Tag Archives: Municipality – Waukegan IL

My Architecture & Design Photography: WAUKEGAN, Illinois. (19 Photos & Illustrations).

INTRODUCTION.

Waukegan, Illinois, is an historic community on Lake Michigan about 40 miles north of downtown Chicago. It is one of the oldest settlements in Illinois. The site of the city was visited by French explorers Louis Jolliet (1645-1700) and Père Jacques Marquette, S.J. (1637-1675) in 1673 where Waukegan began as a French trading post and Potawatomie village.

***Inside the Kiva* (c.1905-1912), oil on canvas. 20 in. x 30.25 in., **Kate Cory (1861-1958)****, Waukegan Historical Society. Waukegan photographer, sculptor, painter and muralist Kate Cory moved to Newark, New Jersey, with her family as a child. Between 1905 and 1912 she lived among the Hopi of the Oraibi Mesa in Arizona where this painting was made. Public Domain.

Waukegan’s origins as “Little Fort.”

“Little Fort” was the first name for the environs of Waukegan. It started around 1700 as a log building overlooking the Waukegan River on its southwestern shore as it drained into Lake Michigan. This point marked the portage from the Lake to the Des Plaines River as it traveled west. The state of Illinois was established in 1818. Over the next quarter century, the Illinois volunteer army fought local native American tribes and forced them to sign treaties and migrate west of the Mississippi. The Potawatomie left Waukegan by 1829 as they ceded their land in this area and throughout northeastern Illinois to the U.S. Government. The 1830s brought vast changes to the area with opportunities for development. In addition to the land transfer, the building of the Erie Canal in 1830 brought boatloads of settlers from New England and New York State into the Illinois and the Midwest region.

Along with other communities which developed on Chicago portage routes, the history of Waukegan’s founding and development shares a similar time frame as well as personalities and activities. In 1835 Thomas Jenkins was the first settler at “Little Fort.” Jenkins was followed in quick succession by other enterprising and hard-working New Englanders who settled much of northern Illinois in the 1830s which was the edge of the Western wilderness. Like Marquette and Jolliet in the 17^th century, these newcomers recognized the potential monumental impact that access to Lake Michigan had for transport of goods in and out of the region and what that commercial activity and subsequent settlement would have on the surrounding real estate. As more people arrived, the creation of a village emerged. The area was platted and streets designated, and in a contested election in 1841, “Little Fort,” became the governmental center for a recently formed Lake County.

Little Fort Becomes Waukegan.

Between 1844 and 1846 the town’s population multiplied from 150 to 750 persons. In 1849 the community changed its name from “Little Fort” to Waukegan. By 1859, when the town was incorporated as a city, Waukegan boasted a population of 2,500 people. Chicago, by comparison, had a population of 112,172 denizens in the 1860 census. Waukegan is an English alliteration that closely approximated the word for “fort” or “trading post” in the Algonquin language. In the 2020 census Waukegan reported a population of 89,321 people.

Growing population in the port city. Coming of the railroad.

Waukegan had a natural deep harbor and was a port city. This feature attracted merchants and farmers who could readily ship their goods, produce, and grain from Lake and McHenry County businesses and farms to Chicago –- and, from that point, to the Midwest and the world. Waukegan soon became one of the busiest ports on the lake. When the railroad came to Waukegan in 1855 (today’s Chicago and North Western Railway), it stimulated interest in Waukegan as a manufacturing town that included ship and wagon building, flour milling, sheep raising, pork packing, beer brewing and dairy farming (Hawthorne-Melody Farms). The railroads made it feasible for the establishment of larger industries which appeared in Waukegan at the end of the 19^th century such as U.S. Sugar Refinery, Washburn and Moen Wire Mill (U.S. Steel Corporation), U.S. Starch Works, and Thomas Brass and Iron Works, among others. This mercantile and agricultural activity generated sufficient wealth for its citizens to build big houses along Waukegan’s main streets. These residences expressed the current tastes in residential styles from Greek revival and Italianate styles to the Victorian and Prairie School.

1890-1930: Population boom fueled by immigration.

Between 1890 and 1930 Waukegan experienced a population boom fueled by European immigrants and, in the 1920’s, Black Americans during the Great Migration. Waukegan thrived though by the end of the 20^th century, the city suffered from an exodus of its population to farther west suburbs. This was accompanied by a shuttering of industries as management sought cheaper labor in other countries. At the same time, Waukegan was welcoming a new influx of immigrants from Latin America.

Famous residents.

A few of Waukegan’s most famous residents in history include comedian Jack Benny (1894-1974), science fiction writer Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), World War II combat photographer under Colonel Darryl F. Zanuck (Twentieth Century Fox) Albert Klein, the aforementioned fine artist Kate Cory and NFL quarterback for the Cleveland Browns Otto Graham (1921-2003).

Even after he became famous, Jack Benny never forgot his hometown of Waukegan.

Science Fiction writer Ray Bradbury said he had a sign over his typewriter for 25 years as advice to himself and other writers: “DON’T THINK.”

When Otto Graham played for the Cleveland Browns the team played in 10 consecutive title games, 4 all American Conference and 3 NFL championships. In Waukegan, Otto Graham’s father was a music teacher who taught Jack Benny to play the violin.

PHOTOGRAPHS:

408 N. Sheridan Road, 1875. Built in the Italianate style in 1875. The set of four symmetrical bay windows on the first and second floors have 12 tall thin windows. The moldings have scroll cut, incised, and cut out brackets with heavy decorative surrounds with keystones. In the center above the canopied main entrance are a second floor and gable windows with heavy shoulders for its surrounds. Above the gable window is punched out, playfully decorative bargeboard. The two story porch to the south (left) while integrated to the Italianate building is a later turn-of-the-century addition.

414 N. Sheridan Road, 1847. The strict Greek Revival-style modest building dates from 1847. Built by John H. Swartout, the frame house has a portico with a perfect classical pediment with Doric columns holding up a blank entablature. The façade hosts three identical openings – two being windows with shouldered moldings and a door with a transom. It is a simple and relatively small building that was in need of repair in 2014 when this photograph was taken by the author.

438 N. Sheridan Road, 1840s. The house was built up around a small 1840s Greek revival Style house. The Italian Villa style with its tall central tower, porch and columns, double brackets under the eaves and pediments above the windows, dates from the middle 1850s. the central door starts with the rope molding around the double doors and ascends to double arched windows on the second and third floors.

**438 N. Sheridan Road, 1840s. Same house as above, southern exposure. The tower’s windows are replicated on each side at the same level as the front view.**

505 N. Sheridan Road, 1850s. A central tower with a double window and a peaked arched pediment and a steep pitched roof marks this house from the 1850s as Greek Revival style. The door has heavy shoulders for its surrounds.

526 N. Sheridan, late 1840s. A Greek revival style house prevalent in the state of Ohio. The Greek Revival gable has short returns with the second-floor windows extending into the gable area. This is a construction short cut for these upper story rooms. The porch with its octagonal columns and front door entry with its heavily bracketed canopy are later additions although no later than the mid1870s.

619 N. Sheridan Road, 1840s. The present house was built around an earlier house erected in the 1840s. It is in the Victorian Gothic style. There are steep gables for the central tower and dormers. The central doors and windows have simple and neat surrounds.

**Detail of same house above, 619 N. Sheridan Road, 1840s.**

710 N. Sheridan Road, 1872. A restored Second Empire and Italianate Victorian mansion. The frame house features a double door entrance with glass panes and a veranda-like columnar front porch. A square-shaped second-floor porch is above the front entrance in the central section of the house and below its double bracketed cornice and Mansard roof.

**Detail of double bracketed cornice of restored 1872 Second Empire and Italianate Victorian mansion at 710 N. Sheridan Road in Waukegan, Illinois.**

**837 N. Sheridan Road, 1858. The front porch and polygonal bay window were added to this late-1850s Italianate brick house more than 60 years later, around 1910.**

907 N. Sheridan Road, early 1930s. Made of Lannon stone from Wisconsin, the buff-colored, blocky, sedimentary dolomite rock house is designed in the English Tudor style. It has a slate roof. The tall wide chimney is integrated into the façade of the solid stone wall building flanked by casement windows in gabled wall dormers.

**Another view of same house above, 907 N. Sheridan Road, early 1930s. The well-designed monolithic stone and slate fortress was erected during the Great Depression.**

946 N. Sheridan Road, 1876. An Italianate house has a central tower with notable openings – a ground floor heavy doorway; above that, a pair of windows under a semi-circular pediment; and finally, at the top, a triplet of windows under a triangle pediment. The second floor carries the semi-circular pediment design across three more of its windows and there are double brackets under the eaves. The porch is likely an early 20^th century addition.

SOURCES:

A Guide to Chicago’s Historic Suburbs on Wheels and on Foot, Ira J. Bach, Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 1981, pp. 97-111.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Chicago – retrieved May 3, 2023.

https://www.waukeganil.gov/181/History-of-Waukegan – retrieved May 3, 2023.

https://www.waukeganil.gov/178/Demographic-Information – – retrieved May 3, 2023.

https://www.waukeganhistorical.org/places – retrieved May 3, 2023.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1328.html – retrieved May 3, 2023

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Graham – retrieved May 3, 2023.

Street Photography: SIGNS OF THE TIMES. (70 Photos).

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(3.26 minutes). When I was in Ireland studying history, it was at Trinity College in Dublin. Though there was access to the Berkeley Library (pronounced Barkley) as well as the Old Library that housed the Book of Kells, I ended up using almost exclusively The National Library of Ireland, established in 1877 (though its origins are in the early 18th century), which was a 5-minute walk from the Trinity College campus. Through its decorative iron gates off Kildare Street was Ireland’s “library of record” whose rich collection of books, manuscripts and other documents (over 12 million items) was deeply related to the expanse of Irish history, particularly from its medieval period to before 1800. Taking up a desk day after day in the Main Reading Room designed in 1890 by Irish architect Sir Thomas Deane (1828 –1899) I searched their catalogs and spoke with reference librarians which resulted in requested materials which were then delivered by runners to my assigned desk.

FROM THE (May 9, 2023) ARTICLE: “A fellow of Trinity and the former librarian there, [18^th century philosopher George] Berkeley [1685-1753] is regarded by academics as one of the most influential thinkers of the early modern period. Some view his philosophical and scientific ideas on perception and reality as foreshadowing the work of Albert Einstein. But last month, the governing board of Trinity, Ireland’s oldest university, announced that it had voted to “dename” the library after months of research and consultation by a group established to review problematic legacies.”

After months of work in Ireland and back in the U.S., the end result was a 75-page paper on the Franciscan Order in Ireland between the 13th and 16th centuries. James Joyce set the ninth episode of Ulysses in the National Library where Stephen Dedalus is depicted talking about Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It was in fact the rejection of membership in the mid1830s to the Roman Catholic archbishop of Dublin (Daniel Murray) to the National Library’s immediate predecessor organization (The Royal Dublin Society) that led to a campaign in the House of Commons by the Conservative MP for Limerick (Will O’Brien) to reform this elitist Society so that it, as well as any reference institution connected to it, would extend admission privileges without concern of party affiliation or religion.