Downtown Waukegan in the good old days

When I was just a little girl many years ago, although we lived just west of Lake Bluff in an 1877 farmhouse, I heard about Waukegan, as my dad would take a small, red wagon and walk from Lake Bluff to Waukegan to get some supplies which weren't available in Lake Bluff.

I attended school in Lake Bluff from kindergarten through third grade.

We then moved to the outskirts of North Chicago. At the urging of my mother, I was tested by R.L, Newenham, superintendent of District 64, and put into fifth grade.

We didn't go to Waukegan very often as the Great Depression was still having its effects when I was in grade school.

After graduation from South School, I attended good old Waukegan Township High School. I would take the old North Shore Line train from 22nd Street in North Chicago to Waukegan. It is no longer in existence.

Waukegan was a thriving town then; there were so many stores. I used to think that Chicago couldn't be much bigger. There were three dime stores- Neisner's, Kresge's and Woolworth's. One of them even had a lunch counter.

Some of the other stores were Lanathan's, a women's shop where I purchased a teal blue coat with a real fur collar, and a matching hat with real feathers decorating it, after my husband Paul and I were married in 1949.

I don't remember when Hein's was built, but it was the ultimate store.

It would have a sale once a year where women would stand in line to purchase their beautiful clothing and gift items. The Globe Department Store was across the street from Hein's. The Globe didn't have cash registers, but the salesperson would put one's money into a little box and send it off in a tube upstairs to a clerk who would make the change and then send the little box back.

There was Waukegan Dry Goods Store where I purchased material to be used in sewing class when I was in high school. There was Kinney's Shoe Store where there was a machine that would X-ray one's feet to make certain the shoes fit correctly, and Cohn's Shoe Store.

There was Durkin and Durkin Men's Store where my husband purchased many a suit and haberdashery. There was Lindberg's Men's Shop. There was also a Walgreens drug store and Steimonts Photography where I had my high school graduation picture taken.

Further north there was a stable on Golf Road. One could rent a horse-drawn wagon which would go down North Avenue. And there was the Karcher Hotel west from Genesee Street on Washington Street.

And there was the Besley Clinic, a medical building. There were many other places of business also, but I think I've mentioned enough for everyone to see what Waukegan was like during the 1940s, '50s and '60s.

Then malls were being built on the outskirts of Waukegan and the demise of downtown had begun. Downtown's heyday was over.

Elaine M