Yesteryear: July in Oswego-area history

July 2002

In a unanimous ballot, Oswego School District Board members authorized entering into a contract with Batavia-based Kluber, Skahan and Associates, Inc. (KS&A) for architectural and engineering services to design and build a second high school in the district. The new school would join the existing Oswego High School to create a two high school district.

The Village of Montgomery’s plan to develop a civic center campus that would include a new police station on the village’s far west side gained the support of the village’s plan commission. In series of unanimous ballots, commission members endorsed a master concept plan for the entire 29 acre site, a preliminary site plan and special use zoning permit for the police station.

July 1997

An era in local business ended when Jim Detzler sold Detzler Pontiac to William McSkimming, the owner of Riverfront Chrysler-Plymouth at the North Aurora Auto Mall. Detzler had operated the dealership for the previous 27 years, first in downtown Oswego and then later in Boulder Hill at Boulder Hill Pass and Ill. Route 25.

Beavers were a problem for some homeowners in Oswego’s Herren’s Run subdivision. The furry critters had built a dam on a creek adjoining the subdivision and were roaming into backyards seeking landscaping to bolster the dam, William Dunn, the village’s public works department director told the village board.

July 1992

Copley Memorial Hospital officials were working to finalize the purchase of a 95-acre site for a proposed new hospital campus on U.S. Route 34 in Aurora, just north of the Kendall-Kane county line.

Up for review before the Oswego Plan Commission were plans for the proposed Victoria Meadows subdivision at the northwest corner of U.S. Route 34 and Douglas Road.

The cost for “expanded” basic cable television service had nearly tripled in Montgomery and Oswego from $8 per month in 1984 to $22.45 in 1992, the Ledger-Sentinel reported.

July 1987

Oswego Fire Protection District Commissioners voted to hire Paramedic Services of Illinois to provide paramedics for the district’s new round-the-clock paramedic service.

July 1982

The Boulder Hill Civic Association and the Oswego Business Association jointly sponsored the first community Independence Day fireworks display from the grounds at Oswego High School. BHCA President Mary Distler reported the display cost $3,950 and was well received by a large crowd.

Would it be another Woodstock? Kendall County Board members expressed concern over a proposal to stage a rock musical festival on a farm in unincorporated Fox Township, south of Plano. Promoters told the board that the “Illinois Music Festival” could attract up to 70,000 people to the three-day event in September.

July 1977

Plans to construct a Burger King at the corner of Douglas and Montgomery roads in Montgomery were approved by the village board. The board conditioned its approval of the restaurant to the developer’s agreeing to relocate a sign on the site and a review of a landscaping plan.

The Montgomery Village Board voted to hire Paul Schuch as the village’s first full-time engineer. The board set Schuch’s annual salary at $20,800. In another personnel move, the board also voted to provide maternity health insurance coverage for employees at a cost of $112 per year for every $1,000 of coverage. The coverage replaced a $400 maternity benefit fund the village had previously established. Board members noted that maternity costs were ranging between $1,200 and $1,400.

With two weeks to go before the deadline, Boulder Hill Civic Association officials announced they had yet to receive a single entry for a contest to design a new Boulder Hill vehicle sticker. The association sold the stickers each year to help pay for community service projects. Contractors for the Oswego School District were finishing up work on the new Thompson Junior High School off Boulder Hill Pass in Oswego. The school board scheduled an open house at the new school for Aug. 14.

July 1972

The Boulder Hill Civic Association appointed a committee to study the possible organization of a fire department to serve the unincorporated subdivision between Oswego and Montgomery.

July 1967

As part of its annual youth summer playground program, the Oswegoland Park District announced it had scheduled a “Hippie Happening.”

Preliminary plans for the proposed Oswegoland Civic Center building and pool, planned for a 9.3 acre site in Boulder Hill, were reviewed by a park district advisory committee.

July 1962

Dutch elm disease was decimating the elm tree population in Oswego, Montgomery and throughout the Fox River Valley. The Oswego Ledger reported that more than 100 trees were dead or dying in Oswego, including 26 alone along Franklin Street near Oswego High School (now the Oswego 308 Center).

July 1957

It was a busy month for the Montgomery Village Board. Over the course of three meetings, the board authorized the sale of $240,000 in bonds to finance improvements to the municipal water system; announced the village would not issue any more building permits for residences on Parker Avenue until toilets and septic tanks were installed in the area; received a request from Father Hillmeyer of Sacred Heart Parish concerning the parish’s request to expand its cemetery on property owned by the Fox Valley Park District off Route 25; approved the purchase of a red light for the village’s new squad car; and reviewed an agreement to provide water to the new Western Electric plant upon the firm’s installation of a well and water mains on the plant site.

July 1952

Superintendent T. Lloyd Traughber announced the Oswego school system would have 28 teachers on staff for the 1952-53 school year.

The Oswego Village Board hired George Plum as village marshall and authorized him to solicit funds for the purchase of a two-way radio system for the marshall’s car. “The reason for asking residents of the community for funds is simply that the village budget does not provide for such an expenditure at this time,” the Ledger reported.

In a letter to the editor, an unidentified Oswego resident wrote that she appreciated the recent oiling and re-surfacing of local streets, but asked that workers include more sand or crushed rock in the mixture. “It doesn’t make a housewife very happy to have oil tracked in on her rugs or to have her little boy come in with oil splotches on his clothes,” the resident wrote.

July 1937

The Kendall County Record reported on July 7, 1937, that construction work on a new bridge across the Fox River at Oswego had started. “The old Oswego bridge is being rapidly dismantled and the construction of a new bridge will start now. There will be no temporary bridge built.” Instead of a temporary bridge, motorists were expected to use the old ford across the river located near the mouth of Waubonsie Creek until the new bridge was completed.

July 1917

Kendall County Record Editor H.R. Marshall described neighboring Aurora in this fashion in his weekly column July 11: “Aurora is having a great time with the wide open town. Loose hotels, women on the streets, chop suey restaurants as covers for vicious practices, wine rooms in saloons and gambling flourishing are things which now trouble the administration of Mayor Harley.”

July 1887

Making light of a normally serious subject, the Record’s Oswego correspondent reported in July 1887 that “Perhaps there are some now that would like to have their funerals take place right away so as to get first use of the magnificent new hearse received by C.A. Shaver the other day. It is a beauty.”

July 1882

In a story with a “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” air to it, the Record’s Oswego correspondent reported in July of 1882 that “A hen over at W.E. Wormley’s took a new departure; she made a nest up in a willow tree and then hatched a brood of eleven chicks.”

July 1867

Transportation was in the Oswego news in July of 1867. The Record reported from Oswego that “The wooden bridge across the Fox River has been condemned due to rotting timbers. A new iron bridge talked of to cost $13,000.”