The Story of Amling's Haunted House in Melrose Park, Illinois.

Amling's Haunted House opened at 8900 W. North Avenue, on the SW corner of 1st  and North Avenues in Melrose Park, Illinois, for Halloween in 1950 and is believed to be the first of its kind in the U.S., said Donna Amling, whose husband is a descendant of the family that founded Amling's Flowerland, the chain of flower shops. Houses of horror have never been the same since.

Amling's Haunted House in Melrose Park, Illinois, October 1957.

When it first opened in 1950, it actually was a haunted pirate ship, then later turned into a haunted house.

This may be hard to believe given the blood, guts, and gore in Hollywood today, but once upon a time gorillas were scary. A man in a giant ape costume would stand behind bars at the Amling's Haunted House and when timid visitors approached, the creature's sudden roar startled them in a way they would remember for decades.

"It was just the right impact at the right time," said Bob Paolicchi, whose parents took him to the well-known attraction at North and 1st Avenues in the 1950s and who returned there with his own children in the 1980s. "It was a rite of passage."

At the time, Halloween wasn't as commercialized as it is today, and families didn't have many options when it came to getting their children into the spooky spirit. 

So under the leadership of Otto Amling, son of the company's founder, employees at Amling's began a haunted house they hoped would bring extra customers to the greenhouse.

"There's a bunch of haunted houses nowadays, but in those days it was unheard of," said Tim Sandvoss, Otto Amling's grandson. "It was so successful that they just kept going and it got bigger and bigger." 

It started as a 25¢ tour of a darkened building with scary scenes and grew to use black lights and live witches, other ghoulish characters like Dracula. The gorilla was a perennial favorite. Some patrons remember getting the choice of doors to open, with monsters jumping out if you picked the right—or wrong—one.

The scares never required chain saws or even a drop of fake blood. "Blood didn't really have anything to do with it," Sandvoss said. "This was clean excitement." 

In the early years, the haunted house was operated mostly by nursery employees, but as it grew and became more popular, Amling's teamed up with local churches and charities to send volunteers to help raise money for their causes.

The haunted house expanded to include stagecoach and carnival rides, Sandvoss said. The haunted house would open in late September and people would line up every night through Halloween.

After making it through, visitors were rewarded with an "Amling's Brave Heart Award" button. Some celebrated by buying a cup of hot cider, Sandvoss said.

Over the years, Amling's garden stores changed ownership a few times, mostly between family and longtime friends. The haunted house remained open because owners always realized how treasured it was in the community.

Paolicchi, who grew up in Berwyn and later moved to Westmont, cherishes memories of visiting Amling's Haunted House with his parents, cousins, and younger sister. His sister would grab his hand for dear life. Afterward, they would pick out a pumpkin that his dad would carve at home. "That was the beginning of Halloween season for you," said Paolicchi. "It was what we did as a family." Paolicchi went on to become principal at several schools in the western suburbs, and he took his own children to Amling's at Halloween. He'd love to take his granddaughter, but the haunted house was no more.

Sandvoss said owners let it go in the late 1970s or early 1980s, plagued by the cost of insuring such a thrill-inducing experience.

About a decade later, Donna Amling was shopping with her daughter at a vintage shop and saw the tiny orange "Amling's Brave Heart Award" button for sale. She bought it for $1 and keeps it as a memento. "It's kind of fun to have things that have your name," she said.

by Vikki Ortiz

Edited by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Lincoln Forced to Walk Home from Wisconsin when his Horse was Stolen.

Lincoln's brief, but memorable, relationship with Wisconsin began in the summer of 1832, in a company of Army regulars and Illinois militiamen commanded by Gen. Henry Atkinson. The troops had been sent in early spring to reduce the threat of an India n war in the Illinois and Michigan Territories (Wisconsin then was a part of the Michigan Territory), and were pursuing the rebellious Chief Black Hawk—then in his early 60s—and his courageous band of Sauk and Fox. The federal government had moved the Sauk and Fox from Illinois to Iowa, but in the spring of 1832, Black Hawk led his band back across the Mississippi River to attempt to regain their croplands near Rock Island, Ill. His people were hungry, and he claimed the chiefs had been given mind-numbing firewater before agreeing to turn over to the U.S. all of their lands east of the Mississippi.

At the time, the lanky Lincoln was just 23 years old. Back home he had tested his luck as a shopkeeper's assistant, but the store failed. And he was waging a losing race for the Illinois legislature. Perhaps that was why the promise of $125 ($3,250 today) and 165 acres of land for a short tour of duty with the militia seemed appealing.

Here, he was part of a throng of soldiers, about four times the number of Black Hawk's 1,000 Indians, 500 of the warriors, relentlessly on their trail. The defeat of these Native Americans would signal the opening of this wilderness area to white settlement.

Lincoln saw no combat, but he and his fellow soldiers soon became weary as they struggled through the heat, rain, mosquitoes, and never-ending discomfort of what was then the wilds of what would be northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin—always seeing the outnumbered Indians slip away as troops closed in.

Lincoln's speech; Comment about being in the Black Hawk War.

The friends of General Lewis Cass, when that gentleman was a candidate for the presidency, (In the 1848 presidential campaign, Lewis Cass was the Democratic nominee but was defeated by the Whig candidate, Zachary Taylor.) endeavored to endow Lincoln with a military reputation. 

Mr. Lincoln, at that time a representative in Congress (1847-1849), delivered a speech before the House, which, in its allusions to General Cass, was exquisitely sarcastic and irresistibly humorous:

"By the way, Mr. Speaker," said Mr. Lincoln, "do you know I am a military hero? Yes, sir, in the days of the Black Hawk War, I fought, bled, and came away. Speaking of General Cass's career reminds me of my own. I was not at Stillman's Defeat, but I was about as near it as Cass to Hull's surrender, and like him, I saw the place very soon afterward. It is quite certain I did not break my sword, for I had none to break; but I bent my musket pretty badly on one occasion. If General Cass went in advance of me in picking whortleberries, I guess I surpassed him in charges upon the wild onions. If he saw any live, fighting Indians, it was more than I did, but I had a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes; and although I never fainted from loss of blood, I can truly say I was often very hungry."

Mr. Lincoln concluded by saying if he ever turned democrat and should run for the Presidency, he hoped they would not make fun of him by attempting to make him a military hero! 

As his stint of several months came to an end, he received his discharge. Official word came July 10, 1832, while he was camped with 3,000 soldiers in a place now called Burnt Village Park, near Cold Spring, midway between Jefferson and Whitewater.

Captain Abraham Lincoln

As many as 1,000 men got their orders at the same time. That's why it was no surprise that Lincoln's horse was stolen that night. But the iron-willed young man was not deterred and would walk and canoe his way back to his home in little New Salem, Illinois, where the next year he would become its postmaster.

The trek would be a long one—250 miles.

Two and a half decades later, in 1859, Lincoln would pass this way again, on a speaking tour that reached Beloit and Janesville. Remarkably, the next year he would be elected to the White House, the 16th president of the United States.

NEWSPAPER ARTICLE

February 12, 1934: Horse Stolen, Lincoln Forced to Walk Home from Wisconsin.

At Baraboo lives Franklin Johnson, one of very few living Wisconsin citizens who ever saw and heard Abraham Lincoln.

Around this time of year, many Lincoln stories pop up. In many cases, the folks who tell about having seen Lincoln probably are mistaken, as reliable sources seem agreed that the great emancipator visitor [visited] Wisconsin only three times, one of these being his participation in the Black Hawk War which brought him into the Madison area.

He was mustered out on the shores of Lake Koshkonong, and before he could start back for his home in [New Salem] Illinois, his horse was stolen and he had to walk back.

He visited Beloit and Janesville once, stayed overnight in Janesville, it is said. At another time, the year before he was elected president, he was the speaker at Wisconsin's state fair in Milwaukee.

In July of 1832, 23-year old Abe Lincoln's horse was stolen in Wisconsin so he walked and canoed 250 miles back to New Salem, Illinois. The historical marker is located at Cold Spring Creamery Park, Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin.

Compiled by Dr.  Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Fort Lincoln (1895-1941), Fort Lincoln Internment Camp (1941-1946), Bismarck, North Dakota.

Fort Lincoln was first established as a military post in 1895 to replace Fort Yates, following the closure of the original Fort Abraham Lincoln on the west side of the Missouri River in 1891. During the interwar period, it was a training site for units of the 7th Corps Area.

Fort Lincoln Main Gate.

In 1941 the U.S. Justice Department turned Fort Lincoln into an Internment Camp for people the government deemed enemy aliens during the beginnings of WWII. The fort’s new purpose came as a shock when it was announced in April that the fort and several other military posts would be housing foreign seamen who were taken from their ships and detained as belligerents in World War II – even though the U.S. was still neutral at this point.

Fort Lincoln Buildings.

Despite protests, a detachment of Border Patrol officers and immigrant inspectors arrived in Bismarck to begin preparing the proposed detention camp. They did most of the work themselves, the local Work Projects Administration (WPA) administrator proving to be totally hostile to the establishment of a detention camp.

The detainment camp was to ultimately house 2,000 people, which would require more housing. So, 20 wood-frame buildings were purchased and shipped up from Alabama; each could house 42 people, but none had insulation. Cots, mattresses, and bedding came from federal agencies. Ten-foot high cyclone fence topped with barbed wire was used to enclose an area measuring 500' by 1300'. To discourage tunneling, 3' long steel rods were driven into the ground every 6 inches under the fence. Seven steel guard towers with weapons and floodlights ringed the fenced enclosure, and a control center was equipped with gas bombs, Remington automatic rifles, gas masks, 12-gauge riot guns, gas guns, four machine guns, and gas billies. Three German shepherds and three saddle horses were kept on the hand for chasing escapees.

North Fence Line in Fort Lincoln Internment Camp.

The first prisoners were to be Italian seamen. Despite the high population of local Germans and German Russians, many thought Italians would be preferable to German prisoners, because the news portrayed Hitler’s men as nastier and more violent. But the train cars loaded with Italians didn’t stop—they continued west to Fort Missoula. On May 28, 1941, the Bismarck Tribune announced the camp’s first prisoners would instead be Germans.

Fort Lincoln Internment Camp Housing.

Two hundred twenty-two German seamen got off the train at Bismarck’s Northern Pacific depot at about 7 PM that evening. When they arrived at the detention camp, the fence enclosure wasn’t finished and Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) inspectors had to guard the opening throughout the night.

Fort Lincoln Internment Camp Patrol Inspector.

The Border Patrolmen were pleased with how smoothly everybody settled in, but it wasn’t to last. Two weeks later, a young ships’ third officer, 23-year old Johann Marquenie, used a broken shovel to dig his way under the fence at a point where it crossed a shallow ditch. He disappeared across the Missouri River bottomlands, stole a boat, and headed south. The next day, the patrolmen acted on a tip and tracked him to the Huff neighborhood, where they found him resting in some brush. Marquenie said he simply wanted to be “out alone.”

North Fence Line in Fort Lincoln Internment Camp.

Soon, 37 more seamen arrived, and the camp’s population was about 280 until December 7, 1941, when Pearl Harbor plunged the U.S. into WWII. Fort Lincoln was turned over to the Department of Justice (DOJ), renamed Fort Lincoln Internment Camp, and expanded to make room for U.S. civilians of Japanese and German descent, mostly non-citizen residents who were arrested on suspicion of Fifth Column[1] activity, despite a lack of supporting evidence or access to due process.  

Northern Pacific Railroad Gang. These German alien internees were housed at Fort Lincoln Concentration Camp, Bismarck, ND. 1943

On February 14, 1942, 650 Japanese Americans were transferred to Fort Lincoln from the DOJ camp at Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the War Relocation Authority camp at Tule Lake, which had become a segregation center for "disloyal" inmates in 1943.

Example of Internment Camps Crowded Living.

These new arrivals were either Nisei who, fed up with the government's incarceration policy and, in some cases, coerced by camp authorities or groups of pro-Japan inmates, had renounced their U.S. citizenship, or non-citizen Issei who had, again under significant duress, requested repatriation to Japan. Another 100 "renunciants" arrived in July. Over half of these men were deported to Japan later in 1945. 

Over the next five years, the camp’s population expanded to a peak population of 1,518 in February 1942, some 3,600 prisoners passed through Fort Lincoln during the war, most of whom were U.S. citizens of Japanese and German descent, until the Fort Lincoln Internment Camp was closed in 1946 when WWII was over.

Guard Tower Fort Lincoln Internment Camp.

Today, the site of Fort Lincoln is owned by the five Indian tribes of North Dakota—the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation; the Spirit Lake Tribe; the Sisseton Wahpeton Sioux Tribe; the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe; and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. It is the home of the United Tribes Technical College. Many of the brick buildings of the fort, completed in the early 1900s, are still in use.

MORE UNIQUE LINCOLN ARTICLES

Compiled by Neil, Gale, Ph.D.

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[1] A Fifth Column is any group of people who undermine a larger group from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or nation. Clandestine fifth column activities can involve acts of sabotage, disinformation, or espionage executed from within by secret sympathizers with an external force.