Life in Libertyville in the 1920s was full of excitement. The village was growing by leaps and bounds, with new buildings downtown and new subdivisions expanding the town’s boundaries. In 1920, the population of the village was 2125. By the end of the decade in 1929, the number of folk in Libertyville had almost doubled to 4100.

 

Some services and amenities that we take for granted made their first appearance in the 1920s: mail delivery directly to homes, parking lines downtown, paved residential streets.

 

Other aspects of village life that appeared on the scene in the 1920s included: a new building for the public library, a new hospital, the North Shore Electric Railroad’s spur through Libertyville. Many new buildings were built downtown, including the Public Service Building (the Harris Bank building today), the Dall Building (which houses the Liberty Cleaners today), the Lake County National Bank(Libertyville Bank & Trust). Plans to build a Masonic Temple were begun in 1923 and the building was completed in the 1930s.

 

In this “Village Life” section you will find a little bit of everything else to fill in the picture of what Libertyville was like in the 1920s.

 

 

Condell Memorial Hospital in Libertyville came into being at the inspiration of Elizabeth Condell. Miss Condell was a private person, but her foresight and generosity have left a positive mark on the Libertyville community.

 

Elizabeth Condell was born in Shields Township in 1845 and lived most of her life on a farm there. In her later years she moved to Libertyville and was under the care of Dr. John Taylor. She made it known to him that she desired to leave her (considerable) estate to benefit a hospital. Dr. Taylor realized that the institution most likely to receive her funds was Victory Memorial Hospital in Waukegan and presented her with the idea of using her money to build a new hospital in her adopted home.

 

Miss Condell did just that. After her death on August 25, 1917, her will revealed that she had left her estate, totaling $25,000, in a trust for the purpose of building a hospital. Her heirs contested Condell’s will all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court, but the Court ruled in favor of the will and plans moved forward.

 

One of the stipulations of the will was that in order to receive the funds, the community would have to raise an additional $5000. A public campaign was launched, civic pride ran high, and the money was raised. Groundbreaking took place in a cornfield on land donated by Samuel Insull and on June 10, 1928 Condell Memorial Hospital was dedicated. The architect was H. V. Von Holst. The dedication took place with impressive ceremonies and much rejoicing.

 

 

Libertyville’s first library came into being in the late 1800s. The 1920s saw the inception of the Cook Memorial Library name and a dedicated library building.

 

In 1919 the Libertyville Library was a subscription library, housed in the village hall but owned and operated by the Women’s Club. At her death, Emily Barrows Cook, widow of Ansel B. Cook, left her house and considerable property (including 30 lots) to the village of Libertyville to be used as a site for a public library and park. The property was formally transferred to the village in 1920.

 

In her 1935 history of the library, Head Librarian Mrs. Blanche Mitchell describes the early years of the village library:

 

“A Village Library Board was elected in 1921 consisting of Dr. Smith, Dr. Galloway, B. H. Miller, Mrs. Augusta Lovell, Mrs. Paul MacGuffin and Mrs. E. W. Colby.

 

“At this time the Woman’s Club possessed 1858 volumes and subscribed to many of the leading magazines—these were gladly turned over the new library. There being no money available to condition the Cook residence for library use, a meeting was called of the leading organizations and a solicitation of funds suggested. Each one cooperated in this financing project and by means of entertainments, plays, minstrel shows, and direct solicitation from interested citizens only a few months elapsed before there were sufficient funds to stucco the building, build the colonial pillared porch and make other necessary improvements. The Building was opened to the public in April, 1921, and dedicated in November, 1921.

 

“The Ansel B. Cook and Emily Barrows Cook Public Library was operated as a village library from April 20th, 1921 to May 1st, 1924, by which later date the demands made by the Township High School became so great that it was impossible to supply their needs with the limited tax funds received from the Village tax alone, therefore it seemed necessary to increase the revenue….”

 

A Township Library Board was elected to oversee the maintenance and funding of the library collection. At the same time, the Village Library Board remained in existence in order to (as Mrs. Mitchell’s history continued) “have charge of the sale of the lots and [be] custodians of the funds received from the sale thereof. The aim of the Library Board [was] to establish a fund to be used eventually to build a modern permanent library.” These funds were later used to refurbish the Cook Library facility instead.

 

 

Railroads have always played an important part in Libertyville’s development. The Chicago Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad spur, which came to town in 1880, brought Libertyville’s first growth spurt. It originated as a freight line, then expanded to passenger service. Today Metra trains run on its line.

 

Libertyville’s other rail line carried electric trains and ran through the southern part of the village. (The North Shore Bicycle path takes its place today.) The first electric rail cars ran to Libertyville from Lake Bluff in 1903. About a decade later Samuel Insull obtained control of the electric railway system known as the North Shore Line and began improvements almost immediately.

 

In 1924, due to increased volume on the North Shore Line, another line to the west of the North Shore was needed to accommodate the high speed inter urban trains going to Milwaukee. The new line opened on June 5, 1926, with inter urban trains to Chicago from Libertyville and Mundelein which ran once an hour. The timing of the new line was no doubt influenced by the 28 th International Eucharistic Congress. The closing ceremonies of the Congress were held at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary on June 25, 1926 and it is estimated that over 200,000 attendees made their way to Mundelein by rail, the majority of them riding on electric rail cars through Libertyville.

 

 

Farming was still an important part of the community, however. In the early 1920s Lake County boasted 1400 farmers. One of the largest farms in the Libertyville area was Hawthorn Farm, owned by utilities magnate Samuel Insull, which spread over 4300 acres. For about the first half of the 1920s the farm lost money every year, but in 1927 the farm’s manager Joseph C. Reuse tried amending the soil and planted improved varieties of oats. Hawthorn Farm had a bumper crop for the first time in 11 years. In 1924 Quaker Oats Company bought farm property to the northwest of Libertyville (across from Butterfield School today) to use for an experimental farm. This property was owned and operated by Quaker until the 1930s.

 

 

The 1920s could truly be called a Boom Time for Libertyville. This agricultural-based community steadily grew into a more urban area throughout the decade. Large tracts of land were subdivided and development was everywhere. Some of the subdivisions that came into being at this time include Countryside Manor Estates, Libertyville Highlands, and Thornbury Village. Thirty wooded acres owned by J. W. Butler (located west of Elm Court and extending west to Butler Lake) were sold and parceled into lots for individual sale.

 

 

We take many aspects of life for granted in the 21st century, aspects that were not at all a guarantee in the 1920s. For instance, the 1920s saw many streets in Libertyville paved for the first time, and parking lines were drawn on Milwaukee Avenue downtown. On the other hand, some things never change. Motorists complain about the condition of the roads now, and they certainly did in the 1920s. Automobile accidents were perhaps even more prevalent then than now. And communities continue to bicker over minutiae.

 

To give you an idea of the condition of our roads as seen from the outside, we submit the following letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune, August 29, 1920:

 

“Ode to Lake County

 

Sir: Allow me to nominate that unspeakable ten miles of drainage ditch they call a road north of Wheeling as Great Grandaddy of all the poor highway species. It is not fair to think of it in the same breath with honest, twentieth century transportation lines. It is the pariar [sic] of the highway family, the leper among even those other road crimes in Lake county.

 

Let the motorist who leaves Cook county concrete and ventures north through Half Day and Libertyville bid farewell to all he holds dear under his hood. Ten miles an hour over those awful chuck holes is breakneck speed. Faster is suicide. As far as I could learn, neither county nor township has worked the worst part of this disgrace this season. Holes are continuous through Antioch on the way to Lake Geneva.

 

The startling part of the Illinois disgrace comes when one reaches the Wisconsin line. It is a real, not an imaginary, line. On the Illinois side lie the chuckholes, broken springs, and buried hopes of a thousand sufferers. On the Wisconsin side, one foot ahead, lies perfect graded highway, smooth, well kept, delightful. One patrolman working now and then with one team and road drag molds the miracle. The road surface is the same. Weather conditions are identical: But the man from Mars himself could not but realize in riding south that he had crossed from a roads paradise to—Illinois!.... -- E. B.”