Deer Haven Kiddie Park, Fox Lake, Illinois (1960-1967)

Deer Haven Kiddie Park was located on Route 59 one mile north of Routes 12 & 59 junction. Al Kean and Edward Reich were the owners of this 19.3-acre park.

It was a very small amusement park with a miniature train, pony rides, picnic facilities, a restaurant, refreshment stands and deer so tame that young children could feed them by hand.

White Tailed Deer

Their tag-line was "Go on a See-nik Pic-nik." They boasted about their Fairy-Tail Forest, where children could see deer, monkeys, birds, buffalo, lambs, goats and lots of bunnies.

A July 10, 1962 Chicago Tribune article states:

"Chief Thundercloud (whose less ornate name is Scott T. Williams), who is even now holding authentic Indian dances on the grounds of Deer Haven at Fox Lake, Ill., is a four greats grandson of Chief Pontiac. When Chief Thundercloud decided to devote his life to Indian lore, he was confronted with a terrific hurdle, as he had made the mistake of getting an engineering degree from a Boston college. While there, he picked up quite an accent, and had to work hard to shed it, as people were a little dubious about taking Indian lore from a redskin with a Boston accent."

The Chicago Tribune writes about the tragedy which happened on August 20, 1964, at Deer Haven Park:

"About 11 am, Scottie, a 30 pound baboon, worked the door open on his cage and hopped atop the park restaurant building. Kean called the Fox Lake and Round Lake police for help. Five men, including Fox Lake Police Chief Kenneth Minahan, responded. At about 11:20 am, Minahan shot Scottie with a dart from a tranquilizer gun. "The animal had been calm until then," Kena said. "Then he became excited." Scottie headed for the trees, with Kean, Reich, and the police in pursuit. He finally climbed 60 feet in a tall oak, swinging from branch to branch. The men tried in vain to lure him down with grapes and bananas. Minahan hit him five times more with tranquilizer darts. Once, Scottie seemed to totter. Otherwise, there was no effect. Finally at 3:45 pm, fearful for the safety of customers and neighbors, Minahan sighted a loaded shotgun thru the branches and leaves high above him. It took three blasts to bring Scottie down, dead. Kean, sadly, said he was a beauty - as baboons go."

In March of 1967, the park was sold to the Village of Fox Lake to form the new Fox Lake Park District with plans to build the community's first major public park. The park woud serve as a memorial to men who have died in the armed services. Plans include a baseball field, tennis courts and a swimming pool.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Electric Park (Amusement), Marion, Illinois.

The Marion Electric Park is another marvel that was available at the turn of the century in Marion, yet little is known of it. It was located at what is now the Marion City Reservoir just off of East Boulevard Street. When it started and ended is yet unknown.

1905 Postcard view from East Boulevard Street looking North showing boat house on right, the old concrete bridge center frame still exists, smoke stacks from Mill on North Market are visible on right.

From the postcard photo it appears that most of the park was located on the south side of the main body of water that we still have in use today on Boulevard. One of the buildings in the background is likely the opera house.

A few  things are obvious in the postcard photo. One is the concrete bridge in center frame that still existed last time I looked at the reservoir. It was and still is located on the south end of the main reservoir. The second thing about the photo is the smoke stacks from the mill operating on N. Market Street. Early on they were built and operated by William Aikman and lastly by Bracy Supply Company to market flour.

Photo from around 1904, tracks would likely be south of the city reservoir.

In the 1905 Souvenir History book, there are three photos dedicated to it but no explanation about it anywhere that I have found. Perhaps it is one of things where everyone knows about it, so why explain it. Clearly there was a boat dock as seen in the postcard and an opera house as seen in the photo from the Souvenir History book. The “resting along the tracks” photo surely refers to the railroad tracks that ran just to the south of the property and still exist there today.

Opera House at Electric Park (1904).

The following is a quote from one of Homer Butler’s articles, “Electric service was supplied from the Marion Electric Plant which occupied the site of the present Marion Water Plant. It operated the Marion Electric Park which included a swimming pool and boat riding at night on the reservoir, but it couldn’t supply enough electricity to supply a growing city.”

High School class of 1904 at Electric Park.

The only other note that I have on it is that the Coal Belt Electric Line made a stop at Electric Park.

The singular absence of the Marion City Water Tower is conspicuous which may explain the extra ponds south of the main reservoir shown in this 1918 map.

1918 map showing multiple reservoirs, current city reservoir and location of Marion Electric power plant.

The company that supplied power to Marion was called the Marion Electric Light and Water Company. These may have been early containment ponds that were kept filled by the deep wells that Marion relied on for water in the early days. 

by Sam Lattuca, 2013.
Edited by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The history of Rogers Park National Bank on the southeast corner of Clark Street and Lunt Avenue in Chicago.

Rogers Park National Bank was founded in 1912. For the five years prior to the construction of this building at 6979 N. Clark Street in 1917, the bank occupied retail space somewhere on Clark Street. Notable as architect Karl Vitzthum’s earliest bank design, Rogers Park National Bank is a typical classical revival style corner bank modeled after Stanford White’s highly influential Knickerbocker Trust Company.

Rogers Park National Bank closed September 1931, having failed in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash which had a devastating effect on small banks. Of the outlying banks in Chicago that were open prior to 1929, only 58% survived through June 1931. The building sat vacant for a number of years until it was purchased and remodeled in 1940.

Knickerbocker Trust Company, 5th Avenue & 34th Street, New York City, 1902.

Architects Lowenberg & Lowenberg installed an art moderne facade with retail space on the Clark Street side, leaving the Lunt Avenue side relatively intact. The building, used as a store and apartments ever since, exhibits a stark contrast between modern and classical styles.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Motorcar travel through Illinois: On the old Pontiac Trail, the precursor to Route 66.

In the first decades of the 20th century, most people who traveled long distances, such as from Chicago to Joliet, Bloomington, Springfield, or St. Louis, did so via the railroads. Travel by water was also possible but mainly used for shipping cargo rather than passengers' use. Roads were mainly used for local trips within municipalities or rural areas from farms to the nearest rail depot or commercial harbor.

The main thoroughfare in Illinois was an unpaved road between Chicago and St. Louis. Following a northeast-southwest direction. The Pontiac Trail was born out of the "Mississippi Valley Highway," marked from Chicago to Springfield and the "Lone Star Route," which started in Springfield and led to St. Louis.

       

The "East St. Louis-Springfield-Chicago Trail" and the "Burlington Way," both roads intersected at Edwardsville, Illinois, were also incorporated into the Pontiac Trail.  

This trail had been officially christened and opened to travel as the "Pontiac Trail" in 1914. The nameplates (signs) marking the course of the Pontiac Trail, the connecting highway between Chicago and St. Louis, were placed in position on the guideposts, which were erected at intervals of a mile along this highway by the Goodrich Tire Co., showing the mileage to Chicago and St. Louis, and the nearest local towns.

In addition to the name "Pontiac Trail," these nameplates bear the full-length figure of an Indian upholding a map of the State of Illinois. 

The significance will be grasped at once, for this trail inevitably became Illinois Route 4, the great thoroughfare of the State, connecting as it does, its largest city with the metropolis of its western border and passing through its capital as well as many other prosperous cities and villages, and the heart of the corn belt.

The appropriateness of the Indian figure to the name is likewise at once apparent. For this great highway, the name is doubly significant, for the famous chief whose name it bears, in the later years of his life, often crossed its course, since near its southern terminus, he spent his last years and met his death, and his name was commemorated by the christening of one of the prettiest, and most prosperous and energetic of the many towns, through which the trail will pass.

These nameplates were paid for and put up at the expense of the businessmen of the city of Pontiac, who are appreciative of the compliment paid to their city by the naming of the trail and who is also appreciative of the benefit their town will derive from being on the line of this splendid highway.

The naming of the trail after Pontiac, the great Indian, who was able by his genius and the power of his personality, its midst and almost encircling the grounds of its famous Chautauqua, probably second in importance only to the parent institution in New York. Pontiac is primarily a city of homes and has infinite attractions as a residence town. However, it also is celebrated for its shoes and is the site of the Illinois State Reformatory.

From Pontiac, the trail pursues its way through the world's garden to Chenoa, just across the line in McLean County, where it intersects another newly named and established road, "The Corn Belt Route," from Logansport, Indiana, to Peoria.

Beyond Chenoa, the trail passes between beautiful waving fields of oats and corn, through the prosperous agricultural towns of Lexington and Towanda, to Normal and Bloomington, contiguous cities, the former the seat of two State institutions, the Illinois Soldiers' Orphans' Home and the Illinois State Normal University, the latter especially, with its wide and beautifully shaded campus, is well worth visiting.

Bloomington is the queen of the corn belt. Devastated by a great fire on June 12, 1900, which burned over 10 acres of its business district, including the courthouse, with a loss of more than $2,000,000, the city has come to regard the fire as its greatest blessing, and today, its business district is devoid of those ramshackle, prehistoric structures which disfigure most cities, and Bloomington has no competition in the matter of looks among cities even twice its size.

At Bloomington are located the great car shops of the Alton Railroad, and here also is the Illinois Wesleyan University, a Methodist school of importance. Bloomington, with the adjoining town of Normal, also boasts many beautiful residences, miles of perfect pavement and some beautiful parks, and is well worthy of a special visit and a day or two's stopover by the motoring tourist.

Leaving Bloomington, the trail still continues through the heart of the corn belt, and a short distance south passes through the famous Funk farms near Funk's Grove, with their thousands of acres of perfectly tilled land and model farm buildings and farm methods. Pioneers in progressive farming, the Funk family were also early and firm believers in good roads, and they did all the road work in their township at actual cost, making use of their farm tractors for the purpose.

Standard Oil Gas Station, Odell, Illinois, on Route 66.

Still southwestward, the trail takes its way through McLean and Atlanta and Lawndale to Lincoln, the county seat of Logan County and an important railroad center having important mining interests. Lincoln also has the State School and Colony, an institution for the feeble-minded, and the Illinois State Odd Fellow' Orphans' Home, a Presbyterian College, and it also has a Chautauqua, situated near the trail and about two miles southwest of the city.

After Lincoln, the next large town on the trail is Springfield, the State capital, whose historic associations with the personality of Lincoln are too well known to need enlargement. His homestead and his grave are here, and the streets he walked in life came at one time or another every conspicuous figure in the public life of Illinois. Here are the State House and many other public buildings, and here is located the State Fair, past whose grounds the trail enters Springfield, also passing the huge plant of the Illinois Watch Co.

At Springfield, the trail was crossed by the Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway, and here another interchange of travel was thought to eventually be developed.

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PP-OO began early in 1912 the route went from New York City to Los Angeles. PP-OO has fallen into obscurity, virtually unknown even to residents of the cities and towns along the old route.

From Springfield, still, in the main following the Alton Railroad, the trail leads to the historic old town of Carlinville, the capital of Macoupin County, named after a former governor. From Springfield, south, fields of corn and oats have largely given place to wheat, and the towers of coal mines frequently break the horizon, for here the trail passes through an important coal-producing region, and here it has reached the ancient hunting grounds of the chief whose name it bears.

From Carlinville, the road bears nearly due south, and at the important mining and manufacturing town of Collinsville, turns nearly west into East St. Louis and across the Mississippi to its destination.

The shortest route for motor travel between Chicago and St. Louis, with so many large and important towns on its course and intersecting, as it does, so many important east and west thoroughfares, its rapid development as a highway is easily forecasted. It was a well-cared-for highway, and following, as it does, State aid roads every inch of its length, its permanent improvement was rapid. The trail followed stone roads the entire distance from Chicago to Morris, a distance of about 60 miles, and at Morris, there are about 2 ½ miles of concrete road. South of Pontiac, there are 5 miles of asphalt, stone and concrete road and about 4 miles of concrete and crushed stone through Funk's Grove. At Lincoln, there are 2 ½ miles of concrete road, and at Springfield 3 or 4 miles of the same.

It was planned to form the Pontiac Trail Association, with a vice president in each township and an officer in each county through which the trail passes, for the purpose of improving the dirt roads along the route and hastening the coming of a permanent highway.

The Goodrich Tire Co., in addition to erecting the guideposts, prepared a road log of the route, copies of which can be obtained from the garages at the towns along the road and from the superintendents of highways of the counties through which it passes.

Visit Our Illinois Pontiac Trail Souvenir Shop.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Charles Dadant, Bee-Culturist and the Story of the American Bee Journal (est.1861) in Hamilton, Illinois.

Charles Dadant, was born in 1817 in Vaux-Sous-Aubigny, a small village in eastern France, the second of seven children born to a small village doctor. He became interested in bees as he helped a neighboring priest remove honey from straw skeps at the early age of 12. Disillusioned with the business possibilities in France, he decided to accept an invitation of an old friend Mr. Marlot, then of Basco, Illinois, to come to grow Champagne grapes and raise bees. In 1863, at the age of 46, he emigrated from France to America and settled in Hamilton, Illinois.

Charles Dadant

The growing of grapes here did not prove to be lucrative so he abandoned them in favor of honey bees. By the end of the Civil War, Charles had nine colonies of honeybees and traveled with his young son, Camille Pierre Dadant across the Mississippi River to sell honey and beeswax in a neighboring town. His interest in making quality candles grew from his love and knowledge of beekeeping.

Charles was once the largest producer of extracted honey in America as well as one of the first to import queen bees from Italy on a large scale as he was unhappy with the common black or German bees he found here. He began a series of experiments on the size of hives and wrote a great deal on the large hive that appeared in both American and European journals.

In 1872 he was offered the editorship of the American Bee Journal, but refused because of his unfamiliarity with the English language. He learned to read the New York Tribune by digging at the words one at a time with a pocket dictionary so that he could then translate it back into French for his wife. Charles was a dreamer, a man with ideas and determination. He was the experimenter who became more widely known abroad than in his adopted country.

When his father wrote home to France that he had settled on a 40-acre farm north of Hamilton that he had purchased from Mr. Marlot, the rest of the family packed their trunks and started for the unknown land that Camille had only dreamed of. Camille was only 12 years old when his father brought the family to America. When he first saw the Mississippi he couldn’t believe how magnificent it was in its beauty, almost equal to a lake. He described living in the small log house that his father had built as the happiest time in his life.

Learning to read at the age of 4, Camille was more practical than Charles and was given the responsibility of carrying the purse strings at a very young age – he was the businessman of the two. He built the business around his father’s knowledge and became a beekeeping leader. Every improvement and change for the better was made due to their own efforts and appreciated because of this. He would joke of a European businessman and a little boy digging out oak trees and using a brush scythe to mow down all the hazel brush. The concept of a plow (pulling on the handles to go down and pressing down to bring it out of the dirt) went against all of his notions of mechanics. It was necessary for him to devote himself to the family farm and the sale of his father’s honey and farm products.

In 1871 when his father suffered from an asthma attack, it became necessary for him to take over the families 70 hives as well. Because there was no bridge across the Mississippi at this time, it was necessary for him to get up by 4:30 in order for him to get himself and goods to the ferry by 6:15. He considered himself lucky for many years that he was small because Captain Van Dyke never charged him for the ferry. He knew he was a grownup for the first time when the Captain held out his hand for a dime. He learned at a young age not to spend his money on candy or other desirable frivolities as it would be like throwing his money in the Mississippi for him and his family. He always got a good price for his wares when he sold them as he was a firm believer that “it pays to furnish good goods”.

In 1875 Camille married Marie Marinelli and took her to the same log cabin his father had taken his family to. In 1878, they began manufacturing foundation for their own use and later, for sale. As the business grew, they improved upon manufacturing methods and helped to finance the invention of the Weed sheeting machine, still in use today. In 1885, the revision of Langstroth’s, “The Hive and the Honey Bee” (PDF) was entrusted to them and four revisions appeared under their names from 1889 to 1899. Charles translated it into French and later it was translated into Italian, Russian, Spanish and Polish. Charles died in 1902 and Camille proceeded to produce four revisions of the book himself. In 1904, Camille retired and built a home in Hamilton on what is now North 7th street overlooking the Mississippi.

In his retirement, he became a community leader helping to establish banks, the library, and was one of five to bring about the building of the dam between Hamilton and Keokuk. On his retirement, as he watched his three sons take over the business he stated; “So we have reared a family of beekeepers. Now they can speak for themselves and we can take a back seat and watch them work.” 

In 1912 however, his love of the honey bee beckoned to him once again. He assumed publishing of the American Bee Journal which has been published in Hamilton ever since. His goal was that the journal becomes the “finest publication on bees and beekeeping in the world.” Camille Dadant passed away in 1938.

Dadant and Sons is still in business with the sixth generation in control.

---

The Story of the American Bee Journal, since 1912.

The story of the American Bee Journal, its origin, and Samuel Wagner, the first editor, must be closely associated with the Rev. L.L. Langstroth. In 1851, Langstroth had invented his movable-frame hive. In September 1851, a few weeks after a call on Langstroth, the Rev. Dr. Joseph Frederick Berg, pastor of a church in Philadelphia, visited Wagner and told him about this extraordinary beekeeper and his movable-frame hive and his beekeeping methods. They agreed that Wagner should go and see for himself, but it was not until August 1852, almost a year later, that he was able to do so.

  

After visiting Langstroth's apiary and seeing his hive, Wagner made a decision at a sacrifice to himself. He had corresponded with Dzierzon, discoverer of parthenogenesis, proponent of a practical system of beekeeping and author of a book entitled Rational Beekeeping. He had received permission to translate the book into English to be published for the improvement of American beekeeping. Wagner had made the translation, but it was never published. Recognizing the Langstroth movable frame hive as superior, he decided to encourage Langstroth to write a book instead; for his part, he would place all his store of information at Langstroth's service.

Langstroth quickly prepared the copy for the first edition of his book with the assistance of his wife, and Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee, A Bee-Keeper's Manual appeared in May of 1853.

Inasmuch as there were already two bee journals published in Germany, Langstroth made this prediction: "There is now a prospect that a Bee Journal will before long be established in this country. Such a publication has long been needed. Properly conducted, it will have a most powerful influence in disseminating information, awakening enthusiasm, and guarding the public against the miserable impositions to which it has so long been subjected."

Wagner established the American Bee Journal and its first issue appeared in January 1861, and from the start, he had Langstroth as a contributor as well as an advisor. But after one year of publication, the Civil War resulted in the suspension of its publication until July 1866, when it was resumed.

To quote from Pellett's History of American Beekeeping, "The history of the American Bee Journal has been the history of the rise of beekeeping, and the one is inseparably linked to that of the other. Before this first copy of the first bee magazine in the English language appeared, there were few of the implements now in common use among beekeepers. Conventions of beemen had not been held, a practical smoker had not yet been invented, queen excluders were unknown, comb foundation was still to be perfected, the extractor had not come into use, nor had commercial queen rearing been suggested.

The early volumes of the Journal contain the names of many men of worldwide reputation in the beekeeping world. From the start, Langstroth was a contributor, but to mention a few of the others we would include Henry Alley, Adam Grimm, Moses Quinby, Elisha Gallup, Charles Dadant, Baron von Berlepsch, and Dzierzon. Charles Dadant made his first contributions in November 1867, introducing himself as a newcomer from France. From then until his death in 1902, his name frequently appears as a writer in its pages.

For a long time, much space was devoted to the discussion of patent hives, and hundreds of different kinds received attention. In one year, 1869, more than 60 patents were recorded on hives and appliances, which gives one an understanding of the public interest in beekeeping at that time. Charles Dadant's defense of the Langstroth patented beehive, which appeared in the Journal, had an important place in the final judgment which awarded credit to the frail minister who profited little from his effort.

In the 1870s, a number of other bee publications were started, some of which continued publication for a time. Most made their beginnings after that of Wagner in 1872. The American Bee Journal was continued by Wagner's son with the assistance of Langstroth, who may have done most of the editorial work until January of 1873 when the Rev. W. F. Clarke became editor and owner. When Samuel Wagner resumed publication of the Journal after the Civil War, it was published in Washington, D.C., but when Clarke assumed its management, he moved the Journal to Chicago, Illinois.

Clarke's connection with the Journal was short - in July of 1874, Thomas G. Newman purchased the American Bee Journal. Thomas G. Newman continued as editor and publisher until April 1892, when George W. York joined the staff and the masthead of that issue lists Newman as editor and York as assistant editor. The announcement of the sale of the Journal to George W. York appears in the June 1897 issue and the masthead reads: "Published weekly by George W. York & Co."

York continued editing and publishing the American Bee Journal as a weekly. In the May 1912 issue, is published a letter, dated April 1, 1912, and signed by George W. York, that announced he had sold the American Bee Journal and his business to Camille Pierre Dadant, Hamilton, Illinois. The masthead reads: "CamilleDadant, Editor; Dr. C.C. Miller, Associate Editor." Thus the American Bee Journal was moved to Hamilton where it has been published ever since. In 1916 Camille Pierre Dadant hired Frank C. Pellett as a staff correspondent. Pellett later was to be designated field editor, associate editor, and editor.

M.G. Dadant, returning from college at the University of Illinois, joined the staff of the Journal in October 1918, and his name appears in that issue as business manager. A title he was to hold until the death of his father, Camille Pierre Dadant. About the same time, G.H. Cale, Sr., was employed to take care of the Dadant apiaries, and his name first appears in the October 1928 issue of the Journal as an associate editor, and later he became designated editor on the death of Camille Pierre Dadant in 1938.

During the 1940s through the 1960s, Journal editors and associate editors included M.G. Dadant, Frank C. Pellett, J.C. Dadant, Roy A. Grout and Adelaide Fraser. In 1965, Vern Sisson came on board, first as an assistant editor and later as editor during the early 1970s. Others assisting with the Journal during the early 1970s included Dale Maki and Jim Sheetz. Bill Carlile, a long-time columnist, and Dadant beekeeper, also assisted in editorship duties during the 1970s. In 1974, Joe Graham was hired as editor and he has continued in this position until the present day.

Camille Pierre Dadant had earlier written, "I want the American Bee Journal to be the finest publication about bees and beekeeping in the world." We, the editors who are continuing its publication, have this as our goal and guiding light.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.