Chapter 8: Boom and Bust
The fire of 1910 was hardly a candle's flicker to the excitement a dozen years later. "THE FIRE" consumed barely two business blocks. "THE BOOM" consumed most of Niles Center.
STORY OF THE GREAT
EXPANSION NORTHWARD
So shouted "The Economist" of November 10, 1920 in letters two inches high across its front page. This was "a weekly financial, commercial, and real estate newspaper" published in Chicago. Under the above caption followed in bold type:
"EXTENSION OF THE ELEVATED TO NILES CENTER AND CONSTRUCTION OF THE CHICAGO, NORTH SHORE AND NORTHERN RAILWAY TO WAUKEGAN RESULT IN UNPRECEDENTED ACTIVITY IN AFFECTED COMMUNITIES.
"GREATEST DEVELOPMENT AND EXPANSION MOVEMENT IN THE HISTORY OF CHICAGO IS PRESAGED IN CONNECTION WITH PROGRAM OF THE INSULL INTERESTS.
"INVESTORS PAYING $5000 PER ACRE FOR ATTRACTIVE HOMES!
"Chicago has not in a long time experienced a boom anything like the present movement now developing in the northern part of Cook County, following the news of the construction of the Chicago, North Shore, and Northern Railway's line, beginning at the intersection of the Chicago and North Western Elevated at Howard Avenue, thence west to Niles Center."
Chicago Commerce of April 4, 1925, telling the story with less gusto and more attention to literary style, begins:
"For nearly seventy years Niles Center drowsed and dozed in the shade of the little grove where Lincoln, Oakton, and Carpenter Road intersect, content to be a country crossroad with two trains to the city a day some days.Now the whole atmosphere of the village is changed, electrified, thrilled at the sight of "L" Cars."
The writer's patronizing manner is belatedly typical of the "hick-chewing-a-straw" attitude of the big city press during the early part of the century an attitude which changed tune with the extension of rural delivery and the resulting new market for subscriptions.
First New 'L' Extension
There had been no new 'L' extension since America's entrance into the First World War. Within the next eight years Chicago's population made such rapid growth that by 1923 it would require the addition of the equivalent of ten square blocks annually to provide for the increase. The cities along the lake were likewise filling up. The only northern outlet for overflow was the Skokie Valley. The 'L' branch to Dempster and the electric railway would open up this area.
From the coming of the Milwaukee Road to Morton Grove in 1872 the history of public transportation in our township would make a chapter by itself. There was no transportation to Morton Grove to meet the train.
Niles Center people walked the mile and a half to the depot and did not consider it martyrdom. Some did it regularly and, returning home in the early darkness of the winter evenings, carried a lantern to light their paths.
The North Western branch came through Tessville to Niles Center in 1911. From about that time until the coming of the 'L', there was one attempt after another to organize a street railway, or interurban, or bus route to connect the township villages with Chicago.
Three times supposedly watertight plans died aborning.
One was the extension of the Lincoln Avenue streetcar line from the Bowmanville corner (Lincoln, Lawrence, and Western) through Tessville, and Niles Center to Morton Grove. All paperwork was done, the spade work ready to start, and the line was to be in operation by January 1918. It must have been a World War I casualty. A line was granted right of way on Oakton from the east to west limits of Niles Center, and at the same time another from Howard north and west through the township. The legal work for both was finished by 1916, but these likewise, fell by the wayside.
Region Remote
With transportation, and somewhat off-the-beaten lines of travel, the region was felt to be remote. To Chicagoans, even of Rogers Park, the township seemed much farther than just "over the line." Because of that the promoters pointed out that the 'L' would open up country which would be nearer the Loop than North Evanston, the shore towns, or even many points of Chicago.
In the Chicago Evening Post of May 23, 1925, one W. C. Jenkins wrote an article on "The Skokie Region of Tomorrow -- a Prophecy." He said that in winter this new area was cut off from cold lake winds; that many North Shore residents had found these winds so disagreeable that they were giving up their lovely shore homes and moving farther west. (The man who dreamed that one up hadn't crossed the open spaces past the Oakton 'L' and North Western stations two or four times a day for fourteen winters!) As a further incentive he predicted curving streets and private courts as "being more attractive than a rectangular system."
He made one ultimately correct prophecy that the population would grow at three times the rate of growth in the city.
The pages of The Economist and Chicago Commerce are peppered with dollar signs as they report fabulous speculation.
"An operator has just closed the purchase of seventy acres half a mile from the right-of-way for $210,000, or $3000 an acre. One operator bought ten acres on Main Street near the Chicago, North Shore and Northern three months ago for $25,000; he sold one plot for $5000 and has sold the rest for $45,000."Kenneth C. Brown & Co. have a beautiful piece of frontage on the north side of Dempster Street from Niles Center Road to the Chicago, North Shore and Northern right-of-way, of about 1400 feet of frontage, which is being sold at from $150 to $300 a front foot. They opened the subdivision a week ago and sold 400 feet of frontage the first day."
(This is the quarter mile to be seen looking east from the Bronx Building, and "THE VILLAGER" of April 24, on page 20, has an excellent photo of it as it was then.)
"45 acres at the intersection of Howard, Lincoln, and Cicero have been purchased by George F. Nixon & Co. for subdivision purposes. It is admirably located for development, and from a residential viewpoint could not be more attractive, as it is on the edge of a beautiful strip of the forest preserve, heavily wooded."
(However, it was cut off from actual contact with the forest preserve by the already granted right-of-way. These acres are now the campus of Niles Township High School.)
"Edward and Maurice Aaron have acquired from Arthur Salinger & Co. the 125 x 96 northwest corner of Howard and Dodge for $30,000 just north of the projected 'L' extension."Les Perron has purchased the southeast corner of Main and Gross Point Road for $20,000.
'Booming Fast'
These are only samples from pages and pages dizzy with figures. Just one more:
"Many Niles Center lots have reached the stage where the boom is booming fast that is, they have reached the resale stage. A buyer buys; he holds his lot a month or two; and then he sells. And he makes money. William C. Galitz, President of the Niles Center State Bank, pointed to a corner lot, 75 x 125 feet, in a choice location the corner of Lincoln and Main Street. 'That lot,' he said, 'sold for $3200 two and a half years ago. It was resold eighteen months ago for just about $10,000. Then six months later it was sold again for $20,000, a bit more than double. Now it's on sale for $45,000."At first the average price for small residence lots 35 x 125, was about $800. They sold fast. Now the same ones resold, or new ones on sale for the first time, are going like hot cakes for $1350."
And finally:
"One can readily see what the new line (Chi., N.S. & M.) means to this community; it will mean new life, much construction, new business centers, new picturesque residential communities, all of which are only awaiting the spark of transportation to bring forth a beautiful new city."
But the glowing prediction flared up, sputtered and went out. Even while it was being written the event that caused the prophecy's failure had already passed into history. For, a thousand miles from the scene, in Wall Street, the stock market had broken. Unknown to the luckless final buyers, the Great Depression was on.
Eyewitness Picture
First person narrative has so far been avoided, but here we break to rule to paint an eyewitness picture. Coming to Niles Center in the late summer of 1937, the author spent many Sunday afternoons roaming the streets to learn the lay-out of the town she was to serve as librarian. Even a stranger could read in the very pavements the story of boom and bust. There lay the streets, criss-crossing and the wide-open prairie through neat rectangles with grass growing up through the cracked asphalt! The curbs and sewers and walks were in, but the streets were silent. Over the empty prairie, with views of a mile in any direction, here and there rose a lone apartment house. It was customary to walk in the streets since there was no traffic, for the sidewalks were heaved by the frost and the broken squares of cement tilted crazily. On Oakton, from Long Avenue west to Austin, even an active five-year-old by my side gave up the perilous pleasure of scaling the miniature mountains and sliding down the opposite slopes.
But in the spring abandoned orchards blossomed; and in June the prairie was beautiful with wild roses and bluebells, and later with Queen Anne's lace. In summer the birds sang a varied concert; all day the plovers cried their shrill "kill-deer" where Hines' Lumber Yard is now and in the morning and evening the prairie chicken called his three plaintive minor notes and the partridge drummed.
Tessville farmers and Morton folk and those at Niles must have watched pea-green with envy while their neighboring villagers sold their farms for sums that occasionally reached six figures. But, if they missed the boom, they were spared the collapse. Twenty-five years more and another World War were to pass before they had their turn, and then it would be in a real estate development that had firm foundation and stability not the mirage of speculation.
- Originally published in The Villager, Thursday, July 3, 1958, pp. 13-14
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