Naperville 1920 Flashback: Built to Be Haunted?

In 1920, North-Western College (now North Central) celebrated its 50th anniversary in Naperville and was making plans to build Pfeiffer Hall. The Halloween season seems a good time to talk about how Pfeiffer is the site of many reported hauntings. 

Henry and Gustavus Pfeiffer, who were founders of Pfeiffer Chemical Company, were major donors and named the hall for their mother Barbara. Henry attended North-Western in 1875 and briefly operated a drugstore in Naperville on west Van Buren. In further business dealings, the brothers amassed a very impressive fortune. Henry and his wife, Annie, never had children and were inspired by “The Gospel of Wealth,” an article written by Andrew Carnegie who believed that those blessed with exceptional wealth had a responsibility of philanthropy. 

Carnegie built over 2,000 libraries across the country – in fact, there is one on North Central’s campus – and the Pfeiffers also shared their fortune with schools and churches in many states. In total, North Central College received $475,000 from Henry and Annie and the Pfeiffers were instrumental in raising the $230,000 it cost to build Barbara Pfeiffer Memorial Hall.

North-Western College was associated with the United Methodist Church and Pfeiffer Hall opened in 1926 as the Chapel-Music building with seating for almost a thousand. The auditorium continues to host speakers, plays and musical performances today, despite its haunted reputation.

Among the many ghosts sightings that have been reported are “Charlie Yellow Boots” and “The Lady in White.” Charlie is thought to be a custodian who worked at Pfeiffer until the 1950s and wore distinctive boots. A psychic supposedly described the spirit’s footwear which was recognized by someone who remembered the janitor. 

The Lady in White has been seen applauding from her seat in the audience during shows. The most popular candidate for who the Lady might be is Miss Anna Pates of Oak Park and there is considerable evidence to support that theory. 

Don Shanower was a professor in the theater department at North Central College from 1955 until 1986 and was also one of the founders of Naperville’s Summer Place Theatre. In the spring of 1966, he directed his students in a brand-new musical based on “The Mutiny on the Bounty.” “Bligh Me” was written by Robert Lewis and John Danyluk and this was a preview of the play they hoped would be continuing on to Broadway. 

A prolific writer of television scripts as well as advertising copy, Lewis was born in Oak Park, Illinois and his Aunt Anna, age 92, still lived there. She came to Naperville, all excited, to see her nephew’s play on Saturday, March 26, 1966, but, according to the story, she passed away during the first act. 

Family trees and census records prove the connection between Oak Park, Lewis, and Pates. A Chicago Tribune article announced the debut of “Bligh Me” in the March 24 issue. Pate’s obituary says she passed “suddenly” on March 26. And several family members have even written about the event online. 

While it’s interesting to confirm the facts of the story, whether Aunt Anna is actually haunting Pfeiffer Hall as the Lady in White is of course quite another matter! The next time you attend an event there, maybe you can find out for sure…

Naperville 1920 Flashback: Power Farming

1920 was the first year that America’s population tipped toward an urban rather than rural majority. DuPage County and the surrounding area was still mainly farmland and towns like Naperville supplied farmers’ needs. Motorized tractors for the most up-to-date Power Farming were quite new. Henry Ford and his son Edsel had only started offering their Fordson tractor in 1917. It ran on kerosene and was intended to replace horses and oxen on farms. Because Ford’s automobiles had already created a widespread sales network, Fordson tractors were a favorite purchase.

The Cromer Bros. in Naperville sold the Henry Ford & Son tractors as well as the Mogul 10-20 from International Harvester. According to the Naperville Clarion newspaper ad about a “Power Farming” presentation, they operated out of a building at 22 Water Street. When one looks at the 1921 Sanborn map, however, it’s clear that this earlier Water Street is on the opposite side of the DuPage River from where Water Street is today. 

That short stretch of Water Street in the 1920s extended from Chicago Avenue where Washington Street intersects and is now considered part of Chicago Avenue. This Clarion ad invites farmers to 22 Water Street and looking at the Sanborn map, there is a “Farm Machinery” building identified at that location, which seems to place it east of today’s Empire restaurant, where the photography studio is now. All of the buildings on that side of the street have changed hands many times and exactly which building housed Cromer’s I have not been able to confirm. 

Motor Co. Inc. is also listed in early 1920s directories across the street at 13-19 Water Street. In 1946, the Preemption House, which was at 25 Water Street, was torn down and Cromer Motors grew into that space as well. Today, that is the home of Sullivan’s restaurant. 

Unfortunately, as the decade wore on, agriculture faced a combination of factors that sent farming into a tailspin. After the first World War ended, there was less demand for grain and Prohibition contributed to an over-supply since grain was not needed to make alcohol either. At the same time, mechanical farming was improving yields which resulted in a drastic surplus and falling prices. The plight of farmers preceded the Great Depression by several years, even while urban dwellers thriving.

Naperville 1920 Flashback: August’s Blackbirds

In 1920, Naperville was just a small, mainly rural, community with a population of only 3,830. It was so rural, in fact, that City Council minutes listed expenditures for horse feed and shoeing that were regularly paid to August Springborn, the Assistant Superintendent of Streets. Although the minutes don’t say exactly what Springborn needed a horse for, he probably used a cart rather than a truck for his work on the streets.

Naperville’s residents in 1920 were no doubt more tuned into their environment than most of us are today. The Chicago Tribune carried a column by Larry St. John called “Woods and Waters” in which St. John discussed such outdoor sports as casting, which was a popular competitive activity in the early 1900s for all ages and genders. 

One of St. John’s readers wrote from Naperville asking for advice on how to get rid of annoying flocks of blackbirds that congregated every August in town. They roosted in trees in great noisy numbers and made a mess on the sidewalks that in the late-summer heat was really unbearable.

Another reader from Kalamazoo wrote in to comment that it sounded like Naperville had grackles rather than true blackbirds and that many other towns had a similar problem. 

Those of us living in the now-mainly-urban city may not notice it, but our birds’ habits have changed since May. We used to hear a lot of birdsong in the early morning as avian families marked out their nesting territories, but the songs wane towards summer’s end because the children have, quite literally, left the nest. Parent birds now spend their time recuperating from the demands of childcare, molting and resting up for fall’s migration. 

This pre-migration breather is why the grackles were flocking in Naperville, but they were still a nuisance. The Kalamazoo writer had a suggestion that was seconded by several other letters. Apparently it was common to sneak up where the birds roosted at night and shoot Roman candles into the trees. 

There is no follow-up column saying whether Naperville citizens actually tried this remedy or if it worked!

Naperville 1920 Flashback: Going to the Pictures

The Masons built their new lodge in 1916 and outfitted the second floor for their own use while renting out the first floor. On the street-side were a couple of shops, but an entrance corridor led to the back of the building and the Grand Theatre.  

 

The Grand opened in 1917 and boasted 350 seats. It paid the city of Naperville an annual license fee to operate, which according to council minutes, started at $15 per year and went up to $60 per year by 1928. 

While it’s unclear whether there was an organ or piano in the theatre, there probably wasn’t a sound system, at least for most of the Grand’s existence. “Talkies” were being made, but were not commercially available until 1923, and even then, they didn’t really catch on until 1927. Instead, folks would come into town to watch “one-reeler” comedies and cartoons or short silent feature films like “When the Clouds Roll By.” 

The Grand operated from 1917 until 1931 when it closed down, perhaps due to the aftermath of 1929’s crash. In 1935, however, the space was enlarged by incorporating the street-side shops and updated to seat 480 patrons. Outside, it was dressed up with a fancy sign and marquee and renamed the Naper Theatre.
 

The theatre was enlarged again in 1950 and received a new CinemaScope screen a couple years later, probably around the time this photo was taken in 1952. By the 1970s, however, competition from multi-plex theaters became too much and the Naper Theatre closed for good in 1977. 

The space housed an appliance store and an antiques mall in the years that followed and since 2010, it has been home to the Naperville Running Company. The Masons of Euclid Lodge continue to meet on the second floor and held an Open House last fall to celebrate their 170th anniversary.

Naperville 1920 Flashback: Buying and Washing Clothes

Flapper dresses and wild spending are the stereotypes, but in 1920, hemlines were still fairly long and “The High Cost of Living” was a major campaign issue. Prices were expected to fall after the war ended, but because of inflation, labor costs and continued scarcity, they stayed high  and peaked in 1920, the highest Cost of Living ever recorded. 

But folks were also weary of war deprivations and ready to spend their war bond investments. The Naperville Clarion complained that “There probably never was such a wild orgy of buying as at the present moment.” 

One favorite expense was to invest in an electric washing machine to lighten the load for women. If you look at the ad for the Crystal Washer, which was made by Mallory Industries, you can see the Mallory logo between the washer’s legs. The image depicts a man lifting a bundle of clothes off the back of a kneeling woman. Make of that what you will.

In these early electric washer/wringers, the motor automatically agitated clothes in the washer. But then you needed to wring out the wash water, put the damp clothes in a basket, empty the washer, refill with clean water, and run the electric agitator again to rinse out the soap. If you were washing whites, you might have bluing rinse as well. One more wringing later, you were finally ready to hang your clothes in the yard to dry before ironing and folding. So much easier!

This ad for a Crystal Washer and Wringer is from the Naperville Clarion newspaper for Hillegas Hardware. Hillegas and Reich opened a hardware store in downtown Naperville in 1882 in the building where Frankie’s Blue Room and Features Bar and Grill is today. Apparently before the year ended the store became

Rassweiler Hardware, but the January advertisement is definitely still identifying it as Hillegas Hardware, the place you can buy your wife a Crystal washing machine.