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1921 – 100 YEARS AGO
According to the “Twenty Years Ago” column in the Chicago Evening Post of last Saturday night one important news item was the courthouse fight between DeKalb and Sycamore. The Chicago Post has this to say in the column: Courthouse fight is on in DeKalb County. DeKalb wants the plum and Sycamore is lining up to retain it. DeKalb has raised $40,000, with another $20,000 promised, to aid in erecting a new building. The county board has already appropriated $100,000 for a new structure without specifying its location. The courthouse was located at Sycamore half a century age and cost $9,000.
Bitro-Phosphate feeds the nerves and old people need it to make them feel and look younger. It’s the one best nerve builder for weak, nerve-exhausted men and women and that is why H. E. Secor guarantees it.
Youngsters of the school, many of them proving good salesmen are busy this week selling Red Cross Christmas Seals, the money received from the sales to go toward fighting the great white plague. Seventy-seven and one-half percent of all funds realized from the sale of these seals is retained in DeKalb County for the fight against the plague.
George Bartlett of the bank, has been doing a lot of repair work about this property at the corner this fall, and the latest acquirement is a cozy little garage fo ra recently purchased Ford sedan. Bartlett has spent considerable time about the place himself and also had carpenters and cement contractors at work. The result is that he has his property fixed up just the way he wants it and it will indeed make a nice home for him and his family.
Edward Jordan, 14 years old, who three weeks ago enjoyed the comforts and companionship of his father and mother, but is today an orphan, returned to Chicago yesterday with his grandmother, where he will make his home. The mother passed away about three weeks ago after a long illness. The father was taken sick a couple of weeks later, developing pneumonia, with his death quickly followed. The little house on South Fifth Street has been broken up and Edward is thus given over to the care of his grandmother.
Country roads are almost impassable in many places, while in other spots, it is impossible for an automobile to get through, is the report of DeKalb people who are compelled to drive their machines into the country to any extent. Some of the farmers of the community have endeavored to build up the roads adjoining their property, but due to the wagon traffic and heavy machine travel, the cinders are quickly pushed to the side of the road.
1946 – 75 YEARS AGO
Even though the Northern Illinois State Teachers College was closed for the Thanksgiving holiday, the school had its excitement yesterday afternoon. Two young men passing the building noted the smoke coming out of the windows in the tower. DeKalb firemen quickly extinguished the blaze that was caused by a short in an electrical conduit. Firemen were able to work without the student congestion that would have resulted under ordinary conditions.
Ideal Industries Inc., announced today that work has been started on the preparation of a large addition to the parking lot at the firm’s main plant. The new lot, made necessary by Ideal’s rapid growth, will more than double the parking area to the east of the plant. It is estimated that the combined parking lots will hold approximately 130 cars when the new lot is completed. The new lot is located on the field east of the plant, which Ideal purchased last spring. In some spots a cut of at least three feet was made in order to provide a level ground for parking.
Dianne Mathre, the young DeKalb girl and student at the DeKalb Township High School who has appeared on the Quiz Kids program in the past, has been invited to be a guest on the program this Sunday. A special program is being presented in connection with the opening of the International Livestock Show and Miss Mathre, originally on the program as a representative of the Four-H group, is being recalled to represent the rural young people of the nation.
Seventeen pianos, made at the DeKalb plant of the Wurlitzer organization in DeKalb, and weighing nearly three and a half tons, made a flying trip from Chicago to the West Coast during the present week. The pianos, fresh from the production line in DeKalb, were trucked directly from the plant in DeKalb to the Chicago Municipal Airport on Tuesday evening. There they were loaded into a U. S. Airline service plane and arrived at the San Francisco airport early on Wednesday morning.
1971 – 50 YEARS AGO
A special meeting to discuss the extension of Hillcrest Drive will be held by the DeKalb City Council. The meeting, open to the public, will concern plans for a planned unit development by Joe Katz along the proposed Hillcrest extension. A committee was formed in September by the city council to negotiate with Katz on the price for the land needed to construct the extension of Hillcrest Drive from First Street to Garden Road.
Once upon a time there lived in DeKalb, a homemaker who numbered among her friends Winnie-the-pooh, Snoopy, Eeyore the donkey and numerous big brown teddy bears. Mrs. John D. Smith still numbers all these creatures among her friends, for she is busy as an elf this Christmas season making stuffed animals for the Women’s Society of Christian Service bazaar, which will be held Thursday.
Ground will be broken soon south of Genoa for the first unit of a Sheltered Village, which when completed will house retired or semi-retired persons. Final papers will be completed this week for the sale of three acres of land south of Ada-Lor Heights Subdivision on Route 23. Sheltered Village is the name of the proposed building project and it is explained as a rehabilitation facility for ambulatory adults.
1996 – 25 YEARS AGO
The DeKalb Fire Department once again began their Red Wreath Program on Thanksgiving Day by hanging Christmas wreaths, decorated with red bulbs and bows, at each of their three fire stations. The program was initiated in 1986 by the International Association of Firefighters. The wreaths, traditionally displayed Thanksgiving Day through Jan 1, are initially adorned with red bulbs. With each emergency incident relating to the holiday season, a red bulb is then replaced with a white one. Last year, two white bulbs were added to the wreaths, due to two structure fires.
Just in time for Thanksgiving, the City of DeKalb received a letter of gratitude from its new sister city of Ostroh, Ukraine.
The Sycamore City Council, holding the line with several past decisions, has again turned down the park district’s request to sell beer and wine in its clubhouse and on the golf course.
– Compiled by Sue Breese