For Immediate Release
"GRAVE CONVERSATIONS" CEMETERY WALK SET FOR August 1 and August 2
Visit and talk with people from the past.
The Mount Prospect Historical Society will hold their sixth annual “Grave Conversations” Cemetery Walk from 5 to 8 p.m., Friday, August 1, and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, August 2, at the St. Paul Lutheran Cemetery on Elmhurst Avenue just north of the Mount Prospect post office.
Sponsored by Friedrichs Funeral Home, the annual walk is a popular community event, according to Marilyn Genther, chair of this year’s walk.
Local residents will portray men and women from Mount Prospect history who helped shape the community we know today. As visitors walk through the cemetery, actors will talk about the people they are portraying and converse with visitors in character.
Highlights will include Officer Bill Roscop as Edwin Haberkamp, the Village’s first fire chief and a member of the Village Board; current Village Trustee Arlene Juracek as Marvella Moore, granddaughter of William Wille; professional storyteller Pam Nelson will portray Alvina Wille; and Judy Lamac, Society board member and former teacher; will give Ida Meyn’s story to those who visit.
Cemetery visitors this year will also enjoy meeting Lena Mueller, Rev. JEA Mueller, Charlotte Wuerffel, Henry Mensching, Louis Kirchoff and Elmer Jackish.
Admission to the walk is $10 and tickets will be sold at the gate only. Proceeds benefit the Society’s educational and preservation efforts. Phone 847/392-9006 for more information.
Restaurant Days
Local restaurants have come together to support community history by doing what they do best, feeding you. Over the coming months, residents can support the Mount Prospect Historical Society just by eating in local restaurants. Six local establishments will donate a portion of the money spent to the Historical Society. Customers will pay the exact same amount, so it’s no additional cost to help a favorite local cause. All that has to be done is to go on the right day. This is a great program for people to go out and try restaurants they’ve never been to or re-visit old favorites.
On April 19th and 20th, you can stop into Mrs. P. and Me to admire all the historic pictures on the wall and mention MPHS and 5% of your order will help MPHS buy archival supplies to keep our photo collection available to the community. Have breakfast, brunch or lunch at LePeep’s on May 17th and then go out for a frozen custard on May 29th at Culvers. Both are donating 10% of your order to help keep our office open. For a change of pace, go to El Sombrero on June 16th. Mentioning the Historical Society will mean that 20% of your order will go to support MPHS’ new exhibits. On July 13th you can visit one of the most historic buildings in Mount Prospect, the old Moehling General store. While you’re there, have a Capannari’s Ice Cream and help history stay alive. On August 22nd we will be hosting another big Back to School Bash at Bogie’s Ale House and a portion of the sales will help MPHS preserve the our historic house and the Central School. If you’ve missed all of these, you can still make it to Submarine Express on October 30th where 5% of all the receipts of the day will go to the Historical Society.
Society to Empty Storage Locker in Randhurst
A turn-of-the-century piano sits in a storage locker in Randhurst Shopping Center's basement. A 4-foot-tall radio of the same era stands nearby. Non-electric washing machines, horse harnesses and farm tools such as corn huskers are there, too.
All of it will be moved next month by the Mount Prospect Historical Society before the center is remodeled into a residential and retail center.
"We've got colorful old radios and sofas -- all sorts of really neat stuff," said Gavin Kleespies, Mount Prospect Historical Society's executive director.
For the past nine years, some of the society's collection has been stored in the basement, which originally was built as part of the center in the 1962. The basement had been designed as a nuclear bomb fallout shelter for Mount Prospect's residents.
On yet-to-be-determined dates in May, the society, with the help of the Mount Prospect Rotary Club, the Mount Prospect Youth Commission and local Boy Scouts, will split the pieces up and taking them to three locations around the village, Kleespies said.
The largest and oldest items, like the piano and radios, will be housed at the society, 101 S. Maple.
But the other items will be taken to locations that are still being worked out, he said.
The society has rented a 1,500-square-foot storage locker at Randhurst since 1999, he said.
Some of the items had been part of a small museum housed at St. John Lutheran School in Mount Prospect from 1976 to 1996.
The mall's owner plans to gut the interior this summer, keeping the major retail anchors: Carson Pirie Scott, Costco, Bed Bath & Beyond and Steve & Barry's.
The mall's massive basement will become an underground parking lot, while a floor of retail and multiple stories of upscale apartments will be added. The name will change to Randhurst Village.
April 14, 2008
The Mount Prospect Historical Society Announces Memory Project for Buildings.
A new way to remember our community’s past. The Mount Prospect Historical Society has launched a new part of our resource web page ( www.mtphistory.org) and we are looking for your memories to add to this site. There is now a Structural Memorial section of the site. This section is devoted to memorials for buildings that were once a big part of Mount Prospect but are now gone. We would like to invite people to submit information on buildings or public spaces. Do you remember where you got your first ice cream? Were you married in a building that is no longer standing? Do you remember hanging out with your friends at Mother’s Music? Did you go to the Prospect Theater after school? Did you attend Busse School? Let us know what you remember about these places. Communities are built by the people in them, but they are also built through the shared memories people have of significant locations. If you would like to share your memories or if there is a site you would like to see a memorial for, please contact us at structuralmemorials@mtphistory.org.
Schoolhouse Foundation Donated
Norwood Builders, which has been instrumental in the revitalization of much of Mount Prospect’s downtown business district, has joined with Michael Chapman, a local resident and owner of Chicago Town Concrete, to announce that they are donating a new foundation to help preserve one of the northwest suburbs’ oldest structures, the Central School.
The schoolhouse, a one-room frame structure built in 1896, was the first home of Mount Prospect School District 57 and one of the few such structures of its kind still standing in Cook County. The Mount Prospect Historical Society has been actively raising funds fo the past three years to relocate and preserve it.
The Society has raised sufficient funds to pay for the costly move of the endangered building to a site next to their current museum, a local house built in 1906.
“Norwood’s generous donation of a full basement foundation is the final piece of the puzzle,” said Gavin W. Kleespies, the Society’s Executive Director. “We need a basement beneath the building in its new location in order to handle current and future storage needs.”
“The people of Mount Prospect have been very supportive of this project, making personal donations, attending fund-raisers and promising in-kind donations of services like carpentry, electrical, roofing and painting, once the building has been moved,” Kleespies continued. “We are very grateful to Norwood Builders for agreeing to provide us with a foundation.”
Ex/Tech Excavating of Arlington Heights also provided an in-kind donation of excavation services. Final plans are currently being made for the move, which will occur sometime in the next few months.
Norwood Builders has an enviable 55-year history bringing thousands of single-family and condominium homes to the marketplace throughout Chicago and its suburbs. Norwood Builders’ commitment to quality living is evident throughout its communities, which feature fine craftsmanship and top-of-the- line materials.
Mount Prospect has been one of Norwood’s most active areas. Condominium homes are currently being sold at The Lofts at Village Centre and The Residences at Village Centre. Two new Norwood communities are under way. The Emerson, at Emerson & Busse, will have 52 unique condominium homes, some of them duplexes, along with additional commercial rental space. Founders Row, opposite the new Village Hall, will consist of 14 classic upscale “Chicago-style” row homes.
“We consider being involved in this important historical preservation project a privilege,” said Bruce J. Adreani, President of Norwood Builders. “We were instrumental in helping move the historic General Store and we are equally excited to be involved in the schoolhouse move. While we work hard to add value to the communities where we build our new buildings, we respect the important of preserving history.”
NEW HISTORICAL SOCIETY’S HISTORY BOOK
LOST MOUNT PROSPECT by Gavin W. Kleespies
Do you remember the Mount Prospect State Bank? Do you remember Busse-Biermann Hardware? When you were in grade school did you get out of the Central Standard School and race across the street to go see a movie at the Prospect Theater? Many of the community’s memories are based in buildings that have since been demolished. All the buildings that have been knocked down make up a history of the community; this history is Lost Mount Prospect. What factories were here? What did the farm houses look like? What businesses were once landmarks in the community? Lost Mount Prospect is this history and our latest book, recently published by Arcadia Publishing and is now available at the Historical Society, and in fine retailers around Mount Prospect.
Mount Prospect dates back to the 1840s. The village has a fascinating legacy as an immigrant community, an ambitious small town, an early progressive suburb, and a classic postwar community. However, few of today’s residents are aware of this legacy. Much of Mount Prospect’s past has been overshadowed by the incredibly rapid development of the past half century.
The population of Mount Prospect in 1950 was around 4,000 people, the population was almost 19,000 by 1960, and today it approaches 60,000. This amazingly rapid development fundamentally changed how Mount Prospect saw itself and redefined the community’s landscape. Many of the older buildings were demolished to make way for new developments or were modernized and are now hard to identify.
The farms and early industries were replaced with houses and shopping areas. By the time this rapid development was over, it was hard to see what had been here before. Lost mount Prospect is an examination of this history. It is a look at the village through the lens of what no longer exists.
The author, Gavin W. Kleespies, is the executive director of the Mount Prospect Historical Society. He is co-author of the first Historical Society’s Arcadia book entitled Mount Prospect.
Lost Mount Prospect is available at Busse Car Wash, Keefer’s Pharmacy, Neat ‘N Cool Gifts, at the Historical Society Dietrich Friedrichs House Museum, online at www.amazon.com and other major bookstores. The proceeds from this book benefit the Mount Prospect Historical Society.