Moving Pictures: Going to a Show in 1913 Naperville

Continuing our look at what Naperville was like one hundred years ago, here is a page from the City Council meeting minutes from March 17, 1913.


Asa Frank Stoner applied in March “to operate a moving picture show.” Stoner was a prominent citizen and a member of the Euclid Lodge, the local Masons chapter. He served in World War I and was also a member of the American Legion.

The early 1900’s was the “wild west” of cinema, before big corporations monopolized the industry. Anyone who could scrape together a little cash could open a nickelodeon theater in an existing storefront.

They would rent films from a distributor, patch them up if they were a little worse for wear, and run them maybe thirty times a day.

Folks would pay a nickel to watch about a half hour’s worth of entertainment — twenty minutes’ worth if the operator sped up the projector to squeeze more showings into an evening.

Moving pictures were considered “not quite nice” at first, but by 1913 they were well accepted. Men could bring their wives and children along to a nickelodeon, unlike a saloon.

In 1913, the Keystone Cops and Tom Mix cowboy movies were popular. Dialogue titles were not yet common so the silent film stars mimed their roles completely.

The earliest moving pictures were presented as one act of a vaudeville show and many of those traditions continued in movie theaters. Live piano music accompanied the films and the show might include sing-a-longs to filmed “illustrated songs.”

Traveling moving picture shows offered the same film every night for a week before heading to the next town, but Chicago was the biggest movie-going city in the entire nation. No doubt there were plenty of new titles available to watch on a regular basis at Mr. Stoner’s moving picture show.

150th Anniversary of Gettysburg and our Local Connections

Civil War history buffs are commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Battle at Gettysburg, While the three day battle resulted in a horrific number of casualties, Gettysburg was considered the turning point of the war which would lead to cessation of hostilities.

Several men in our local history had connections to the Battle of Gettysburg. While there is some debate on the matter, many believe the first shot of the Battle was fired by Marcellus Jones of Danby, Illinois, which is what Glen Ellyn was once known as.

But Jones is not the only local connection. According to the tale, Jones made the shot with a carbine he borrowed from Sergeant Levi Shafer of Naperville.

Following the War, Jones moved to Wheaton and was most likely among the men who swiped the DuPage County records from what was then the county seat in Naperville. He’s buried in Wheaton Cemetery, a few steps from the cemetery office.

Jones' home, built in 1865, was moved about one block away from its original location to Illinois Street in May of 1977. It now serves as the law offices of Peregrine, Stime, Newman & Ritzman.

Shafer returned to Naperville where he married Anna Naugle, worked as a carpenter and raised three daughters before being laid to rest in the Naperville Cemetery.

Visitors attending Gettysburg Anniversary events might learn about DuPage County from a monument that Jones, Shafer and buddy Alex Riddler erected to their contribution to history. The men had a stone monolith cut in Naperville commemorating the event and then, using their own funds, they dragged the marker to Pennsylvania and purchased a small piece of the battlefield from a local farmer on which to rest the monument. Kathleen Logothetis features the stone on her Hidden Gems of Gettysburg website for history buffs who want to view it.

1913 Naperville Goes up to Bat

To continue our look at Naperville in 1913, let’s play ball!

• Woodrow Wilson threw out the first pitch at the first ever game played by the New York Yankees. (Before then, they were the New York Highlanders.)

• Ty Cobb and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson were at the top of their games and Honus Wagner was the oldest player in the National League – although still playing!

• The Chicago Cubs made Johnny Evers of the famous “Tinker to Evers to Chance” their manager, succeeding Frank Chance.

• And in Naperville, the Exiles Athletic Club was organized to play their first base ball season.

According to Genevieve Towsley of the Naperville Sun, the Naperville Exiles was born when some young men from Ellsworth High School were prevented from organizing a school team by their principal.

The Exiles hired a young Chicago fireman to be their pitcher and played teams from Aurora, Wheaton and Chicago, towns they could get to by Burlington rail. The team included boys named Drendel, Wehril and a few Stengers, familiar families from Naperville’s history.

Recreating vintage base ball games is a popular pastime today, played with period-appropriate uniforms, rules and equipment.

You can see base ball (two words in 1913!) in action and talk with the players about the history when local vintage base ball teams like the Downers Grove Plowboys or the Chicago Salmon play in the area. Check out their websites to see when and where you can watch games.

Celebrating History a Naperville Tradition

Here’s another look back at our town 100 years ago, when the Naperville Chamber was founded.

Of particular note this time around is that May is Community Heritage Month in Naperville. This is an early heads up so you can fit some of the planned events into your calendar.

The Naper Settlement began when Caroline Martin Mitchell bequeathed her home and the surrounding property to the cityin 1936. The house, now known as the Martin Mitchell Mansion, served as a museum until the 1970’s when preservation-minded citizens started moving other landmark buildings onto the property.

But there was a museum in town even before that which was housed on the second floor of the original Nichols Library.

Mary Barbara “Matie” Egermann was appointed to the job of librarian in 1909 and served in that position for the next 41 years.

The Souvenir of the Naperville Homecoming published in 1917 tells us that “In October, 1912, the librarian, Miss M. B. Egermann, opened the museum department, which, today, exhibits rare old treasures of Naperville’s pioneers and other specimens of historical and general interest.”

One of those old treasures was a bible once owned by John Naper, brother of Joseph and one of the original settlers.

In their commemorative booklet from 1931, the Naperville Centennial committee noted that in preparing for the centennial celebration, they used a number of historical resources “together with the documents and newspapers preserved by M. B. Egermann in the historical collection at the City Library.”

Today the Naperville Heritage Society keeps an extensive collection for future posterity and offers many great programs for current enjoyment, such as next month’s Civil War Days.

Learn about more of May’s Community Heritage Month events at the City of Naperville website.

Tradition of Education

To understand Naperville’s school system in 1913, the year the Chamber of Commerce was founded, we should really go back even further.

Education has always been important to Naperville citizens. Our first settlers arrived in July 1831 and established a school already by September. Twenty-two students were enrolled and a teacher, Lester Peet, was hired to teach them for $12 a month.

In 1870, Naperville set much higher goals and successfully wooed Plainfield College away from that town to become our North Central College.

In 1913, respect for education was a simply  a way of life. Naperville’s high school was accredited by the state and other institutions as “meeting or exceeding standards” to prepare students for college level study.

Ellsworth was the “East” side school while the Naper Academy served as the “West” side school. Ellsworth was named for Lewis, the first school commissioner and for Milton, the director of the district. The median teacher salary in this town of 3,500 residents was $760 a year.

Over one hundred high school students attended classes on the upper floors of the first Ellsworth school building, with younger grades taught below. High schoolers didn’t get their own building until it was opened in 1916 on the site of the current Washington Junior High.

Physical education was required of high school students, but in 1913 they didn’t have a gymnasium. Instead they took phys ed in the barely-two-years-old YMCA building on Washington Street.