Rogers Park/West Ridge Historical Society

Chicago's Far North Side: An Illustrated History of Rogers Park and West Ridge

Table of Contents

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Chapter 1
YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH
(1809 - 1893)

· Geography - natural character of the vicinity (lake shore, birch forests)
· Indian occupants & pre-US possession
· Indian Boundary Line established - 1816
· Philip Rogers arrival - c. 1835
· Early Settlers
· Transportation beginnings (stagecoach & trains) - c. 1830s
· Truck farming began - 1840s
· Township of Ridgeville founded - 1850
· St. Henry Parish established - 1851
· Patrick Leonard Touhy marries Catherine Rogers - early 1850s
· Early business areas (Clark Street, Ravenswood Avenue) - 1850s
· Greenhouses opened - 1860s
· Touhy mansion built - mid 1860s
· Angel Guardian Orphanage founded - 1865
· Rogers Park Building & Land Association formed - 1871
· Rogers Park Village Board; RP incorporated as a village - 1878
· Tollgate at Rogers & Clark opened - 1880s
· John W. Pollard settles in Rogers Park - 1880s
· Cumberland Post formed by Civil War veterans - 1880s
· West Ridge incorporated as a village - 1890
· Birchwood Beach subdivision formed - early 1890s
· Early schools started - 1890s (East Side & West Side Schools)
· East Side School later renamed Eugene Field
· Rogers Park (pop. 3,500) and West Ridge (pop. 300) annexed to Chicago - 1893

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Chapter 2
NEW NORTH SIDE NEIGHBORHOODS
(1894 - 1919)

· North Shore Street Railway Company opened - 1894
· Homemade transfer war erupts after annexation to Chicago - 1894
· Philip State Bank opens - 1895
· Clark Street Business area - 1890s
· Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul R.R. Suburban line extended from Chicago
  to Evanston - 1895 (Birchwood Depot)
· Ridge Avenue Park District formed due to ire of West Ridge farmers;
  leads to cabbage head war - 1896
· Large homes built along Sheridan Road - 1890s - 1915
  (Wheeler, Emil Bach designed by Frank Lloyd Wright)
· Edgewater Golf Club established - 1898; moved to
  Pratt & Ridge - 1913 (currently Warren Park)
· Community Institutions - 1900s
· St. Ignatius parish buys land at Hayes Point - 1906
· St. Paul By-the-Lake Episcopal Church - 1886
· St. Jerome Parish - 1905
· Rogers Park Congregational Church - 1905
· St. Scholastica Academy opened - 1902 along Ridge Boulevard
· Loyola Academy opened - 1908; obtained charter for Loyola University - 1909
· Eugene Field School expanded - 1899
· Armstrong School opened on Estes just west of Ridge Boulevard - 1912
· Chicago Fresh Air Hospital opened (built) as a tuberculosis sanitarium;
  Howard Street west of Western - 1906
· Northwestern Elevated Lines opened for traffic - 1900; extended from
  Wilson Avenue to Howard - 1907 and then to Evanston - 1908
· Chicago numbering system changed - 1909 (proposed by Edward P. Brennan
  of Rogers Park and approved by the Chicago City Council)
· New subdivision developed by William Wallen with almost 70 new apartment
  buildings between Devon & Pratt near Clark - 1913
· Development of West Ridge
· Germania and the Howard Street District
· Charles Ferguson developed Howard Street, including the Howard Theater - 1918

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Chapter 3
THE BUILDING BOOM
(1920 - 1930)

· Building boom in Rogers Park - early 1920s
· Broadmoor Hotel built -- 1922-23 at Howard and Bosworth;
· WBBM-AM radio broadcasts from hotel
· Transportation growth
· Life in the 1920s
· Lakeshore beaches reach popularity
· Theatres - Granada, Nortown, Adelphi, Howard
· West Ridge business area
· Education
· Sullivan Junior High School opened - Spring 1926
· Mundelein College
· Growth of Religious Institutions
· St. Henry Parish
· Rogers Park Baptist Church
· Rogers Park Methodist Episcopal
· Congregation B'nai Zion
· Temple Mizpah
· Growth in the 1920s followed by Disruption in the '30s and '40s
· Neighborhood grew to 75,000 residents by 1930;
  apartments, hotels and movie houses opened

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Chapter 4
THE DEPRESSION AND WORLD WAR II
(1931 - 1945)

· Building Boom continues
· A. C. Nielsen Company opens on Howard Street - 1935
· Momentum builds on Devon Avenue - 1930s
· Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee R.R. opens terminal on Howard Street
· Coping with the Depression - 1930s
· Indian Boundary Park absorbed into Chicago Park District - 1934
· Education in the Community
· Students open their books at Rogers School - 1937
· Boone School, Sullivan and Kilmer
· Sports in the Community
· "Play Ball!" at Thillens Stadium first heard - 1938
· Chicago Town & Tennis Club
· The 1940s
· Rogers Park goes to war: Victory gardens and recruitment centers - 1941
· Restaurants, Food and Fashion
· Greenhouses begin to disappear - late 1940s

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Chapter 5
POST-WAR YEARS OF STABILITY
(1946 - 1969)

· The Population Explosion and the Building Boom
· New Residents
· The Jewish Community
· Social Institutions
· Jewish Community Center, High Ridge YMCA
· Grade School Overcrowding
· High School Overcrowding
· The Hot War (Korea) and the Cold War hit the neighborhood - 1953
· Devon Avenue -- the changing lifeline of a neighborhood - 1950s
· Polio attacks the neighborhood
· No Dancing Here
· A small battle over Rock and Roll - 1956
· Big Business
· S&C Electric Company moves to Rogers Park from Lake View - 1947
· Growth of the A. C. Nielsen Company
· Devon - Heart of the Neighborhoods
· Howard Street
· Western Avenue
· Morse Avenue
· Sullivan High School
· The Beaches
· Sports
· Legends and Traditions
· The End of an Era

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Afterword
YEARS OF TRANSITION AND DIVERSITY

· Broadened ethnic diversity
· Senior Citizens
· Housing