Major Changes in the 1950s and After
Major Changes in the 1950s and After
On October 19, 1954, occurred the first and largest of three changes that were to result in the present configuration at the southwest corner of Skokie (the village had officially changed its name in 1940) known as the "hockey stick," which consists of the north side of one block of Ionia (otherwise a Chicago street) attached to the main body of Skokie by a one foot wide strip of land running straight north for 1/4 of a mile on the line of Central Avenue to the line of Lunt Avenue (the south fence of present day Teletype Corporation).
This first change was the disannexation to Chicago, on October 19, 1954, of the area west of Carpenter Road, south of Lunt, except for the block of Ionia referred to and a 100 foot wide strip of land, running north to Lunt, as depicted in Map "G". In this account we have deliberately avoided conjecturing "reasons" for annexations and disannexations. It is presumed that an annexation was considered advantageous by the petitioners (over one half the land holders and voters in the area concerned) and to the village; similarly with disannexations. Specific "reasons" do not appear in the legal documents, the ordinances, or the minutes of Board meetings. The story frequently repeated on this ceding of land to Chicago was that Loyola University wanted to build a hospital on this land, if the land was in Chicago. For whatever reason, the hospital was never built.
The 100 foot wide strip of land connecting Ionia to the main body of Skokie was reduced to a strip just one foot wide by the disannexation ordinance of September 19, 1972. The petitioners in this case were the owners Walter and Charles Rojek. This sizeable strip of land was developed with houses, and constitutes the west side of the Chicago street Dowagiac where this street turns and runs north and south. The houses are separated from the Village of Niles by the one foot strip of Skokie, which, interestingly enough, is zoned "residential." This also is shown in Map "G".
The westernmost house on the Ionia block was situated on property that actually lay both in Skokie and in Niles (though mainly in Skokie), and the north-south Central line made for awkward division of responsibility for the end of the street known as Chicory. Accordingly, an annexation ordinance of July 24, 1974, at the petition of the Village of Niles and of the owner, ceded this land to Skokie as in the interests of both villages. The addition of this little triangular heel to the hockey stick is the last legal action to date (1983) affecting the boundary of Skokie.
Map "F", shown previously, shows the western arm of Skokie and the successive annexations of the Schnur land which had been part of the 1928 acquisition of the entire western arm. On February 21, 1956, was approved the annexation of a rectangle Carl Schnur and others wanted incorporated. The rectangle lies west of Central between roughly Mulford and Brummel, and goes west to Mansfield. The southwest corner of this annexation slants down Gross Point a little west of Mansfield, as shown on the map. An annexation ordinance of October 10, 1961, added further unincorporated property of the Schnur heirs. It is depicted also on Map "F". As noted earlier, this land does not include the railroad right-of-way. Finally, on January 30, 1962, the Village of Skokie incorporated the northwest piece of Schnur land adjacent to the tracks, though most extant zoning maps show this property as never disannexed.
A major disannexation of November 3, 1965, ceded to Evanston a 100 yard wide strip of land east of the M.S.D. (Metropolitan Sanitary District) canal, extending from Main to Emerson, as shown in Map "H". This action was in response to a petition by the Metropolitan Sanitary District, which owns approximately 100 yards on each side of the canal throughout Skokie. Evanston approved a similar petition at about the same time. Skiles School and Shore School are now located on this property.
