Did you know?
  1. We don’t have proof of who was Glencoe’s first president? The Village’s first election was held in April 1870, held in what was then the railroad depot. Unfortunately, the early council records were kept in Chicago and were burned in the Great Chicago Fire of October 8 and 9, 1871. We have no official council listing for that first Village Board. Philo Judson is reputed to have been the first Village President. The evidence was given by Franklin Newhall, a resident who was in town at the time. The first extant Village records show a council elected in April 1871: Porter N. Sherwood, president; Dr. John Starr, Dr. John Nutt, Mr. Hovey, Mr. Franklin Newhall and Mr. Pinney, councilmen.
  2. In 1912 there was a drinking fountain for horses and dogs opposite the post office, along with one on Sheridan road and Park Avenue?
  3. In 1895 a hitching rack for horses was placed in front of the Village Hall, then located along Vernon Avenue?
Frequently Asked Questions:
Why does the train run on the “wrong” side of the road?
Many, including Glencoe’s first history book, “Seventy-five Years of Glencoe History,” report that because there was English capital investment in the railroads, the tracks run the way they do in the British Isles. But this is highly unlikely. The capital, if it did not come from Chicago, more than likely came from the East, as was true for most of the nascent railroads developing out of Chicago in the mid-1850s. A much more logical explanation, from the Village’s latest history, “Glencoe: Queen of Suburbs,” is that at first only one track existed. Railroad officials decided that stations should be on the side going to downtown Chicago so that waiting commuters could stay dry and warm. When the second track was laid, it was used for northbound traffic.
Did Glencoe have an Underground Railroad stop?
Many people want to believe that Glencoe was enlightened and many residents aided runaway slaves. But there is no hard evidence to that effect. The Underground Railroad was the euphemistic title used to describe the routes that slaves traveled to reach freedom in Canada. Sympathizers along the route provided secret and safe haven in their homes. When the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency recently issued its special issue on “Underground Railroad” in “Historic Illinois” magazine, it clearly shows lots of routes from downstate to Chicago – and nowhere further north. All the routes usually led to Chicago, where many slaves then boarded ships to be carried further north. Glencoe was north of Chicago, and populated by very few people in the pre-Civil War era, (in the first census after Glencoe’s 1869 incorporation, the population was 150) was unlikely to be the home for any runaway slaves.
Where did Glencoe get its name?
There are two stories about the name Glencoe. The first is that Walter Gurnee was born in or had relatives from Scotland and so named Glencoe, Illinois, after Glencoe, Scotland. That may be true – at least a bit. Mr. Gurnee was actually born in New York State, so it couldn’t be that he was remembering his birth-town. Perhaps his forebears came from Scotland. But it is also said that Matthew Coe, who was Mr. Gurnee’s father-in-law, named the area Glencoe because he admired the “glens,” or ravines and “Coe’s glens” is where the name comes from. Maybe. There is no written record as to why the name was chosen, but just remember—the first seal of the Village and the library are modeled after the town of Glencoe, Scotland. And when Florence Boone was President of the Village, she visited Glencoe, Scotland, which claims an affinity with Glencoe, Illinois. (You can see a souvenir of that visit at Village Hall, the story of the Glencoe, Scotland massacre that Mrs. Boone brought back.)
What is The Skokie or The Skokie Marsh?
Before the 1930s, the area west of Glencoe was known as The Skokie. It was a marsh, a peat bog, where radishes grew. According to poet John W. Dickson, who moved to Glencoe in 1922, “The Skokie Marsh was a wonderful place – meadowlarks and redwinged blackbirds; herons and bittern and pheasant. Once, a few of us spent a weekend on Dog’s Head Island, a little two-by-four clump of trees you’d have to wade in up to your waist to reach. We survived on a few redwinged blackbirds and an owl.” In the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps. was deployed to The Skokie to drain the marsh and Winnetka and create the Skokie Lagoons. The work created jobs for Depression era young men – and it can’t be a coincidence that one of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s most trusted advisers was Winnetkan Harold Ickes who created the project in the first place.
What was the first name of Sheridan Road?
In the early days of Glencoe, there was a road east of Green Bay Road that was named Columbus Avenue. Later the name was changed to Military Road because the soldiers from the Civil War worked on it before they were mustered out.
The road became known as Sheridan Road much later. It was a route from Fort Sheridan to the city of Chicago, built because the city’s “movers and shakers” at the time were concerned about labor unrest. Following the Haymarket Riot in Chicago, many of them put up funds for the new military installation to make sure that U.S. troops could get to the city if there were more labor incidents.
As part of the highway to Fort Sheridan the route through Glencoe from the south limits to Central Avenue (now Beach Road) had been located after much controversy. North of Central Avenue there was no street, but Glencoe residents Franklin W. Newhall and Sylvan Newhall, food brokers in the south Water Market; Melvin E. Stone, editor and founder of the Chicago Daily News; and Jonathan W. Plummer, and the Phoenix Insurance company dedicated, opened and graded a new street extending from Sheridan Road to the County Line (County-Line or Lake-Cook Road). They paid for all of the expenses preparatory to the macadam pavement.
As the volume of auto traffic grew, Sheridan Road became a popular drive and frequent attempts were made to regulate the speed. The “bumps,” which brought notoriety to Glencoe, were brick crosswalks made higher than ordinance, and whether intentionally or otherwise, slowed down the speed by making travel uncomfortable. Some concrete pavement had been laid in the Village as early as 1919. Sheridan road was paved with concrete about 1925.
The trains and the train station
The first trains came through Glencoe on January 20, 1855. The route was then called the Chicago and Milwaukee Railway and tracks were to have gone as far at the state line to meet the trains from the Milwaukee and Chicago Railroad. But the first trip ran from Chicago only to Little Fort (Waukegan), a distance of 36 miles, and did it in three hours, carrying the mayor of Chicago and other prominent citizens. Settlers gathered all along the way to see the new train slowly pass by. The first train, known as the Waukegan train, consisted of a locomotive, one baggage car and one passenger coach that carried twelve passengers. Other trains added later were the Funeral train, going south and stopping at Rosehill Cemetery, and trains north, up to Kenosha and Milwaukee.
The first train stop—not a station yet—was a shed set on land opposite the home of the Chicago and Milwaukee Railway owner, Walter Smith Gurnee. Gurnee’s home was the center of an old stock farm originally owned by Matthew D. Coe, who sold it to his son-in-law, Mr. Gurnee, in 1853. Anyone who wanted the train to stop was to step out close to the rails and wave at the engineer. After the Civil War, a wooden station was set up. Michael Schindler was the first station agent in the early days, assisted by his wife, who flagged the trains. As the number of commuters increased, Glencoe residents petitioned the railroad – by then the Chicago and North Western Railroad – for a permanent station. They finally got their station in 1891, the building that still stands. It had two entrances and two rooms, one each for men and women. The station was restored in 1991 in a joint effort of the Village of Glencoe, the Glencoe Historical Society, Metra, the State of Illinois and the federal government.
Mr. Gurnee’s home, often called “the Castle” still stands today, north of the Women’s Library Club. It was recently restored to its appearance in the 1870s–80s, after Gurnee had sold it first to Dr. Alexander Hammond and later to George Ligare, a lumber merchant.
The Streets
Glencoe’s streets were laid out after the incorporation of the Village in 1869. The Glencoe Company – a group of ten men – had each agreed to put up $5,000 and to subscribe $500 in addition for a church and school, $100 a year for five years to maintain a pastor and $50 a year for five years for a teacher. The foot of Park Avenue was set aside to be a park in perpetuity. One hundred dollars was to be paid yearly for roads and shrubbery. The men who entered into this agreement were: John J. Beveridge, Philo Judson, Luther L. Greenleaf, Charles H. Morse, Chancellor Jencks, Stephen P. Lunch, Dr. John Nutt, Dr. Starr, Charles E. Browne and Dr. Alexander Hammond. Dr. Hammond was the head of the Company and each man was to share equally in this project of about 683 acres. Each man was to build one home for himself to live in and one more to be sold. Some did – but most did not.
Much discussion arose over what to name the streets. Finally it was decided that the women should name the east-west streets and the men take care of the rest. The result was that old maps show east/west streets named for birds and trees. For example, Hazel Avenue used to be Oriole Avenue and Park Avenue was Eagle Avenue, until the names were changed to have the same names on both sides of the railroad tracks. One old map where this can be seen is in the Hagenah Room. It is called Gormley’s Queen of Suburbs map. Michael Gormley was an early farmer-settler and it is he who dubbed the Village “Queen of Suburbs.” Other names have also been changed, as we can see from the map; we no longer have a Bartlett St., a Fletcher Avenue or a Prospect Street.
When the village was incorporated, streets were merely dirt roads, very few blocks evenly graded. In wet weather, deep mud was the rule. Under the State poll-tax law that required every male inhabitant between 21 and 50 to labor on the roads two days each year or pay the $2 tax in 1872, Eagle Avenue (now Park Avenue) was graded from the railroad to Bluff St. It’s unclear whether Glencoe’s residents chose to work or pay the tax.
It wasn’t until 1886 when an ordinance was passed for graveling Vernon Avenue, from Eagle to South. The roadwork was paid for by a special assessment and wasn’t actually accomplished until two years later. In 1891, the Village Council provided for macadamizing portions of many streets. It took until 1914 that brick pavements were seen in the business community.
Famous Glencoe Residents
Everyone in Glencoe is famous—in their own family or among their friends. But there are many Glencoe residents who are famous beyond the reach of the village – regionally, statewide and nationally. Some of these are:
  • Archibald MacLeish, who graduated from the Glencoe Public Schools in 1907. Probably the most famous Glencoe resident, the late Mr. MacLeish was a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, dramatist, Harvard Professor, Librarian of Congress and Assistant Secretary of State during the Second World War.
  • Earle Hoover, who created the Hoover Vacuum Cleaner Co., lived here until his death.
  • August Zeising, president of American Bridge Co., later a division of United State Steel, lived in Glencoe for more than 50 years and contributed the land where Kalk Park now stands.
  • Melville Stone, founder of the Chicago Daily News, commuted to the city and his paper.
  • Walter S. Gurnee, one of Glencoe’s earliest residents, president of the Chicago and Milwaukee Railway, was mayor of the City of Chicago 1850-1852.
  • Judge James Wilkerson, the man who sentenced Al Capone to jail, lived on Bluff Street, almost at the corner with Dundee Road.
  • The inventor of Tinkertoy building toys – no name known at this time – lived on Greenleaf Avenue and sold his house to a new owner who was the developer of the sugar cone (for ice cream). But here again, we don’t know the names. Do you?
Some memorable traditions
Glencoe has a number of wonderful traditions and a lot of special honors, among them:
  • 3rd Woman’s Club in Illinois, 61st in the United States (Women’s Library Club);
  • 1st Boy Scout troop west of the Alleghenies;
  • 1st Illinois community to adopt the city-manager system;
  • First Reform Jewish congregations north of Chicago (North Shore Congregation Israel, then located on Vernon Ave., now at 1185 Sheridan Rd.);
  • 1st Illinois community to combine police and firemen in one Department of Public Safety (1954);
  • Originator of plan of placing parks by schools and schools in parks.
  • Third largest collection of Frank Lloyd Wright-designed homes in the world;
  • One of the first municipal 18-hole courses on the North Shore. (Glencoe Golf Club, 1921).
The Post Office
Glencoe’s post office was established in September 1857, The first postmaster was John McMahon, who was in office through the Civil War until June 30, 1864 when John C. Coe took over. Glencoe founder Dr. Alexander Hammond was the postmaster from Nov. 5, 1867 through Aug. 18, 1871. The first postmasters received an annual salary of $9.00 – quite a problem in 1859 when the annual receipts were only $4.88. By 1869, the salary was still the same, but the receipts were better: $10.14.