Geneva's Mayor

 

Editors Note:

I meet a lady whose great grandfather served as mayor of Geneva which resulted in the the following scenario.  

 

World War I, the war to end all wars, had ended in 1918. Shortly thereafter, optimism returned to the American public. 

 

The 1920’s would be a period of rapid economic growth and social change and would become known as the “Roaring ’20s”.

 

Your great grandfather  undoubtedly was caught up in this excitement. 

 

It is very possible he enjoyed performances at St. Charles’ Arcada Theater.  The theater, built in 1926, brought some of the finest vaudeville acts to the city.

 

The owner of the theater, Lester Norris, worked as a cartoonist and entertainment writer.  He frequented Southern California developing friendships and business associations that brought well known actors to St. Charles, a city of about 5,000 people.  

 

Continuing the list of probabilities, your great grandfather may have boarded the Chicago & Northwestern steam train at the Geneva depot for a day of entertainment, 

if not business, in Chicago.

 

Or, if he was taking his wife, he may have chosen to board the Chicago, Aurora, and Elgin electric train at 3rd St. & State St, in downtown Geneva, which connected  with the Chicago bound train in Wheaton.

 

The Chicago, Aurora, and Elgin, known by many names including “the Roar’ Elgin” and “Great Third Rail”, was preferred by women since it was a smooth and clean ride.  Steam engines produced soot that found its way into the passenger departments.  

 

Perhaps on one of their trips, they decided to stay at The Palmer House, one of Chicago’s most popular hotels.

 

Potter Palmer had been a successful merchandizer who when advised by his doctor to sell his store less he wished to have a heart attack, Palmer sold his store to an employee, Marshall Field.

 

Potter Palmer built his hotel in 1870 as a wedding present for his bride Bertha. One year later, it burned during the Great Chicago Fire. His second hotel, constructed mainly of iron and brick, was completed in 1875 and was widely advertised as "The World's Only Fire Proof Hotel”.  

 

That is the same Palmer House hotel that stands at Monroe & Wabash, 1 block west of Michigan Ave and the Art Institute of Chicago.

 

Like most people, he probably had a sweet tooth and could not resist the Palmer House most popular dessert: the Chocolate Brownie.

 

As the story goes, Bertha, the Queen of Chicago Society, asked the hotel’s chef to create a treat her society ladies could take to the Columbian World’s Exposition, also known as the Chicago’s World Fair, in 1893.

 

The hotel chef created what is widely credited as the first Chocolate Brownie.

 

The first reference to the “brownie” in America appears in the Sears

Roebuck Catalog published in Chicago in 1898.

 

Today, this century old recipe is the exact same one used for the brownie served in the Palmer House restaurant. It remains one of the hotel’s most popular confections.

Yes, Chicago’s attractions in the 1920’s were as popular as they are today. Your Great Grandfather would have enjoyed his visits into the city.

 

On his walks in downtown Chicago, he may have noticed a steam engine engraved on a plaque at LaSalle St and Jackson St.  He became fascinated when he read Chicago was the place of the General Time Convention, a meeting of railroads executives, who created time zones. 

 

As Geneva’s mayor in 1925 as well as a member of Geneva’s Community Hospital’s Board of Directors, he probably knew Edward Baker and Dellora and Lester Norris., given that St. Charles and Geneva were very small towns in the 1920’s. 

 

Dellora & Lester Norris (who married in 1923) along with Edward Baker were the recipients of John “Bet A Million” Gates vast fortune which derived primarily from his huge stock holdings in Texaco, a very profitable oil company.