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Query from an Evanston RoundTable reader:
I personal the home at 1018 Greenwood Road, which has been in my household since 1971. Our dwelling (and its comparable sister dwelling subsequent door at 1014) had been constructed in 1945-46. It’s my understanding {that a} a lot bigger dwelling stood on the property from seemingly the late 1800s till it burned down within the early 40s. I might like to be taught extra about the home that when stood right here, and whether or not there are any photographs, and many others., as nicely?
Thanks upfront for any reply,
David Salzman
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/1014-and-1018-greenwood-20230811_121948-copy.jpg?resize=780%2C585&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
Thanks on your query, David. It prompted what become a somewhat intensive investigation, involving varied points, as is so usually the case with a seemingly easy native historical past query. So, we hope you’ll benefit from the journey!
And, sure, you’re proper. For nearly 75 years, a single home stood on the lot the place each your own home at 1018 Greenwood Road and the home at 1014 Greenwood Road stand right now. It didn’t burn down, nevertheless. It was deliberately razed in 1942. On the time, the home was cited as one among Evanston’s “landmark” houses and was one among many older houses razed across the identical time. However extra on that later. First, a little bit of earlier historical past associated to the home on “Greenwood Boulevard,” as the road was as soon as known as.
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“Lilladell”
In line with the home recordsdata on the Evanston Historical past Middle, the primary home on the Greenwood lot was inbuilt 1868 for George Edwin Purington (1826-1907). Born in Calais, Maine, Purington got here to Chicago in 1847. In 1857 he married Marianne Josephine Sturtevant (?-1913). The couple had twin daughters, Adele Purington (1860-1947) and Lilla Purington (1860-1936).
The son of a ship captain, Purington based the Chicago agency Purington and Scranton Co., ship chandlers (provider of all issues ship-related) in 1854. He was additionally “engaged in banking and life insurance coverage” and shortly grew to become “one of many largest landowners in Chicago.” His holdings included the Purington block, a constructing on Michigan Avenue, a number of homes within the metropolis, and quite a few properties on the town’s West aspect.[1]
In 1868, the Purington household moved north to the village of Evanston and settled of their new dwelling. Their transfer got here in the beginning of a interval of dramatic progress for Evanston: The inhabitants grew from 800 residents in 1860 to greater than 3,000 a decade later.
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Lilladell.jpg?resize=780%2C672&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
In line with the 1870 U.S. Census, Purington lived in the home along with his spouse, two daughters, and 4 servants.
In 1942, Dr. Dwight Clark, president of what was then referred to as the Evanston Historic Society (now the Evanston Historical past Middle), wrote to Adele Purington, who was residing in Chicago. It was shortly after the Purington home on Greenwood had been razed, and Clark needed to be taught what she remembered about the home.[3]
“My sister and I had been youngsters when our father constructed our stunning dwelling for us,” Purington wrote in response to Clark’s letter. She recalled particulars of her father’s life, their neighbors and buddies in Evanston, and the truth that the home was known as “Lilladell.” It was “a reputation mixed of the names of my sister and my very own,” she defined.[4]
Lilladell was located on a big plot of land much like many others round Evanston, the place rich “capitalists” (their phrase on the time) within the post-Civil Warfare period had been constructing estates. Many of those new owners labored in Chicago and made their cash in business and finance. Evanston was the quiet suburb to which they escaped from the hectic metropolis’s environs.
The Kirks, the Deerings, the Comstocks, the Hurds – these had been the household names Purington cited in her letter, itemizing a few of Evanston’s wealthiest and strongest households of the 19th century. “I bear in mind very distinctly about our coachman driving our father, Mr. Thomas Lord and Mr. Cosgrove concerning the Village to make their New 12 months’s calls,” Adele Purington wrote.
Thomas Lord was the founding father of a profitable wholesale druggist concern in Chicago. He first got here to Evanston after the 1871 Chicago fireplace, and he and his household had been residing in a big mansion at 1620 Ridge Ave. by 1885. The house, designed by architects Burnham and Root, was “the scene of the city’s most sensible and glittering social capabilities.”[5]
“Mr. Cosgrove” was Thomas A. Cosgrove (1832-1889), who lived throughout the road from the Puringtons. He and his spouse Sally Blunt Cosgrove (1834-1899) moved to Evanston in 1868. Cosgrove, who helped set up Evanston’s first gasoline firm, was an actual property developer.
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/cosgrove-house.jpg?resize=780%2C430&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
The Puringtons had been lively in Evanston’s civic and church affairs. George Purington helped to arrange Evanston’s First Presbyterian Church. He additionally served as a trustee on the Evanston Board of Schooling and belonged to quite a few golf equipment and organizations, together with the Eclectic Membership, based in 1864 by Evanston’s “4 hundred first households” for the mental growth and social enjoyment of its members.[6]
On the “good-looking grounds” of the Purington home, the household hosted church socials and “fancy costume” garden events, the place “video games and varied types of amusement had been supplied within the afternoon and illuminations and music within the night.”[7]
The Puringtons lived in Evanston for about 14 years. In 1882, George Purington, now retired, determined to maneuver again to Chicago. He bought the home to Volney Foster, a relative newcomer to Evanston. The Fosters had moved to Evanston in 1879. After they bought the home on Greenwood, they had been residing not too far-off in a home on Lee Road, east of Ridge Avenue in South Evanston.
In 1883-1884, simply after the Fosters moved to Greenwood, new homes had been being constructed alongside the boulevard. They included the one at 1022 Greenwood and the opposite at 1015 Greenwood.
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Volney-Foster-Evanston-Index-January-24-1901.-.png?resize=485%2C574&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
Volney Foster was born on a farm in Aztalan, Wisconsin. He attended highschool at Milton Academy and taught faculty for just a few years. He then entered the lumber enterprise. In 1876, he married Eva Adele Hill (1852-1887). The couple lived for some time in Chatham, Ontario, the place their youngsters had been born: Albert Volney Foster (1877-1950) and Eva Cornelia Foster Righter (1879-1946).
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/1883-fosters.png?resize=780%2C41&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
Just like the Puringtons earlier than them, Volney Foster and his household would turn out to be distinguished (and highly effective) in Evanston. And, simply as the previous occupants of the house on Greenwood Boulevard had completed, the Fosters would host events, occasions, and civic and spiritual conferences because the village of Evanston continued to develop round them.
Sadly, only a few years after settling in Evanston, in October 1887, Eva Foster handed away after every week’s sickness. She was, in response to the Chicago Inter Ocean newspaper, “a woman of uncommon social graces, who disbursed the hospitality of her elegant dwelling on Greenwood boulevard in a kindly large-hearted method which received her hosts of buddies.”[9]
Within the years after his spouse’s demise, Foster appeared to busy himself with innumerable initiatives and his skilled profession blossomed. Owing to the truth that the transfer from Lee Road to Greenwood Boulevard included the quintupling of the variety of servants residing within the Foster dwelling, Volney Foster’s monetary well-being appeared to accentuate, to place it mildly. Foster’s youngsters, Eva and Albert, had been afforded quite a few alternatives, together with worldwide journey and a school schooling.
Whereas residing in Evanston, Foster, who was shut buddies with Evanston resident and future U.S. Vice President Charles Gates Dawes, grew to become a distinguished chief within the state and nationwide Republican events. He developed an curiosity in increasing commerce with Mexico and served as a delegate to the Pan-American convention in Mexico Metropolis in 1901, ultimately finding a few of his companies in Mexico.[10]
Foster was maybe greatest identified for advocating the development of Sheridan Highway. In 1889, he grew to become president of the newly shaped Sheridan Highway Affiliation, whose function was to create “a free pleasure drive” from Chicago to Milwaukee. “To him, extra largely than to anybody else, is due the credit score of getting introduced the good mission to realization,” it was mentioned on the time.[11] Later, Foster was dubbed “the daddy of the Sheridan Highway.”[12]
Foster was additionally one of many founders of Evanston’s “Greenwood Membership,” whose purpose was to offer “recreation and amusement of its members and their households.” The membership was integrated within the state of Illinois in 1888. The $300 initiation payment ensured the membership’s exclusivity. Amongst its early members had been Daniel Burnham and Charles Deering.[13]
The membership was an enclave for Evanston’s rich, white male titans. These had been the boys who ran banks, served as Northwestern College trustees, owned business, and employed employees. Their massive estates, together with a “variety of well-designed homes” that “lined the stretch of Greenwood Boulevard between Maple and Ridge,” housed the affluent white households who represented a second technology of wealth in Evanston – the post-Purington period.
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Foster-bird-houses.jpg?resize=780%2C497&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
Throughout his residency in Evanston, Foster had the home on Greenwood Boulevard transformed, with S.A. Jennings employed as architect.[18] A playground, tennis courts, and a single-story constructing referred to as “The Shelter” had been constructed on the grounds. (The Shelter was initially deliberate as “a spot of refuge in case a sudden bathe interfered with a tennis sport, or as a cool retreat each time the solar beat too hotly upon the out of doors merry makers.”[19]) A brand new steady was additionally constructed, designed by the architectural agency Holabird and Roche, who designed Evanston’s first Metropolis Corridor, constructed in 1892).
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/1899-Greenwood-.png?resize=780%2C559&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
In 1891, Volney Foster shaped the “Again Lot Research Society” for the aim of supporting Evanston youth “who earnestly search self enchancment.”[20] The group held weekly conferences in The Shelter on the Foster home grounds and “distinguished audio system” lectured there on all kinds of subjects.[21]
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Back-Lot-Shelter.png?resize=780%2C533&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Yankton_Daily_Press_and_Dakotan_1891-04-21_6.png?resize=535%2C571&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
Foster teamed up with Evanston Township Excessive College principal, Henry L. Boltwood, to plan the society’s curriculum. Lecture subjects included “science, invention, banking, navigation, commerce and the legislation.” Foster paid all of the society’s bills. Upon its founding, it obtained widespread consideration throughout the nation. In 1891, a reporter famous its affect as an academic mannequin, writing, “it seems as if the Evanston thought would possibly bear ample fruit because the one advanced at Chautauqua.”
Foster additionally supplied nature research lessons on the grounds of his dwelling for Evanston girls curious about studying about butterflies and angle worms.
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/nature-study.jpg?resize=490%2C228&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
In August 1904, on the Chicago Inventory Trade restaurant, Volney Foster fell in poor health. He was taken to the hospital, the place he handed away after struggling a stroke.[23] Newspapers throughout the nation carried his obituary. On the time, his daughter was married and residing away from the home on Greenwood. His son, Albert, who now glided by Volney, had simply graduated from Harvard and would take over his father’s companies.
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Eva-Foster.jpg?resize=459%2C589&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Albert-Foster.jpg?resize=460%2C581&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
In 1905, the Foster heirs bought the home on Greenwood to Frank C. Letts (1858-1924), president of the Western Grocers Firm. Letts could be the primary in a sequence of homeowners over the subsequent few years.
In 1911, Letts bought the house – nonetheless known as the “outdated Volney Foster dwelling” – to Henry Grant Buswell (1865-1944) for an undisclosed quantity.[27] Buswell, who was within the fireplace insurance coverage enterprise, moved to Evanston from Brooklyn in 1903. Buswell, his spouse, Josephine Del Risco Buswell, (1866-1932), and their youngsters, lived in the home for a number of years earlier than shifting to 1326 Judson Ave.[28] Within the Twenties, the brand new proprietor was Leigh Reding Putnam, editor and writer of the American Builder, a lumber commerce journal. He lived in the home along with his spouse, daughter, and 4 sons.
On the time the Putnams had been residing at 1014 Greenwood, a constructing increase in Evanston was continuing at a exceptional tempo because the inhabitants grew quickly. However, by the autumn of 1929, all the things started to alter, and the housing increase would quickly go bust. Most of the older residences of an earlier period confronted an unsure destiny.
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Detail-Zoning-Map.jpg?resize=635%2C352&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/November-22-1934-EV-review.png?resize=573%2C203&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
Housing Bust
Through the Nice Despair, state and native governments raised property taxes whereas owners confronted declining (or vanishing) earnings and a bottoming out of actual property values. By 1933 foreclosures in Evanston had elevated by 755% over the month-to-month common pre-crash (1926-1928).[29]
In 1934, the Chicago Tribune’s Joseph Ator reported on the widespread razing of buildings in Chicago and neighborhood, together with many landmark buildings. Property homeowners discovered they may get monetary savings by tearing down their properties somewhat than paying the property tax invoice.[30]
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Chicago_Tribune_Sun__Aug_12__1934_2.jpg?resize=595%2C616&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
Ator supplied quite a few examples of assorted buildings being wrecked for that reason, together with one in Evanston. In 1933, the home throughout the road from the Foster home, at 1007 Greenwood, was razed by the proprietor.
Constructed on the outdated Cosgrove lot round 1889, the home had as soon as been referred to as the “C.T. Boynton home.” Its proprietor, Charles Theodore Boynton (1858-1923) was a banker, Northwestern College trustee, and head of quite a few corporations within the Chicago space. He was additionally a pal of Volney Foster, who, for a time, named Boynton as a trustee of the Foster property.[31] In 1907, Boynton bought the home to Theodore C. Keller (1864-1930), president of the Illinois and Indiana Coal Company for $30,000.
Keller died in 1930. In 1933, his spouse, Jessie Prince Keller (1869-1954), closed up the home, bought the furnishings, moved away, and “had the mansion destroyed and by doing so saved the most important a part of a $1500 annual tax invoice,” as Ator reported.[32]
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/boynton-Evanston-Index-Oct-1-1904.png?resize=609%2C613&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
The lot at 1007 Greenwood remained empty for years.
It was round this time that a few of Evanston’s notable outdated estates, corresponding to architect Daniel Burnham’s dwelling at 232 Dempster and the Patten mansion on Ridge, had been additionally razed. (See extra concerning the Patten mansion right here: https://evanstonroundtable.com/2023/03/06/evanston-dimensions-evanstons-gilded-age-a-look-at-the-pattens-on-ridge-avenue-part-4/) After these properties had been razed in 1938, each heaps had been subdivided to make approach for a number of new residences.
Each the “age and lack of market” for such outmoded massive residential buildings had been among the many causes cited for demolishing them.[33] Previous homes on massive plots of land had been, apparently, of an earlier age. They weren’t for the trendy, financially strapped world. And lots of realtors and builders welcomed and even inspired the pattern of razing older properties and subdividing their heaps.
“Realtors have lengthy predicted that a lot of Evanston’s bigger houses will ultimately get replaced with subdivisions,” noticed a author for the Evanston Assessment in 1938. “Through the previous yr, there was a noticeable pattern on this route.”[34]
“We search for an additional enlargement of this dismantling program,” mentioned Nels Hokanson of the Evanston-based actual property firm Hokanson and Jenks. “In truth, we have now been approached by a number of homeowners of huge estates that are not occupied and have been requested to counsel layouts for subdividing,” he mentioned.[35]
However within the midst of a monetary disaster, Evanston additionally confronted an inexpensive housing disaster. Emptiness charges had been low, rents had been excessive, and many individuals had been doubling and tripling up in single residences to make do. Some argued that somewhat than demolishing older homes, they might be greatest utilized by changing them into rooming homes and residences. Others took a stand in opposition to such an thought, arguing that such conversions could be “a serious catastrophe for quite a few blocks of the town’s best residential property,” because the Evanston Assessment put it in 1938.[36]
The preservation of sure residential neighborhoods could be assisted by the U.S. authorities because it stepped in to attempt to shore up the tottering housing market. Within the early Nineteen Thirties, two necessary companies had been created: The Dwelling Homeowners Mortgage Company (HOLC), established in 1933, which was designed to buy mortgages that had been in default and supply higher and long term mortgages to debtors, and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), established in 1934, which was tasked with regulating the housing market, together with guaranteeing and standardizing mortgages and making loans as nicely.
Coincidentally, Leigh Putnam, nonetheless residing at 1014 Greenwood, could be appointed because the director of the FHA dwelling modernization program within the Northern Illinois district.[37]
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/real-estate-loans-News_Article__Evanston_Review_published_as_The_Evanston_Review___September_9_1937__p69.pdf.png?resize=780%2C363&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
HOLC examiners had been tasked with evaluating neighborhoods throughout the nation to categorise housing inventory and decide threat components for financing. They fanned out throughout Evanston, too. In 1940, the Greenwood Blvd neighborhood – categorized by HOLC as “white and higher center class” – was graded as “declining” and having a “poor” pattern in gross sales of present houses. [38]
“That is an space of bigger homes on massive heaps, with virtually no vacant floor to be developed, besides that which might happen with the breaking apart of a few of the estates,” wrote HOLC assessors.
“The neighborhood has stunning shade bushes and most properties are very nicely stored,” they famous, “however the neighborhood is dropping its enchantment due to the scale of the properties and their poor location.”[39] The poor location was defined, partly, due to the neighborhood’s “proximity to the negro focus within the space to the north” which “adversely impacts properties as far south as Church St.”[40]
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Detail-HOLC-map.jpg?resize=612%2C540&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
For many years, white residents, realtors, and mortgage brokers blocked Black residents in Evanston from shopping for or renting in majority or solely white neighborhoods, however they did “permit” Black residents to dwell as home employees inside white households in those self same areas.[42] Within the Twenties and Nineteen Thirties, for instance, there was one other “Foster” residing in the home at 1014 Greenwood: Rose Moore Foster (1890-?), a Black lady from Louisiana, who lived and labored as a home employee within the Putnam residence.[43]
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Letts-ad-Chicago_Tribune_Thu__Jul_13__1905_-1.jpg?resize=608%2C124&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
Because the pattern of constructing single-family houses on smaller, subdivided heaps continued, it might be famous that Evanston’s zoning ordinance – and its authorized framework that allowed for sustaining strict boundaries between excessive and low-income residents – was having a transparent influence on the town.
Leigh Putnam died in 1936. Quickly after, his spouse, Helen Byrnes Putnam (1876-1960), put the home at 1014 Greenwood available on the market. Within the depths of the Nice Despair, dwelling gross sales had been sluggish ,and there have been no presents. “A tremendous outdated dwelling,” learn a 1936 advert for the home. “Right here is your alternative to modernize a big outdated dwelling within the older residential part of Evanston.”[44]
Quickly, the outdated Foster home would face the identical destiny because the Burnham, Patten, and different massive estates had earlier.
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/volney-foster-house-razed-Evanston-Review-April-30-1942-.png?resize=589%2C122&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
Simply months after the U.S. entry into World Warfare II, the Foster home was demolished.
The battle, nevertheless, proved to be a stumbling block to any new development on the positioning. In April 1942, the identical month the Foster home was razed, the U.S. Warfare Manufacturing Board put a halt to all non-essential development.[45]
The lot on Greenwood remained empty for 4 years. Building in Evanston, already sluggish, floor to a halt amid the extreme housing scarcity – a scarcity that will intensify after the battle.
In an editorial for the Evanston Assessment, a author argued that preserving “the current residential character” of “lengthy established residential neighborhoods” within the metropolis was important throughout this time of financial disaster.[46] In spite of everything, vacant heaps and outdated massive houses had been “tempting prizes” for the large-scale developer.
Whereas most of the bigger residential a number of Purington’s and Foster’s day wouldn’t survive the Nice Despair, the FHA applications and a city-wide effort to “enhance” residential development in sure residential areas would imply that they did dwell on – by way of subdivision.[47]
In November 1945, simply after the top of the battle, William S. Ahern (1901-1971), proprietor of the Ahern Building Firm, bought the Greenwood Road lot. Ahern, who had not too long ago moved from Chicago to Evanston, lived along with his household at 2020 Hawthorne Ln. He additionally bought the empty lot throughout the road, on the northwest nook of Greenwood and Maple, the previous website of the Cosgrove/Boynton/Keller home.
Owing to a postwar scarcity in each labor and supplies, nevertheless, development on the brand new properties proceeded slowly. “You’re employed awfully arduous now to construct in six months what you would have accomplished in half that point earlier than the battle,” Ahern instructed a Chicago Tribune reporter in the summertime of 1946.[48]
Ultimately, Ahern would construct 4 homes on the outdated Cosgrove/Boynton/Keller lot, accomplished in 1948.[49] To take action, he needed to request a waiver to the town’s zoning ordinance, permitting him to scale back the scale of the lot’s rear yard by half.[50] Throughout the road on the outdated Foster lot, Ahern constructed two brick colonial-style homes, designed by the architectural agency Frazier and Rafferty. They had been accomplished in 1946.[51]
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Greenwood-1946.jpg?resize=670%2C495&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
“There are various nicely constructed houses,” learn a 1946 commercial for the 2 new homes on the outdated Foster lot, “however few that equal in craftsmanship, styling and high quality” as these “customized constructed” homes. Every home had “six spacious rooms, two full tiled baths, powder room, hooked up storage with breezeway.”[53]
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/open-house-Chicago_Tribune_Sun__Jun_30__1946_.jpg?resize=403%2C132&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
“The brand new growth on this modern outdated residential district marks one other step within the pattern in direction of reducing up outdated estates within the fashionable close-in and neighborhoods and changing large, outmoded mansions with fashionable, compact homes in ‘city home conveniences,’” the Evanston Assessment famous when the homes went available on the market.[54]
New developments and new “fashionable” houses underscored the pattern in single-family dwelling development within the postwar period. It additionally signaled a pattern in rising housing prices in Evanston. The homes constructed by Ahern on Greenwood ranged in worth from $38,250 to $39,000.[55] These costs had been already excessive. However owing to rising demand and the widespread housing scarcity, by 1947 housing costs for a “typical” dwelling on North Shore would double.[56]
The postwar constructing increase had begun. It appeared that the HOLC evaluation of only a few years earlier had been mistaken. “The neighborhood is declining typically desirability,” the evaluation had mentioned of the Greenwood Blvd stretch, “and there seems to be no chance of a reversal of this pattern.” [57]
In 1982, the stretch of Greenwood that was as soon as dwelling to the Puringtons, the Fosters, the Cosgroves et al was included in a newly designated Ridge Historic District. In 1983, the district was added to the Nationwide Register of Historic Locations.
![](https://i0.wp.com/evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/20230906_1300351.jpg?resize=569%2C758&is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1)
Postscript:
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Name for questions
Do you’ve got a query associated to Evanston historical past? Interested by an individual, place or factor? The Evanston Dimensions column within the Evanston RoundTable has tackled ghost indicators, department shops, seashores, double homes, resorts and extra. What would you wish to know? Ask away by emailing us at: jthompson@evanstonhistorycenter.org. We’d like to deal with your questions and dig into the huge collections on the Evanston Historical past Middle to offer some solutions!
The Evanston Historical past Middle is situated within the Nationwide Historic Landmark Charles Gates Dawes Home at 225 Greenwood St. For extra data, go to the center’s website.
[1] “Demise Message is Balked,” Chicago Tribune, August 27, 1907.
[2] “To Construct New Houses on Websites of two Well-known Previous Mansions,” Evanston Assessment, Might 30, 1946.
[3] Dr. Dwight F. Clark to Adele Purington, November 25, 1942, Evanston Historical past Middle archives.
[4] Adele Purington to Dr. Dwight F. Clark, December 9, 1942, Evanston Historical past Middle archives.
[5] “Wrecking of Previous T.W. Robinson Houses Remembers Good A long time of City’s Social Historical past,” Evanston Assessment, February 19, 1953.
[6] Frances Willard, A Basic City: The Story of Evanston (Chicago: Girls’s Temperance Publishing Affiliation, 1891), 154.
[7] “A Novel Leisure,” Chicago Tribune, September 12, 1875.
[8] Volney W. Foster, File of Wills, 1879-1928, Illinois. Probate Courtroom (Prepare dinner County), Prepare dinner, Illinois, October 29, 1903.
[9] “Mrs. Volney Foster,” Inter-Ocean, October 19, 1887.
[10] Josiah Seymour Currey, Chicago: Its Historical past and Its Builders Vol. 4 (Chicago: S.J. Clarke Publishing Co, 1912), 278.
[11] “The Nice Sheridan Highway,” Paving and Municipal Engineering, July 1895, 152.
[12] Robert Dickinson Sheppard and Harvey Bostwick Hurd, Historical past of Northwestern College and Evanston (Chicago: Munsell Publishing, Co, 1906), 315.
[13] Robert Dickinson Sheppard and Harvey Bostwick Hurd, Historical past of Northwestern College and Evanston (Chicago: Munsell Publishing, Co, 1906), 449.
[14] “Evanston for the Squirrels,” Chicago Tribune, April 3, 1901.
[15] “To Construct New Houses on Websites of two Well-known Mansions,” Evanston Assessment, Might 30, 1946.
[16] “The Birds of Evanston,” Boston Night Transcript, April 25, 1898.
[17] “Volney W. Foster’s Humane Thought,” Chicago Tribune, February 6, 1898; “Haven for the Birds,” The Morning Astorian, December 1, 1896.
[18] Metropolis of Evanston, Allow, November 12, 1892, Evanston Historical past Middle archives.
[19] “Again Lot Research Society,” Yankton Day by day Press and Dakotan, Might 21, 1891.
[20] Frances Willard, A Basic City: The Story of Evanston (Chicago: Girls’s Temperance Publishing Affiliation, 1891), 381.
[21] The College Assessment, November 1894, 576.
[22] “Again Lot Research Society,” Sidney Day by day Information, April 18, 1891.
[23] “Volney W. Foster Useless,” New York Occasions, August 16, 1904.
[24] John William Leonard, ed. Girl’s Who’s Who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Up to date Girls of the USA and Canada, 1914-l9l5 (New York: American Commonwealth Firm, 1914), 689.
[25] “A. Volney Foster of Lake Forest, Head of Utilities, Dies,” Chicago Tribune, September 5, 1950.
[26] “Buys Massive Tract in Mexico,” Inter-Ocean, June 9, 1901.
[27] “Henry G. Buswell Buys from Frank C. Letts the outdated Foster Dwelling at 1014 Greenwood Boulevard,” Inter-Ocean, February 1, 1911.
[28] 1920 U.S. Federal Census; Census Place: Evanston Ward 2, Prepare dinner, Illinois; “Mrs Josephine Buswell,” Evanston Assessment, July 14, 1932.
[29] “Transfers of Realty Enhance in January,” Evanston Assessment, February 16, 1933.
[30] Joseph Ator, “Tax Destruction Sweeps Chicago,” Chicago Tribune, August 12, 1934.
[31] The home was designed by architects Holabird and Roche. Robert Bruegmann, The Architects and the Metropolis: Holabird & Roche of Chicago, 1880-1918 (Chicago: College of Chicago Press, 1997), 447. Foster amended his will to interchange Boynton with H.H.G. Miller of Evanston as trustee of his will. “This in no smart displays on my Boynton,” Foster wrote, “ however is just in recognition of the very nice tasks that already relaxation upon him.” Miller was a lawyer, Northwestern College trustee, and served thrice as president of Evanston’s village board. Volney W. Foster, File of Wills, 1879-1928, Illinois. Probate Courtroom (Prepare dinner County), Prepare dinner, Illinois, October 29, 1903.
[32] “To Construct New Houses on Websites of two Well-known Mansions,” Evanston Assessment, Might 30, 1946.
[33] “Wreckers Doom Davis Road’s Stone Mansion,” Evanston Assessment, February 4, 1937.
[34] “Good-looking Trendy Homes Spring Up on Former Grounds of Previous Mansion,” Evanston Assessment, December 29, 1938.
[35] “Good-looking Trendy Homes Spring Up on Former Grounds of Previous Mansion,” Evanston Assessment, December 29, 1938.
[36] “Saving the East Aspect,” Evanston Assessment, October 27, 1938.
[37] “Former Federal Housing Government in State Dies,” Rock Island Argus, December 30, 1935.
[38] Dwelling Homeowners Mortgage Company, “Space Description,” Safety Map of Metropolitan Chicago, Ailing, January 1940.
[39] Dwelling Homeowners Mortgage Company, “Space Description,” Safety Map of Metropolitan Chicago, Ailing, January 1940.
[40] Dwelling Homeowners Mortgage Company, “Space Description,” Safety Map of Metropolitan Chicago, Ailing, January 1940. The antiquated and offensive time period “negro” is quoted right here in authentic context and just for historic accuracy.
[41] By 1940, 95% of Black residents in Evanston lived on the town’s west aspect, in an space “primarily bounded by the North Shore Channel on the north and west, the Metra tracks on the east, and Church Road on the south,” as Larry Gavin defined in his article, “Developing a Segregated Town, 1900-1960,” December 5, 2019.
[42] As Andrew Weise argued, “Between 1910 and 1940, there was not a single space of African American enlargement outdoors of west Evanston, despite black inhabitants progress of virtually 5,000.” Andrew Weise, “Black Housing, White Finance: African American Housing and Dwelling Possession In Evanston, Illinois, Earlier than 1940.” Journal of Social Historical past, December 1999.
[43] ECD, 1921, 1925, Census 1930
[44] Commercial, Evanston Assessment, Might 28, 1936.
[45] “Conservation Order,” Federal Register, April 10, 1942, 2730; “Welcome, Strangers,” Evanston Assessment, September 24, 1942.
[46] “Saving the East Aspect,” Evanston Assessment, October 27, 1938.
[47] “Public Service Opens Drive to Increase Constructing,” Evanston Assessment, February 27, 1936.
[48] Ruth Logan, “New Evanston Housing Strikes at a Trickle,” Chicago Tribune, July 7, 1946.
[49] “Quaker Oats Comptroller Buys Maple Avenue Dwelling,” Evanston Assessment, September 30, 1948.
[50] “Metropolis of Evanston Discover,” Evanston Assessment, December 18, 1947.
[51] “Three Houses Close to Completion on Previous Mansion Website,” Evanston Assessment, June 24, 1948.
[52] Commercial, Evanston Assessment, Might 16, 1946.
[53] Commercial, Evanston Assessment, Might 16, 1946.
[54] “To Construct New Houses on Websites of two Well-known Mansions,” Evanston Assessment, Might 30, 1946.
[55] “Three Houses Close to Completion on Previous Mansion Website,” Evanston Assessment, June 24, 1948.
[56] “N.S. Dwelling Costs Doubled Since ’43,” Evanston Assessment, August 28, 1947.
[57] Dwelling Homeowners Mortgage Company, “Space Description,” Safety Map of Metropolitan Chicago, Ailing, January 1940.
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