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    Mundelein
    Mundelein
    Mundelein
    Ebook185 pages53 minutes

    Mundelein

    By Shawn P. Killackey

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Tucked away in the northeastern part of Illinois, just north of Chicago, is the village of Mundelein. Starting out in the mid-1800s as unsettled and unincorporated areas of land, this little village continued to form and grow throughout the years with many settlers, pioneers, and entrepreneurs who wanted to bring their ideas and dreams to this area, from Samuel Insull extending the Chicago-Milwaukee railroad into the community to Card. George Mundelein creating and constructing the St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, which brought half a million people on one day to gather in this unknown village. In turn, the village was named in the cardinal's honor and since its settlement has gone from a population of 500 to over 30,000.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439639436
    Mundelein
    Author

    Shawn P. Killackey

    Mundelein celebrates the village's 100-year history, the inventiveness and drive of its people, the landmarks that made Mundelein unique, and the life of a village that has been a beautiful home to so many throughout the years. Shawn P. Killackey is a published author who lives in Mundelein with his wife and daughter. By also being on the Mundelein Centennial Committee, he was able to collect all the wonderful images and information for this book.

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      Book preview

      Mundelein - Shawn P. Killackey

      (CPC).

      INTRODUCTION

      Ability, Reliability, Endurance, and Action; this is what the word Area was an acronym for and one of the official names of the village that was to become Mundelein. It is also the four words that best describe the changes that this little village has gone through for almost 200 years.

      Before this area was even given a name, it was settled by American Indians who had large camps in the area and enjoyed the abundance of fish and game. In 1829, the United States government acquired the land and gave until 1836 for all the American Indians to move to the west side of the Mississippi River.

      By 1836, white settlers started to immigrate to this new land, and some of the first were tradesmen who had escaped England’s industrial depression and then decided to become farmers when they found the rich soil here. As they built new homes, they decided to give the unincorporated community its first name of Mechanics Grove, named for the occupations they had in their homeland. Just a year later in 1847, the first school, Mechanics Grove School, was built and the community was starting to form.

      Also in 1847, a man from New York named John Holcomb purchased a great deal of land in the area and donated some of that land to the village where a railway station and post office were added. Thankful for his contributions to the community and his spiritual guidance to its people, the village was then renamed in his honor to Holcomb.

      With the iron railroad now bringing in people from all over Illinois and Wisconsin who did not know about the area, the residents of Holcomb in 1885 decided to change the name once again. Because John D. Rockefeller’s brother William was an important stockholder in the railroad company, townspeople and railroad officials felt it would be beneficial to change the name to Rockefeller; the name itself carried weight and importance. At that time the railroad system from Chicago to Milwaukee was running through Lake County and eventually, thanks to railway owner Samuel Insull, had Rockefeller as the last stop of a spur off that line.

      On February 1, 1909, now with a population of 500 and growing, Rockefeller was voted to become an official incorporated village. However, in July 1909, just five months after it had become incorporated, the village name was changed once again. An educational entrepreneur by the name of Arthur Sheldon started up a sales technique school that had a philosophy of Ability, Reliability, Endurance, and Action and so the village took on the acronym Area. Sheldon’s school was for aspiring salesmen, but unfortunately when World War I broke out and there was little need for salesmen, the school went under and Sheldon had to sell his land.

      In 1921, some of that land was bought by then Archbishop George W. Mundelein in order to build the country’s largest seminary. Mud Lake, which Sheldon renamed Lake Eara (another acronym), became Lake Mary, and soon St. Mary of the Lake Seminary was constructed. The campus served as a seminary and religious retreat for the village and was enlarging Area’s place on the map, and so in 1924, the village was officially changed one last time to its current name of Mundelein. In appreciation for naming the village after him, Cardinal Mundelein donated to the village its first fire truck in 1925.

      The big event for the village of Mundelein came in 1926 when the 28th International Eucharistic Congress was held in Chicago, and on the last day it moved its celebration to the St. Mary Seminary, bringing in an estimated half million people to the village for the event, making it the largest amount of people to be in the community ever.

      The new fire truck that Cardinal Mundelein donated to the village, a 1925 Stoughton, got a new home to be stationed in 1929 with the dedication of the newly constructed Mundelein Village Hall, a structure that is still the village hall of Mundelein today. Until then the only piece of fire equipment the village had was a hand-drawn hose cart with 200 feet of hose on it.

      From when the village was officially incorporated in 1909 until 1945, the police department was a one-man police force housed again at village hall in downtown Mundelein. During that time, the one person was the police chief, who would check into village hall periodically to see if there were any calls for police action from the village clerk. It took a couple of decades before both the fire and police departments were given their own stations respectively and finally moved out of village hall.

      The village of Mundelein also has had many different social events for the community throughout its history, such as summer barn dances at Dietz’s Stables in the 1930s and 1940s, and for winter fun there was community ice-skating at the North Shore Station. There were always, and still are, the Mundelein Community Days and Mundelein parades during holidays. When Mundelein, then Area, just became incorporated, there were visitors from surrounding communities and even the Chicago area who came to stay at the Ray Brothers’ Lakeside Cottage Resort on Diamond Lake.

      In 1929, Mundelein hosted a house of the future so to speak called Model

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