West Side Stories

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Discover west Lake Forest, beyond the Skokie Highway. While the east, punctuated by ravine and bluff, remained blanketed by forests, out west homesteaders blazed trails, plowed fields and created a vibrant farming community by the 1830s.

Our west side has no shortage of tales to tell: tales of work and play, school and home; tales of pioneers and farmers, students and shopkeepers; tales of estates and subdivisions, corporations and annexations. These neighborhoods, schools and businesses formed an essential part of the Lake Forest whole even before they were officially within the city limits.

LET'S EXPLORE THESE WEST SIDE STORIES.

WHAT’S IN A NAME? Dating back to the earliest settlers, the growing community in west Lake Forest collected several monikers – official and unofficial.

Michael Meehan’s cabin was located near the present-day intersection of Telegraph and Half Day roads.

Meehan's Settlement Irish immigrants Michael Meehan and his wife Bridget were the first European settlers in Deerfield Township in 1835, prior even to the exodus of the local Pottawatomi. The Meehan home became a way station for pioneers and a setting for town meetings.

Corduroy

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Pioneers knew Waukegan/Telegraph Road as “the Corduroy road” because tree trunks resembling ridges of corduroy were used to elevate the road surface crossing the sloughs of the north branch of the Chicago River.

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The “Corduroy bridge,” pictured in 1918, crossed the river near Patrick Melody's homestead, located just south of present-day Rte. 60 near Lake Forest High School West Campus. It was right down the road from “the Corduroy church,” as St. Patrick was known.

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Lancaster/Lancasterville When the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad was built through Lake County in 1872, a train stop was put in where the tracks crossed Telegraph Road. James Lancaster owned this property, and his house doubled as the first depot, so it soon became known as Lancaster station. By 1887, the Lancaster post office was established here as well.

Right: The 1885 Deerfield Township map shows Lancaster station.

Above: This 1890 classified ad from the Chicago Daily Tribune refers to the area as “Lancasterville.”

Everett Shortly after the Lancaster post office opened, some thought it advisable to change the name: there was another Lancaster in Illinois, one in Wisconsin, and one in Indiana, leading to confusion. As the story goes, local resident Tom Doyle renamed the post office (and the station) “Everett” after the son of Marsh, the railroad ticket agent. The name was officially changed in July, 1892.

In 1894, the Lake County mapmakers labelled the train stop “Everett.”

PIONEERS The first pioneers to settle in west Lake Forest were mostly Irish immigrants. Many had come to work on the Illinois & Michigan Canal. Under the terms of the Treaty of Chicago, by 1836 Native Americans had largely left the area. Soon the new U.S. Government land in Lake County was surveyed and made available for purchase.

Traveling up the Green Bay Trail from Chicago, or down from Little Fort (Waukegan), pioneers found the broad prairie to the west much more hospitable for settlement and farming than the densely forested, ravine-crossed terrain along the lake. Most chose to make their homesteads in west Lake Forest, leaving east Lake Forest largely undeveloped for over twenty years.

Take a look at this section of an 1861 map of Lake County.

Can you find the homesteads of some of west Lake Forest's first pioneers? Why do some of these names sound familiar to us today?

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• Michael Meehan, 1835

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• James Fagan, 1836 • John Doyle, 1840 • Patrick Melody, 1840 • Michael Yore, 1843 • James and Dennis Lancaster, 1844 • John Kennedy, 1844 • John Conway, 1850 • Thomas Redmond, 1850

Map of Lake County, 1861. For reference, the point where the four townships come together (Libertyville in yellow, Vernon in blue, Deerfield in pink, and Shields in green) is located on Rte. 60 just west of Academy Road.

Courtesy of Library of Congress

ST. PATRICK CHURCH St. Patrick Catholic Church, the first in Lake Forest, was among the earliest in Lake County and the Chicago archdiocese. From the beginning, St. Patrick has proved an organizing force for the people of west Lake Forest.

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At first, traveling priests rode out to visit the Irish Catholic pioneers, with neighbors gathering at each others' homesteads to celebrate Mass. The first log church, built in 1844, doubled as the first school. When the first post office opened near Route 60 and Waukegan, the church moved to that intersection as well. Because the area was known as “Corduroy,” St. Patrick was “the corduroy church.” After its building met with a series of mishaps, St. Patrick returned to the heart of Everett, alongside the depot, school and store, in 1910.

With “Meehan's Settlement” growing, in 1844 residents chopped trees from the surrounding woods and built this log church on land donated by Michael Yore and Lawrence Fagan adjacent to the cemetery.

This drawing was done in 1897 by pioneer resident Patrick Doyle.

A brick church was completed in 1855 at the northeast corner of Waukegan and Rte. 60. This building proved unlucky: it was rebuilt twice, first in 1883 due to dangerous cracks in the foundation, and then again ten years later after lightning struck, causing a fire. The final straw was a fire in August 1908, which left the shell of the building seen here.

The new St. Patrick Church was designed by architect Henry Lord Gay and dedicated by Archbishop James Quigley in 1910.

This church still stands, with significant additions; fittingly, it was built on land purchased from Thomas Yore, descendent of early settler Michael Yore.

The stones in St. Patrick's Cemetery read like a list of west Lake Forest's pioneer families: Atkinson, Barker, Burns, Carolan, Conway, Dawson, Doyle, Fagan, Gibbons, Kennedy, Lancaster, Masterson, Meehan, Melody, O’Connor, Redmond, Yore. The first headstone was erected to Bridget Boylan in 1847. Earlier burials included a child of Patrick Carolan and Michael Devon, as well as, the story goes, some Irish Catholic sailors who perished in Lake Michigan.

EARLY BUSINESSES AT SETTLERS SQUARE Because the mail coach stopped there, west Lake Forest's first center of commerce arose near the intersection of Rte. 60 and Waukegan Road.

By the 1850s, the Emmet post office, Emmet Hall, and St. Patrick Church were all located just north of the Corduroy bridge. But when the train stop was put in further south in the 1870s, inevitably the post office and business district followed.

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In 1891 postmaster Eli A. Frantz erected a two-story commercial building near Waukegan and Everett, with a general store on the first floor. Since then, west Lake Forest’s businesses have helped define its identity – from J. J. Lancaster & Co., Everett Garage and the Green Tree Inn to Country Corners, Sunset Foods, Lovell’s, and yes, even McDonald’s.

Just after the turn of the century, Edward F. Stuenkel took over as postmaster and as operator of the general store. He was also the local undertaker, and constructed a shed nearby for his hearse, which was called “the morgue” by local residents. When a fire destroyed St. Patrick Church in 1908, priests said Mass in “the morgue” until the new church was completed.

J. J. Lancaster & Co., run by descendants of original settler James Lancaster, took over the general store in the 1910s.

Ed, Adolph and Walter Loeffer opened the Everett Garage on Waukegan south of Everett in 1921. They fixed both automobiles and farm equipment, sold gas for about 28 cents a gallon, and shared their building with a blacksmith more concerned with shoeing horses than with cars. The Loeffer brothers operated the garage and repair shop until 1965.

The building later housed Pasquesi Home and Farm Supply.

In 1922, the old Lancaster house, on property purchased by Louis F. Swift, was moved to 1101 S. Waukegan Road, remodeled, and converted into the Green Tree Inn. Proprietor Ambrose J. Montavon served chicken and steak dinners there until the Inn burned down in January 1935.

In keeping with the community’s agricultural character, the Everett Inn, a farmstand and roadside restaurant, opened in the 1920s on the west side of Waukegan at Everett.

SETTLERS SQUARE THROUGH THE YEARS These maps and aerial photographs reveal the history of Lake Forest’s western business district from its earliest settlement to the 1994 dedication of Settlers Square.

Waukegan/Telegraph Road bisects each image vertically; the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad cuts through diagonally; and Everett Road goes through horizontally starting with the 1916 map.

1861

1939

James Lancaster and Lawrence Masterson were the first owners of the land along Waukegan Road, with Michael Moneghan to the west.

This intersection was still largely surrounded by farmland in the 1930s. Take a look at the bottom left corner – you can see the edge of Albert Lasker's private golf course, bordered by Everett School and its fenced-in schoolyard.

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1961

In the 1870s, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad was built, and the Lancaster station established on the Lancaster family's property.

Notice the smaller lots and larger number of houses south of Everett Road. More commercial development along Waukegan Road is also visible.

Despite these changes, open space still defines the area.

1916

1993

By the 1910s, Everett Road had been constructed and the land had largely changed hands from the original pioneers.

Between the 1960s and 1990s, this intersection underwent a dramatic transformation. New roads and shopping centers have proliferated. The fire station moved east of Telegraph and the train station north of Everett.

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TRANSPORTATION The broad prairies of west Lake Forest have made it attractive as a transportation corridor for centuries.

The first European settlers followed the Green Bay Military Road, a former Native American trail. To the west, the Corduroy Road grew in importance in 1848 when the first telegraph line between Chicago and Milwaukee ran alongside, granting it the name Telegraph Road.

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In 1872, the construction of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad began through Lake County.

The train stop at Lancaster station, later Everett, allowed local farmers to conveniently ship produce like grains or milk to Chicago.

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With the surge in automobile use by the 1920s, north-south thoroughfares had grown congested. The Skokie Highway (U.S. 41) was completed in 1937, linking Lake Forest more closely with Chicago by car.

Right: Green Bay Road became the principal stage and mail route for the area, and as Lake Forest grew, formed an early western boundary. Below: Many pioneers chose to establish farms along Telegraph (Waukegan) Road, and soon it became the main street of Everett.

The first train depot on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul line was built in 1886; before that, James Lancaster's home was used as a stopping place. Here, we see the depot in the 1910s (right) and 1965 (below), when it was located south of Everett Road. The new Telegraph Road station (lower right) opened in 1992 and was constructed with funds from Lake Forest's first Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district.

Following the postwar suburban boom, earlier highways proved inadequate for 1950s drivers. The Tri-State Tollway, opened in 1958, provided a bypass around the gridlock of Chicago.

Though not all Lake Foresters were in favor of its construction, the Tri-State Tollway spurred Lake Forest to annex the former Lasker estate property in Vernon Twp., and to see I-94 as a western border.

Chicago Tribune, August 28, 1958.

According to the Chicago Tribune in 1936, “when completed (the Skokie Highway) is believed to be the longest super-highway in the nation of four lanes or more in width and also will be the longest continuous section of divided pavement.� The $9 million highway featured modern traffic actuated stop-and-go signals, and a one-mile demonstration section was illuminated with sodium vapor lights for night driving.

Chicago Tribune, November 15, 1936.

LOG CABINS AND FARMS West Lake Forest's pioneers faced considerable challenges in establishing their farms. The prairie sod was tough, requiring multiple teams of oxen to plow so the wheat, flax seed, oats or corn could be planted. Later farmers raised sheep and stock; many, like the Conways, turned to dairying. Wood was chopped and used for nearly everything: housing, fuel, marking off property, penning in animals – and to sell at market.

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Isolated a day's journey from town and a mile or more from the nearest neighbor, settlers endured the hazards of their new terrain. Wolves presented a threat to both sheep and citizens – John Doyle's children recalled a pack surrounding their cabin one scary night. In the early days, few had horses, so trips to Chicago or Little Fort for supplies were often made on foot. A big snow, such as the long winter of 1842, could cut the pioneers off almost entirely.

By the 1850s, with the development of mills in the area, frame homes like the Lancaster farmhouse (left) began to replace the settlers' log cabins. Many of the old log structures were well-built, and often retained as outbuildings, like on the Patrick Dawson property, seen below in 1918.

Image courtesy of Lake County Discovery Museum, Wauconda, Illinois.

The James and Ellen McIntyre house, located about half a mile south of the Lyons School in Vernon Twp. Image courtesy of Lake County Discovery Museum, Wauconda, Illinois.

Ann Devon Redmond, pictured in 1918 at age 80. The daughter of Irish immigrants Ann Fagan and Michael Devon, she was thought to be the first European-American child born in Deerfield Twp. in 1838.

Image courtesy of Lake County Discovery Museum, Wauconda, Illinois.

Captain Daniel Wright was Lake County's first European-American settler. In 1834 he built a log cabin on the west side of the Des Plaines River in Vernon Twp, near present-day Milwaukee and Aptakisic.

Image courtesy of Lake County Discovery Museum, Wauconda, Illinois.

Martin Melody and his sister Ellen Doyle in 1918.

Their father Patrick settled near the intersection of Waukegan and Rte. 60 in 1841. Melody Road takes its name from their family.

Image courtesy of Lake County Discovery Museum, Wauconda, Illinois.

ESTATES AND GENTLEMAN FARMS Between 1900 and 1930, gentleman farms predominated in west Lake Forest. Rising urban density and the advent of the automobile made the countryside more appealing and accessible than ever. Chicago business leaders looked to rural areas within commuting distance of the city to build summer homes for their families. With the founding of the Onwentsia Club in 1895, the land along Green Bay Road was bought first – but soon those with more ambitious agricultural visions turned to the prairies west of the Skokie.

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Unlike the farmers who sold them property, these new landowners did not depend on agriculture for their livelihood, having made their fortunes as brokers or bankers or meatpackers. But they transferred their business acumen to their farming operations, seeking higher yields, planting experimental crops, competing for livestock trophies, and streamlining dairy operations.

The Onwentsia Hunt Club started in 1900 and provided a link between east Lake Forest and the large open farms and unpaved roads to the west, perfect for hounds and riders. This 1902 Chicago Daily Tribune article indicates that both estate owners and local farmers participated in this early November hunt, which went through the lands of John Doyle, Miles Conway, M. J. Bolger, Patrick Bradley, and Thomas Redmond.

Several future estate owners employed John Griffith of Lake Forest as their agent in making land deals. The article goes on to state that the local farmers, referred to here as “the bold peasantry,” began to wise up to the trend and charge higher prices for their land.

Chicago Daily Tribune, December 13, 1904.

Built starting in 1917, the A. Watson Armour family’s Elawa Farm on Waukegan Road featured buildings by David Adler and a farm complex by Alfred Hopkins.

Haying at Louis F. Swift's Everett Stock Farm, on Everett Road west of Waukegan.

William Sneddon ran the farm as superintendent for many years.

Mellody Farm, the J. Ogden Armour estate, was under construction between 1905 and 1908.

Architect Arthur Heun designed the house in the Italian style.

SUBDIVISIONS AND NEIGHBORHOODS The 1950s ushered in a period of rapid change to Lake Forest. Alterations to the tax structure and transitions in family lifestyles marked the twilight of the estate era. The postwar baby boom and opening of the Tri-State Tollway in 1958 accelerated the building of subdivisions. Many of these new neighborhoods arose in west Lake Forest, where gentleman farms like the Albert Lasker estate were subdivided by residential developers.

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In the face of all this new construction, zoning, historic preservation, and open space took on greater significance to the community and its residents. The local government passed ordinances and citizens created organizations to maintain Lake Forest’s historic, low-density character and to conserve the natural landscape.

See Albert Lasker’s Mill Road Farm transition from gentleman farm and golf course to subdivision in these two aerial photographs. Everett Road cuts horizontally across the top of the image and Old Mill Road across the bottom.

1939

2012

In 1989, after growing concerns over the trend for larger and larger homes in subdivisions, the City of Lake Forest passed a building scale and environmental ordinance that tied house size to lot size.

Chicago Tribune, December 24, 1988

Lake Forest Open Lands Association brochure, 1978.

The organization, founded in 1967, now maintains over 800 acres of open space, including the Everett Farm, Mellody Farm, Middlefork Farm, and West Skokie nature preserves in west Lake Forest.

EVERETT ANNEXATION Land use planning has been central to Lake Forest since it was laid out according to the innovative curvilinear town plat designed by Almerin Hotchkiss. Following the successful development of Market Square in 1916, the city turned to its borders.

When the Plan Commission was established in 1926, its first task involved the acquisition of territory.

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Chicago Daily Tribune, December 17, 1925.

Led by Louis F. Swift, who had over 1,000 acres, a majority of the property owners west of Lake Forest petitioned to be annexed by the city.

On May 11, 1926, voters approved the annexation of lands to the west by a vote of 303-5. Lake Forest had just tripled in size.

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New territory added to Lake Forest in 1926 and 1927 is outlined in red. Among the properties were: the Lake Forest Heights subdivision, the Ridge Farm Preventorium, estates on the west side of Green Bay Road, the Onwentsia Club, the gentleman farms of Louis F. Swift, J. Ogden Armour, A. B. Dick, and A. Watson Armour, and the community of Everett, with its school, train station, and small business district.

Although not part of the 1926 annexation, the very next year the area including the Knollwood Club was annexed to Lake Forest as well.

This advertisement in The Lake Forester presents the annexation as a win-win proposition. Those who lived in the newly annexed territory would come under the protection of Lake Forest's zoning ordinance and its city services; in turn, they would share the property tax burden. And current Lake Forest residents would have a say in how the land adjacent to their town was developed.

CONWAY ANNEXATION In October 1988, Lake Forest City Council voted to annex Conway Farms, a 682-acre tract of land straddling Rte. 60. By extending its western boundary to the tollway, Lake Forest encompassed new, large-scale commercial and residential developments. Conway Park is home to several international corporate headquarters, as well as the Chicago Bears and Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. South of Rte. 60, offices, cluster housing and townhomes joined the Conway Farms Golf Club.

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This move had been in the works for years. Lake Forest's Official Plan of 1978 recommended looking at adding these areas to control development on its borders and diversify the tax base. In 1983, the property owners, known as the Conway partners, petitioned for annexation but withdrew at that time in the face of community opposition

Chicago Tribune headline, October 4, 1988; map December 7, 1988.

Rendering of One Conway Park, developed by Cabot, Cabot & Forbes and Marshall Field V.

Three of the Conway partners, and founders of the Golf Club, pictured with the course’s designers. From left to right, Gordon Smith, Dennis Wise, Margaret Hart, Tom Fazio, and Robert Stuart, Jr. Courtesy of Conway Farms Golf Club.

Residents viewing a map of the proposed Conway annexation territory at a public meeting about the issue in the fall of 1988. (OR stands for Office/ Research – ROS is Residential/Open Space.)

CONWAY THROUGH THE YEARS Take a look at these maps and aerial photographs for a peek into the history of the land that became Conway Farms and Conway Park. The line through the middle is Rte. 60, the diagonal through the upper right corner is the railroad, and the diagonal in the lower half is Conway Road.

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1861 Among the earliest settlers was

1894 By 1894, the Chicago, Milwaukee

1928 The 1920s were the heyday of the

John Conway, whose dairy farm straddled Conway Road, running diagonally through the lower part of the map. John Bolger also left his mark on the landscape for a time – the first name for Rte. 60 was Bolger Road.

& St. Paul Railroad had come through. Much of the land was still farmed by children of the original settlers, including Martin Melody, who owned the large swath that became Mellody Farm

gentleman farm in Lake Forest. Mellody Farm, owned by J. Ogden Armour and then Samuel Insull, and Louis F. Swift’s Westleigh were among the largest.

1939 The 1930s and 1940s witnessed

1961 It was during the 1950s that

1993 By the 1980s, the Conway part-

the dissolution of many estates in the area.

Lake Forest Academy took over part of the Mellody Farm property. Mattress magnate Oliver Burton and A. B. Dick Co. CFO John G. Beadle purchased land south of Rte. 60.

several transformative developments occurred. Marshall Field IV bought land north of Rte. 60. Robert D. Stuart Jr. and his family moved to the former Conway farm. The TriState Tollway, at left in the photo, was constructed. The Conway partners, Stuart and associates Augustin and Margaret Hart, James Getz, and Gordon Smith, began acquiring properties in the area starting with the Oliver Burton farm.

ners, along with Marshall Field V and Cabot, Cabot & Forbes, began to develop their plans for the properties. In 1988, the area was annexed by Lake Forest. Here you can see the recently-completed Conway Farms golf course and the Conway Park office complex.

ONE-ROOM SCHOOLHOUSES Until the early 1900s, children in west Lake Forest went to school in one-room schoolhouses. Students, ranging in age from 5 to 20, were all taught by the same teacher. They sat on board benches around a box stove, which heated the room. Some children, needed on the farm in the spring and fall, only attended in the winter.

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The teachers were young, unmarried men or women not much older than some of their students. They would often board with the families of their pupils, alternating each week – although, as one recalled, “where the board especially pleased they stayed two or more weeks.”

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The pioneers opened their first school on weekdays in the same log building used for church on Sundays, located next to St. Patrick's cemetery. Students sat in the choir loft if they couldn’t find space on the benches. Here it is portrayed in an 1897 drawing by former student Patrick Doyle.

In 1866, a school was established for students at the western edge of the area near the current intersection of Riverwoods and Shagbark roads. It was on the property of the Lyons family and known as Lyons School District 106. The class picture was taken c.

1910 – third from left is Janet Sneddon.

Courtesy of Lake County Discovery Museum, Wauconda, Illinois.

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School for students on the north end of west Lake Forest was held in a structure on the Matthew Steele farm on Waukegan Road. This school was moved to Deerpath and Ahwahnee and later turned into a dwelling (above). In 1897, the school relocated to a building donated by Henry Vickerman on the east side of Waukegan Road, north of Deerpath. Though it expanded to two rooms in 1903, attendance at the Vickerman School remained so small that just one was required.

Courtesy of Lake County Discovery Museum, Wauconda, Illinois.

The first, one-room Everett School, District 112, was located on the southwest corner of Waukegan and Old Mill roads. By 1912, it housed 30 pupils.

Courtesy of Lake County Discovery Museum, Wauconda, Illinois.

EVERETT SCHOOL One hundred years ago, Everett School doubled in size and left the one-room schoolhouse era behind.

In 1913 residents approved a $5,000 bond for a new school, combining Lyons and Everett into one district.

They purchased land from Louis F. Swift on Everett Road west of Waukegan, and erected a two-room brick Everett school.

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By the 1950s, with the baby boom in full swing, Everett School was again bursting at the seams. Architect Ralph Milman designed a new building which opened in 1957. Coincidentally, it is located only a few hundred feet away from St. Patrick's Cemetery, the site of the area's very first school, attended by children of the pioneers.

Opened in 1914, Everett School featured two classrooms and a large basement where students could do gymnastics exercises.

Courtesy Lake County Discovery Museum, Wauconda, Illinois

Everett School students and teachers, c. 1927.

Everett School became part of District 67 when Lake Forest annexed Everett in 1926.

Some of the names are known: Top row: Teacher Margaret Sneddon; Lorraine Hansen, Bob Trump, Sy Hansen, Jack Turner, Edith Zieman, Eleanor Seyl, Irvin Stilke, Emmett Yore, Bing Yore, ? Stilke Middle row: ?, Joe Verbeke, ?, ?, Rose Yore, ?, Ruth Yore, Gordon Strub, Albert Nickel, Walter Nickel Front row: ?, ?, Walter Strub, ?, Chuck Von Lanhuyt, Kurt Mitioni, Victor Blix, ?, Larry Yore

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In 1939, Everett School was modernized, its two large classrooms divided and special blackboards, which pulled out to reveal roomy storage closets, installed. This photo, with students on their way home from school, shows the exterior after the remodeling.

When Everett students moved to their new school in 1957 (right), the City of Lake Forest converted the old school into a second firehouse (above). The Fire Department used it until 1993, when it was demolished and a new station constructed. Local residents, led by Shirley Paddock, saved and restored the old school bell (far right).

RIDGE FARM PREVENTORIUM The Ridge Farm Preventorium was established in 1914 to bring children living in poor conditions to the country to reduce their chances of developing tuberculosis. It was felt that fresh air, nutritious meals and proper hygiene would halt the spread of the disease.

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Approximately 85 children annually, ages 8 to 15, stayed an average of 4 to 5 months. The children spent lots of time in the outdoors and took naps every afternoon. Meals were supplemented with a vegetable garden and orchard. A school was maintained on site and included instruction in cooking and sewing.

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The institution grew with support from the local philanthropic community. Dickinson Hall and Stirling Hall, both designed by Edwin Clark, were completed in 1929, and Bennett Hall, designed by Stanley Anderson, was added in 1949 as an administration building.

Students were initially housed in this wood frame building which included two large glass enclosed sleeping porches.

Architect Edwin Hill Clark, who along with his wife was on the board, drew up plans in 1927 to expand the campus. Clark had previously designed the 1915 Chicago Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium, now North Park Village. Stirling Hall was the only building constructed of a proposed group of six dormitories, and Dickinson Hall was built as the central dining facility. The buildings were supported by and named for board president Mrs. Francis R. (Stirling) Dickinson and her parents.

As the threat of tuberculosis lessened, Ridge Farm turned its services in 1946 towards a residential treatment center for emotionally disturbed children. Grove School, for children and young adults with special needs, purchased the property in the 1960s.

The City of Lake Forest acquired it in 1997 and turned it into the Grove Cultural Campus.

These images, from 1920s promotional brochures, advertise the benefits of a stay at Ridge Farm for urban children.

LAKE FOREST HEIGHTS Lake Forest Heights, between Everett and Old Elm roads west of the Skokie Highway, has spanned the years of subdivision growth in Lake Forest. The development was originally planned by the American Realty Company in 1924. Lake Forest added the land to its city limits in 1926. But as you can see from these aerial photos, it was over 60 years before many homes were built, a casualty of the slump in home construction during the 1930s and 1940s.

Everett Road runs horizontally across the top of the images, and Old Elm Road across the bottom. The diagonal cutting through at right is the Skokie Highway; at center is Ridge Road.

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Survey done for American Realty Co. by City of Lake Forest Engineer Neil N. Campbell, dated June 11, 1924.

1946

Chicago Daily Tribune, January 20, 1924.

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1993

DEERPATH HILL ESTATES In the 1920s, developer Henry K. Turnbull began to buy properties along Deerpath, just east of Waukegan Road. Among the sellers were the Farrells, original pioneers to the area, and country estate owners Leroy Burton, George McKinlock, and Joseph Cudahy. Unlike earlier purchasers of land west of Lake Forest, he did not establish a gentleman farm – he built a neighborhood.

Turnbull and his principal architect, Stanley Anderson, sought to create a garden-like subdivision on large lots with stately homes, cul-de-sacs, and entrance gates. Though the Great Depression interrupted their efforts, postwar builders largely followed the original 1920s plan, resulting in an eclectic mix of homes inspired by the City Beautiful movement.

Homes of Deerpath Hill Estates. Left: Southeast corner of Deerpath and Waukegan, looking east, 1928. Right: Entrance gateway to King Muir Road from Deerpath, 1930.

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1939

1961

1993 Chicago Daily Tribune, May 13, 1928.

You can see from these aerial photos that Deerpath Hill Estates still had undeveloped land in 1939, later filled in by 1961 and more so by 1993. For reference, Waukegan Road cuts vertically through the left of the images, and Deerpath bisects them horizontally.

FRANKLIN MCMAHON

(1921-2012)

Reportorial artist Franklin McMahon bore witness to history. His drawings provided unique perspectives on the political, religious and cultural epochs of the 20th century, in particular illuminating the struggle for civil rights in periodicals across the country.

While Franklin McMahon’s work as an artist-reporter took him all over the globe, Lake Forest always served as home base. His sketch pad and charcoal pencils accompanied him to courtrooms and conventions, to the Vatican and NASA mission control, and to every presidential campaign from 1960 to 2008. But it was at his Lake Forest studio that McMahon would add color to his on-the-spot drawings, using acrylic watercolor paint.

Franklin McMahon in 1986 in front of his work depicting Water Tower Place at his Lake Forest studio on Devonshire.

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Image courtesy of Mark and Carolyn McMahon.

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In the 1990s, Franklin and Irene McMahon travelled to Jerusalem to follow The Way of the Cross, the journey of Jesus through the streets of the city to Calvary. Franklin’s drawings were translated into ceramic tiles that depict the Stations of the Cross and were installed at St. Patrick Catholic Church.

Depicted here is the Second Station.

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Image courtesy of Mark and Carolyn McMahon.

The McMahons constituted an extraordinarily creative family, pictured above in the 1960s at their home on Mayflower.

Franklin McMahon’s wife, Irene Leahy McMahon, was a noted travel writer, and their nine children went into arts-related professions. Top row, left to right: Mary, William Franklin, Patrick, Debbie, Margo, Mark, Hugh.

Middle row: Franklin, Michael, Irene. Front row: Michelle.

Franklin McMahon’s most influential drawing was done at the outset of his career. In 1955, Life magazine commissioned him to produce courtroom sketches at the Emmett Till murder trial in Mississippi. By the time his drawings were published the following week, the all-white jury had acquitted the defendants, who later admitted to committing the crime. Coverage like this drawing, depicting Rev. Moses Wright pointing at the accused murderers of his 14-year-old great-nephew, helped raise the national profile of the case, which is credited as one of the events to launch the civil rights movement.

Image courtesy of Mark and Carolyn McMahon.

Franklin McMahon at his studio putting the finishing touches on a painting of Ernest Hemingway’s home in Key West, Florida.

Image courtesy of Mark and Carolyn McMahon

GINEVRA KING PIRIE

(1898-1980)

Though the rest of the world may associate Ginevra King Pirie with the romantic heroines of her one-time beau, author F. Scott Fitzgerald, Lake Forest knew her as one of its own. Ginevra King grew up spending summers on her family’s Ridge Road estate, leading the younger set’s social whirl with her friends, the “Big Four” debutantes.

Fitzgerald, who visited in the summer of 1916, was dazzled by the glamour of Lake Forest, but Ginevra King’s full, busy life contrasted with the languor of Daisy Buchanan’s depicted in The Great Gatsby. She was active in war relief work during World War I, was a member of the Lake Forest Garden Club, fought for repeal of Prohibition, and put in countless hours volunteering for St. Luke’s Hospital and the American Cancer Society.

Ginevra King Mitchell in 1922. She married investment broker William H. Mitchell Jr. in 1918; they had three children. In 1936, they divorced and Ginevra remarried, to John T. Pirie Jr. of the Carson Pirie Scott department stores.

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Chicago Daily News image DN-0075229.

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The Ridge Road house where Ginevra King spent summers as a young girl.

Designed in 1905 by architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, the grounds included two practice fields and the barns had six pony stalls for her father, Charles Garfield King, a polo enthusiast.

Ginevra King, Courtney Letts and Elizabeth Brockie rolling bandages in 1916 for soldiers in Europe.

Chicago Daily News image DN-066634.

Chicago Daily Tribune, October 16, 1929.

F. Scott Fitzgerald met Ginevra King when she visited a classmate in his hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1915. They carried on a voluminous correspondence over the next few years, with occasional meetings. But the romance ultimately fizzled, perhaps in part due to a remark he heard during his visit to Lake Forest: “Poor boys shouldn’t think of marrying rich girls.” Fitzgerald, at least, was profoundly affected by the relationship; his experience with Ginevra inspired the creation of several leading female characters in his stories and novels, including Daisy Buchanan of The Great Gatsby.

Chicago Daily Tribune, January 22, 1931.

HELEN CULVER

(1832-1925)

Helen Culver was Lake Forest’s resident “old lady who rode her bicycle all over town,” coming in from her Waukegan Road estate. Her extraordinary, trailblazing life encompassed education, nursing, business, social work and science, all with the goal, she said once, of being “the means of making lives more sound and wholesome.”

As the partner of her cousin Charles J. Hull in his real estate firm, Helen Culver was a successful business executive at a time when women in business were almost unknown. To make real estate transactions more efficient, she became the first female notary public in the state of Illinois. After Hull’s death in 1889, she inherited his firm and fortune, and was soon one of Chicago’s best-known philanthropists. Though named in honor of her cousin, the Hull Biological Laboratories at the University of Chicago and the Hull House settlement house were Helen Culver’s legacies.

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In her last years, Helen Culver was blind. In anticipation, she memorized dozens of her favorite poems.

Finding she could still knit, she turned in more stockings for the soldiers than any of the other women war workers in Lake Forest.

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Chicago Daily Tribune, August 20, 1925.

Helen Culver was born in rural upstate New York.

As a child, she was such a passionate reader that she kept a book on the head of the spinning wheel so she could catch a few words at her task. She came west to be a schoolteacher, work that was interrupted by service as a nurse in the Civil War. When her cousin Charles J. Hull’s wife died, she became the caretaker of his children, and soon, the partner in his real estate business which sought to encourage and assist the working classes in owning their own homes.

Helen Culver’s gift of funds allowed the University of Chicago to build ground-breaking biological research facilities, the Hull Laboratories, in 1895.

Helen Culver purchased 40 acres on Waukegan Road from the McGlennin family in 1899, making her one of the first estate owners west of the Skokie, before the Armours popularized the area. Rookwoods, designed by the architects Pond & Pond, is just visible through the gates in this photograph.

Helen Culver’s donation of property – the house where she had lived with Charles J. Hull on Halsted Street – led to the founding of Hull House by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr in 1889.

Chicago Daily Tribune, November 1, 1891 and February 14, 1889.

IRENE CASTLE

(1893-1969)

Irene Castle was a household name long before she moved to Lake Forest. She and her husband Vernon Castle were famous ballroom dancers, lighting up Broadway and appearing in silent movies. Women across the country mimicked Irene Castle’s “bob” hairstyle, held in place by a “Castle Band.”

After Vernon Castle died in a World War I plane crash, Irene married Frederic McLaughlin of Lake Forest, renowned polo player and coffee executive. By the 1930s, the McLaughlins resided on Old Mill Road with their two children.

While living in Lake Forest in 1928, Irene Castle McLaughlin and her friend Helen Swift founded Orphans of the Storm, an animal shelter and adoption center initially located in Deerfield.

Irene Foote and Vernon Castle (born Vernon Blyth) married in 1910 and took society by storm as a dance team. They popularized the foxtrot and tango, as well as dancing to ragtime and jazz rhythms.

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In World War I, Frederic McLaughlin served as a major with the Blackhawk Division. In 1926, he became the first owner of the Chicago Blackhawks hockey franchise. His wife Irene was credited with designing the team’s first sweater.

Pictured: Irene and Frederic McLaughlin at the East-West polo match in 1933.

Image from Castles in the Air, by Irene Castle.

In 1914, Irene Castle had to have her appendix out.

Though long hair was the norm, she decided to cut hers short so it was easier to take care of in the hospital. Before it had grown back, a friend convinced her to go out in public for a dinner, so she put a necklace across her forehead to keep her hair in place. That hairstyle, known as a bob, became very popular, and the bands called “Castle Bands.”

Image from Castles in the Air, by Irene Castle.

Irene’s ardent love of animals had long roots. In her dancing days, she was known for touring the world with her pets in tow. Her activism for animal rights extended also to the cows on a neighboring farm referred to in the headline.

Chicago Daily Tribune, April 21, 1928.

ARTHUR MEEKER JR.

(1902-1971)

“In the Skokie Valley we had neither the lake nor the forest falsely promised by our postal address, but we did have what we thought better, the prairie.”

So wrote Arthur Meeker Jr. in his memoir, Chicago, With Love.

An acute observer from childhood, and a published novelist by age 26, Meeker often drew inspiration from his experiences growing up in the whirlwind of Chicago society. His parents’ west Lake Forest estate, Arcady Farm, provided plenty of scope for the imagination of the young Meekers, with its gardens and orchards, its seemingly endless fields and broad sunsets, and its animals, domestic and exotic.

Even after years spent trotting the globe as a travel journalist, in the 1950s Meeker thought about returning to the area, but “to my dismay I found this region wasn’t really rural anymore…

The Lake Forest of my childhood had all but vanished.”

Arthur Meeker Jr., from his New York Times obituary, October 22, 1971.

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Arcady Farm, designed for the Meekers in 1906 by architect Arthur Heun, was located on the northwest corner of Waukegan Road and Rte. 60 and included an extensive dairy that sold the first certified milk in the state.

Meeker’s writing career spanned five decades. Among his eight novels were two bestsellers featured by the popular Book of the Month Club (Prairie Avenue and The Ivory Mischief) as well as the memoir Chicago, With Love.

Image courtesy Lake County Discover Museum, Wauconda, Illinois.

Arthur Meeker Jr. with his younger sister Mary. At Arcady Farm, Arthur and Mary had several pets, including goats that “ran away with monotonous frequency”; “a Shetland mule called Robin with a vicious temper”; a tiny red mule named Arizona “who, when challenged, beat Senator Medill McCormick’s white mule in a thrilling race”; “rabbits and guinea-pigs, kittens galore, several dynasties of dogs, … a flock of ducks that were our dearest possessions”; and “a pet goose with a broken wing.”

Image from Chicago, With Love,

by Arthur Meeker.

Meeker’s parents, Grace Murray Meeker (pictured, with her son) and Arthur Meeker Sr., were leaders of Chicago society. His father, vice-president of Armour & Co., was a good friend of their Lake Forest neighbor J. Ogden Armour. His mother grew up in a prominent Prairie Avenue family, providing fodder for her son’s 1949 novel.

Chicago Daily Tribune, November 2, 1930.

MARY MATHEWS DICK

(1866-1944)

With the new hospital opening in 1942, residents of Lake Forest now had to go west of the Skokie Highway for important services. This key development would never have happened without the generosity of Mary Mathews Dick.

Mary and her husband Albert Blake Dick (inventor of the mimeograph and proprietor of A. B. Dick Company) built their home, Westmoreland, on Deerpath west of Lake Forest in 1902. The family were active volunteers and philanthropists, particularly in support of hospitals: Mary Dick with the Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago, and her son A. B. Dick Jr. with the Alice Home Hospital in Lake Forest.

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By the late 1930s, the Alice Home Hospital desperately needed more space. After the death of her husband, Mary Dick had far more space than she required on the Westmoreland farm, so in 1939 she worked with her son to donate 23 acres for Lake Forest Hospital. She deeded more acreage to the hospital in her will in 1944, giving it a large footprint in what has become the center of town.

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Mary Henrietta Mathews was born in Schenectady, New York, and grew up and attended school in Galesburg, Illinois. She and A. B. Dick were wed in 1892; he had previously been married to her sister Alice, who died in 1885. She raised her stepdaughter Mabel and had four sons: A. B. Jr., Charles Mathews, Edison and Sheldon.

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Left: Mary Mathews Dick with her son Albert Blake Dick Jr. in 1894. Below: With her granddaughter and namesake in 1941.

Westmoreland was named for the Dick family’s origins in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. It was designed on 40 acres

by James Gamble Rogers in 1902.

Lake Forest Hospital opened on November 1, 1942, and was built in the Georgian style by architect Stanley Anderson using Westmoreland as a model.

Chicago Daily Tribune, December 1, 1940.

MARY KEOUGH

(1889-1978)

“I credit Mary Keough for giving me a solid basis in life.

My life has been enriched for having been taught by her.” – Reminiscence of Bess McClure, former student Everett School teacher Mary Keough’s long roots in the west Lake Forest community helped her leave a lasting mark on her students. Both her parents’ families, the Keoughs and the Courtneys, came with the early waves of Irish immigrants to the area, settling in Vernon Township in the 1840s. They farmed land located between Everett and Half Day for nearly 100 years.

Mary Keough and her sister Nellie, who had attended the old one-room Lyons School, were among the first teachers hired by the new school board after Everett School was built in 1914.

Mary Keough stayed on for over 30 years, retiring from Everett in 1947. She was a staunch advocate for her pupils, insisting on adding a week to the school year in 1920 so her 8th graders had enough time to study for examinations.

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Mary Keough on a school field trip to Springfield in the 1940s. She took pride in introducing her students to the state capitol. When Bess McClure placed first in the Lake County interscholastic spelling meet in 1925, Miss Keough chaperoned her at the state meet in Springfield, an eye-opening experience for Bess, a self-described “country bumpkin.”

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Above: Mary Keough (fourth from left, back row) with the students of Everett School, c. 1920. Right: Mary Keough with her Everett School upper grades, 1945.

In 1946 and 1947, Mary Keough implemented an innovative curriculum at Everett School centered on a country fair theme. The faculty wrote their own material, which was uniquely suited to Everett children. The year culminated in a school-wide Country Fair in May, run by the students, with a horse show, dog show, pet exhibits, a flower show, a bird exhibit, two band concerts, tumbling, folk dancing, and community singing.

Chicago Daily Tribune, May 11, 1947.

Mary Keough’s teaching contract with Everett District 112 (which would shortly become a part of the Lake Forest district), dated September 1926. She earned $170 each month.

MICHAEL YORE

(1800-1888)

Irish immigrant Michael Yore, his wife Roseanna, and their 12 children played an important role in shaping west Lake Forest.

He settled on a 160-acre farm in the early 1840s and quickly became a leader of the fledgling community, with his home serving as a gathering place. The large Yore cabin, located conveniently west of the Corduroy (Waukegan) Road near the original church, often hosted travelers for the night and on Sundays entertained both the itinerant priest and churchgoers who came from miles away.

Michael Yore owned some of the only horses in the area, where oxen predominated, and often aided his neighbors with removing stumps and other tasks. When a resident of the rival German settlement (now Deerfield) sought work to help pay for his new, expensive threshing machine, only with Yore’s patronage did other Irish farmers agree to hire him.

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Left: The Yore cabin seen in 1918. Michael Yore built his first log house (represented in the 1861 map below by a black dot) about ¼ mile west of St. Patrick’s Cemetery, off Telegraph Road.

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Michael and Roseanna Yore, c. 1850s. Michael Yore and Roseanna Farley married in 1821 in Ireland, immigrating to the U.S. in 1827. They first settled in Salina (Syracuse), New York, where Michael worked at the salt works and later on the Erie Canal.

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Image courtesy of Lake County Discovery Museum, Wauconda, Illinois.

Children at the Yore family reunion, July 10, 1927. Over 300 descendants of Michael Yore gathered at the family homestead on Telegraph Road, then owned by his grandson John Yore, after attending Mass at St. Patrick Church.

Though some chose to seek their fortunes in California and elsewhere, more than half of Michael Yore’s 12 children stayed in and around Lake Forest. This image, from an 1885 Lake County atlas, shows his son Thomas Yore’s farm, located near the present-day intersection of Riverwoods Road and Rte. 60.

Image from Library of Congress.

Michael Yore’s son George in 1918, when he was cited by Everett School students as the oldest man living in their school district at age 81.

Image courtesy of Lake County Discovery Museum, Wauconda, Illinois.

ALBERT LASKER

(1880-1952)

In 1898, young Albert Lasker came to Chicago to work for $10 a week at the advertising firm of Lord and Thomas. Twelve years later, he owned the business. During his meteoric career, in which he pioneered modern advertising methods, Lasker was also co-owner of the Chicago Cubs, a political appointee of both parties, and a noted philanthropist in the medical field.

Just as he did a decade earlier in the world of advertising, in 1926 Albert Lasker transformed the landscape of west Lake Forest. His estate, Mill Road Farm, stretched over 480 acres between Everett and Old Mill roads, and featured a 55-room mansion, 26 outbuildings, a staff of 150, and a private 18-hole golf course. Mill Road Farm’s architecture, roads and golf greens later shaped the neighborhood constructed after the estate was subdivided.

Albert Lasker grew up in a German Jewish family in Galveston, Texas. At Lord and Thomas, his revolutionary advertising techniques included use of the radio soap opera to plug products. He converted Americans to drinkers of condensed milk and orange juice. Lucky Strike cigarettes, Schlitz beer, Pepsodent, and RCA Victrolas were among his brand name success stories.

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The logo on the scorecard for the Mill Road Farm golf club. The course was so famously difficult that Lasker offered a standing $500 bet that no visitor could break par – and in over ten years, he only had to pay once!

1930s aerial images of Mill Road Farm (above, facing north; right, facing east). David Adler designed the home and outbuildings, James Greenleaf laid out the grounds, and William Flynn created the golf course.

In 1939, with the estate era drawing to a close, Albert Lasker donated Mill Road Farm to the University of Chicago. The university used the grounds for research and hosted golf tournaments for a few years, and then subdivided and sold off the property after World War II. Chicago Daily Tribune, December 28, 1939.

ELLIOTT DONNELLEY

(1903-1975)

As mayor of Lake Forest, Elliott Donnelley expanded Lake Forest’s boundaries. As a local philanthropic leader, he also expanded the horizons of Lake Forest College students and children all around Chicago. He served as vice-chairman of R. R. Donnelley & Sons, his grandfather’s printing firm, for over two decades, while also establishing a model railroad business.

And through his miniature steam-powered railroad, he left a memorable mark on the west Lake Forest landscape.

In 1957, Elliott Donnelley helped facilitate the annexation to Lake Forest of land in Vernon Township south of Everett Road, much of which made up the former Albert Lasker estate. This move was important to the future of the community as the Tri-State Tollway, constructed soon after, became a natural western boundary for Lake Forest.

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Elliott Donnelley’s mayoral portrait in City Hall. He served as mayor of Lake Forest from 1954 to 1957.

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Chicago Daily Tribune, April 13, 1955.

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Elliott Donnelley often opened up his railroad for charitable purposes, as at this 1965 fundraiser for the Chicago Youth Centers.

Chicago Tribune, September 12, 1965.

Elliott Donnelley riding the Stet & Query Central, a small gauge train pulled by a coal-fired steam locomotive which traveled on its own tracks at his Melody Road home. The aerial view shows the extent of the tracks, over a mile long. Route 60 is visible in the foreground.

Elliott Donnelley served as a Lake Forest College Trustee for 33 years. He gave the college funds to build a new library, which opened in 1965.

Chicago Tribune, May 26, 1965.

FACES OF WEST LAKE FOREST Residents of west Lake Forest have transformed our land, through their homes and farms.

They’ve inspired us, through their creative achievements. They’ve made our community a better place, through their labor and charitable efforts.

We’ve identified ten people whose lives have shaped west Lake Forest and the world around them. Discover their West Side Stories.

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Clockwise from top center: Franklin MacMahon, Ginevra King Pirie, Arthur Meeker Jr., Helen Culver, Michael Yore, Irene Castle, Albert Lasker, Mary Mathews Dick, Elliott Donnelley, Mary Keough.

We gratefully acknowledge the support of our sponsors.

Everett Sponsors - $2,500

Robin and Sandy Stuart

Curated by Laurie E. Stein Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Historical Society Robert D. Douglass President Katie Hale Chair, Collections, Exhibitions and Publications Committee

Mellody Sponsors - $1,000

Anonymous

Barry and Barbara Carroll

Janice C. Hack Executive Director Lisa M. Frey Director of Development C

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Special thanks go to Diana Dretske at the Lake County Discovery Museum, Susan Kelsey, Elizabeth Stein, and Historical Society intern Stephanie Allen for their research assistance.

Lancaster Sponsor - $500

Corduroy Sponsor - $250

Starbucks West Lake Forest and East Lake Forest

In Kind Donations

Anonymous

Carolyn and Mark McMahon