In 1867, only 14 years after Kankakee was settled, an immigrant from Luxembourg named John Faber built the city’s first commercial greenhouse. Offering a variety of flowers and vegetable plants, the Faber Floral and Greenhouse Co. would be a major supplier for local customers for more than 130 years.
Faber’s would not be alone in meeting Kankakee’s floral needs: Through the years, several other successful greenhouse businesses would be established. Names such as Raasch’s Sunnyside Greenhouse, Splear Brothers Greenhouse, Schafer’s Greenhouse and Alonzo Burt’s Greenhouse thrived here at various times over the past century.
John Faber’s first greenhouse was at Sixth Avenue and Merchant Street; by 1885, he had outgrown that building and opened a larger facility four blocks to the east at Merchant Street and Washington Avenue.
Three years later, his sons, John Jr. and George, assumed active control of the business and presided over a major expansion. The brothers purchased 12 acres of land on the north side of Jeffery Street, west of Eighth Avenue, and erected the first of what eventually would become eight large greenhouses.
A May 19, 1911, story in the Kankakee Daily Republican was devoted to local greenhouses and florist businesses. It featured the Faber operation, noting their greenhouses “each 280 feet in width by 150 feet in length,” were heated by steam. “They have several acres in hotbeds, where they grow bedding plants and vegetables for the retail and wholesale trade.” Vegetables grown there included celery, peppers, Brussels sprouts, radishes, cabbages, tomatoes and cauliflower.
Flowers, of course, were produced in quantity: “At present,” reported the newspaper,” there are 18,000 carnations, 4,000 calla lilies, 3,000 roses, 6,000 geraniums and 300 violets, besides hundreds of plants of foliage, ferns, begonias and many other varieties.”
In 1876, Alonzo Burt opened what probably was Kankakee’s second greenhouse and florist business on Wall Street, just north of Water Street. The 1911 Republican article reported Burt’s “greenhouse and botanical gardens ... are one of the romantic beauty spots of Kankakee. They slope from Wall Street to the river, and are covered with shrubs, vines, trees and flowers.” The article described some of the more unusual plants in Burt’s greenhouse, including “a rose bush 33 years old. It has creamy white roses; and during the last season, Mr. Burt cut over 1,000 roses from it.”
The early 1900s saw at least three more commercial greenhouse operations established in and around Kankakee. Charles Schafer, who had operated a greenhouse at the east end of Cobb Boulevard near Electric (now Beckman) Park, relocated in 1910 to a 12-acre site on Fair Street. He erected five greenhouses, each 23 by 215 feet, and specialized in flower production.
Charles Splear, who was born in Belgium, settled in Kankakee in 1876. He purchased a 153-acre farm east of town (at what now is Court Street and Splear Road) in 1884, and was actively engaged in farming and flower and vegetable growing until 1908. Two of his sons, William and Frank, founded the Splear Brothers Florist business in that year. Their greenhouses were located on the west side of Splear Road, one-quarter mile north of Court Street.
The Splear business was described as “probably the largest and most complete floral and vegetable greenhouse in this region of the state,” in a 1929 Kankakee Daily Republican story. “A large tract is set aside for the growing of perennial flowers and plants out-of-doors,” noted the newspaper. “The company has over 100 varieties of flowers and plants for sale at different seasons of the year.”
Gustave “Gus” Raasch opened his commercial greenhouse on Kankakee’s east side in 1910. Located on Maple Street near Sunnyside Avenue, the single greenhouse was 50 feet by 200 feet.
“They make a specialty of carnations and grow many choice and rare varieties,” noted the Republican in its 1911 story on local greenhouses. In his advertising, Raasch proclaimed “The very finest carnations is my reputation.”
The passage of time has taken its toll on the community’s greenhouse businesses. Faber Floral, the first to open, closed in the early 2000s when it was bought by Tholens’ Garden Centers. Alonzo Burt’s property between Wall Street and the Kankakee River now is a residential subdivision. The Raasch greenhouse went through several changes of ownership, eventually becoming the popular Busse & Rieck Florist and Gift Shop. Today, the building houses a religious organization.
The Splear Brothers name disappeared (except on Splear Road) when the business was sold in the 1960s to Charles Jans. In 1975, the Benoit family purchased the property and continue to operate what now is the city’s only commercial greenhouse. They specialize in spring-flowering plants that are sold to garden centers and landscapers in the Chicago area, northwest Indiana, and central Illinois. In recent years, they also have opened a retail garden center.
A former Kankakee artist, who grew up within sight of the Splear Brothers greenhouse, created his first children’s book illustrations for a volume written by one of his neighbors, Elsie Lee Splear. Who was the artist, and what was the book?
<strong>Answer:</strong> Ken Stark, who drew editorial cartoons and other illustrations for the Kankakee Daily Journal, created more than 20 paintings to illustrate Elsie Lee Splear’s book, "Growing Seasons." The book, published in 2000 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, tells the charming story of Elsie and her three sisters growing up on a Kankakee County farm in the early 1900s. The book was popular, going through several printings. Stark, who now lives in Wisconsin, continues a successful career as a fine-art painter, author and book illustrator.