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1924 – 100 Years Ago
City workmen have completed the work of extending Ninth street to Sycamore Road. The street, before it was extended, ended at Davy Street. The extension to the thoroughfare will be a great improvement in the northeastern part of the city, and will please residents of the entire city, who have been required to use Seventh street in order to get to Sycamore Road. Several of the streets in that section of the city have been given attention and made easier for traffic. Thirteenth street was repaired during the summer, making it safe for traffic. The street car tracks were removed and the roadbed greatly improved.
Emil Johnson is expected to move much of this stock of furniture to the second floor of his new building which is in the course of completion on Somonauk Street one block from State. Although the building is far from being completed, the work on the second floor has been rushed, and as soon as the decorators have completed their work the furniture is to be moved. At the present time some of the stock is stored in the rooms over the Atlantic and Pacific store. It is reported that Mrs. George Sparrow will open a beauty shop in those rooms as soon as the necessary changes are completed.
Workmen this morning were busy in the store building occupied by William Pierce. A new partition is being erected that will separate the rear of the store. As soon as this improvement is completed Mr. Pierce will have an excellent location for his business.
Work on a new factory that will be 44 feet wide and 99 feet long and which will be occupied by the Peerless Ice Cream company has been started, the work having progressed to such a stage that the bricklayers will be ready to start work in a few days. The new factory is being built on a site next to the present quarters of the company on Girard Street. When completed the structure will furnish the ice cream makers with the facilities for doubling their freezing capacity and will give them twice the space for hardening rooms. Another compressor will be installed and large mixing vats are being ordered for the new structure. The greater part of the machinery for the new building is now being ordered, and when installed will give DeKalb an ice cream plant that will be one of the most sanitary in this part of the state.
1949– 75 Years Ago
The big new bridge across the Kishwaukee river in the northeast corner of Kirkland has been finished. Fred Larson, county superintendent of highways, reported that the last cement was poured yesterday. The contractor had two fine days in which to pour the cement portion of the bridge. The steel arrived for the structure along about 3 o’clock in the morning of the day the steel strike started and was accepted minus its usual cost of shop paint.
DeKalb County is one of the first to ship soy beans for relief overseas this year, under a plan known as the Christian Rural Overseas Program or CROP. The first car from the county was shipped from Clare.
Nobody seems to remember it, but Monday Oct. 24, was the 20th anniversary of a significant day in American history. October 24, 1929, was “Black Thursday,” the day the stock market started its famous collapse which culminated in the disastrous depression of the ‘30′s.
At a meeting of the Sycamore Rotary Club on Thursday, O. T. Willard as the guest speaker gave an interesting talk on Sycamore history. Mr. Willard, well known throughout the county for the historical data he has gathered, is also of pioneer stock himself, his father being one of the first settlers in Sycamore. One of the most interesting facts he brought to light concerned the naming of the town. From time to time there is controversy about the name “Sycamore.” Mr. Willard said that the site was named from the Kishwaukee river that flows on the north edge of the town. When new settlers came to the swift flowing river, they called it the Sycamore River because its banks were lined with sycamore trees but when they heard the Indian name for the river was Kishwaukee meaning “swift flowing water” they used Sycamore as a name for the town site and called the river by its Indian name Kishwaukee.
The fourth and fifth grades in Hinckley have been studying about different kinds of farming in their social studies, such as irrigated farms, dairy farms and wheat farms. The pupils enjoyed the visit of Carl Baie and S. Smith of Nebraska recently when they talked about their recent trip to Europe. They told about the various farming methods over there, and how the farms the are quite small in comparison with ours here, and that they have hardly any modern machinery at all.
1974 – 50 Years Ago
Construction of a downtown shelter for Huskie Bus riders has received the tentative approval of the DeKalb City Council. The wooden shelter is planned for Third and Grove streets. The structure will be reviewed by the city building code staff before construction begins.
The DeKalb Board of Education last night authorized the school central administration to enter a lease to purchase agreement with Motorola Co. for emergency radios used in school busses. Each of the 25 buses used in DeKalb district 428 will have the radios installed during the next two or three months.
A car stolen in DeKalb Monday morning was found overturned in a field at about 3 p.m., yesterday near the Pleasant Hill bridge near Genoa. Sheriff’s police found blood inside the car but the driver was seen fleeing on foot toward Genoa. The 1963 car was taken from a municipal parking lot on Grove Street.
Did you know that the first Thanksgiving lasted three days? Or that Squanto spoke English 14 years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620? These and many other interesting facts from the first Thanksgiving will be discussed by Mrs. Mavis Williams when she speaks at the Nov. 1. DeKalb Woman’s Club meeting.
1999 - 25 Years Ago
The City of DeKalb will show Northern Illinois University’s football game at 3 p.m. today on its cable-access station, Channel 22.
Sycamore High School plans to open up student parking to sophomores for the first time in November. The change came about after some parents expresses concern to the Sycamore School Board that not all of the parking at the high school was being used.
A Littlejohn Elementary School student dressed as Rapunzel marches around the school during its Halloween Costume Parade. Following the parade, the students returned to the rooms for a Halloween party. This is the second year for the parade, Littlejohn Elementary staff hope to keep it as an annual event.
AT&T Cable Services of DeKalb will change its lineup Nov. 30 to make room for its new digital service. AT&T will use the frequencies currently occupied by HBO 3 (Ch. 55), Showtime 2 (Ch. 57) and Viewer’s Choice 1 (Ch. 61) to digitally transmit 17 new specialty channels, eight pay-per-view channels and 10 music channels.
– Compiled by Sue Breese