Taking a horseless carriage for a spin on Michigan Avenue at 9th street, passing the General John Logan Memorial in Grant Park, Chicago, 1900.

Taking a horseless carriage for a spin on Michigan Avenue at 9th street, Chicago, 1900.

The Logan Memorial was sculpted by Augustus Saint-Gaudens (of 1893 World's Columbian Exposition fame) and Alexander Phimister Proctor and architect Stanford White, created during 1894–1897 and dedicated on July 22, 1897. 

General Logan Statue

Logan served in the Mexican–American War and was a general in the Union Army in the Civil War. He served the state of Illinois as a State Senator, a Congressman, and as a U.S. Senator.

Logan was an unsuccessful candidate for Vice President of the United States with James G. Blaine in the election of 1884.

General John Logan

As the 3rd Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, he is regarded as the most important figure in the movement to recognize Memorial Day (originally known as Decoration Day) as an official holiday.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

The History of the Union Stock Yards and Transit Company, Chicago (1865-1971).

The Stock Yard Entrance Gate

THE UNION STOCKYARDS SUMMARY
The Union Stock Yard & Transit Co., or "The Yards," was the meatpacking district in Chicago for more than a century, starting in 1865. The district was operated by railroad companies that acquired swampland and turned it into a centralized processing area. By the 1890s, the railroad money behind the Union Stockyards was Vanderbilt's money. The Union Stockyards operated in the New City community area for 106 years, helping Chicago become known as "hog butcher to the world," coined by poet Carl Sandburg, and the center of the American meatpacking industry for decades.

It was called "Union" because seven separate stockyards contributed the $1.5 million it took to build enough pens to house 100,000 hogs and 10,000 heads of cattle. Priding itself as an "open, free, public market," the Stock Yards housed more than 1 billion animals in the 105 years it operated. This was significant because, in its early years, the Stock Yards were merely a way station for cattle intended to be marketed as fresh meat. After being sold in Chicago, live cattle shipped by rail in boxcars to New York, Boston, and other eastern cities. (They were shipped live because meat, once killed and dressed, spoiled easily.)

The stockyards became the focal point of the rise of some of the earliest international companies. These companies refined novel industrial innovations and influenced financial markets. Both the rise and fall of the district owe their fortunes to the evolution of transportation services and technology in America. The stockyards have become an integral part of the popular culture of Chicago's history.

From the end of the Civil War in 1865 until the end of the 1920s, peaking in 1924, more meat was processed in Chicago than elsewhere. Construction began in June 1865, with an opening on Christmas Day in 1865. The Yards closed at midnight on Friday, July 30, 1971, after several decades of decline during the decentralization of the meatpacking industry.

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In 1906, Upton Sinclair published "The Jungle" (PDF), which uncovered the horrid conditions in the stockyards around the beginning of the 20th century.

THE BEGINNING
Before the various private stockyards were constructed, tavern owners provided pastures and care for cattle herds waiting to be sold. With the spreading service of railroads, several small stockyards were created in and around the City of Chicago. In 1848, a stockyard called the Bulls Head Market was opened to the public. The Bulls Head Stock Yards were located at Madison Street and Ogden Avenue and opened in 1848.

Several small stockyards were scattered throughout the City in the years that followed. Between 1852 and 1865, five railroads were constructed in Chicago. The stockyards that sprang up were usually built along various rail lines of these new railroad companies. Some railroads built their own stockyards in Chicago. The Illinois Central and the Michigan Central railroads combined to build the largest set of pens on the lakeshore east of Cottage Grove Avenue from 29th Street to 35th Street. In 1878, the New York Central Railroad managed to buy a controlling interest in the Michigan Central Railroad. In this way, Cornelius Vanderbilt, owner of the New York Central Railroad, got his start in the stockyard business in Chicago.

Original Plan of the Stockyards.

Several factors contributed to the consolidation of the Chicago stockyards: the westward expansion of railroads between 1850 and 1870, which drove incredible commercial growth in Chicago as a major railroad center, and the Mississippi River blockade during the Civil War that closed all north-south river trade. The United States government purchased much beef and pork to feed the Union troops fighting the Civil War. As a consequence, hog receipts at the Chicago stockyards rose from 392,000 hogs in 1860 to 1,410,000 hogs over the winter butchering season of 1864-1865; over the same period, beef receipts in Chicago rose from 117,000 head to 339,000 head.

With an influx of butchers and small meat packing concerns, many businesses significantly increased to process the livestock shipped to the Chicago stockyards. The goal was to butcher and process the livestock locally rather than transferring it to other northern cities for butchering and processing. Keeping up with the vast number of animals arriving each day proved impossible until a new wave of consolidation and modernization altered the meatpacking business in the post-Civil War era.

Union Stock Yards Illustration, by Louis Kurz. September 1866

The Union Stock Yards, designed to consolidate operations, was built in 1864 on swampland south of the City. It was south and west of the earlier stockyards in an area bounded by Halsted Street on the east, South Racine Avenue on the west, with 39th Street as the northern boundary and 47th Street as the southern boundary. Led by the Alton, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad and the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, a consortium of nine railroad companies (hence the "Union" name) acquired the 320-acre swampland area in southwest Chicago for $100,000 in 1864. The stockyards were connected to the City's main rail lines by 15 miles of track. In 1864, the Union Stock Yards were located just outside the southern boundary of the City of Chicago. Within five years, the area was incorporated into the City.

The Union Stock Yards in Chicago, 1878.

Eventually, the 375-acre site had 2300 separate livestock pens, room to accommodate 75,000 hogs, 21,000 cattle, and 22,000 sheep at any time. Additionally, hotels, saloons, restaurants, and offices for merchants and brokers sprang up in the growing community around the stockyards. Led by Timothy Blackstone, a founder and the first President of the Union Stock Yards and Transit Company, "The Yards" experienced tremendous growth. Processing two million animals yearly by 1870. In two decades, the number rose to nine million by 1890. Between 1865 and 1900, approximately 400 million livestock were butchered within the confines of the Yards.

By the start of the 20th century, the stockyards employed 25,000 people and produced 82 percent of the domestic meat consumed nationally. In 1921, the stockyards employed 40,000 people. Two thousand men worked directly for the Union Stock Yard & Transit Co.; the rest worked for companies such as meatpackers, which had plant plants in the stockyards. By 1900, the 475-acre stockyard contained 50 miles of road and 130 miles of track along its perimeter. The Yards covered nearly 1 square mile of land, at its largest area, from Halsted Street to Ashland Avenue and from 39th (now Pershing Rd.) to 47th Streets.

At one time, 500,000 US gallons a day of Chicago River water were pumped into the stockyards. So much stockyard waste drained into the South Fork of the river that it was called Bubbly Creek due to the gaseous products of decomposition. The creek bubbles to this day. When the City permanently reversed the flow of the Chicago River in 1900, the intent was to prevent the Stock Yards' waste products, along with other sewage, from flowing into Lake Michigan and contaminating the City's drinking water.

The meatpacking district was served between 1908 and 1957 by a short Chicago 'L' line, with several stops devoted primarily to the daily transport of thousands of workers and even tourists to the site. The line was constructed when the City of Chicago forced the removal of surface trackage on 40th Street.

Evolving transportation and distribution methods led to declining business and the closing of the Union Stock Yards in 1971. National Wrecking Company negotiated a contract whereby National Wrecking cleared a 102-acre site and removed some 50 acres of animal pens, auxiliary buildings, and the eight-story Exchange Building. It took approximately eight months to complete the job and prepare the site for building an industrial park.

EFFECT ON THE INDUSTRY
The area and scale of the stockyards, along with technological advancements in rail transport and refrigeration, allowed for the creation of some of America's first truly global companies led by entrepreneurs such as Gustavus Franklin Swift and Philip Danforth Armour. 

Philip Armour was the first to build a modern large-scale meatpacking plant in Chicago in 1867. The Armour plant was built at 45th Street and Elizabeth Avenue immediately west of the Union Stockyards. This new plant employed the modern "assembly line" (or rather disassembly line) work method. The mechanized process with its killing wheel and conveyors helped inspire the automobile assembly line Henry Ford popularized in 1913. For a time, the Armour plant, located on a 12-acre site, was renowned as the largest factory in the world.

But Gustavus Swift went further. Arriving in Chicago from New England in 1875, he saw the inefficiency and extra cost of shipping cattle on the hoof and set out to change the practice. He was opposed by railroad executives because whole animals filled many more boxcars than dressed meat and brought enormous revenue to the railroads. Swift convinced one railroad to cooperate with him, and the first dressed, unpreserved beef was sent by train from Chicago to Boston in 1877. However, shipments were made only in winter until Swift introduced the refrigerated boxcar in 1881. Eventually, the company owned 6,000 of them.

Leading the World – Pork and Beef Packing in Chicago, Showing the Great Process of Curing the Great Staple for the Markets of the World.

① Coopering Department, ② Bird's Eye View of the Great Packing Houses of Messrs. Armour & Co. located at the Union Stockyards, ③ The Lard Tanks, ④ Cooling Room for Hams, ⑤ Hanging Room for Beeves, ⑥ Interior of Ham House, ⑦ General View of Cellar and Bulking Rooms, ⑧ Hog Cutting, ⑨ Hanging Room for Hogs, ⑩ Beef Cutting By Steam Power, ⑪ Exterior View of Smoke Houses. 1873

In addition, hedging transactions by stockyard companies was pivotal in establishing and growing Chicago-based commodity exchanges and future markets. Selling in the futures market gives the seller a guaranteed price for a future date. This was extremely helpful to those sellers who expected their cattle or hogs to come to market with a glut of other cattle or hogs when prices might be substantially lower than the guaranteed futures price.

Following the arrival of Armour in 1867, the Swift company built another modern large-scale meatpacking plant at 42nd Street and South Justine Street. The Morris Company built a meatpacking plant at 42nd Street and Elizabeth Street. The Hammond Company and the Wilson Company also built a meatpacking plant west of the Chicago stockyards. Eventually, meatpacking byproduct manufacturing of leather, soap, fertilizer, glue (such as the large glue factory located at 44th Street and Loomis Street), pharmaceuticals, imitation ivory, gelatin, shoe polish, buttons, perfume, and violin strings prospered in the neighborhood. Additionally, there was a "Hair Factory," located at 44th Street and Ashland Avenue, which processed hair from butchered animals into saleable items.

Next to the Union Stock Yards, the International Amphitheatre building was built on the west side of Halsted Street at 42nd Street in the 1930s, initially to hold the annual International Live Stock Exposition, which began in 1900. It became a venue for many national conventions.

Before and after the Great Fire of 1871, cattle ranchers, pig farmers, and cowboys from nearby states and as far away as Montana and Texas, some wearing "buffalo coats" or "bearskins," mingled with members of the Livestock Traders Exchange, the traders who bought and sold animals daily, thus establishing prices. By the turn of the 20th century, the meatpacking industry in Chicago produced 82% of all the meat eaten in the United States. 

ABOUT PACKINGTOWN
Packingtown was the residential portion of the Union Stock Yards, just to its west. Packingtown had a baseball league. According to the Trib's scorecard, on opening day 1918, the Wilsons beat the Soap Works, 14-8.

A typical Packingtown residential street is under construction.

Packingtown had its own police chief and department and an elevated "L" train loop. A branch of the South Side elevated servicing the yards had stops named Swift and Armour, after major packers.

Packingtown had its natural disasters — like the 1910 fire that took the lives of 24 firefighters, including the department's chief, and the 1934 fire that raged across much of the yards and the surrounding area. It had its own unnatural wonder, Bubbly Creek, a stub of the Chicago River where the slaughterhouses dumped animal entrails and internal organs. But Packingtown also had an upscale restaurant, the Stockyards Inn, where steaks were branded with patrons' initials. Its International Amphitheater hosted an annual livestock exhibition and national political conventions.

THE 1910 FIRE
Read about the December 22, 1910, Chicago Union Stockyard Fire, which destroyed $400,000 of property and killed twenty-one firemen, including Fire Marshal James J. Horan. 

THE 1934 FIRE

An aerial photograph shows fire moving eastward across the northern portion of Union Stockyards. The view is northeastward, with the World's Fairgrounds and the lake in the upper left corner.

A more significant fire on Saturday, May 19, 1934, burned almost 90% of the stockyards, including the exchange building, stockyard inn, and the International Livestock Exposition building. This larger fire was seen as far away as Indiana and caused approximately $6 million in damages. While only one watchman was killed, a few cattle also perished, but the yards were in business the following Sunday evening.

The 1934 Stockyards Fire - The shading indicates the district was swept by flames.

Numbers show principal buildings. ① Office building. ② Saddle and Sirloin Club. ③ The Stockyards Inn. ④ Drovers' National Bank. ⑤ International amphitheater. ⑥ Another International Live Stock show building. ⑦ Horse auction barns. ⑧ Transportation Agencies building. ⑨ Illinois Humane Society building. ⑩ the United States Department of Agriculture building. ⑪ Exchange building and radio station WAAF. ⑫ Buying offices of Armour & Co. ⑬ Old Exchange building. ⑭ Stores and offices. ⑮ The Drovers' Journal. ⑯ Live Stock National Bank. ⑰ Warehouses. ⑱ Stock pens.

THE UNIONS AND THE WORKERS
Following the new Union Stockyards opening on December 25, 1865, a community of workers began living in the area just west of the packing plants between Ashland Avenue and South Robey Street. It is bounded on the north by 43rd Street and on the south by 47th Street. At first, the residents were overwhelmingly Irish and German—60% Irish and 30% German. 

The overwhelming sensation about the neighborhood was the smell of the community caused not just by the packing plants located immediately to the east but also by the 345-acre Chicago Union Stock Yards containing 2,300 pens of livestock, located further east from the packing plants.

During the Great Depression, although volume had begun to ebb as packers moved west to be closer to their sources, the Stock Yards employed 55,000 people and were responsible for one-sixth of the hourly wages in Chicago.

BACK OF THE YARDS COMMUNITY
Officially designated the "Town of Lake" until its annexation into the City of Chicago in about 1870, the neighborhood was known locally as "Packingtown." It was the first pioneers, S.S. Crocker and John Caffrey, to the area that first called it "Town of Lake." Indeed, Crocker earned the nickname "Father of the Town of Lake." By February 1865, the area was incorporated officially as the "Town of Lake," but the area still consisted of fewer than 700 persons. In the early 1860s, the meatpacking industry of the United States was still located in Cincinnati, Ohio, the original "Porkopolis" of the pre-Civil War era. However, with the end of the American Civil War, the meatpacking industry started to move westward along with the westward migration of the population of the United States. For the meatpacking industry, moving west meant coming to Chicago. As early as 1827, Archibald Clybourn had established himself as a butcher in a log slaughterhouse on the north branch of the Chicago River and supplied most to the garrison of Fort Dearborn. 

Other small butchers came later. In 1848, the Bull's Head Stockyard began operations at Madison Street and Ogden Avenue on the West Side of Chicago. However, operations for this early stockyard still meant holding and feeding cattle and hogs in transit to meatpacking plants further east—Indianapolis and Cincinnati.

Settlement in the area that was to become known as the "Back of the Yards" began in the 1850s before there were any meat packers or stockyards in the area. At this time, the area was known as the "Town of Lake." Indeed, the area would continue to be called the Town of Lake until 1939. Witness that the area newspaper was called the Town of Lake Journal. Only with the founding of the community organization called the "Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council" in 1939 did the neighborhood west and south of the meat packinghouses start being called the "Back of the Yards." It was a name that the residents proudly claimed as their own. In 1939, the Town of Lake Journal officially changed its name to Back of the Yards Journal.

THE DECLINE OF THE STOCKYARDS
The stockyards' prosperity was due to the concentration of railroads and the evolution of refrigerated railroad cars. It declined due to further advances in post-World War II transportation and distribution. Direct sales of livestock from breeders to packers, facilitated by advancement in interstate trucking, made it cheaper to slaughter animals where they were raised and excluded the intermediary stockyards. At first, the major meatpacking companies resisted change, but Swift and Armour surrendered and vacated their plants in the Yards in the 1950s.

The Union Stock Yards closed on July 31, 1971. The area bounded by Pershing Road, Ashland, Halsted, and 47th Street became The Stockyards Industrial Park. The neighborhood to the west and south of the industrial park is still known as Back of the Yards and is still home to a thriving immigrant population.

THE ENTRANCE GATE
A remnant of the Union Stock Yard Gate still arches over Exchange Avenue, next to the firefighters' memorial, and can be seen by those driving along Halsted Street. This limestone gate, marking the entrance to the stockyards, survives as one of the few relics of Chicago's heritage of livestock and meatpacking.

The steer head over the central arch is considered "Sherman," a prize-winning bull named after John B. Sherman, a Union Stock Yard and Transit Company founder. The Union Stock Yard Gate was designated a Chicago Landmark on February 24, 1972, and a National Historic Landmark on May 29, 1981.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Lost Communities of Chicago - The Town of Lake

The Town of Lake was bounded north by 39th street, east by State street, south by 87th street, and west by Harlem Avenue (Lyons, IL eastern border). It was incorporated as a village with the above boundaries in 1865. Two years later the charter was amended, giving the authorities additional power. Within the town of Lake many separate villages came into existence and gradually grew together and became a part of Chicago.

Among the first settlers were Hugh Chittick, John L. Gerber, Samual Beers, Joseph Oswald and Daniel Berckie, who located near 59th street and Ashland Avenue. A little later Ira J. Nichols, William Brooker and F. A. Howe located on what afterward became Englewood as early as 1856. Early in the 1850s John Caffrey and S. S. Crocker settled near where the Union Stock Yards were. Other early residents of this portion of the town of Lake were Milton F. Patrick, Michael Rich and George W. Wait.

In 1861 the town of Hyde Park was formed from the town of Lake. The incorporation was effected in February of that year. Hyde Park village was organized in 1872. Its boundaries were Pershing Road (39th Street) on the north, 138th Street on the south, State Street on the west, and Lake Michigan and the Indiana state line on the east. Among the small villages in Hyde Park in early times were Colehour, Irondale, Rosedale, Kensington and Riverdale.    

In 1868 policemen in addition to constables were put at service throughout the township. A large increase in police was made in 1873 and again in 1880. One of the first improvements made by the town of Lake were works to secure pure water. The engine, etc., was located at 68th street and the lake, in 1873. At that time the town of Lake and Hyde Park constructed these works as a joint improvement. In 1880 the town of Lake became the sole owner of the improvement, and later Hyde Park constructed its own water system. 

As early as 1881 the town began to spend much money in properly draining many wet tracts of land. As the result, hundreds of acres which previously had been under water half the year appeared permanently above the subsiding water levels. A little later great improvements were rapidly made in the direction of good roads and streets. The most noticeable of many industrial improvements of the town of Lake were of course the famous Stock Yards. 

The railway roundhouse alone employed many thousands of men and furnished a living for their families. The manufacture of brick was an early enterprise of the town of Lake. The Union Stock Yards and Transit Company was incorporated in February of 1865. About one million dollars was spent to put the yards in efficient operation at the commencement. 

In 1889, the Chicago city limits expanded south to 138th and State Street and to the west 87th and Cicero by annexing the Town of Lake and the Village of Hyde Park. 

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Chicago Race Riot (the "Red Summer") of 1919.

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In historical writing and analysis, PRESENTISM introduces present-day ideas and perspectives into depictions or interpretations of the past. Presentism is a form of cultural bias that creates a distorted understanding of the subject matter. Reading modern notions of morality into the past is committing the error of presentism. Historical accounts are written by people and can be slanted, so I try my hardest to present fact-based and well-researched articles.

Facts don't require one's approval or acceptance.

I present [PG-13] articles without regard to race, color, political party, or religious beliefs, including Atheism, national origin, citizenship status, gender, LGBTQ+ status, disability, military status, or educational level. What I present are facts — NOT Alternative Facts — about the subject. You won't find articles or readers' comments that spread rumors, lies, hateful statements, and people instigating arguments or fights.

FOR HISTORICAL CLARITY

When I write about the INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, I follow this historical terminology:

• The use of old commonly used terms, disrespectful today, i.e., REDMAN or REDMEN, SAVAGES, and HALF-BREED are explained in this article.

Writing about AFRICAN-AMERICAN history, I follow these race terms:

• "NEGRO" was the term used until the mid-1960s.
• "BLACK" started being used in the mid-1960s.
• "AFRICAN-AMERICAN" [Afro-American] began usage in the late 1980s.

— PLEASE PRACTICE HISTORICISM —

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PAST IN ITS OWN CONTEXT.

 

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The Chicago race riot of 1919 was a major racial conflict that began in Chicago, Illinois, on July 27th, 1919 and ended on August 3rd. During the riot, thirty-eight people died (23 Negro and 15 White), and over five hundred were injured. It is considered the worst of the approximately 25 riots during the Red Summer, so named because of the nationwide violence and fatalities. The combination of prolonged arson, looting, and murder made it the worst race riot in the history of Illinois.

According to official reports, the Chicago riots began after Eugene Williams, a Negro teenager, drowned in Lake Michigan after being struck in the head by a rock thrown by a white man angry that Williams and friends had drifted into the "white side" of the informally segregated beach.

John T. McCutcheon, Chicago Tribune, July 28th, 1919, cartoon.

Responding police refused to arrest the white man who was identified as having thrown the rock and instead arrested a Negro man at the scene. When Negro onlookers complained, they were met with violence, and widespread rioting between Negro and white Chicagoans soon spread throughout the city's Negro residential areas. Tensions between groups arose in a melee that blew up into days of unrest.

A horde of young boys ran to the corner where a young Negro man was beaten during Chicago's race riots in 1919. White youngsters drove out Negro residents by stoning their homes during the race riots.

The state militia was called in to quell the violence on the south side of Chicago during the 1919 race riots.
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The sociopolitical atmosphere of Chicago was one of the ethnic tension caused by competition among many new groups. During the Great Migration, thousands of Negroes from the South had settled next to neighborhoods of European immigrants on Chicago's South Side, near the stockyards and meatpacking plants. With industrial jobs in the stockyards and meatpacking industry opening as European immigration was cut off by World War I, from 1916 to 1919, the Negro population in Chicago increased from 44,000 to 109,000, a 148 percent increase during the decade.

Police removed the body of a Negro man killed during the 1919 race riots. The five days of violence were sparked when a Negro teenager crossed an invisible boundary between the waters of the 29th Street beach, known to be reserved for whites, and the 25th Street beach, known to be reserved for Negroes.

The state militia held its ground at 47th and Wentworth Avenue during Chicago's race riot in 1919.

The Irish had been established first and fiercely defended their territory and political power against all newcomers. Post-World War I tensions caused friction between the races, especially in the competitive labor and housing markets. Overcrowding and increased Negro militancy by veterans contributed to the visible racial clashes. Also, a combination of ethnic gangs and police neglect strained racial relationships.

The mounted police rounded up "stray" negroes and escorted them back to a safety zone during the race riots in Chicago in 1919.

The state militia was mobilized in Chicago at the height of the 1919 race riot.

The state militia marched through Chicago during the 1919 race riots.

Heavily armed motorcycle and foot policemen stood at the ready for instant transportation to quell the rioting on Chicago's south side on July 30th, 1919. 

William Hale Thompson was the Mayor of Chicago during the riot, and a game of brinksmanship with Illinois Governor Frank Lowden may have exacerbated the riot since Thompson refused to ask Lowden to send in the National Guard for four days, despite Lowden ensuring that the guardsmen were in Chicago and ready to intervene.

Troops gather at 47th Street and Wentworth Avenue during the Chicago race riots. 

A soldier tells a man to "back up" during the race riots in Chicago 1919. The soldiers were in place to keep white people in their own districts.

Although future mayor Richard J. Daley never officially acknowledged being part of the violence, at age 17, he was an active member of the Irish Hamburg Athletic Club, which a post-riot investigation named as an instigator in attacks on Negroes. In the following decades, Daley continued to rise in politics to become the city's mayor for twenty-one years.

Many houses in the predominantly white stockyards district were set ablaze during the 1919 race riots. The five days of violence were sparked when a Negro teenager crossed an invisible boundary between the waters of the 29th Street beach, known to be reserved for whites, and the 25th Street beach, known to be reserved for Negroes.

People look over the remains of a destroyed building in the Union Stock Yards neighborhood during the 1919 Chicago race riots. Photo dated August 2nd, 1919.

Members of a white mob ran with bricks in hand during the Chicago race riot of 1919. Photographer unknown.

United States President Woodrow Wilson and the United States Congress attempted to promote legislation and organizations to decrease racial discord in America. Illinois Governor Frank Lowden took several actions at Thompson's request to quell the riot and promote greater harmony in its aftermath.

A man armed with a machine gun sits at the Cook County Jail during the
1919 Chicago race riots.

Sections of the Chicago economy were shut down for several days during and after the riots since plants were closed to avoid interaction among bickering groups. Mayor Thompson drew on his association with this riot to influence later political elections.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 
Photographs copyright © Chicago Tribune

Captain John Stevens, Naperville Illinois' first professional builder.

Thousands of fine homes in modern Naperville have been built in a ring of subdivisions that developed around the small farm village that was first settled in the early 1830s, when northern Illinois was still an undeveloped frontier.

The first building boom started with the completion of a dam and sawmill on the DuPage River, which supplied the materials needed for homes and barns. The Naper Sawmill began operating in 1832; most homes at the time were stick-built or lumber hand sawn from native trees. Many of these early homes were constructed by Naperville's first professional builder, John Stevens.

John Stevens, born in Rindge, New Hampshire on September 2, 1785. While quite young, his family moved to Hartland, Vermont. Once married to Miss Polly Taylor, a native of Hartland, they moved to Enosburg, Vermont where he operated a farm and tavern. He was also a millwright, a builder, the captain of a sailing vessel on Lake Champlain, and a good friend of Joseph Naper, whose stories of the rich new land in Illinois, soon to be opened for settlement by the government, prompted Stevens to leave Vermont in June, 1832, and head for Illinois.

Joseph Naper is credited with founding Naperville along the DuPage River in 1831. The town became the county seat when DuPage County was established in 1839. Naper drew the first plat in 1842 and was elected the president of the board when the village of Naperville was incorporated in 1857.

Stevens' first job in what was later to become Naperville was to help the Napers construct their sawmill. His talents were readily apparent, leading to several requests to build homes for the growing number of settlers. With his future assured, Stevens instructed his wife, Polly, to sell their properties in Vermont and to join him in Illinois.

Polly arrived with their two sons, six daughters, and three sons-in-law. Three of the Stevens' daughters were pregnant; daughter Lucetta soon gave birth to William Laird, the first known Caucasian child born in DuPage County.

The family settled on Stevens' claim, which extended from the present-day West Street in Naperville, 80 acres east of the river and 80 acres west of the river. The family planted corn while Stevens began his career as a builder.

Naperville became an important stop at the crossroads of two main stage routes that ran from Chicago to Galena and to Ottawa.

The first house, the "Century House," was built in 1833 by Captain John Stevens who is believed to have sailed here with Joseph Naper, the Founder of Naperville. The building was for George Martin, which stood on the south side of the DuPage River on the current site of Rotary Hill Park, across from Naperville High School. It was the first frame building constructed in DuPage County. The beams, flooring, and siding were cut out from large walnut trees on the Martin Property, milled into lumber at the Naper sawmill. The joists, studs, and rafters were sawn from Martin's oak trees. The sturdy foundation was fashioned with limestone blocks from the quarry that is now Naperville's Centennial Park. This well-crafted, landmark house was continuously occupied for 117 years until it was destroyed by fire in 1958.

While John Stevens was the first Naperville builder, his son-in-law, George Laird, was the first Naperville builder to go broke. Laird had begun constructing an inn and tavern in downtown Naperville, on the north bank of the DuPage River. He ran out of money before completing the structure, so Stevens stepped in to finish what became one of the most famous buildings in DuPage County history: The Pre-Emption House.

The Pre-Emption House was the first hotel in DuPage County. John Stevens' son-in-law, George Laird, began construction on the hotel and Stevens finished it in time for the 1836 4th of July celebration.

The Pre-Emption House was the first hotel in DuPage County and Stevens its first proprietor. To celebrate the occasion, he hosted a gala grand opening party on the 4th of July, 1836. The patriotic ceremonies featured a Grand March of civic organizations and dignitaries, which paraded from the Pre-Emption House to a nearby church. The assembled crowd listened to a reading of the Declaration of Independence and heard Captain Naper's announcement of his plans to run for the state legislature. Stevens took the floor and invited everyone to an outdoor dinner served under an arbor next to the Inn.

June 10, 1931: The original Pre-Emption House at Main Street and Chicago Avenue in Naperville. Built in 1831, it was one of President Lincoln's favorite stops and one of the oldest taverns in the United States.

The Pre-Emption House quickly became the focal point of the community as well as an important travel stop on the new Southwest plank road to Chicago. Its guests included many notables of the day, including Abraham Lincoln, who spoke to an admiring crowd from the porch roof. 

Eight Naperville businesses contributed to the development of the Southwest Plank Road, which was completed in 1851 and connected Chicago, Naperville, and Oswego. The new plank road was constructed using wooden planks, 3 inches thick and 8 feet wide. These were nailed to log stringers at the outer edges. To cover the cost of constructing and maintaining the road, the owners charged toll fees: 37¢ for a four-horse vehicle, 25¢ for a single team of horses, 12¢ for a horse with rider, 4¢ for a head of cattle, etc.

Hay wagon on the Southwest Plank Road, circa 1852.

In the 1870’s, maps described the road simply as “North Boulevard," however, in 1877, the entire length of road was re-named Ogden Avenue after the first mayor of Chicago, William B. Ogden. By 1874, the plank road disappeared and eventually became just another gravel road. But, when Daniel Burnham published his master plan for Chicago in 1909, Ogden Avenue was proposed as one of the key arterial streets for handling the expected growth in motorcar travel.

These businessmen then opposed a Naperville right-of-way for the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad when its representatives came prospecting that same year. The Galena line went through Wheaton instead. But the town got a second chance when the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad ran its line through Naperville in 1864.

This historic event was portrayed by the late Naperville artist Lester Schrader and is today exhibited at the Naperville Heritage Society Museum. The Pre-Emption House served the community from 1834 to 1946 and had several proprietors. The final operators were Frank and Gertrude Wehrli, who raised 13 children in the historic building. The old hotel was dismantled in 1946 but its impact on the community continued to grow over the years. Public interest moved the Naperville Heritage Society to rebuild an exact replica of the Pre-Emption House near the historic Naper Settlement in downtown Naperville.

John Stevens sold the pre-Emption House in 1857, soon after the flood of that year. He built another hotel several blocks away on higher ground, where he lived with his large family until his death. The early years on the frontier were full of hardship. The Stevens' family lost one married son, one married daughter, and three sons-in-law. John and Polly Stevens raised 14 of their grandchildren and some great-grandchildren in their 21-room inn, while continuing to operate their farm on the west side of town.

In 1834, Stevens had built a home for himself that was closer to his farmland. This home, located at 27 N. West Street in Naperville, has been occupied by descendants of John Stevens ever since.

The Wilson-Drendel-Fessler family homestead was built by John Stevens in 1834 and has been continuously occupied for 170 years.

The current residents are George and Judy Fessler. It is the oldest surviving home in Naperville, and each succeeding generation of the Stevens' descendants has maintained the home like a family treasure. It stands today as a living part of Naperville's heritage and a tribute to John Stevens, the first professional builder of Naperville.

Captain John Stevens died on May 3, 1862 and is buried at the Naperville Cemetery.

The Oldest House in Naperville, Illinois - September 12, 2014.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.