The Reasons Why Harwood Heights and Norridge Aren't Part of the City of Chicago.

The Norridge and Harwood Heights villages are surrounded by the City of Chicago, like islands. For at least half a century, the canoe-shaped hole in the city's Northwest Side has been a source of wonder and frustration for anyone who's ever squinted at an old city street map.

But the situation was no accident. The self-sustaining villages of Norridge and Harwood Heights owe their independence to a combination of stubborn farmers, wary city bureaucrats and determined neighbors who wanted their own shot at governing.

The Norridge and Harwood Heights villages are surrounded by the City of Chicago.

Some homeowners had made a fleeting effort in 1928 to get the city to annex the territory, hoping they could access Chicago's water and police protection that their urban counterparts took for granted. However, they ran into resistance from the dominant farming population.

The homesteaders in the area did not need paved streets, sidewalks or street lighting and weren't willing to pay taxes.

Just north of the area, the city's boundaries were creeping out to swallow the industrial and commercial corridors of Milwaukee Avenue and Northwest Highway. And to its south, a community called Dunning was forming around the Cook County Poor House and Insane Asylum.

That left a hole in the city grid with a sparse population and even less infrastructure. In the 1930s, Norridge and Harwood Heights were little more than open prairie, low-lying forest and seasonal swamps, interspersed with some farms and dirt roads.

In 1947, residents near Lawrence and Harlem avenues, led by a Navy veteran named Herbert Huening, made a second, more serious effort to join the city.

At the end of WWII, the residents wanted what citizens of established communities had lighted and paved streets, police and fire protection, an adequate water source and storm sewers.

The City of Chicago believed that the area residents wanted to avoid paying to fix their water system or building their own sewers. Being annexed to Chicago would be a quick fix, and Chicago would pay for all those upgrades.

Rejected by city leaders, Huening convinced his neighbors that they could run the show themselves. They drew up articles of incorporation for the village of Harwood Heights, which had a population of 400 people.

Months later, another contingent of residents just south of Montrose Avenue prepared their own push to join the city. Calling themselves the "Annexation Improvement Club," the group scored audiences with 48 of the city's 50 aldermen to make their pitch. They even got tentative approval from the City Council, officially joining the city briefly.

But after just 30 days, the Annexation Improvement Club member Joseph Sieb suggested they secede and plant their own flag, just like Harwood Heights had done. Borrowing their name from Norwood Park and Park Ridge, the village of Norridge was incorporated on December 4, 1948.

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When Chicago began annexing land parcels between it and the airport, Norridge and Harwood Heights stood directly in this northwest route. So the city had to annex all the land around them to ensure that the airport would be in the city`s domain.

Ascending to Village Board President in 1951, Sieb rallied the new government to pave the roads and dig the sewer lines the area had long begged for. They founded a police department, created a park district and wooed developers with cheaper land and looser building restrictions than could be found in the city.

Norridge shared some public services with Harwood Heights, merging their school district and fire departments. The massive Eisenhower Library was built in 1973 and is accessible to residents of both villages today.

The "island" might have been too isolated to attract much fanfare in the early 20th century, but it proved a ripe target for the car-centric building boom of the 1950s. Vast tracts of fresh-built bungalows promised transplanted city residents "room to breathe."

Family entertainment businesses began popping up, fueling the building boom even more. 

The Harlem Outdoor Theater opened in 1946 at the intersection of Harlem Avenue and Irving Park Road, with a capacity for 1,030 cars. It was the second drive-in theater to open in Chicagoland.

The Hub Roller Rink opened on Harlem Avenue in October of 1950. Kiddie Park opened in the summer of 1938 at the north end of the future Harlem-Irving Plaza. KiddyTown Amusement Park opened in 1953 at the same spot.

Suddenly, people realized they didn't need to move to Arlington Heights for a 20-foot driveway and a two-car garage. And the best part was that you never had to worry about city bureaucracy — you could just walk to the Village Hall and sort your problem out.

In 1955, Sieb convened business leaders and encouraged them to build a shopping center at Harlem Avenue and Irving Park Road on a former livestock farm site. If open spaces didn't attract outsiders to Norridge, the Harlem-Irving Plaza (the HIP) opened in 1956 certainly would, with original anchor stores; Kroger, Walgreens, Wieboldt's, W.T. Grant, Woolworth, and Fannie May Candies.

By the early 1960s, the tables had turned on the city leaders who had spurned the neighbors' pleas for annexation. Instead of sinking their tax dollars into expressways and Downtown high-rises in Chicago, citizens of Norridge and Harwood Heights got to carve out a retail empire exclusively for their own benefit.

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Chicago Tribune, Sunday, January 3, 1971

ARTICLE: "Police Supt. Conlisk is Chicago Resident in Suburb Peninsula."

Rumor had it that Sieb — who served as mayor until his death in 1998, making him the longest-serving municipal leader in state history — often boasted of calls he got from Mayor Daley, asking, "Are you ready to join the city yet?" As the story goes, Sieb just hung up the phone.

It was a formula that village leaders drew up by necessity.

Today, thanks in part to the sales tax raked in through Harlem-Irving Plaza, a megamall now anchored by a Target and packed with ritzy department stores and quality restaurants, the village hardly needs to collect any property taxes to keep public services running.

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Chicago Townships: Hyde Park, Jefferson, Lake, Lakeview, North Chicago, Rogers Park, South Chicago, and West Chicago. 

Norwood Park Township is one of 29 townships in Cook County, Illinois which consists of Norridge, Harwood Heights, Park Ridge and an unincorporated area.

Approximately 4.5%, of the 26,385 residents live in an unincorporated residential area within Norwood Park Township. Norwood Park Township is not a contiguous Township. It is essentially divided into three sections as a result of previous annexations by the City of Chicago. There is only one unincorporated residential neighborhood in Norwood Park Township with approximately 330 single-family homes and is wholly surrounded by the City of Chicago, but within the boundaries of Norwood Park Township. 

The housing in the unincorporated residential area is a mixture of old and new frame and brick single-family homes and is similar in age and architectural style of the housing in the neighboring municipalities of Chicago and Norridge. The Village of Norridge provides water to some of the unincorporated residents at the same rate as for residents. The unincorporated residential neighborhood does not have a uniform network of sidewalks or streetlights. The area has a substandard curb and gutter system to manage stormwater, when compared to the neighboring municipalities. Fire protection services are provided to the unincorporated residents through the Norwood Park Fire Protection District, which is funded through a general property tax on property owners within the District. The unincorporated residents of Norwood Park are not part of a public library district or park district.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

President Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession on May 1, 1865, in Chicago, Illinois.

Lincoln's funeral procession passing under an ornamental arch at Grant Park on Michigan Boulevard (renamed Michigan Avenue in 1871) and 12th Street (renamed Roosevelt Road in 1919) in Chicago, Illinois. May 1, 1865 

The funeral and lying-in-state at the Old County Court House were scheduled from 5:00pm until the body was returned in procession to the train on the following morning for departure to Springfield at 9:30am. 

Cook County Court House (left) Facing North on Randolph Street, Chicago 1865.
Funeral of Abraham Lincoln; his body Lying-in-State in the Court House.

The lakeshore was only pilings at that time with no beach or sand and water came within 300 feet of Michigan Boulevard.

The train arrived at 11:00 am with a procession in the early afternoon. Rather than pull into the main depot, however, the train stopped on a trestle built a short distance into Lake Michigan.

Lincoln’s Funeral Parade. The procession is seen here proceeding east on Lake Street from the corner of Clark Street.

The officers wearing a sash are with the special military honor guard. The President's funeral car was named "The United States." It was newly built and delivered by the U.S. Military Railroad. 

The body of his youngest son "Willie" who had died in 1862 had been disinterred in Washington and was accompanying his father's body on the car to be buried during the same rites in Springfield. 

Guarding Lincoln’s Funeral Car on the Illinois Central tracks by Lake Michigan. The car was auctioned off to a private party but was destroyed by a fire in 1911.

The train remained still, with only its bell tolling its arrival.

The Funeral train stopped on a trestle that carried the tracks out into Lake Michigan in Chicago.

The triple memorial arch was designed, constructed, and decorated under the supervision of the well-known architect, W. W. Boyington.

Railroad equipment can be seen in the distance behind the cortege. The train had come through Indianapolis and then Michigan City, Indiana on the Chicago Indianapolis & Louisville Railroad, the "Monon" and was going to Springfield on the Illinois Central Railroad. The total route was 1654 miles retracing the route of his first journey from Springfield to Washington D.C. in 1861.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Mailing Children by U.S. Parcel Post.

Because of Rural Free Delivery (RFD) service, which began in 1896, mail was delivered directly to farm families. Before RFD, rural inhabitants had to pick up their mail themselves, sometimes at distant post offices, or pay private express companies for delivery.

On January 1, 1913, the U. S. Post Office began parcel post service for shipping packages throughout the country. Pretty much anything could be mailed that wasn’t dangerous or posed a threat to other pieces of mail.

The new service took off right away – almost two million packages were shipped in the first week of operations alone. A mortuary in St. Louis mailed human ashes to Illinois for burial, while a mother in St. Paul, Indiana, sent lunch to her son, who worked in Indianapolis. There were a few snags: a package of skunk hides prompted the evacuation of the post office in Decatur, Illinois.

On January 22, 1913, a woman requested rates for mailing herself from Elgin, Illinois to Washington, D.C.

Just a few weeks after Parcel Post began in January of 1913, Jesse and Mathilda Beagle “mailed” their 8-month-old son James to his grandmother, who lived a few miles away near Batavia, Ohio. Baby Beagle weighed 10¾ pounds, just within the 11-pound weight limit for parcels. The postage was 15¢, and the “parcel” was insured for $50 ($1,300 today). Rural Carrier Vernon Lytle picked up baby Beagle from his parent’s house and transported him in his mail wagon, delivering the boy safely to the address on the attached card, that of the boy’s grandmother, Mrs. Louis Beagle, who lived a little over a mile away. 

Although it was against postal regulations (it was never legal), many children traveled via U.S. Mail in the early years of Parcel Post. Initially, the only animals that were allowed in the mail were bees and bugs. In 1918, day-old chicks were allowed in the mail. In 1919, some additional “harmless live animals” were permitted, but children did not fall into this category.

One of the most famous images of a postman carrying baby mail. In fact, there are no photographs of real incidents of children being posted, with all contemporary images being staged for publicity.

The quirky story soon made newspapers, and for the next few years, stories about children being mailed through rural routes would crop up from time to time as people pushed the limits of what could be sent through Parcel Post.

The practice became affectionately known by letter carriers of the day as "baby mail."

In one famous case, on February 19, 1914, a four-year-old girl named Charlotte "May" Pierstorff was “mailed” via train from her home in Grangeville, Idaho, to her grandparent's house about 73 miles away. The postage was 15¢ ($15 today), with stamps attached to her coat, and the “parcel” was insured for $50 ($1,500 today).

Charlotte "May" Pierstorff was mailed via the US Postal System.

Luckily, little May wasn’t unceremoniously shoved into a canvas sack along with the other packages. As it turns out, she was accompanied on her trip by her mother’s cousin, who worked as a clerk for the railway mail service, Lynch says. It’s likely that his influence (and his willingness to chaperone his young cousin) is what convinced local officials to send the little girl along with the mail.

In 1914, a mother going through a divorce shipped her baby from Stillwell, Indiana, to its father in South Bend, Indiana. The child traveled 28 miles in a container marked “Live Baby” for only 17¢.

In 1914, Mrs. E. H. Staley of Wellington, Kansas, received her two-year-old nephew by parcel post from his grandmother in Stratford, Oklahoma, where he had been visiting for three weeks. The boy wore a tag around his neck showing it had cost 18¢ to send him through the mail. He was transported 25 miles by rural route before reaching the railroad. His grandma packed enough food to share with the mail clerks he rode with. He arrived in good condition after the 200-mile one-way trip.

The longest trip taken by a “mailed” child took place in 1915 when a six-year-old girl traveled from her mother’s home in Pensacola, Florida, to her father’s home in Christiansburg, Virginia. The nearly 50-pound girl made the 721-mile trip on a mail train for just 15¢ in parcel post stamps. The postage was much cheaper than a train ticket.

These stories continued to pop up as parents occasionally managed to slip their children through the mail, thanks to rural workers willing to let it slide.

Finally, on June 14, 1913, several newspapers, including the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, all ran stories stating the postmaster had officially decreed that children could no longer be sent through the mail. But while this announcement seems to have stemmed the trickle of tots traveling via post, Lynch says the story wasn’t entirely accurate.

“According to the regulations at that point, the only animals that were allowed in the mail were bees and bugs,” Lynch says. “There’s an account of Charlotte May Pierstorff being mailed under the chicken rate, but actually, chicks weren’t allowed until 1918.”

But while the odd practice of sometimes slipping kids into the mail might be seen as incompetence or negligence on the part of the mail carriers, Lynch sees it more as an example of just how much rural communities relied on and trusted local postal workers.

“Mail carriers were trusted servants, and that goes to prove it,” Lynch says. “There are stories of rural carriers delivering babies and taking care of the sick. Even now, they’ll save lives because they’re sometimes the only persons that visit a remote household every day.”

The Post Office Department officially put a stop to “baby mail” in 1915, after postal regulations barring the mailing of human beings enacted the year before were finally enforced.

On June 13, 1920, the headline in the Washington Herald read: “CAN’T MAIL KIDDIES – DANGEROUS ANIMALS." The Post Office, in its wisdom, had finally ruled that children were not “harmless animals” and, because of their potentiality for danger, may not be mailed as parcel post. “By no stretch of imagination or language,” said the ruling, “can children be classified as harmless, live animals that do not require food or water.”

Luckily, there are more travel options for children traveling alone these days than pinning some postage to their shirts and sending them off with the mailman.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

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This is the email response I received from an inquiry to the official Historian of the United States Postal Service.

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Received: from EAGNMNSXMB60.usa.dce.usps.gov (EAGNMNSXMB60.usa.dce.usps.gov [56.207.244.38]) by mailrelay-c1i.usps.gov (Symantec Messaging Gateway) with SMTP id 0D.0F.17582.03C949E5; Mon, 13 Apr 2020 12:06:56 -0500 (CDT)

Mon. April 13, 2020 at 12:06 PM

Hi Dr. Gale!

There are several newspaper accounts of children being “mailed” following the introduction of Parcel Post in January 1913. We share one such story on page 38 of "The United States Postal Service: An American History."

I hope this is helpful.

Jenny Lynch,
Historian and Corporate Information Services Manager
United States Postal Service