The automobile is an integral part of American life. From getting to and from work or school, or even taking a road trip cross country, it’s impossible to imagine our lives without cars, and nothing says American auto like Ford. An old company with 118 years already under its belt, it should only be natural that such a time-honored concern would have a long-seated connection with Mokena, one of the oldest communities in northeast Illinois. Founded in 1916, the Cooper & Hostert Ford agency was famous not just in Mokena, the community it called home for decades, but throughout the wide expanse of greater Will County. Going all the way back to the start of this illustrious village business, tracing the roots through the years like a family tree, we come to the two men who started it all, Elmer Cooper and Barney Hostert.
The scion of a deep-rooted Orland family, Elmer Lucerne Cooper was born in that locale on July 14th, 1879. As a tiny one and a half-year-old, he, his parents and brother moved to a farm at the far southern edge of the township, about two miles north of Mokena, at what is today Wolf Road and 179th Street. There Elmer came of age, a boy amongst rural and agricultural surroundings, attending school in the nearby one-room Maue schoolhouse. He married 21-year-old Ella Caroline Lauffer, the daughter of a well-established Homer Township family in February 1902, at which time the couple moved to Goodland, Indiana, where they farmed for around five years. During the Coopers’ sojourn in the Hoosier state, they also welcomed two children to the world, Florence and Harold. Ultimately coming back to this neck of the woods, the young family rented a farm belonging to Mokena’s Kropp family, having stood a few yards north of today’s intersection of Wolf Road and Route 6. Tilling the soil at this spot was no easy task; Elmer began to seek help with the job, and came to hire Barney Hostert, who moved in with the family. First recorded living with the Coopers by a census taker in 1910, Hostert was a 19-year-old native of Homer Township.
Having forged a bond under the hard work of a farmer’s lot, the dream of private enterprise loomed large for these two entrepreneurs. This pair of men, who would come to shine so prominently in Mokena’s history, set about to open the first garage and auto dealership in the village. What led the partnership to enter this burgeoning business cannot be reconstructed through the fog of time, but it is known that the two pooled their resources and constructed a brand-new building in town to serve as their headquarters. Located immediately north of the sprawling Mokena Hall on Front Street, the new structure facing First Street was the store front of the Cooper & Hostert Ford agency, their doors opening for the first time on Thursday, September 21, 1916. In assembling their staff, Fred Hentsch, a young Mokena resident, was taken on as a mechanic. Rounding out the shop, the new firm also had permission from the village board to set up a gas tank in front of their building.
The new business didn’t have to wait long for its inaugural customer. On their first day, the car of George Mager, a local farmer, happened to break down nearby, and he received prompt service at the garage. So impressed was he by his treatment, that Mager remained a steadfast customer 30 years later. The agency made its first auto sale to Charles Liess, a Mokena baker and village trustee. He bought a 1916 Model T Ford that cost him $360. In this era, new cars for sale were shipped to the village via the Rock Island railroad, and they arrived CKD, or “Completely Knocked Down,” meaning that each vehicle arrived over the rails in pieces, which were then built by Cooper & Hostert in the garage on First Street. Reflecting the rural atmosphere that was Mokena in their time, the agency also sold Ford tractors as well.
At the very beginning, it would be remembered that “patronage was good and business increased.” With things going so swiftly, an obstacle reared its head that nearly derailed everything. The Cooper & Hostert Ford agency started business at a time when the world was in great unrest, with World War I raging in Europe. The United States entered the fray less than a year after the concern opened up shop, and Barney Hostert was summoned for service in the army in 1918. Completing a soldier’s training, the war ended before he could get to it, sparing him the horrors of combat. When Barney was away, Elmer Cooper carried on business affairs by himself, all the while being earnestly helped by his worthy assistant, none other than his 13-year-old son Harold. Almost 30 years later, the Coopers looked back fondly and said that “Boys will be boys, and at a certain age, they all seem to know a great deal; so father and son had many interesting moments in making decisions.”
With the war over, Barney Hostert came back to his business in Mokena, and promptly married Viola Lauffer, the younger sister of Ella Cooper, around 1919. Together they had five children, namely Bernice, Charles, Eleanor, Arthur and Norma, all of whose names are still well-known in community circles to this day.
In 1920, Cooper & Hostert were so busy that they had sold 67 cars in the first six months of that year. Commerce hummed along at such a pace that their little building on First Street was bursting at the seams, and so it was that the firm bought its neighbor immediately to the south, the old Mokena Hall, in the summer of 1923. They didn’t have to work too much on converting the rambling building into a garage and auto dealership, as the previous tenants, the partnership of Hentsch Brothers had previously had a go in the business here, specializing in Chandlers, Chevrolets, and Reo trucks. Once Cooper & Hostert got settled into the Front Street building, they retained ownership over the previous workspace just behind the building, converting it into a place for storage.
The Cooper & Hostert Ford Agency of Mokena, seen here in 1928. The old building was lost in a disastrous 1993 fire, and stood at what is today 11020 Front Street.
As a sign of his stature in the village, in 1928 Elmer Cooper was called one of the “enterprising and progressive business men of Mokena.” A well-respected local enterprise combined with a prominent location in town led the garage to become a social focal point for the community, even serving as something like an informal city hall. For decades, the building served as a polling place, not to mention the bench in front of the building that was a gathering spot for villagers, who game to gossip, discuss (and cuss) local politics, and everything in between. Elmer Cooper’s granddaughter, Dolores Barenz, remembers the garage’s work area being open to any who visited, and that it was “a meeting place for men during the day.” If no cars were in the showroom, the youth of Mokena’s Methodist church, of which the Coopers were active members, would use it as a meeting place. The showroom was also the site of many a successful bake sale by the Methodist ladies, usually held about once a month on Saturdays. All of this combined activity made the building busy as a beehive on Front Street.
Elmer Cooper (left) and Barney Hostert (right) sit on the bumper of an auto at the Front Street garage circa 1930. The stripped-down car to their right was used for a form of polo played near Marley in this era.
Mokenian Dave Bergman, who started working for Cooper & Hostert in 1953, has many fond memories of Elmer Cooper, describing him as “a great guy, a super guy” and as someone who was never known to visibly get mad. Dolores Barenz says that he was “a gentle man, very outgoing, generous, and community minded.” Both he and Barney Hostert were the types who would help anyone in need. Barney had the interests of Mokena foremost in his mind, and was also known to always have a characteristic plug of tobacco in his mouth.
The two proprietors wore many hats around town, the compiled list of which is impressive. Elmer Cooper became a director in Mokena school district 159 in 1924, a post he held for 30 years, not to mention his later seat as treasurer of the Mokena Chamber of Commerce and involvement with the Mokena Lions Club. Aside from these local organizations, Elmer also worked for the Will County Health Department as an investigator in the 1940s, and was a Republican precinct committeeman for many years. Both Elmer Cooper and Barney Hostert were active with the village’s chapter of the Modern Woodmen, a fraternal organization that claimed a high membership in this area. Barney gave countless hours of his time to the Mokena Volunteer Fire Department, where he was appointed assistant chief in 1932.
As a young man, Elmer Cooper’s aforementioned son Harold received an education at the Ford factory in all the workings of their vehicles, and came to join his family’s business as chief mechanic, while also working as the firm’s bookkeeper. In the fall of 1946, the Cooper & Hostert Ford agency celebrated its 30th year in business. To mark the occasion, an open house was held at the garage, which quickly turned out to be a major event in the village, as 500 guests swamped the Front Street location, no small feat, as this number represented a good percentage of Mokena’s population at the time.
A cozy gathering inside the Cooper & Hostert garage, February 1946. Gathered around the stove left to right are Harold Cooper, Roy Lembke, Vernon Haag, and Peter Mancke.
Within two years, it was time to expand, and an addition was built to the west side of the garage, running the entire length of the building, increasing capacity in the shop as well as making space for a new show room. Less than a year later, the show room was given a new ceiling and walls of knotty pine. While the concern was busy, its number of staff stayed a small and close-knit one, counting only six regular employees in the early 1950s.
Barney Hostert puts gas in a 1956 Ford Fairlane Victoria at the garage. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)
After 40 years of working in and for our village, Elmer Cooper passed away in February 1956 in what would’ve been his 77th year. As a gesture of respect, Mokena’s businesses closed during his funeral. Just over three years later, Barney Hostert also crossed the great beyond at the end of 1959. After the passing of his father, a historic shift occurred, when Harold Cooper took over the proprietorship, whereas upon Barney’s passing, his share of ownership passed to his wife, Viola. There was no better candidate to take the helm, as the younger Cooper had practically grown up in the garage at his father and uncle’s sides. He was regarded by villagers as an eminent Mokena businessman in the same way as his father, and in 1944 had been elected clerk of Frankfort Township, an office he held for decades, not to mention the post he held in local civil defense during the World War II years. Still very much a family operation, his wife Myrtle would come to take over his position as bookkeeper.
The Cooper & Hostert Ford Agency in a circa 1957 likeness. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)
As the Cooper & Hostert Ford agency entered the 1970s, business still marched forward, but Harold Cooper wasn’t getting any younger, and neither were his countless loyal customers, who were starting to ease out of driving age. The many burdens of maintaining the company ultimately led him to sell it in 1974. Merle Cooper of Orland and Ralph Sjo of Frankfort were the buyers, who kept the concern up for a year or two, until they went bankrupt.
The old garage housed various other concerns, and ultimately burned in a calamitous fire in the spring of 1993. After having weathered two world wars, a great depression, and countless other changes over the decades, the flames couldn’t erase the memories that live on in the hearts of countless villagers of this distinguished local business. Not only are the garage and its welcoming open doors so fondly remembered, but so too are all the Mokenians who called this place home.
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