Part 1: Introduction

"More Trouble on Market Street"
Fragments from life on Waukegan's street of sin

Introduction

1.

There is nothing left. Weeds fight with scruffy grass along an expanse that seems oddly vacant. In the early years of the 21st century, looking out from the eastern end of Belvedere Street, on the elevated ramp that crosses the Anschutz highway and the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad tracks, Lake Michigan sparkles beyond the shoreline trees and brush. Looking left, to the north, from this overlook, what had been the Waukegan Hotel still rises into the sky and toward the shore, the industrial buildings of the cement works and the power station. To the right, south, a barren emptiness lies between the shore and the CNW tracks. Head down the ramp from Belvedere, and one can start to see the hints of a history of something that may have existed, and is no more. The ramp curves down to the left, to a ground level lower than the city behind, lower even than the railroad tracks. At the bottom of the ramp, a street of broken cement, small sections of curbing still intact; through the weeds and scruffy brush, paving, memories of old foundations. A worn path leads off left, toward the lake: fragments of a street, a vague memory of some forgotten, distant past. It takes a moment to realize that there had once been more here. Toward the lake, across the scruffy expanse, another set of  railroad tracks cut through the weeds. Heading south, un-kept trees and brush on the right block the view back toward the rest of the town. Then, just north of South street, on the right, a broken sidewalk appears from the trees and brush, and a single wooden house stands alone, set back from the street, behind a low metal fence. The mailbox at the street marked 580. Another wooden house sits just a little south of South Street on the right. Further south, past this last house, the street becomes more cracked and narrowed by the overgrowth of trees and brush on either side, until it dead ends with a flimsy metal gate across the road,  a broken path receding into the distance. Curving off to the left, the street heads toward the Lakeshore Foundry at the shoreline. Broken bits of paving only hint that something else had once stood here, but it takes a effort of the imagination to reconstruct what was once, but now is lost; the mental reconstruction motivated not out of nostalgia, but out of conscious choice for remembrance, and understanding. The emptiness of the area echoes like an empty theatre with past voices, calling out the questions, who were the actors, what was the play?

In the overcrowded 21st century, it is difficult to conceive that on this barren present landscape of overgrown bushes and cracked pavement, one hundred years ago, this exact spot was teaming with people young and old and of diverse backgrounds, speaking a half dozen different languages; that the street was lined on either side with houses, groceries, saloons; that huge factories on the south and north ends of the street hummed day and night, and men filled the street at shift changes, children ran in the streets after school, dodging carts and peddlers and dogs, while trains raced by and rattled the windows. Fights and violence, surely, but passion also must have played out here, as did the human course of weddings and births and diseases and accidents; but so too, affairs and elopements and celebrations and copious amounts of drinking, legal or otherwise; and finally, escape. For most, escape up the hill to the cleaner, less crowded parts of town, safe from the dangers of the ever-present trains and the smoke-filled air. To look back, then, through the decades, to try to reconstruct the lives that passed through these streets: before the desertion and dispersal of the past several decades; before the riots and disruptions that sealed the final decay; back to the days when more people were moving into Market Street than moving out, waves of different people from different countries or different parts of America itself.

2.

The remains of Market Street today and the Market Street of the past, sits on a strip of lowland between the town of Waukegan and Lake Michigan. Just west of Market street runs the two tracks for the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, which runs passenger trains from Milwaukee and beyond down to Chicago.

Up the hill from the train depot sits the city of Waukegan. Running due west from the depot is Washington street, bisecting the center of the commercial district. North of Washington, running east-west is Madison, then Clayton, then Grand. South from Washington running east-west is Water street, and south of Water is the Waukegan ravine, with the Waukegan river meandering through town from the northwest, connecting a series of parks from Yoeman park in the northwest down through Powel park, under Washington street to Washington park just west of downtown, where it curves east to work its way into Lake Michigan. Just south of the ravine running east-west, is Lake street, followed by Belvedere street, which curves away to the southwest on its way out of town, and the smaller streets Liberty, McKinley, Ravine, and South street.

Up the hill from the train depot, running north-south, is Sheridan, followed by Genesee street to the west, which is the “main street” of the city. Genesee runs well north of Clayton and Grand and straight south past Washington street and Water and over the ravine and river, through Lake street to Belvedere. At where it would otherwise dead-end, it jags a half block east and continues south on what was once called Marion street until it joints Sheridan at the south end of town, near the border with North Chicago. Just west of Genesee running north-south is County street, followed by Utica, renamed Martin Luther King Ave, and West street.

What would be considered “Downtown” would be mainly the area bordered by Sheridan in the east and Utica in the west, Grand in the north and Belvedere in the south, though the concentration of the commercial district is north of the river, and its epicenter is at the corner of Genesee and Washington.

In the decade before the turn of the century, the streets in the city were dirt, and transport by horse, carriage and cart. A city ordinance of April 5, 1895 mandated paved streets, with the trolley lines incorporated soon after. By 1900, electric trolley cars started to crisscross the city. One line ran east-west from the train depot due west down Washington street. Another line ran north-south down County to Washington, with a separate spur curving east at Clayton over to Genesee, then down Genesee through the intersection of Washington, down past Water and over the bridge until Belvedere, where the line once again turns east for a block, then continues south on Marion, later re-named Genesee to North Chicago. Just a few months before, in Aug 1899, the connection was made from Waukegan to Evanston and plans were in place to expand connections north toward Zion, Kenosha, Racine and Milwaukee and west toward Libertyville.  An efficient inter-connected system to link the various towns together with the larger Chicago to the south was materializing. In 1900, this was all new. The first round-trip trolley ride between Waukegan and North Chicago had only taken place on May 29, 1896 by what was then called the Bluff City Electric railway. Under new management and renamed the Chicago and Milwaukee Electric Railway company, the system expanded rapidly.

By 1900, electric lines hovered above the streets like a web, and poles punctuated the sidewalks every few yards suspending ever-increasing tangles of wires over multiple cross-bars. In 1888, looking up Genesee, clear sky looked down upon two and three-story buildings, horse-drawn carts and the bustle of pedestrians. A short decade later, the paved streets, the trolley cars competed with horses, the webs of wires hovering above. A few years later, traffic lights dangle across the intersections, and a few years still, automobiles start to compete for space on the streets with horses and soon overtake them.

Running north-south for approx. three-quarters of a mile, Market Street was situated a block south of the city center, starting at Water street and running south toward North Chicago, dead-ending into the US Sugar Refinery, opposite the Catholic cemetery, a fifteen to twenty minute walk down its length.

Before 1900, Lake Street was the furthest east street in the city, running north-south along the water’s edge. Union Street ran north-south one block west of Lake, followed to the west by Market, and the CNW tracks. Lake was connected to Market east-west by Gulf and Liberty streets.

In the first years of the twentieth century the Elgin, Joliet and Chicago railroad started buying up land east of Market and running tracks north and south along what had been Lake and Union streets. This was a freight and industrial railway, servicing the various factories that developed along the shoreline. A large “roundhouse” was built between Belvedere and Liberty to service and store freight cars. Once the EJ&E tracks were put in, Market street was cut off from direct access to the waterfront; being wedged between the two railroads, EJ&E to the east and CNW to the west Market street was somewhat isolated from the rest of the town of Waukegan up the hill.

The main train depot for the Chicago Northwestern railroad was at the far eastern end of Washington Street, just 2 short blocks up the hill to the center of the commercial district at the corner of Washington and Genesee streets. Approximately a block north at the waterfront was the Waukegan Harbor, which connected just north to slips for the Western coal docks.

All of the industries along the shoreline were serviced by the EJ&E railroad running north-south just east of Market Street.

Except for a small section of public beach just south of the dock and north east of the train depot, the Lake Michigan waterfront was almost completely given over to industry.  Giving waterfront access to industry, as opposed to residential or recreational use, was not uncommon for the era, and Waukegan was uniquely positioned along the lakefront between much larger industrial cities to the north and south, connected by a sophisticated rail system. Heavy industry was encouraged, coinciding with the burgeoning population of European immigrants looking for work and migrants from the south.

From the north, Washborn & Moen was both at the north end above the coal docks in 1907 and below the sugar refinery at the south end of Market. Later this site was occupied by the large Johns-Manville asbestos and building materials plant.

There were several small concerns that came and went over the decades, but the largest companies that dominated the economies and the landscape were Washborn & Moen, Wilder Tannery, American Sugar, Johns-Manville and late Johnson outboard motors.

W.H. Dow, sashes, blinds, moldings, lumber was just south of the coal docks,

Thomas Brass and Company was east of the train depot on the waterfront, between Washington and Madison, and stretching south along the waterfront to the Waukegan river just south of Water Street. This site later would be occupied by the much more massive Johnson outboard motor factory.

Just east of the depot was the Chicago Creosoting (Chicago tire and timber—railroad ties).

At the east end of Water street on the north side of the street was a large electric power station.

Manning Leather (1883) later Wilder (1899) later Griess-Pfleger (1918-1973) Tannery was at the east end of Water street, wedged  just south of Water street and the Waukegan river.

South, at Water, was American Breakbeam, later occupied by Midland Industrial finishes (1939) later Dexter (1963) and heading further south, toward the edge of north Chicago were Lake shore Foundry,

At the far south end. Market street dead-ended into the massive American sugar refinery (United sugar 1890), including the corn starch refinery,  and to its south Washburn and Moen (1891) (barbed wire)  later acquired by American steel and wire (1899), later enlarged and merged into US steel, along with Cyclone fence company (1880s), acquired by US steel 1924,spilling down into North Chicago.

Nestled just to the west overlooking St Mary’s cemetery, was the National envelope factory (1904).