National Trailways Bus Depot, 20 East Randolph Street, Chicago, Illinois.

Downtown National Trailways Bus Depot, 20 East Randolph Street, Chicago. ca.1950s

Downtown National Trailways Bus Depot, 20 East Randolph Street, Chicago. ca.1950s

From 1936 until 1987, the various Trailways companies used this downtown terminal, across the street from the Marshall Field store. Trailways never had the major presence in Chicago that Greyhound did, and its terminal was accessed via regular downtown streets.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Market Days in Niles Centre (Skokie), Illinois. (1880-1920)

The small settlement of Niles Centre (Incorporated 1888), Americanized to Niles Center 1910 and renamed Skokie 1940, comprised just 57 households in 1880, although the township had a population of just over 2,500. It was, however, fast becoming a vital area marketplace around that time, the keystone of which was the area's first farmer's market.

Market Days in Niles Centre (Skokie). circa 1880s. West side of Lincoln Avenue north of Oakton Street; Blameuser Building on the far left.

For four decades beginning in 1880, the first Tuesday and third Thursday of each month were established as market days, and merchants from as far away as Chicago, as well as McHenry and Kane counties, came to meet with area farmers and purchase their produce. Pigs, poultry, horses and a variety of vegetables were offered for sale in large numbers on market days.

The idea for the market seems to have originated with Peter Blameuser, Jr., who had billboards printed advertising the earliest events. A description of the colorful Market Days:

“The market reached from the intersection of Lincoln and Oakton [north] to the fork at St. Peter’s Catholic Church. A major attraction for the children of the community, market day also attracted beggars, gypsy fortune tellers and thieves, who proved to be a challenge for the local law enforcers. Horse trading was a vigorous activity. A dispute regarding the merits of a pair of horses would most likely be settled by a horse race through town. The usual stakes were a round of drinks paid for by the loser. Wives often accompanied their husbands into town on market days to make sure the ‘pig money got home safely. After selling their stock, the farmers often decided to have a little fun in town before returning home. They had little trouble getting home; their horses knew the way!”

The soft farmlands of the area were ideal for Chicago workhorses made lame by the Chicago Street Paver Bricks. In the country fields, they would remain functional for years. They were a part of village life in the late 1800s, not only in labor and commerce but also in recreation. In addition to the races, the horses were sometimes pitted against one another in pulling contests, in which pairs of horses were harnessed to wagons loaded with gravel, their rear wheels locked by a board placed between the spokes.

Gypsies usually arrived at the edge of the settlement in caravans of wagons, where they camped for an evening or two. The outdoor market brought hundreds of other strangers to the area, too, including many merchants from Chicago, establishing Niles Centre as a true center of commerce.

Skokie runs a "Farmers Market," beginning around 1990, every Sunday, from June through October. The market is in the Skokie Public Library's parking lot on Oakton, just west of Lincoln Avenue.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Lost Towns of Illinois - Ontarioville, Illinois.

Ontarioville, Illinois, was located just south of U.S. Route 20 (Lake Street) at the intersection of County Farm Road and Ontarioville Road in Hanover Park, Illinois.

In 1846 Ringgold was the first name given to the village of Hanover Park, the town that straddles the Cook and DuPage County lines. The Frink & Walker Stage Coach, carried townspeople along an old Indian trail called "Lake Trail" (later becoming Lake Street) linking Chicago and Galena from 1832 until about the mid-1860s.

The Stagecoach wasn't as glamorous as the movies made them out to be.

Wilhelm Heinrich Harmening built a frame two-story house with a coupla sometime between 1865 and 1872 (on today's Lake Street US Rt 20) in Ontarioville. The Harmening House still stands, dilapidated, on the property now owned by the Central Sod Farm in Hanover Park.

The Harming House was razed on May 31, 2021.

The Harmening House

The Harmening House

SEE PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE INSIDE OF THE HARMENING HOUSE

In 1872, Colonel Rosell M. Hough (Roselle, Illinois' namesake), founder and president of the Chicago & Pacific Railroad (later the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad) laid tracks on the property of Edwin Bartlett after he donated more than seven acres for the construction of a depot. Luther Bartlett donated a 40-acre "woodlot," the source of the Bartlett family's lumber and firewood. 

People donating land for depots along the right-of-way were allowed to name the villages that were formed. Edwin and Luther Bartlett, brothers, each established stations named "Bartlett" along the Chicago & Pacific Railroad line. Luther's station kept the name Bartlett, but to avoid confusion, Edwin renamed his station "Ontario" in 1873, after a legend that the site was built on an old Indian trail between Lake Ontario and Green Bay, Wisconsin. 

A post office was established in Ontarioville in 1873.

Edwin Bartlett began setting down plans for the village in 1874 and by the 1880s the community was thriving as new homes were built in Bartlett's subdivision between the railroad tracks and Ontarioville Road. The little railroad stop became a connection to the larger world, with service extending to Omaha, Sioux City, and beyond. 

Ontarioville's population was 250 in 1920, but when Lake Street became a major artery in the 1920s, a bypass skirted the town and an underpass went under the railroad tracks. Traffic and development were diverted away from the older section of town, in DuPage County. Slow development began on the Cook County side.

In 1925 many people purchased lots in the new Grant Highway (today: Lake Street / US 20) subdivision, but only a few homes were built before the Great Depression. In 1947 construction stalled again when the developers left town with the down-payment money. 

There were so few commuters in 1955 that Ontarioville was taken off the schedule as a train stop. Nearby Streamwood was expanding rapidly, and the Cook County portion of Ontarioville, afraid of annexation by its neighbor, incorporated as Hanover Park in 1958.

Although the community wished to retain a rustic feel, it also hoped to prevent further encroachment of surrounding land by Streamwood. The village formed its own realty firm, Hanover Builders, to begin Hanover Park First Addition subdivision in 1959. The village also began to annex commercial property along Ontarioville Road in DuPage County. 

North of Irving Park Road industries began to boom. Tradewinds Shopping Center on the northeast corner of Irving Park and Barrington Roads opened in 1968. A large annexation of DuPage County land took place in 1970, and by 1990 Hanover Park encompassed nearly five square miles. From a 1970 population of 11,916, the community nearly tripled by 1990 to 32,895.

The boundary between Cook and DuPage Counties produced an invisible dividing line for Hanover Park; now, the Elgin-O'Hare Expressway physically divides the village.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.