Boy, You all got me thinking. Grew up and played around those tracks on the northwest side and went to Lane Tech so I am trying to remember what California and Addison looked like back then.... There used to be a patch of land we played in behind the west side of Neenah between Roscoe and Cornelius that we called "the woods" and the tracks ran along side of that. There was an abandoned car in there that attracted kids like a magnet. They built apartments there in the seventies, I think, which perhaps took out the tracks??? Yes, I think that stretch of track was paved over by a driveway in to the complex. Hmmmm. If I think of something more I will post my thoughts.... Looks like it's time for a road trip to refresh my memory, although I only need to come from Hoffman Estates... LOL
I remember a place called the Addison Snack Shop on the northwest corner of California and Addison and also remember the time before Gordon Tech and Lane went coed! The kids in my neighborhood also called the area along those abandoned tracks "the woods" and we called the empty block (filled in with houses since the 80's) between Roscoe and School, Natoma and Normandy, "the prairie."
222 -- I was going to mention the abbreviation for the Addison Snack Shop but was too afraid to! You gave a very tactful one! Yes, Gordon is now coed. So is my old high school, although it happened the other way around, an all girls school changing a co-ed school. Holy Cross HS closed its doors and Mother Guerin HS became coed and they changed the name to Guerin Prep.
Here are a few photos I found on the web of the old Dunning spur tracks. Also my apologies for the misspelling of the Kimbell Candy Company in another post here. Oops!
Glad you liked the photos, 222psm! And, like you, I hadn't visited the "Chicago Switching" site in a long time so was pleasantly surprised to see photos of the old Dunning spur track circa 1980.
Now if we could find pics of the tracks when they were still in use north of Belmont, or at the Dunning hospital. That would be the final piece of the puzzle!
That would definitely make my day! My week! My year! A couple of weeks ago I stopped in to talk with one of the managers at Mount Olive Cemetery because I'm also working on a family genealogy project and a few of my relatives are interred there. The tracks once ran through that cemetery. The manager did at one time have some information on those tracks and also a few photos. However, he gave all those documents to someone who was supposed to create a website for the cemetery and that person just disappeared with all those historical documents and never completed the website. I won't give up the search though!
Man, that is so frustrating! All that history just gone! It's such a shame all those documents just disappearing. Well I'll end my rant now, LOL. Good luck on your family genealogy project.
shekaago Wrote:
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> That would definitely make my day! My week! My
> year! A couple of weeks ago I stopped in to talk
> with one of the managers at Mount Olive Cemetery
> because I'm also working on a family genealogy
> project and a few of my relatives are interred
> there. The tracks once ran through that cemetery.
> The manager did at one time have some information
> on those tracks and also a few photos. However, he
> gave all those documents to someone who was
> supposed to create a website for the cemetery and
> that person just disappeared with all those
> historical documents and never completed the
> website. I won't give up the search though!
That is such a shame! That would have been a great website! This is a really pretty cemetery. I've heard a few interesting stories about it.
I've stared a new thread on Mount Olive as I thought the topic might get overlooked on this thread. I would love to find out all I can about this cemetery. It really is a lovely, place!
Here's a link to a story by Jacob Kaplan on FC's site about disued transit turnarounds that has a 1960's era photo of the old Dunning Asylum buildings in the background.
[url=http://forgottenchicago.com/features/chicago-infrastructure/disused-turnarounds/]Glimpse of Dunning Buildings[/url]
Thanks, 222! Very interesting article and pictures. I haven't been on FC in a while and am catching up on reading the Forums. Many thanks for the great find!