Looking North at the Clay Pit from the top of the natural gas tank at Albion and Albany Avenues, Chicago. Circa 1945

The Clay Pit looking North from the top of the natural gas tank from about Albion and Albany Avenues, West Ridge community, West Rogers Park, neighborhood, Chicago (1945). 
CLICK TO ENLARGE IMAGE

The “Clay Pit” was a multi-acre wildlife area that served in the 1930s as a source of material for making bricks. It seemed gigantic, stretching eight blocks north to south and several wide, defined by the streets Whipple (east), Pratt (south), Kedzie (west), and Touhy (north). The Entrance to People's Gas, Light, and Coke facility was on Whipple Street. 

The Clay Pit at Touhy and Kedzie, looking southeast. Circa 1950

Its wilderness-like atmosphere included swamps and ponds with reeds, brush, trees, birds, squirrels, skunks, snakes, frogs, and fish. 

By Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Four photographs of North, South, East and West View of Devon & Western Avenues in 1914 Chicago, Illinois.

A Brief History of Devon Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.
Devon Avenue was originally known as Church Road. It was renamed in the 1880s by Edgewater developer John Lewis Cochran after Devon station on the Main Line north of Philadelphia. 

Initially known for its cabbage and truck farms and greenhouses, North Town, as it was then called, began to attract residential and commercial development in the early 1920s. Developer Henry B. Rance opened the area’s first real estate office in a frame shack at the corner of Devon and Western Avenues.

Western and Arthur Avenues, Chicago, 1920s.

 

CLICK THE PICTURES BELOW TO ENLARGE THE IMAGE.

This is Devon Avenue in 1914, looking East from just East of Western Avenue. The people (from L to R) are B.F.'s Great Aunt, his Mother, Grandmother, Uncle, and another Grand Aunt. They were walking from Angel Guardian's Church (the steeple is barely visible in the background on the far right-hand side, just above the tree line) back to a Truck Farm on the S.W. corner of Rockwell and Devon, where B.F.'s Grandparents worked.

Additional Reading:

Many Early Chicago Areas Were Called "The Cabbage Patch."

The Intertwined History of Rogers Park and the West Ridge Communities of Chicago.

Photographs of Devon and Artesian Avenues, West Ridge Community of Chicago, Illinois. (circa 1950s)

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The Chicago, Wilmington and Franklin Coal Co. Orient № 2 Mine Explosion near West Frankfort, Illinois, on December 21, 1951.

On Friday, December 21, 1951, at about 7:35 p.m. a violent explosion ripped through Orient № 2 Mine, located near West Frankfort, claiming the lives of 119 coal miners.
The tragedy occurred on the last shift prior to a scheduled Christmas shutdown. News of the tragedy spread quickly from town to town and hundreds of people converged on the mine to check on loved ones and friends. A basketball game was under way at Central Junior High School in West Frankfort, when the public address announcer asked that Dr. Barnett report to Orient № 2 Mine, № 4 Portal, because “there had been a catastrophe.”

There were about 2,000 people at the game, and nearly half of them left with Dr. Barnett. News of the tragedy and massive loss of life drew nationwide attention. Both Time Magazine and Life Magazine featured accounts of the explosion and newspapers from throughout the country sent reporters to Franklin County to cover the holiday tragedy.

John L. Lewis emerging from the Orient № 2
mine in West Frankfort, Illinois after viewing
the devastation of a mine explosion that
killed 119 miners in December 1951.

Gov. Adlai Stevenson was at the mine the following day along with volunteers from the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. Those who arrived at the Orient № 2 Mine immediately after reports of the explosion surfaced had no way of knowing that they would be a part of history and folklore that would be handed down from family to family for decades to come.

Rescue workers began entering the mine within hours of the explosion, clearing gas and searching for survivors. What they met, however, was the grim reminder about the perils of mining coal and the force of methane-fed coal mine explosions. Locomotives weighing 10 tons were tossed about like childrens toys, timbers a foot thick were snapped like twigs and railroad ties were torn from beneath the rails.

Rescue workers began recovering bodies of the 120 missing men shortly after midnight on December 22nd. As the hours passed, and body after body was recovered from the mine, it became apparent that it would take a miracle for anybody to survive the explosion and the gas and smoke that resulted. In the early morning hours of Christmas Eve — 56 hours after the explosion — that miracle happened.

Rescue workers pull a miner worker from the Orient № 2 coal mine in West Frankfort, Illinois, Decwmber 22, 1951, following an underground methane explosion.

Benton, Illinois resident Cecil Sanders was found on top of a “fall” barely clinging to life. Authorities theorized that Sanders, by climbing on top of the rock fall, miraculously found a pocket of air that sustained him until rescue workers arrived.

Sanders told authorities later that he was with a group of five men (the other four died) when they actually heard the explosion. He said the men tried to get out of the mine but were driven back by smoke and gas. Sander said later he had resigned himself to the fact that he was going to die, even scribbling a note to his wife and children on the back of a cough drop box. “May the good Lord bless and keep you, Dear wife and kids,” Sanders wrote. “Meet me in Heaven.”

Reported in a book, “Our Christmas Disaster,” said that rescue workers were amazed that he [Sanders] survived.

“My God, there’s a man alive,” Sanders later recalled were the first words he heard as he slipped in and out of consciousness. “They didn’t seem to think it was true,” Sanders said. “When they got to me I couldn’t tell who they were because they all had on gas masks. Rescue workers came back in a few minutes with a stretcher, gave me oxygen and carried me out of the mine. There’s no question it was a miracle.”

Rescue workers and funeral directors were faced with a grim task during the 1951 Christmas holiday season. Something had to be done with the scores of bodies that were brought up from the mine. And funeral homes throughout Franklin County — where 99 of the 119 fatally injured miners lived — would have to conduct multiple funerals; in some instances, six or eight per day.

A temporary morgue was set up at Central Junior High School where row after row of bodies lined the gymnasium floor. Brattice cloth, normally used to direct the flow of air in coal mine entries, covered the bodies. The usual joyous Christmas season turned into a bleak pilgrimage for families from throughout Southern Illinois as they faced the task of identifying the charred remains of the miners.

The last body was removed from the mine on Christmas night, completing the work of the rescue and recovery. In all, 252 men were underground at Orient № 2 when the explosion took place — 119 died and 133 miners in unaffected areas escaped unhurt.

Warren Mitchell's funeral at the Masonic & Odd Fellows Cemetery in Benton, Illinois on Chrismas Day, 1951.

Nearly every person in Franklin County was affected, either directly or indirectly, by the disaster. For some of those who lost loved ones in the Orient № 2 explosion, the events of that Christmas are just as vivid now as they were in 1951.

Perhaps no story evolved from the tragedy that was more poignant than that of Geneva (Hines) Smith, the 26-year-old mother of two small children, who lost her husband, Robert “Rink” Hines in the explosion. Smith, who later remarried, still brushes away a tear when she recalls the last words of her young husband before he left for work on that fateful Friday afternoon.

“He held our daughter Joann, she was 3 months old, and he put his face against hers and he said, ‘she looks just like me… doesn’t she?” Smith recalled. “Only a few hours later his sister came to the door and said there had been an explosion… and then we learned later that he’d been killed. The last thing I remember was how happy he was holding his daughter.”

Smith said a cruel irony involving the funeral also played out after her husband’s death.

“There was so many funerals that they had them early in the morning and all day until in the evening,” Smith remembered. “The only time we could have his funeral was at 8 p.m. on Christmas Eve. That was our fifth wedding anniversary and we got married at 8 p.m., I’ll never forget that.”

Lyle Eubanks, of Mulkeytown, remembers distinctly his last conversation with his father Clarence, prior to the elder Eubank’s departure for work.

“He walked into the kitchen and got his bucket and then walked back into the living room and sat down on the couch,” Eubanks said. “He talked about it being the last shift prior to the Christmas shutdown and said if he didn’t need the money so bad he wouldn’t go to work that night — that’s the last time I talked to him.”

Eubanks said he identified his father’s body at the morgue.

“There was just row after row of bodies and they were covered with brattice cloth,” he recalled. “You just can’t imagine how horrible of a scene it was. I’ll never, ever forget what that looked like.”

Eubanks said the holiday season for his family and all of Franklin County came to an abrupt halt on December 21, 1951.

“People took down their Christmas trees and outside ornaments after the explosion. It was almost like they didn’t want to be reminded that it was Christmas. Someone came to our house and took the tree, ornaments and all, and put it out behind a building in back of our house,” Eubanks said. ” Christmas in 1951, well, … Christmas ended that night.”

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Mrs. Hering's Original 1890 Chicken Pot Pie Recipe that Launched Marshall Field's Food Service and the Future Walnut Room Restaurant.

As the real story is told, by 1890, Marshall Fields had established itself as a place where ladies were welcome to congregate. But there was just one thing missing: food. That's when Mrs. Sarah Hering came along. An enterprising clerk in the State Street millinery (hat) department, she had been trained in Field's "give the ladies what she wants" tradition of customer service. When she overheard two customers grumbling that they had nowhere to eat, she thought nothing of offering them the homemade chicken pot pie she had brought for lunch. She set up a table, served up her pie, and, without knowing it, started a restaurant - and a revolution. The ladies were so grateful that they convinced Mrs. Hering to make more pies for the next day, telling her they would bring friends to lunch and view the latest in hats the next day.

These ladies spread the word about the tastiest chicken pot pie they'd ever eaten, and soon, Mrs. Hering was selling her pies at a counter in the millinery department. A young manager named Harry Selfridge (who would go on to found Selfridges Department Store in London, modeling it after Field's) quickly recognized the potential of serving food to hungry guests and thus keeping them in the store for more shopping. So he persuaded Mr. Field to try opening a small tearoom in the building. On April 15, 1890, fifteen tables were set up on the third floor. There were eight waitresses and four cooks.

The four cooks of the "South Tearoom" at the State Street Marshall Field's store.

Each table was set with the finest silver tea service, and every plate was adorned with a red rose. That day, fifty-six women turned up to lunch on corned beef hash, chicken salad, orange punch in an orange shell, and Mrs. Hering's chicken pot pies. Selfridge's hunch paid off. "The South Tearoom," managed by Sarah Hering, became Chicago's first full-service dining establishment within a department store and was a runaway hit. It quickly expanded and, within a year, was serving five hundred guests a day. In the tradition of Mrs. Hering, many of the cooks in those early days prepared their specialties - from codfish cakes to Boston baked beans - in their own home kitchens and brought them in each morning.

In 1893, the South Tearoom was expanded to the entire 4th floor in the building's oldest section (Washington & Wabash) – just in time for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. 

Marshall Field was a major sponsor of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. The tearoom then served 1,500 people per day.

The Marshall Field's South Tearoom in 1902. On the 4th floor of the oldest part of the store.

When it moved to its current location on the seventh floor, the tearoom expanded to seventeen thousand square feet. It took its new name from the Circassian walnut imported from Russia to panel the walls. The newly rebuilt south building that houses the Walnut Room today at Washington & State opened in September 1907. 

On the 7th floor, it was first known as the "South Grill Room," then known as the "Walnut Tearoom," next as the "Walnut Grill," and finally as the "Walnut Room" in 1937. Six tea and grill rooms occupied the entire 7th floor.

Marshall Field in 1904. Corner of Washington & State - the old south building. Notice the aging clock. It's not the one we see today.

Marshall Field in 1910. Corner of Washington & State - completed in 1907 - houses the Walnut Room Restaurant on the seventh floor.

Learn about Marshall Field & Company State Street store history of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd corner clocks.

While not the first restaurant in a department store (as the misinformation on the Internet claims), it was the first elegant, full-service dining establishment within a department store, and it's also the longest continuously operating restaurant in the nation. It's been reported that the Walnut Room alone served up an average of 600 pot pies daily. Mrs. Hering's famous Chicken Pot Pie is iconic to the Walnut Room in Chicago.

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Women were denied service in restaurants if they did not have a male escort. Until the 1920s, it was unacceptable for a lady to dine unescorted while out in public. If a woman got a little peckish while shopping, she would need to return home to grab a snack. Before the Civil War, a "Ladies' Ordinary" space was set aside for women in hotels. This, it was often stated, was to protect "respectable" women from being accosted or harassed by men or, even worse, taken for easily available women by male travelers, loungers, and dubious characters. Beginning not long before the Civil War, restaurants started to cater to female shoppers who wanted lunch. Establishments called "Ice Cream Saloons" opened up near dry-goods emporia and the first department stores. They offered ice cream, which was thought to appeal to women, and light meals. A key element of their efforts to attract women was that they did not serve alcohol. By 1900, coffee shops, tea rooms, department store restaurants, and chain restaurants had a predominantly female clientele. Men might eat at bars that offered "free lunch" with the purchase of drinks, at grills, clubs or fancy restaurants. By the 1920s, most restaurants had given up the idea that they were protecting morals.

Originally called the "South Grill Room," seen here in 1909. The bold selection of grilled foods was meant to distinguish the South Grill Room from the daintier tearooms. The restaurants' role was not to make money (they usually operated at a loss) but rather to lure hungry visitors into the store and give those already inside a reason to stay. Their upper-floor location required diners to navigate past enticing impulse goods while going upstairs. Because so many customers spoke of this restaurant by referring to its Circassian walnut paneling, it was later renamed the "Walnut Tearoom," next as the "Walnut Grill," and finally as the "Walnut Room" in 1937.

Another time of the year, Mrs. Hering's Chicken Pot Pie was famous in the Walnut Room at Easter. The fountain is then decorated for Easter. (year unknown)

The Great Depression (August 1929 – March 1933) took its toll on the store's restaurants. By 1941, only four restaurants remained. According to an advertisement, customers could enjoy their North Shore Codfish Cakes, Canadian Cheese Soup, French Bread, and Chicken Pie in either the "Stately Walnut Room, picturesque Narcissus Fountain Room, rose-carpeted English Room, or the serve-yourself Crystal Buffet."

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

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Mrs. Hering's ORIGINAL 1890 chicken pot pie recipe:

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This recipe was recalculated for 6 servings, using modern measurements, and I noted the modern-day substitutions in RED. The original recipe made 50+ servings per batch. For best results ─ do not use substitutes.

FOR THE CHICKEN BROTH
1 (3 1/2 pound) frying chicken
1 carrot
1 celery stalk
1 small onion, halved
2 teaspoons salt

FOR THE DOUGH
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, diced
1/4 cup chilled lard (or substitute: vegetable shortening)
3 to 4 tablespoons of ice water

FOR THE FILLING
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large onion, diced (about 1 1/4 cups)
3 carrots, sliced thinly on the bias
3 celery stalks, sliced thinly on the bias
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
1/4 cup dry sherry
3/4 cup fresh green peas (or substitute: thawed frozen green peas)
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water

TO PREPARE THE CHICKEN & BROTH
Combine chicken, carrot, celery, onion, and salt in a large stockpot. Add cold water just to cover and bring to a boil over high heat. Decrease the heat to low and simmer for 45 minutes. Transfer chicken to a plate and allow to cool. 

Increase the heat to high and boil for 20 minutes to concentrate the broth. Pass the broth through a fine-mesh strainer and discard the vegetables. Pull the chicken meat from the bones and shred it into bite-sized pieces when cool enough to handle. 

TO PREPARE THE DOUGH
Combine flour, salt, and butter in the bowl of a food processor and pulse 5 times to combine. Add the shortening and pulse a few more times until the dough resembles coarse cornmeal.

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ORIGINALLY: Combine ingredients using a manual (hand) food mill or use a wooden spoon like in the 1890s.

Transfer to a bowl and sprinkle with 2 1/2 to 3 tablespoons of ice-cold water. Stir and press with a wooden spoon until the dough sticks together. A little at a time, add more water if the dough doesn't come together. Shape the dough into a ball and then flatten it into a disk. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes or up to 2 days before rolling.

TO PREPARE THE FILLING 
Preheat oven to 400° degrees Fahrenheit. 

Place a large saucepan over medium heat and add butter. When the butter is melted, add the onion, carrots, and celery for filling and cook, occasionally stirring, for 10 minutes until the onion is soft and translucent. 

Add the flour and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. 

Slowly whisk in the milk and 2 1/2 cups of the chicken broth. Decrease the heat to low and simmer, often stirring for 10 minutes. 

Add the chicken meat, thyme, sherry, peas, parsley, salt, and pepper and stir well. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. 

TO MAKE THE PIES
Divide the warm filling among six 10-to-12-ounce pot pie tins or individual ramekins.

Place the dough on a floured surface and roll it to 1/4 inch thick. Cut into 6 rounds about 1 inch larger than the dish circumference. Lay a dough round over each pot pie filling. Tuck the overhanging dough back under and flute the edges with a fork. Cut a 1-inch slit at the top of each pie. Brush the tops of the pies with egg wash. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. 

Place pies on the baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes, until the pastry is golden and the filling is bubbling. Serve hot.

Yield: 6 Pies.

MARSHALL FIELD AND COMPANY ARTICLES

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The Labor and Industry Museum in Belleville Illinois.

I visited the Belleville, Illinois, Labor & Industry Museum several times. It was an excellent little museum with many Belleville-made stoves, heaters, industrial machines and memorabilia. I was invited to sit with a couple of old guys as they slurped down their coffee and take part in a history lesson about how the Military men that came home from the Black Hawk War of 1832 banded together some years later and headed for California, to find a fortune in gold (Before the official gold rush in 1848). News articles were coming out of California and Oregon, and apparently, after panning for gold, some men returned to Belleville after a couple of years... Filthy Rich... but complaining was the most demanding work they ever did. I sat there, mesmerized. After looking at my watch, I saw that two hours had passed. Here is a little about the Museum and the Beautiful building it is in, the Conrad Bornman House, with my personal photographs.

THE LABOR AND INDUSTRY MUSEUM
The Labor & Industry Museum is the only public institution devoted to the history of the labor and industry of Belleville and southwestern Illinois. Belleville was one of the most important centers for the growth of the Illinois industry, which ranked third in the nation in the late 19th century. The Museum's mission is to chronicle and interpret the area's rich cultural heritage of labor and industry. Belleville contributed significantly to the industrial movement by establishing some of the earliest and largest manufacturing establishments in the burgeoning United States.

The Labor & Industry Museum is based in the Conrad Bornman House on historic Church Street in Belleville. This 1837 building, rescued from the wrecking ball by the Belleville Historic Preservation Commission, witnessed the enormous development of the 19th-century industry. The building, which has undergone extensive renovation, houses permanent and unique exhibition galleries, an educational center, and archives.

THE CONRAD BORNMAN HOUSE
The building which houses the Labor & Industry Museum has four building dates beginning in 1837. Conrad Bornman, believed to be the first German immigrant to Belleville, purchased the lot at the intersection of North Church and East B Streets in 1837.

The Conrad Bornman House.

The 1881 History of St. Clair County relates that Conrad Bornman, a blacksmith and strawberry farmer who became interested in brick making and the art of bricklaying, and a fellow blacksmith named Small, were the first German immigrants to Belleville. They were the vanguard of the largest German migration to the State of Illinois. Their fellow Germans contributed significantly to the 1830s building boom and the foundry/industrial "Gilded Age" of Belleville and the Belleville area.

By 1837, Conrad Bornman was 20 and had lived in the new world for 19 years. That year, he built a house at 123 North Church Street in Belleville - two blocks from the Public Square, and it is now the home of the Labor and Industry Museum.

When it was boarded up and slated for demolition in 1995, the Historic Preservation Commission noted that it was the last remaining German Street House in the original town of Belleville, as platted in 1814. 

Bornman built his 2½-room house in the classical severity of the "Klassizimus" Style popular in Germany in the 1830s and 1840s. The brick street house is 1-½ stories, with gabled side walls and a cornice of brickwork across the front. The original entry was a single door with sidelights and a transom overhead to catch the summer breezes. The windows are evenly spaced, and the wood lintels are original. The house's interior has log lintels with the bark still on them. There is a trap door to the cellar, worn pine thresholds and the original stairway and floors.

Bornman sold his street house to Charles Born in 1840. Born had emigrated from Germany in 1839 and was a shoemaker by trade -- the 1860 Street Directory lists Born Boot & Shoe Dealer in the first block of North High Street. He also served as a city alderman and city marshal.

Like Bornman, Born changed careers and opened a machine shop with two sons, John Charles and William F. They lived and worked at 123 North Church Street, and the original house was expanded twice before they built a new machine shop at 222 East B Street in 1885. John Charles was the patent holder of six inventions of steam pumps, polishing lathes, and grinders. Charles Born died in 1896, and in 1920 J.C. Born Machine Co. was sold to Columbia Manufacturing Co.

In 1913, the Born family sold the North Church Street building to Charles Beck, who expanded it to house his cigar and tobacco manufactory.

Charles Beck (1867-1933) learned cigar making from Louis Kaemper, a cigar maker at 228 East Main Street. By 1901, Beck had a shop at 208-210 West Main Street. According to his grandson, Beck fashioned all the equipment used in making cigars, chewing tobacco and pipe tobacco, including a stripping machine, humidor and oven. The giant zinc-lined oven remains in the basement of the museum. The last cigar was made in the building in 1957.

Beck was active in the Cigar Maker's Union's affairs and was its vice president. He was instrumental in forming the Belleville Trades and Labor Assembly in 1891 and served as that organization's first treasurer.

Beck's son, Sonny, closed the cigar business in 1957, and the building was sold to Everett E. Sakasko, who operated Ed's TV Repair Service. Sakasko's wife, Geraldine, was the proprietor of the "The Lady Orchid" Beauty Salon.

In 1995, the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council purchased the North Church Street building, and the property was to be demolished to provide parking for the St. Clair County Transit District. However, with the cooperation of the City and County Government and the Historic Preservation Commission, the City of Belleville Planning Department was given six months to find a use for the building.

Since Belleville did not have a visitors center then, the city determined that that would be a good use for the building. Funds were garnered from Downtown Development & Redevelopment, Belleville Tourism, and the Historic Preservation Commission to purchase the building from the Transit District. Additionally, funds would be raised from the public and private sectors to restore the building and house a Labor & Industry Museum. The museum would center on Belleville's Gilded Age, 1865 - 1929.

In 1998, an official board was formed to restore the building and develop the museum. The restored building was dedicated in December 2000. Almost 1,400 people attended the Grand Opening on August 10, 2002.

Ideal Stencil Machine Co., 102 Iowa Avenue, Belleville, Illinois (1911-2002). Two of the world's four stencil machine factories were in Belleville, and the others were in St. Louis. The Ideal Stencil Machine Company, perhaps the best equipped, receives its castings from the Excelsior Foundry located in the same block. Its annual production was about $150,000 (Today, $3,866,975.00), employing 24 people.

VIDEO

Ideal № 1 Stencil Cutting Machine (1911) Tutorial.

Auto Stove Works, New Athens:

Auto Stoves and Ranges for 1935-36; Catalog № 17. (pdf)

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.