 1950; Daley didn't take office until 1955.

Notice how its boundaries of O'Hare International Airport in the upper left of the map aren't bordered? That's because O'Hare wasn't annexed into Chicago's city limits until 1956. And the use of the term "black" to describe African-American settlements wasn't common in 1950—the standard nomenclature at that time was "negro."

This map was printed by the City of Chicago Department of Development and Planning to highlight Chicago's place in American history during the nation's bicentennial celebrations of the American Revolution. So Mayor Daley ordered the map reprinted to show Chicago's growth into a "world-class city." 

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.

An Indian village was discovered in 1993 buried under the Sanctuary Golf Course in New Lenox, Illinois.

Indians lived in the area as early as 10,000 years ago. Over time, the cultures changed from Early Archaic (9000 to 6000 BC.) to the Mississippian Period (1000 to 1600 AD.) The native populations lived along Hickory Creek in longhouses constructed of tree limbs and wattle. Tallgrass prairies and clusters of hickory, birch, oak, and maple trees were left relatively undisturbed by these tribes despite the evidence that they hunted, trapped, and fished and planted small amounts of corn and used indigenous clay to make pots and reeds to make baskets.

The settlers who arrived in the 1830s found friendly natives of the Potawatomi tribe. Their Chief Shabbona often visited Gougar Crossing, preferring to sleep on the floor while his wife slept in the bed. At Gougar Crossing, an Indian burial site was marked by the traditional pole with a white feather attached. After the Black Hawk War in 1832, the Indians from the area were forced to move to the west of the Mississippi River.

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The word "Mississippi" comes from the Ojibwe Indian Tribe (Algonquian language family) word "Messipi" or "misi-ziibi," which means "Great River" or "Gathering of Waters." French explorers, hearing the Ojibwe word for the river, recorded it in their own language with a similar pronunciation. The Potawatomi (Algonquian language family) pronounced "Mississippi" as the French said it, "Sinnissippi," which was given the meaning "Rocky Waters."

The discovery of three Indian skeletons during an archaeological dig in New Lenox, Illinois, in 1993 gave birth to the Midwest SOARRING (Save Our Ancestors' Remains and Resources Indigenous Network Group) Foundation.

For the past 26 years, its mission has not only been the repatriation of native remains, but the protection of "sacred" sites and public education of their culture and issues, said president Joseph Standing Bear Schranz.

Joseph Standing Bear Schranz

The human remains and artifacts were carbon-dated from the Late Woodland (400-1000 AD.), the Mississippian (1000-1600 AD.), and the Proto-Historic (1600-1673 AD.) periods. The bodies, believed to be that of a 50 to 70-year-old woman, an 18 to 22-year-old woman, and a five-year-old child, from the 1600s, were found during a required dig before the construction of the Sanctuary Golf Course, owned by the New Lenox Community Park District Course at 485 North Marley Road. Buried with them were a black bear skull and the antlers of four deer.

For a year after the bodies were found, Midwest SOARRING conducted an honor guard at the site and ensured the bodies were repatriated by the Miami tribe in Oklahoma. Archaeologists believed there may have been more bodies, but Schranz considered this a sacred site and wanted the bodies left undisturbed so they could continue their journey.

The Sanctuary Golf Course archaeological dig sites.

As researchers tested and excavated 20% of the 235 acres at the golf course, they also uncovered three complete structures: a 46 by 18-foot "longhouse," a 16 by 23-foot house, and a large enclosure measuring 78 by 56 feet that sits beneath the parking lot could have been a ceremonial center. According to historical documentation, researchers also unearthed several incomplete structures, an extensive array of hearths, storage, trash pits, and post holes.

A visual aid: Longhouse

The pits and hearths contained hundreds of European traded goods, such as pieces of a brass kettle, brass ornaments, an iron tomahawk, and glass beads, as well as pieces of stone, ceramic, and bone artifacts, tools, plant, and animal remains.

The structures have been covered up and reburied, while the artifacts are stored at the Illinois State Museum in Springfield, Illinois.

The Native American Cultural Center is at 133 West 13th Street and State Street, downtown Lockport, Illinois. It is located in the old historic train station. Schranz said he would like to make room at the cultural center to display these artifacts if the state museum would allow that. "It all belongs to the people of Will County," he said.

The Lockport Station was originally built in 1863 by the Chicago and Alton Railroad. The tracks run parallel to the Illinois and Michigan Canal and shares the right-of-way with Amtrak's Lincoln Service and Texas Eagle trains. Today, Metra goes by the station but doesn't stop here.

It is believed that more graves, structures, and artifacts remain intact below the ground, all evidence that several Indian tribes inhabited this land along Hickory Creek from 400 to about 1700 AD.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.