Journal & Topics Media Group

Society Marks 50 Years Of Making Park Ridge’s History Matter


Officers from the newly forming historical society (Treasurer Ruth Trout, Secretary Eleanor Schiessle and President Paul Carlson) accept a July 1972 donation from the Twentieth Century Juniors Foundation at the Gillick house. (PRHS Collection)

The Park Ridge Historical Society, marking the start of its 50th anniversary June 7, represents the efforts of several generations of local residents who have been determined to collect and share the legacy of this modern suburban city, and how it grew.

A display of memorabilia, posted at the Park Ridge Library’s second floor exhibit cases, closed June 6. The library, 20 S. Prospect Ave., was unexpectedly closed for a few days in mid-May due to construction.

The society’s headquarters, the Park Ridge History Center, 721 N. Prospect Ave., is on the Prospect Park property and has reopened on the second and fourth Sundays, 1 to 3 p.m.

A 50 for 50 fundraising drive is underway to help retire the society’s outstanding debts from the preparation of the building for its 2019 opening. Contact the society at 847-696-1973, info@parkridgehistorycenter.org, or www.parkridgehistorycenter.org for more information.

Some of the credit for an interest in local history that prompted the society goes to earlier 20th century historians who were regular columnists in the local papers. Grace Hibbard Reed assembled short columns after talking to the descendants from the early village families. These episodes, read once a week at school classes, became part of the social studies lessons for a young Paul Carlson and his classmates. Carlson became a history teacher at his alma mater, Maine (East) High School and inspired several more generations to be interested in the area legends.

Another series of articles in the 1950s by the Rev. Orvis Jordan, long-time pastor of the Park Ridge Community Church, were reprinted in a green paperback edition by the Scharringhausens who ran the local pharmacy on Main Street.

Later Mary Walley shared weekly bits of history trivia.

So history-minded residents already knew about the 19th century Penny & Meacham brickyard that established the first settlement as “Brickton” in the mid-1850s, which, in turn, led to the incorporation as a village, and Park Ridge was gearing up to celebrate that centennial in 1973.

Carlson was already rallying local leaders to get a historical society organized. At the time, there still were many respected examples of village era architecture.

On June 9, 1971, he and nine other residents signed a charter to create the Park Ridge Historical Society: Alden Wilson, local journalists Robert Schwarz from the Park Ridge Herald, Dave Barnes, Ruth Trout and Denise Pommeraning from the Park Ridge Advocate; Dr. Frank Yonan, a local dentist and a World War II survivor of the Bataan death march; Eleanor Schiessle, Harry Madsen and Peter Malone, a Carlson classmate and the grandson of Park Ridge’s second mayor, William Malone, who developed much of modern Uptown and the Pickwick Theatre.

By Oct. 27, when a meeting was held in the Mary Wilson Hall at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, 375 area residents came to endorse the creation of the Park Ridge Historical Society.

Carlson was the first president, and Malone followed him.

There was a major concern that the city was starting to make choices that sacrificed significant parts of its historical and architectural legacy. The George Carpenter home on North Northwest Highway, home of the first village president, had been converted to the first City Hall. When the city purchased an office building to convert to the current city hall, the 1870s Carpenter house was torn down to build a water reservoir topped by a flat gray parking lot. (The site is now part of the Shops of Uptown).

Because Park Ridge dove into celebrating the Centennial with enthusiasm in 1973, there were a lot of events and projects happening at once.

The society was able to get permission from the City Council to arrange to lease the Fred Gillick Homestead at 104 S. Euclid (at Summit) from the city with the support of Mayor Joseph S. Peacock (1969-73). The north end of that side of Euclid was mostly a parking lot (a Jewel store had been at the highway end), so there was plenty of parking and the society could organize annual flea markets up the block as a fundraiser. The house was restored to an earlier era and was a popular place to visit.

You couldn’t beat some of the local program guests in the early days.

Betty Bryant, who directed local plays, was asked by the Chicago Historical Society to talk about her days growing up on her family’s showboat. She and a local banker recreated some of the scenes and comedy acts, and gave a local debut of their presentation for PRHS.

Dr. John Barker grew up out west, where one of his family’s visitors was Buffalo Bill Cody who hunted with Barker’s brother. Barker came to Chicago for dental school and was able to visit Cody’s Wild West Show and meet sharpshooter Annie Oakley and others. He was close to 100 in 1977 when he shared his stories to a packed house. He was a neighbor across the street on Euclid.

Pharmacist George Scharringhausen (father of Bill) brought his home movies of the day the old Central School had an Oct. 31 fire in 1930. (When it was built in the 1890s uphill from the train station the school board assured everyone the school was fireproof). The school had become very crowded during the 1920s local building boom. Field, Lincoln and Roosevelt schools had just been built to replace it, but part of the block had a classroom wing, which remained and was still used for kindergarten for another generation. The Park Ridge Library now occupies that property.

The Gillick home at Euclid and Summit was the first headquarters for the Park Ridge Historical Society. (PRHS Collection)

A few years later, a city project to redevelop the Euclid Avenue corridor threatened the buildings on both sides of Euclid. The Summit Mall would fill their side of the block. The society was told the Gillick House would have to go. The society was offered a chance to get the building for free — but the board would have to move it somewhere else.

The only site they were offered was on the other side of the train tracks at the former YMCA headquarters (now Centennial Park) next to the totem pole on Touhy.

The house was too tall to clear the Touhy underpass and the nearby railroad crossings were too steep to get over safely. The society would have to pay Commonwealth Edison to clear the house’s passage under too many sets of electric power lines to reach a safe crossing, in addition to paying the costs of moving the building.

Even after a lot of fundraising…even if they mortgaged their historic collection…the board members learned that the park district at the time insisted the house would have to belong to the district to be on district property. Ron Dodd, then executive director of the Park Ridge Recreation and Park District, had just come from Arlington Heights where the park district controlled a similar historic house.

The contract the society originally made with the Park District got more complicated. They would be required to advance the money to build a new foundation, having no collateral except their collection, which the city insisted was what they should do.

The Park Ridge Historical Society had come within $15,000 of its fundraising goal, then-president Peter Malone reported Aug. 14, 1982, when the city moved up its deadline for them to vacate the Gillick House site, leaving the board only a week to move out. Shortly thereafter the vacated house on Euclid was a victim of arson and destroyed.

Malone tried to explain the society’s to the community: ”The museum is not the building.” The society would have been happy to move both house and collection together, and had almost managed to raise funds to do that, but saving the irreplaceable collection they had worked so hard to start was what mattered to the board.

Moving the Museum

The society’s new campaign was dubbed “Move the Museum.”

Eleanor Schiessle, a member of their original board, offered them a chance to rent a white Victorian frame house her family owned at 41 S. Prairie (at Garden). They made arrangements to relocate there and fixed up that house. When Mrs. Schiessle died, her son, attorney Michael Schiessle Jr., informed the society he had decided that, although they were renters, they would also be responsible to pay the property taxes as well.

They hoped to not need to move again and invested new efforts to give Park Ridge a worthy history headquarters. They hosted Pennyville Days, created other special events, and invited the community to visit.

The society’s second home was on Prairie at Garden. (Journal Photo)

History on the Move

The society stayed there for another 25 years, maintaining the house and having volunteers open it regularly. Finally Cook County’s rising reassessments sent the property tax bills too high. The society reluctantly packed its possessions again, and began what was dubbed as “History on the Move,” a patience-wrenching process that lasted for seven years. Ironically, they moved while Park Ridge was starting to plan its centennial of becoming a city in 1910.

The society board members borrowed storefronts for displays. They loaned exhibits to the Park Ridge Not-for-Profit Center. They found meeting rooms to give programs. They just didn’t have a home,  and they were determined to find a more permanent location.

Paul Adlaf, society president through many of those recent years, rejoiced in 2015 when the house on Prairie was purchased by Mike and Kathy Marrese to remain a family residence. He called it “a major save of a fine old Victorian home for Park Ridge.”

“History on the Move” was not meant to be so complicated.

The society had negotiated to rent one of the residential cottages at the (Park Ridge) Youth Campus on North Prospect Avenue. Built more than a century before for the Park Ridge School for Girls, the entire campus had been added to the National Register of Historic Places. The board planned ways to renovate the building… and then the Youth Campus abruptly closed.

Working with the modern Park Ridge Park District, the society board helped to pass a community referendum so the park district could buy the campus property. The society then negotiated a new long-term lease with the park district for the Hannah Solomon Cottage — the same building they had been hoping to use. It was one of a set of the campus’s oldest residential buildings, considered by the state to be significantly contributing to the site’s National Register standing. They adjusted their plans to meet the state’s landmark guidelines and started repairs and restoration.

The new Park Ridge History Center opened in 2019 and hosted a Pennyville Days event in August. The board planned an exhibit about four “Trailblazing Women of Park Ridge”: social reformer Solomon, Mother Francis Cabrini who lived on a local farm toward the end of her life, Clara Barack Wells of the Kalo Silver Shop, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, who grew up a few blocks away and became a U.S. senator and secretary of state. That exhibit was ready to open when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in 2020, and is still available to view now as it reopens for Sunday visiting hours.

Working Together

No one group can manage to encompass the city’s history, but sharing information enriches the collective whole. These are ways the Park Ridge Historical Society has contributed to everyone:

It has maintained community dialogue for decades about the importance of local history and hosted programs.

It shared information with the late Roberta Mellon and Anita Anderson as they did research for a book project and fielded local history inquiries.

Participating members and researchers throughout the years served on the Park Ridge Heritage Committee, which documented and produced two modern histories and created labels for 50 “milestones” around the Camp Fire Girls Fountain in Hodges Park.

Representatives served on the committee with members of other historically minded groups helping to plan the City Centennial in 2010.

Paul Adlaf, Barbara Christopher and others were founding members and representatives on the Park Ridge Historic Preservation Commission.

The “collection” which is the museum has acquired new memorabilia which can be rotated into the History Center displays over time. The society shares the space with special interpretive materials from the Youth Campus’s past. Modern technology has expanded ways to electronically interpret the materials in the smaller space.

The society did not have a wall large enough to hang the mural rescued by the late Paul Carlson from the former Park Ridge post office (School Dist. 64 Hendee Center), but it lent its not-for-profit status to the community’s fund drive to get it restored and mounted for the public to enjoy at the Park Ridge Library.

The society developed and hosted many graveyard guided tours at Town of Maine Cemetery to introduce local pioneer personalities and dignitaries to modern audiences in “Spirits of Old Park Ridge.”

Special research in the Maine high schools began to help modern students understand the significance of their World War II counterparts raising funds to pay for the Maine Flyer, a C54 Skymaster transport ship built at Douglas Aircraft (later O’Hare). With the students, they organized “Faster and Higher, That’s Maine’s Flyer,” a video from that research. Six decades after it left Park Ridge, a society project spearheaded by Len Johnson, tracked down the original plane and got permission over a 10-year quest to bring parts of its cabin back to Park Ridge to be restored.

Rescuing the Lil’ Pirsch pumper fire truck, formerly of the Park Ridge Fire Department, and arranging to bring it back to Park Ridge was another long goal for the society. It came back last year in time for local fire historian Ralph Bishop, who had driven it during his career with the department, to see it return before his recent death.

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