Chapter 10: The Old Order Changeth
We cannot pass over World War II without recording that Skokie was struck by the first blow.
Gordon Mitchell was killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was a student living in the upper rooms of the log cabin of Central Methodist Church. The main floor of the rambling structure housed the church with its several organizations and the pastor's family. The second floor was rented to men students. Gordon had lived there until going into service shortly before Pearl Harbor. His star of gold is on the service flag of the church.
A long chapter could be written about the work of the local VFW for the servicemen. Under the leadership of Robert Throop, Sr. the boys were kept in constant reminder of their hometown by a systematically planned series of letters and gifts. It was a bright chapter in dark years.
Following a brief interlude after the war the township began to develop in earnest. Construction had been at a standstill from the beginning of the Depression. When peace came the strict priority on materials held back building for another four or five years. Meanwhile the need of homes here as in the rest of the nation had become acute. The northwest suburbs were the natural outlet for Chicago's jostling crowds.
Industries, likewise, began to flee the Big City to escape transportation problems and the blight, and to follow the trend toward decentralizing.
The G.D. Searle Pharmaceutical Company had moved here before the war. Foreseeing the need of more space for future growth, the firm had purchased a portion of the Peter Blameuser farm off Oakton west of the North Western tracks. Now it expanded to become one of the largest industries in the area.
'Ocean liner'
Searle's first building, at the north end of the property, was so designed that, viewed from Oakton, it startled you with its resemblance to an ocean liner grounded out there on the open prairie. The post war additions have shut off the view and ruined the illusion wrecked the ship!
Bell and Howell, makers of moving picture equipment, in Lincolnwood, Bell and Gossett in Morton Grove, and A. B. Dick in Niles one for each village were the advance guard of the rush of industry to the township.
It would be a long and tedious roll call if we were to list impartially all the establishments that have come to line Oakton and the railroads in Skokie, and fill the open spaces of East Prairie and the three other towns.
However, mention should be made of one more, Rand McNally, because the name is familiar to the nation.
These, in turn, brought homes as the potential for employment increased. Growth in population induced merchants and lined the once empty streets with stores. Marshall Field's location at Old Orchard was one of the most notable commercial events. Greater shopping facilities drew more home seekers, a steady spiral.
Newer residents will find it hard to imagine the emptiness of the land from Crawford to the canal across Skokie and Lincolnwood, and east of the railroad in Morton Grove and Niles, ten years ago, before the industries big and small began arriving.
Tremendous Growth
The three smaller towns were well at the top of the state record of building permits. Skokie, being the largest and emptiest, capped them all month after month, year after year, until it became known as the most rapidly growing community in Illinois, some say in the nation. It was approximately 5000 in the 1930 census, 7172 in 1940, above 14,00 in 1950, 43,000 plus in 1956, and 52,135 for the census taken this summer, 1958.
The sister villages have grown proportionately. As a hundred years ago they echoed to the blows of the ax, so in this decade they have resounded to the grind and crash of the bulldozer and steam shovel.
In this they are in the tradition of the metropolis.
In 1830 Chicago was a hamlet of log houses with less than one hundred settlers. Reaching 4479 in 1840, topping a million before 1890, two million by 1910, with its present three million plus, it is reckoned one of the "seven wonders" of America.
Such rapidity of growth is disruptive to all institutions. Not only are churches, synagogues, and schools unable to speed up their construction effort fast enough, but their programs cannot keep abreast of the demand on them.
Take the Public Library, for example. New projects and services for the community, carefully planned, are frequently found too meager by the time they can be put into effect.
Book stock cannot increase at the rate of population. While one book is being processed for the shelves two families move in to borrow it! The standard for a town of this size is two and a half books per capita. There are now 52,136 in Skokie so the quota would be more than 125,000 volumes five times the capacity of the present library quarters! This is typical of the problems faced by institutions in this area.
Jewish Migration
Another migration, Jewish, began about 1950, drawn by the inviting newness of the still uncrowded spaces, and pushed by the infiltration of the Negro population into Hyde Park and other old Jewish neighborhoods. Their synagogues, under able spiritual leaders followed, having the dual purpose to hold them loyal to the ancient faith and traditions, and at the same time integrate them with their Gentile neighbors.
While busy with their own groups, notably B'nai Brith, they still have diverted great energy to all the community services, the PTAs, League of Women Voters, YMCA, and whatever makes for a solid community and good citizenship.
Even though the subject is too recent to call history, the record is not complete without a passing mention of the Tri-County Suburban Council which has been ringed around Chicago in a policy of containment. Regardless of the arguments pro and con, and despite unquestionable need of some lines of cooperation with the City, credit is due the late Skokie President George Wilson, for bringing the town into a league and acting as their first leader.
How bewildered the pioneers would have been had they been given a forecast of our present day problems! When the little town at the river's mouth was a long, hard day's journey away from these northwest settlements, what would have been their disbelief if they could have heard of its eventual encroachment upon them! Vocabulary itself has changed. What would they have made of such discussions as zoning, blight, stream pollution, area planning?
It is now just a century and a quarter since John Joseph Ruland plodded westward from the lake shore.
In that short time our township has entered the fifth epoch of its life: the log cabins in the forest, the agricultural period, the market towns, the modern suburbs, and now the industrial phase.
As we see the new homes and the well-landscaped grounds of the industries, we hope that fifty or a hundred years hence it will not have fallen victim to blight, the disease of cities the world over. We hope that economists and city planners can find the cure or prevention before dry rot begins to eat at the heart of these prairie towns.
No one can foresee the great events which may produce another epoch in our history. As the economic and political upheavals in central Europe in the mid-nineteenth century determined the early racial nature of our pioneer life; as the extension of the 'L' swept away the farms; as the second world war accelerated population growth started migrations from the overcrowded city, and turned the residential suburbs into an industrial region; so some event half a world away may again modify the character of Niles Township.
- Originally published in The Villager, Thursday, July 10, 1958, p. 18
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