Town Lockup to Home Sweet Home: The Mokena Calaboose

   Just down the road in Lockport stands the Heritage Village, an interesting open-air museum under the auspices of the Will County Historical Society, that houses a curious collection of antique buildings that have been moved to the shady spot along the I&M Canal from all over the region. Here is the Wells Corner schoolhouse, there the Symerton railroad depot. In the settlement is also a small, shed-sized structure that upon first sight, one might generously call a shack. This nondescript, completely ordinary building holds an inordinate amount of history, for it’s the erstwhile Mokena calaboose, or jailhouse. Fate has also tied it with one of the most unique personages in our community’s history. This small edifice’s biography, as well as the story of how it came to make its home in Lockport, is worthy of closer inspection. 

The Mokena Calaboose today, in the Will County Historical Society's Heritage Village in Lockport. (Image courtesy of Sandy Vasko and the Will County Historical Museum and Research Center)

   The year 1880 was a meaningful one for our village. In June of that year, the male residents of Mokena successfully voted to incorporate the community, after at least two failed previous attempts. At the time, our nation’s flag had 38 stars, President Rutherford B. Hayes was in the White House, and the Civil War had been over for 15 years. Ours was a small town of a few hundred residents nestled amid rural surroundings along the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. In these days of yore, young Mokena could sometimes be a rough and tumble place. Serious crime was rare, but hardly a weekend passed that didn’t contain alcohol-fueled rowdiness on the part of farm hands, laborers, and other residents of the area, all of whom were well supplied by the seven saloons in town. 

 

   One of the new village board’s first acts was to build a calaboose, a place to house offenders while they sobered up. In November 1880, a local carpenter of Hessian birth named Wilhelm Stermer was given the contract to construct the small building, his price being $120, or around $3,200 in today’s money. The town fathers chose a site for the calaboose that, in their words, was located “on the road east of H.J. Miller’s lane and joining Elijah McGovney’s farm.” While the McGovney farm abutted the railroad tracks on the southern edge of the village, where this exact spot would correspond to in modern Mokena isn’t totally clear. By January of 1881, the small, rustic building was completed, and as noted in the original village ordinances, any inmate was entitled to “a supply of good and wholesome food three times a day.”

 

   The calaboose was not long for its first home. In May 1884, barely three years after having been built, and for reasons lost in the ether of time, the diminutive structure was moved to a lot on Front Street, it now being situated across the street from the blacksmith shop of Robert Turner. The jail sat on village owned property, sharing the piece of land with a wooden engine house, which contained the horse-drawn vehicle belonging to Mokena’s newly formed fire company. 

   

   Shortly after the move to the village proper, a few improvements were made to the town lockup, namely the addition of a window, and also of a wood-burning stove. With winter approaching, the village board decreed in the fall of 1886 that vagrants, or “tramps, which cannot be gotten rid of otherwise”, would be locked in the calaboose overnight by Mokena’s sole police constable. In exchange for his services, the board would compensate him 25 cents per drifter upon their release at daybreak. Undoubtedly glad to escape the biting Midwestern cold in the glare of the jail’s stove, it was up to the inmates to feed it from crates of wood kept in the building’s two cells.     

 

   In theory, one cell was for male offenders, while the other would be reserved for women, although historical evidence is lacking that there were ever many prisoners of the gentler persuasion. The calaboose’s accommodations were not anything to write home about, consisting of a few rough plank bunks that hung from the wall via a chain along with some scratchy blankets. What the jail lacked in comfort, it did not make for in security measures. A notable occurrence was the 1909 imprisonment of two Chicago youths who had been caught shoplifting, and their subsequent escape under the cover of darkness, when they burned away the bastille’s door from its hinges with a red-hot poker. 

An interior view of one of the calaboose's two cells. It was not a place known for creature comforts. (Image courtesy of Sandy Vasko and the Will County Historical Museum and Research Center)

   Every man who spent a night here had a story, be he a local who had gotten too acquainted with John Barleycorn, or a stranger who blew into town bent on causing trouble. Included on the record of years, is the inebriated chimney sweep who trundled off a Rock Island train in December 1903. As soon as he got to Mokena, he “became vociferous at once” and in the words of a local news correspondent, village constable Oscar Klose set about “to place him where he would have just himself for an audience.” The liquored-up man proved too much for Klose to handle, who had to secure the help of Front Street blacksmith Albert Braun and town butcher Paul Rinke in wrangling the offender to the calaboose. “Appearing as crazy as a loon for a time”, the stranger wound up smashing the stove and one of the bunks into smithereens during his stay.  

 

   Not all those who spent time in the old calaboose were law breakers. It was not uncommon for traveling wanderers, romantically deemed “knights of the road”, to track down the constable and request to spend the night in the domicile. If it wasn’t otherwise occupied, their wish would usually be granted. One such lodger was 66-year-old visitor John Felix in February 1913. Village officer Conrad Schenkel had kindling and coal on hand for building a fire that wintry night, and reminded Felix that he could help himself to a pail of water if he got thirsty. The out-of-towner replied that he hadn’t had any water in 13 years, only sating his thirst with beer, liquor or coffee. In fact, the Christmas season of 1912 was so exceptionally busy in terms of itinerant travelers, that lawman Schenkel had the idea to keep a logbook in which the names and place of origin of each wayfarer would be kept. 

 

   The wooden jail occupied a prime location within the village, situated on the outer edge of the business district on Front Street. So it was that in 1916, Mokena’s first village hall, a small brick structure still standing at 10940 Front Street, was slated to be built on the site of the old calaboose. By this point in its history, the lockup was a little worse for the wear. William Semmler, the town correspondent to the Joliet Herald-News and, incidentally, the village clerk, called it “a disgrace to the village and not a fit place in which to lock up a man.” Another observer from the same time also dismissed it as an “ancient pile.” Thus after having stood at this spot for 32 years, the old shack was relocated yet again. This time, the mover was Dick McGovney, a local man who bought the primitive structure for $20. After putting a series of log rollers under the building, he attached it to a team of four horses and had it dragged a half mile south across fields to its new home. 

 

   As he would come to be a figure indivisible with the history of the old calaboose, it’s worth a detour to explore the life of McGovney at a closer level. Every locale, from the biggest city to the tiniest hamlet, has citizens forever associated with it. Place and person become inseparable, and someone who could be called “pure Mokena” was Dick McGovney. Born Walter McGovney on his parents’ farm just outside the small village on February 21^st, 1862, his lineage bespeaks local history. His grandfather, John McGovney, became in 1831 the first non-native resident of what would become Mokena, while his mother’s dad, Mathew Van Horne, was another early settler of Frankfort Township. Not long after Walter’s birth, his father, Elijah McGovney, began serving in President Lincoln’s army as a wagon master, and was lucky to safely return to his farm in 1865. Walter came to be called Dick, and his early years weren’t short of adventure, as he and has family struck out on the pioneer’s trail west when he was a young lad. It took the McGovneys three weeks to reach Missouri by wagon, where en route, father and son slept under the conveyance, armed and ready to fend off highwaymen. Ultimately, luck wasn’t kind to the family in their new home, and they returned to Mokena with a couple years. 

  

   As a young man, Dick attended school in Mokena until the 8^th grade, and came of age in the rural environment that was the community at the time, one of agricultural existence and small-town life. In adulthood, he spent time working in Montana, but returned home in 1911, when he declared that “Old Illinois is good enough for me.” After coming into ownership of the former jail, McGovney positioned his new house on the south side of LaPorte Road, at what is today the eastern boundary of the Mokena Park District. He lived a Spartan, rough-hewn life in this abode, with neither indoor plumbing nor electricity, and gained his only heat from the ancient wood and coal burning stove. Of the two cells, one became his living space, and the other was eventually converted into a chicken coop, the poultry being McGovney’s companions. 

 

   In the mid-1920s, Dick kept a small coal yard near the Rock Island depot, but mostly gained his livelihood by taking on odds and ends around town, and was also known to help with garden work in the village. He was the image of a farmer of the old school, coming to Mokena clad in overalls and smoking his corn cob pipe. McGovney was a lifelong bachelor, a ruggedly independent spirit, and starting around 1940, he had a steadfast companion in a black dog that was his shadow, following him everywhere he went. He was a well-known usual at Morry’s Tavern on Front Street, where the dog would patiently wait outside for his master. 

Dick McGovney of Mokena, seen here in 1945.

  

   As Dick McGovney got older, he became a much sought-after local character. When a Chicago Tribunereporter wrote the tasty booklet Mokena Memorabilia in 1945, the author called the then 84-year-old “the marvel of Mokena, for his vim, vigor and vitality.” He told the writer tales of days gone by, and especially expounded on the time he could’ve had his choice of “42 old maids and widows” in town, but “the trouble was, I couldn’t make up my mind which one I wanted.”

 

   In the sunset of McGovney’s days, his little house was almost lost in a disastrous fire. Chuck Manhart, a member of the village’s volunteer fire department and a near neighbor to Dick, was on the scene quick that day. He found smoke pouring out of the building, and as he arrived, McGovney was in the act of saving all of his canned goods from the blaze, when Manhart noticed that the old man’s hat was smoldering. He tamped the embers out of his clothes, saving the nonagenarian from serious injury. It was discovered that the would-be inferno was caused by a defect in the antique chimney. As such, the original peaked roof wound up being a complete loss. In true Mokena spirit, McGovney’s neighbors built him a new one, which this time was a completely flat construction.   

 

    Dick McGovney lived in the old calaboose for over four decades, and passed away in his simple home on January 18^th, 1958, just short of his 96^th birthday. He was interred at the historic Marshall Cemetery just west of Mokena, a burial ground that his family had been using for nearly 100 years. The News-Bulletin, the village paper, ran a long obit hailing Dick as a “link with early Mokena” and describing his free character, noted him as a “man who stood on his own two feet all his long life, and while he was always willing to give help to anyone, he never asked for any.” In his time, every resident of Mokena knew Dick McGovney, and while he’s been gone for decades, his memory still lives on in the village.

 

   The historic structure that McGovney called home sat forlorn and dilapidated on the edge of town, with more than one local child considering it haunted. By 1973, the Mokena Fire Department was considering setting it aflame for use in a practice burn, getting rid of it once and for all. Enter at this critical moment the Will County Historical Society, a group of preservation-minded individuals who cringed at the vision of the building as a heap of charred timber. After completing some formalities, a Joliet relative of Dick McGovney’s named Mary Jane Osman transferred ownership of the calaboose to the group, who delicately transported it to Lockport. Shortly after its arrival, the old lockup underwent a thorough restoration to its original 1881 appearance, aided greatly by the memories of none other than Edwin Yunker, the Mokena farmer who spent most of his life across LaPorte Road from the jail-turned-house. Today it is a centerpiece of the Heritage Village, a place where the curious come together to learn hands-on about life in days gone by. 

Mokena's old calaboose and former home of Dick McGovney, seen here at the time of its acquisition by the Will County Historical Society. (Image courtesy of Sandy Vasko and the Will County Historical Museum and Research Center)

   Few could have guessed that this simple dwelling would have survived the tides of time for these last 140 years. Its rescue is a triumph of preservation. Within its simple walls, lay nearly a century and a half of history. 

The History in Them Thar Bricks: The Story of 11034 Front Street

    It’s the face of our community, and easily the most prominent historic landmark in town, this time-honored and weathered brick building on Front Street. To see it is like beholding the face of an old friend. This author still remembers seeing his first vintage photograph of Mokena as a five-year-old, an ancient view of this place in Robert Sterling’s seminal A Pictorial History of Will County, and being awed at the age of this old spot. In passing by on a daily basis, I can’t help but to notice, no, to feel the stories of hundreds of Mokenians who have called this place theirs for well over a century, either in maintaining their residence here, running a business at this spot, or just making it a home away from home. It has seen countless comings and goings, and untold beers poured and kegs tapped. It’s none other than 11034 Front Street, the building that is now home to Little Al’s Bar and Grill. 

Today's 11034 Front Street, now home to Little Al's Bar and Grill

   When you have a story as long as this one, the best place to start is at the beginning. Anyone who is a long-time reader of my work will be familiar with the storied Schiek family of Mokena. Among the first settlers of Germanic origin to what would later be Mokena, the Schieks fled their homeland at a time of tumult and revolution and arrived in our neck of the woods in August 1848 via the small village of Neckarbischofsheim, in what is today southwestern Germany. The family unit came as one, made up of patriarch and matriarch Georg Heinrich and Juliana Rosina Schiek, as well as their seven children. Their second oldest then still living, Johann, was born on June 1^st, 1825 in the old European hometown. John, as he came to be called after he got settled here, was working the family farm by 1850, and came to maintain a saloon and inn called the Western Hotel in the new town of Mokena with his wife Helena as early as 1859, a mere seven years after the Rock Island railroad was completed. 

 

   While he tried his hand at farming again in the period immediately after the Civil War and into the 1870s, eventually coming to own two farms just outside town, the beer and hostelry business lured John Schiek back. In September 1873 Schiek bought a lot in Mokena from Luxembourgers Bernard and Anna Maria Folman for $1,600, which today is the site of Little Al’s Bar and Grill. At the time Schiek came into possession of the property, there was already a building on it, which in all likelihood, was not the structure that stands today. What exactly its function was is lost to the ages, but it appears to have been at least ten years old, and may have been the hotel of the Folmans’ Civil War veteran son, Henry. 

 

   What the fate of the original building was, whether Folman or Schiek wrecked it or had it moved, has long since dissolved in the fog of history. However, it’s worth noting that John Schiek lost a building in the village due to an attack of arson in the fall of 1875. Contemporary accounts of the blaze were not made with readers 145 years into the future in mind, and thus they leave no indication where this structure stood in town. Could it be that today’s 11034 Front Street is where this fire happened, and that the current edifice was built to replace the lost one? Without any hard documentation from the time as to these specifics, it all remains open to question. 

 

   Another fact that remains elusive at this late date is when exactly today’s building was built. Popular local lore has it that this structure was the first erected in Mokena, but closer examination of this legend reveals it to be confused with an inn built in 1853 by John Schiek’s brother-in-law, Carl Gall, a year after the arrival of the Rock Island railroad. A painstaking examination of property records indicates that Gall’s possession was further west, at the northeast corner of what is today Front Street and Wolf Road, a location that, decades later, local old timers would remember Gall’s inn occupying. 

 

   Our structure today is constructed in a style that architects would easily recognize as having vernacular aspects of the Italianate style, featuring elaborately carved wooden bracketed cornices under the building’s front-gabled roof, and tall, narrow windows on the second floor with curved crowns. That these architectural details were in vogue in the American Midwest in the era following the Civil War, would likely place the construction of this building in the time of John Schiek’s ownership of the lot, he likely having built it around 1875 or thereabouts. 

 

   Even the clay that makes up the countless bricks in this structure is worthy of note, as it came from a long-forgotten pit near the Rock Island tracks, south of today’s Francis Road, where it was baked in a kiln on site. John Schiek’s beer hall occupied the new building’s first floor. A patron, perhaps a railroad man or a farmhand whose work was done for the week, would have seen the room’s stamped tin ceiling and long, polished bar with a big mirror gracing the back bar. Not unusual in this time were a towel or two hanging off the bar’s edge, a convenience for customers to dab beer froth from their mustaches. He could even expect spittoons on the floor and a brass foot rail on the bar, all complete in the 19^th century style. Talk of the harvest, politics and local gossip would’ve abounded within these four, solid walls. As most of the Mokenians of the day were of Germanic birth or heritage, beer would’ve flowed freely here, along with bourbon and rye, also being common drinks of choice in these early years. John Schiek was in good company when he first threw open his doors at this spot, as he was joining the other six saloons in town at that time, all run by fellow Germans. 

   At around the same time the building was completed, Schiek also conducted a livery stable in Mokena. Whether or not this business ran in conjunction with the saloon, remains an open question. 

 

   The new building quickly came to be referred to as the “brick hotel” in the mouths of Mokenians, as rooms were rented out here to those passing through town. As late as the 1970s, one barkeeper claimed remnants of these confined spaces and their wallpaper were still visible in the basement. Two separate, exterior entrances led to the overnight spaces. One was an outside staircase that led down to the basement from the street level just to the west of the main entrance, which over the years, also proved to be a handy delivering spot for barrels of beer. In later years a walk-in cooler stood across from this spot in the basement. Another entry was a doorway to the east of the main entrance that led upstairs to more space for weary travelers. Both of these portals have long since been bricked over. 

 

   John Schiek was noted as keeping business in the brick hotel by a Jolietan traveler to our village in 1877, and had the misfortunate to have his chandelier come tumbling down in the summer of 1879. In a colossal understatement, one account described the mishap as “smashing things generally.” Schiek was still at the old stand in 1880, the historic year of Mokena’s incorporation, and a year later, he rented his concern to local farmer Nicholas Marti and William Becker, the town’s doctor. Their tenure slinging beer was short however, for John and Helena Schiek’s oldest son Charles began running the show here right after New Year 1882. In this era, the place was called the National Hotel, and the correspondent to the Joliet Republic, a local known only as Frank, beamed that Charles would “keep a first-class house” and also promised that he’d “give the boys an opening dance.” A short time later, the paper noted that the younger Schiek had settled into the brick hotel, and in giving him some free advertising, said that he “sets a good table, takes care of his friends, and keeps good beer and fine wines and liquors.” That Charles Schiek’s was the place for merry-making in Mokena is plainly displayed by the accounts of the many parties, masquerades and even “grand balls” that were held there throughout the 1880s. 

 

   The combination saloon-hotel also served a dual purpose, namely as that of a meeting place. Starting on December 5^th, 1883, the Mokena village board under mayor Ozias McGovney began using part of Schiek’s basement to hold their monthly gatherings. For supplying them with space, the town dads paid the saloon keeper $4.50 a month, or around $125 in today’s money. Village elections were also held in the basement from time to time. Imagine Charles Schiek’s disappointment when incoming mayor Noble Jones knocked down the rent to a mere $1.50 a month in the spring of 1884. 

 

   The brick hotel could occasionally be a rough and tumble place. Towards the end of July 1880, a local troublemaker named Jacob Weber savagely beat an Irishman for some long-forgotten offense here. Perhaps too romantically referred to as a “youthful desperado” by the Joliet Sun, Weber “kicked and pounded in a disgraceful manner” the unnamed Irish railroad worker, who was too intoxicated to fight back.  Lucky for peace and order, Weber was arrested immediately and hit with a $10 fine. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be his last violent offense in the village.

   This sometimes-rough atmosphere is further evidenced by a grisly barroom brawl in early March 1891. During this bloodletting, farmer John Huwiler stabbed fellow agriculturist Myron Jordan a trifle above the eye with a knife. The blow was such a severe one, that the blade of the dagger broke off in Jordan’s skull. An old Union soldier, Jordan lived with the blade embedded in his cranium for five ghastly years, until it was finally surgically removed in 1896. 

 

   The structure itself was also not free of issues, even in these early years. The village board of health visited the property in November 1881, and in a bewildered report, found that the basement floor was “covered with water” and that a bad leak in the roof had gotten into four upper rooms. They declared the building “in a dangerous condition to live in on account of dampness” and ordered the Schieks to remedy the problems. 

 

   John Schiek, the father of this landmark, died of Bright’s Disease complicated by the flu in February 1890. In testament to his prominent standing in the village, as well as his having held a trusteeship in town at his passing, the mayor and village trustees issued a resolution of respect expressing their sorrow over his passing. His mortal remains found their final resting place in St. John’s Cemetery just south of Mokena. 

 

   As is the case for many areas of our community’s history, happenings in this location aren’t easy to bring into focus during the 1890s. A lack of hard sources such as local newspapers and clear recollections for this specific portion of the village’s history contribute to this blank spot, these dark ages, on the record of our years.  What is known, however, is that during the exciting days of the great World’s Columbian Exposition of Chicago in 1893, the brick hotel was home to a saloon run by Frank Moriarty. Part of a well-known farming family whose acreage was situated just west of Mokena, Moriarty submitted his first dram shop bond to the village in January 1892, and his last in October of the following year. It may not have even been this family’s first foray into business here, as there is evidence that Frank’s older brother, auctioneer Charles Moriarty, may have briefly conducted a watering hole here as early as 1887. Nevertheless, the exact nature of the Moriartys involvement in business here remains hazy, as they appear to have run another saloon further west down Front Street in this same period at the end of the 19^th century, and the few extant records of the day don’t differentiate between the two establishments. 

 

   The old basement still served as council chambers for the village board during this timeframe, with the arrangement that Frank Moriarty furnish the light in these days before electric illumination beamed in Mokena. By the end of the decade, the board was holding its meetings elsewhere. As if these years couldn’t get any murkier, it is known that by some point in the 1890s, the property came into the hands of George Geuther, member of an old Frankfort Township tribe. What was happening at this location during the Geuther years has been difficult to pin down. It is known that a man from Braceville whose name is alternately recorded as James Powell or Rowell set up a saloon here in 1898, but this, like Frank Moriarty’s venture, appears to have been a very short-lived concern. Within a year, one George Hader opened a barbershop in the basement. 

 

   The turn of the 20^th century is a very unique time in the story of this place, as it marks the only era in its entire history in which it wasn’t a saloon or an inn. Known around town as Geuther Hall, at least two of Mokena’s churches used the building to hold functions, such as the socials held here by the German United Evangelical St. John’s Church in the fall of 1901, and also the Baptist Sunday school and services that took place at this spot, as this congregation had just lost their own building in a court battle with the local Methodists. Not to be left out, the newly formed and modernly named 20^th Century Band held practice here. 

 

   A turning point in this landmark’s history dawned when Frank E. Hirsch moved in, taking over the saloon facilities of Charles Miller of Joliet, who had been in business for less than a year. Hirsch welcomed guests to his grand opening on December 15^th, 1902, and served a bowl of oysters with every beer on Christmas Day. The first day of business was even noticed by the Joliet News, but it wasn’t necessarily good press. Under the headline “Hilarious Saloon”, the correspondent sarcastically quipped that “if noise and drunkenness are essential to the proper opening of a saloon, it was a success.” Prominent citizens were seen amongst the revelers, and village constable Oscar Klose was even summoned to deal with some “out of town people (who) got into a mix-up.”

An idyll of yesteryear: Frank Hirsch's saloon, circa 1905. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn) 

 

   Frank Hirsch’s start in the watering hole business ushered in a long era of stability, breaking the chain of fleeting enterprises here. From our standpoint in the year 2020, we’d be remiss not to take a closer look at this long-time owner and proprietor, as his family name is one of those writ largest in Mokena’s history. Born on December 29, 1862 in Mokena, the family of his father was one of the few to proudly say that they arrived here on the wild prairie before Mokena was built. After the Rock Island railroad came ten years prior to his birth, Hirsch’s father became a prominent figure in community business circles, owning a store and eventually running the grain elevator. The Hirsches also came into possession of a big farm at the northwest side of today’s Wolf Road and 195^th Street, which in later years would be worked by Frank’s brothers, who were considered to be some of the leading dairymen in this region. Frank Hirsch grew up in Mokena, and after marrying local girl Philippine Zahn in 1884, moved to Blue Island and Chicago where he worked as a fireman for the Rock Island, feeding coal into the fireboxes of puffing, soot-spitting locomotives. After being gone from the old hometown for 17 years, the Hirsches moved back to Mokena, where all paths led Frank to saloon keeping. 

 

   In Hirsch’s era, as well as those before him, the saloon was strictly the domain of men, with no women being allowed entry as customers, at least not to those of a “proper” upbringing. Inside, the barroom was thick with cigar smoke, a place where local men congregated to engage in dominos or long card games such as skat or euchre. A hearty meal could be had at Hirsch’s as well, with Philippine Hirsch being long remembered for her skills in the kitchen. It would later be recalled that during hunting season, roast raccoon would even be on the menu. An integral part of Frank Hirsch’s life as a saloonist was the annual ice harvest. In the years before modern refrigeration, village tavern owners relied on huge blocks of ice sawed out of Hickory Creek in the dead of winter to cool their beer, which was stored in specially built icehouses to last the whole year. During the cold winter of January 1903, the local crystal was about a foot thick and took Hirsch and his helper Erhardt Oswald two days to cut. 

 

   Early on in the Hirsch years, the place was starting to show its age. It got spruced up when two to five feet of crumbling brick along the top of the building were replaced in May 1903. Frank Hirsch installed a new beer cooler in his basement right after, and in the spring of 1912 had a small brick addition built on to the north side of the main structure. Typical of everyday hassles around the bar was the swarm of bees that took up residence in a crevice in the saloon’s window in July 1909. They were back the following March, and said to be “merrily flying about the place.” They were still there in May, when Bill Semmler, Mokena’s correspondent to the Joliet News, said they were “making things interesting” around the old place. 

 

   A well-known face around town, Frank Hirsch was elected by his fellow townsmen to the office of village trustee in 1912, an office he held until 1916. With the coming of national prohibition and the passage of the Volstead Act in 1920, history hasn’t left us any details as to how this effected Hirsch and his business, although one source whimsically lists him as a “café owner” in 1928. With the repeal to the 18^th Amendment in 1933, he was able to legally sell beer and hard spirits again, and was going as strong as ever. Frank Hirsch hung up his apron in 1941 after 39 years selling beer in the same spot. At this time, he rented the business to his son, Frank Jr. The younger Hirsch held a grand re-opening, modernized the place by adding electric refrigeration, and also opened a special room in the brick building for events. 

Hirsch's Tavern, seen here in the World War II years. Note basement entrance to the left of the front door. (Image courtesy of Rick Muehler)

 

   Yet another juncture in the grand tradition of this location came in the history-making year 1945, at which time Richard and Eleanore Muehler purchased the bar from the Hirsch family, after more than four decades of their ownership. The Muehlers held their opening for the new tavern on May 12^th, 1945, at a time when the village and the rest of the country was in a state of euphoria over the end of the Second World War in Europe, the event having only taken place five days previously. Like the Hirsches, the family name Muehler is one that occupies no small place in Mokena’s long history. Richard Arno Muehler was the second owner of this establishment to have been born in Germany, first entering the world on May 16^th, 1910 in a town called Frohburg in the country’s east. After being brought to America by his parents at the tender age of three months, the family originally called Joliet home, before settling in Mokena in 1923. Much like his forebear, Frank Hirsch, the 13-year-old would inherit a business tradition in our community, as his father, Martin Muehler, would open a butcher shop a little further east down Front Street the year they moved to town.  

Richard and Eleanore Muehler at their Front Street Tavern, circa 1945. 

(Image courtesy of Rick Muehler)

 

   When Richard and Eleanore Muehler first took over the old brick tavern in 1945, they and their 4-year-old daughter Barbara lived in what is today the place’s kitchen, while the former inn space on the second floor was being converted into a three-bedroom apartment. Within two years of their start here, Mildred and Tex Morris were running a restaurant in conjunction with the tavern, where 65 cents could get a hungry patron lunch. Later on, a gentleman whose last name was Roman sold pizzas as well. 

 

   In the early 1960s, Richard Muehler made some significant improvements around the building, namely sealing off the Front Street-facing basement entrance, and having the large stone platform in front of the main entrance removed, a relic from the days of horse-drawn carriages. One local observer at the time said that Muehler’s was “the hub of many activities” in town, with a fixture at the tavern over the years being feather parties, the name given to lively get-togethers where dressed turkeys and live ducks and geese would be raffled off to attendees. Rick Muehler, the son of proprietors Richard and Eleanore, simply remembers them as “the best time ever.” The turkeys were brought in from a farm in Manhattan, while the live fowl was ferried into Mokena via pick-up truck. On the night of a party, the ducks and geese would all be kept on the building’s back porch until they were handed out to the winners. It wouldn’t be unheard of for 100 boxed turkeys to be raffled off in a night. Rick Muehler remembers the inside of the tavern being so packed on feather party nights that it was hard to walk. During a party, sixty wooden paddles would be sold for $0.25 each, then a wheel would be spun numbered 1 to 60. If the number the wheel landed upon corresponded to a sold paddle, then that patron won a turkey. While Muehler was never awake late enough to see the ducks and geese get dispersed, he does remember that on the morning after, the tavern’s floor would be covered with feathers. 

 

   During Mokena’s fabled annual Homecoming celebrations, the Muehlers’ tavern was always a focal point. In addition to the various carnival rides and games that were set up along Front Street, Richard Muehler would build a beer garden in the establishment’s driveway, complete with a big bar and lights strung up. In addition to the usual beverages such as beer and hard liquor, Rick Muehler remembers it being an exciting time for neighborhood kids, as the selection of pop in the beer garden was significantly larger than it normally was at the tavern. During the year, only Coke, 7-Up and Squirt would be on hand, but during Homecoming little bottles of Canfield’s Cherry, Black Cherry, Strawberry, Root Beer, and Cream Soda could be had. 

After the infamous Homecoming of 1956, when a tornado-like storm swept into town and toppled a pole that injured a reveler, fest-goers thronged Muehler’s to get out of the weather, and before all was said and done, their soaked clothing left at least a quarter inch of water on the historic building’s floor. At the same time, a large tree in the back yard was struck by lightning, its toppling having the misfortune to crush Rudy and Irene Kurnat’s new Ford auto that they had just won through a drawing sponsored by St. Mary’s church. 

 

   After Richard Muehler’s untimely passing in 1965, his widow Eleanore ran the show at the tavern until it was sold to Pete and Ron Michalski in November of 1966. In the earliest years of the 1970s, Bonnie Clegg tried her hand at barkeeping here, wistfully calling the place Bonnie’s Never Inn, or alternately, the Old Hotel Inn. Mokena was still very much a rural place in this era, as it wasn’t unusual for customers to ride up on horses and hitch them up behind the building. After the tenure of Bonnie Clegg, the tavern came into the hands of World War II veterans Dick and Bob Fortman, then it became the property of Joe Walsh, who towards the end of the 1970s, changed the name of the establishment to The Mokena Inn. He sought to usher in an era of change to the old landmark, as the bar had recently been saddled with something of an unsavory reputation. Just after he took over, Walsh recounted that “arguments were (being) settled with fist fights or bottles smashed over unsuspecting heads.” In 1977, he overhauled the place by completely gutting the first floor and lowering the ceiling of the ancient barroom, covering the historic stamped tin that once covered it. He also had the vines scraped off the building, and covered half of each huge front window with board. 20 pounds of bees, an annoyance at this location for at least two generations, if not more, were also removed from a cornice. 

 

   In the mid 1980s, the property passed through another set of hands until 1985, when it was sold to Al Pizzato, who promptly opened Little Al’s Bar and Grill in this historic location, which remains open to thirsty customers to this day. He’s been at the old stand for 35 years and counting, and is now a veritable king of Front Street. (Incidentally, this knightly honor is also shared by Bob Braeunig, who in the same year opened Mokena Video on the opposite end of Front Street, also still in operation today)

 

   The old brick hotel, this timeless, priceless landmark, is a font of local flavor and antiquity. This author would like to think that all the faces, voices and tales of years gone by have been retained by the building, all stored in its craggy masonry for eternity. If there was only a way to tap into it like so many kegs have been, we’d be swept away in a tidal wave of Mokena history.

   (Special thanks to Rick Muehler, from one Mokenian to another, for his invaluable and enlightening assistance to the author in the writing of this piece.)

In Memoriam: Joe Srsnick

   A pall has been cast over the village, as we have lost one of our best citizens. On Monday, November 30^th, Joe Srsnick of Bryant Road crossed the great beyond, at the sagely age of 90 years, mere days after the passing of his beloved wife, Josie. A brave veteran of the Korean War, in which Joe served as a medic, this author had the advantage of being acquainted with him upwards of 20 years. An amateur archaeologist since his childhood, many were the times when we both trudged through underbrush in and around Mokena to some long-forgotten farmhouse foundation, in order to do rudimentary excavations in search of ancient coins, bottles and other such detritus of yesteryear.

   Joe also worked tirelessly in the name of historic preservation, serving on the Will County Historic Preservation Commission, and being an early and long-time member of the second incarnation of the Mokena Area Historical Society. He also gave countless hours of his own time and expense restoring the historic tombstones of our forefathers at Pioneer and St. Mary’s Cemeteries. Joe was always a staunch supporter of the endeavors and projects in my efforts to research and document our community’s history, and his influence meant for great things in this work. Joe Srsnick will neither be easily replaced nor ever forgotten.  

Joe and Josie Srsnick at home in Mokena. (image courtesy of Marianne Lulinski)