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y^. _.«y^ y^w // American Guide Series THE DU PAGE COUNTY GUIDE Illustrated ^:^ Special Edition Commemorating the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of DU PAGE TITLE COMPANY 1925-1950 ^> "... It stands as a highly worth while part of the American Guide Series . Well illustrated and well documented ..." —Frederic Babcock, Chicago Tribune. "Here we have a fine example of what should be done in other counties, not only in Illinois but throughout the country. It is a guidebook that brings home to residents of Du Page County, and to outsiders as well, all of the interesting and unique things to be found in that county, and how these things originated." — John Drury, author of Old Chicago Houses, Historic Midwest Houses, Midwest Heritage, Old Illinois Houses, etc. {Continued on hack flap) T3 - From the collection of the z n " jrre|inger E- , library t P San Francisco, California 2007 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/dupagecountydescOOwritrich — These are the gardens of the Desert, these The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful. For which the speech of England has no name The Prairies. I behold them for the first. And my heart swells, while the dilated sight Takes in the encircling vastness . WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (Note: The pnem of wrhich ihne are the opening lines was published in a two-volume edition of Bryant's poetry isHied in 1855 by D. A|>plelon and Company, New York. Richmond and V'alletie. in their 1857 history of Du Page County, printed the same excerpt without namiitg the author and with the third line altcretl to read: "AikI fresh as the young earth ere man had sinned.") DU PAGE COUNTY GUIDE DUPAGE COUNTY A DESCRIPTIVE AND HISTORICAL GUIDE AMERICAN GUIDE SERIES EDITED BY MARION KNOBLAUCH SPECIAL EDITION PUBLISHED IN COMMEMORATION OF ITS TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY 1925-1950 BY DU PAGE TITLE COMPANY WHEATON, ILLINOIS COPYRIGHT, 1948, 1951. BY MARION KNOBLAUCH All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form except that of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews First Printing September, 1948 Special Revised Edition June, 1951 Lithoprinted by Edwards Brothers, Inc. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PRESENTATION A QUARTER OF A CENTURY is a short spaii, as time is measured. But when a business organization reaches its twenty-fifth birth- day in a career of service to a community, it is fitting that the occasion be suitably marked. And so, to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of its founding, Du Page Title Company is proud to present this special anniversary edition of the Du Page County Guide to its good friends and neighbors in Du Page County. In 1925 Du Page County was expanding rapidly as part of the growing Chicago metropolitan area. Large tracts of farmland were being sub- divided, and the population of the county, which jumped from 42,120 to 91,998 in the decade between 1920 and 1930—an increase of 1 18 per cent— practically doubled in the short space of one year. Because buyers of real estate needed legal evidence of their ownership of property, the sudden increase in real estate activity meant a tremendous growth in the need for abstracts-of-title. The small local abstract office of T. M. & D. C. Hull did its best to meet the increasing demands for service, but its facilities were inadequate to cope with the situation. The result was the formation of Du Page Title Company, which purchased the abstract indexes and records of the Hull organization. • Incorporated on October 9, 1925, Du Page Title Company immedi- ately began to increase the existing physical facilities and personnel of the old organization. After confining its activities from 1925 through 1930 to the making of abstracts, the new company in 1931 began to issue title guarantee policies as an agent for Chicago Title and Trust Company. Six years later, in 1937, it started issuing its own Du Page Title Company policies, a service which today comprises the major part of its business. Three presidents have guided the destinies of Du Page Title Com- pany. The first of these was the man who had organized it, A. R. Marriott. A native son of Du Page County with 50 years of title experience in Chicago Title and Trust Company, he headed the new organization until his death in 1932. He was succeeded by his son, Arthur C. Marriott, who previously had served the company as vice-president and manager. The present head of the company, Byron S. Powell, succeeded Mr. Marriott officers in June, 1948. Other of the company have included Alva J. Shaw, vice-president and manager from 1932 until his retirement in 1940; Gus secre- Buchholz, A. J. Yates, and William J. Rose, each of whom served as tary; and Kenneth E. Rice, who held the office of treasurer for many years. Current officers of the company, in addition to the president, are Orville H. Ross, vice-president; Louis J. M. Pommier, secretary; Roderick A. title officer; Mette, treasurer; Harry E. Madsen, James J. Tomisek, as- sistant secretary; and Webster S. Davis, assistant treasurer. The original staff of 8 or lo employees has grown into the highly trained present staff of 70, which is housed in a two-story, fireproof brick building on East Liberty Drive, Wheaton, with a fireproof record warehouse nearby. For 25 years Du Page Title Company has served Du Page County. It has helped to secure for men, their families, and their institutions the rightful enjoyment of their ownership of land—our basic resource. The company's growth in the past quarter of a century has paralleled and contributed to the growth of the community it serves. It dedicates to a continuation of that service the energies and abilities of the men and women who are Du Page Title Company. Intended for publication in 1959, the year of Du Page County's centennial, this book—as a result of the eleventh-hour backing out of its sjwnsors—unwittingly acquired the distinction of being the last work published in the American Guide Series, when it finally appeared in 1948. Regrettable though it was, I feel that the delay in publication did not seriously impair the essential value of the Guide—which, incidentally, is the first historical work devoted exclusively to the county since Rufus Blanchard's county nistory of 1882. Lithoprinted from the page proofs pulled in 1939 (which accounts for some of the technical imperfections), the original text was left virtually intact, except for minor revisions including the correction of typographical and other errors which came to light in rechecking (more having come to light since, additional revisions have been made for this edition). Appendix I and notes referring to it were added, to tell the reader which points of interest no longer existed and which had undergone major changes. As iMpulation figures throughout the text were from the 1930 census. Appendix II was added, listing both 1930 and 1940 figures. Now that has been revised to include preliminary 1950 figures. In other respects the book follows the general format of the American Guide Series. Although the passage of time has relegated to history numerous details thal- were current in 1939, the general picture of the county today is not markedly different from what it was then. The most notable exceptions are the large in- crease in i>opulation since World War II (which, while it did not bring big industrial plants to the county, brought an influx not only of families deriving employment from such plants nearby, but of people driven to the suburbs by Chicago's housing shortage), the thousands of new homes built by the newcomers, the new semi-rural communities that have sprung up to accommodate them, and the establishment here of the .\rgonnc National Laborator>'. —M.K. VI FOREWORD A GROWING TENDENCY in present-day American historical research is toward regional and local studies. Now that the nation as a whole has been properly surveyed in numerous standard works, greater emphasis is being placed on the nation's parts—on the various regions which compose the country, on the states that make up the regions, on the counties that comprise the states, and on villages, cities and townships within the counties. This is a natural evolutionary step and bespeaks the coming-of-age of the United States as a whole. It is for this reason that the Du Page County Guide is of great value. Here we have a fine example of what should be done in other counties, not only in Illinois but throughout the country. It is a guidebook that brings home to residents of Du Page County, and to outsiders as well, all of the interesting and unique things to be found in that county, and how these things originated. In it, too, future generations may learn what one American county was like from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. When I saw the manuscript of the Du Page County Guide at the New- berry Library in Chicago, shortly before the book was published, I was impressed with the wide scope of its subject matter, with the thoroughness of its historical aspects, and with the literary ability displayed. It then occurred to me that the citizens of Du Page County were most fortunate to have had a county guidebook prepared for them as part of the dis- tinguished American Guide Series and to have had for that Guide such an editor as Marion Knoblauch, without whose perseverance and personal investment of time and money, the skillful research and writing expended on this work never would have been placed in permanent record form.

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