On a walk down Front Street, one is greeted by many familiar sights. Here the Curtain Call Theater, there Tribes Beer Company, not to mention other local mainstays. As part of our village streetscape, it’s easy to become so used to the scene that many of these buildings are easy to take for granted. Notwithstanding, our most historic structures demand our attention and appreciation, and one of these is the old structure at 11116 Front Street, which most recently was known as Paul E’s restaurant. In the last two decades of the twentieth century, this place was A Pizza, a Front Street fixture. A well-known gathering place for Mokena’s youth, this writer whiled away countless hours here with his friends, counting many days of joy and mirth in this spot, which on more than a few weekends, could become quite crowded. It’s easy to find a Mokenian who can remember both of these eateries, but the history of this landmark reaches back well over 150 years, and includes more than a few interesting personalities.
History runs deep at 11116 Front Street.
The heart of this story, like so many in our fair village, lies with a member of the storied Schiek family. Georg Heinrich and Juliana Rosina Schiek were old natives of Neckarbischofsheim in the German grand duchy of Baden. Building their family there, the couple welcomed eleven children to their fold, before leaving the old country and emigrating to America in August 1848, arriving on the heels of unrest and revolution in their homeland. Setting foot in Chicago with 300 five-franc pieces in their name, the Schieks stayed there only a few days before trudging on foot southward, before they came to their new home in what would become Frankfort Township. Georg Heinrich and Juliana Rosina’s middle son, Ferdinand, came into the world on September 12th, 1832 and was 16 years old when his family set down their stakes in our midst. He tried his hand at farming, the family profession, and would later even come into his own acreage a little further west from the family homestead down what is today 187th Street, near where Marley now stands.
In the spring of 1871, Ferdinand Schiek entered the business world of Mokena when he bought a Front Street lot and the two parcels adjoining to the north and northeast from Peter Knapp, valued altogether at $2,500. This is the property that is today known as 11116 Front Street. At the time of Schiek’s purchase, a building already stood here, however, it was likely not the structure which currently stands on this spot. Boasting decorative wooden cornices and framed windows, this rambling edifice is a stunning example of the vernacular Italianate architecture that was popular in the American Midwest in the years following the Civil War. This current structure and all of its outward treasures likely dates from the time of Ferdinand Schiek’s acquisition of the property.
Interestingly, the building’s northern half, tucked behind the main structure like a shy child, is of an even older vintage, displaying attributes of the Greek Revival style, a feature seen in Mokena houses in the 1850s and 1860s, the earliest period of our village’s history. This is possibly the first building on the lot, and it’s not out of the realm of possibility that it was pushed a few yards to the north to make room for a new building. Alternately, it may have been moved from elsewhere at a later date and then tacked on to the main structure.
The northern, or rear portion of 11116 Front Street is likely the oldest part of the structure.
To segue back to the principal section of the building that faces Front Street, Ferdinand Schiek opened a saloon within these walls around 1871, where he was also known to board guests overnight. Along with a host of other Mokena and Frankfort saloonists, he was indicted by the Will County grand jury in early 1879 for “selling drink to a habitual drunkard.” A trial soon followed in the county seat, which took up two days and the testimony of some 50 witnesses. By the time the dust was settled, Schiek and his fellow barkeeps were each fined $20 and costs by the court, along with 20 days in jail, the time in the lockup to let up as soon as the fine was paid. The Joliet media was decidedly aligned against them, the Daily News of that place blustering “That should teach them to look out for these old suckers, who should be fined for each offense, just the same as the saloon keeper who sells it to them.”
Legal trouble notwithstanding, Ferdinand Schiek became very successful in his business, as is evidenced by his Christmastime 1883 purchase of a musical machine which, in the words of the Will County Advertiser, “is a whole brass band within itself.” The buy set Schiek back $600, or about $16,000 in today’s money. On Christmas, he treated his customers to a concert from the contraption. He appears to have kept up the watering hole and hostelry until the end of 1891, when he and his wife Louisa sold the property to Mokenian Charles Moriarty and his younger brothers George and Frank at the end of that year for $2,400, from whence the Schieks moved to Joliet. His life caught dramatically short; Ferdinand perished there in early 1897 in a ghastly fire.
New owner Charles Gilson Moriarty was a lifelong native of the Mokena area, and a Civil War hero to boot, having volunteered for duty in the 20th Illinois Volunteer Infantry as a 17-year-old year old in October 1864, having exaggerated his age by a year. He later became an auctioneer, where he was known around town as “Colonel.” Moriarty cried sales all over the region, and was also known for his ability to do them in German, which made him much in demand amongst Mokena’s Teutonic population. In the tradition of the building, the Colonel and his brothers ran a beer hall here, but they weren’t long for this place, as they flipped it in January 1893 to John Wannemacher.
The Wannemacher bunch were another old Mokena family, arriving in our neighborhood as early as 1848 via Erzhausen, a small village near the Hessian town of Langen in south central Germany, a point of origin for many of our earliest pioneers. As luck would have it, the Wannemachers carved out their home off of today’s 187th street, a stone’s throw from the aforementioned Schieks. John Wannemacher was born March 24th, 1850, and like his neighbor Ferdinand Schiek, was an agriculturist in the earliest years of his life, before opening his own tap room in Schiek’s old building on Front Street in 1893, the same year of Chicago’s legendary Columbian Exposition.
John Wannemacher’s saloon became a Front Street mainstay, and could also be quite a lively place, as is shown by the dance he gave on July 4th, 1902. Mokena’s correspondent to the Lockport Phoenix-Advertiser, in referencing the party with a thoroughly salty mien, wrote that there was “considerable doin’ that day and next down in the west end”, in fact so much that some “came near forgetting where the beginning was and when the finish should occur.” Another newsworthy party happened here in October 1910, this time not for its raucousness, but for the fact that each of its guests arrived in autos, new-fangled machines that were not yet often seen on village streets. One of three saloons in town during its time, Wannemacher’s boasted billiard tables, an ornately carved wooden bar, a stack of wooden kegs in one corner, and spittoons on the floor for its guests. Beginning to show its age, John Wannemacher spruced up the place in the summer of 1914, just as World War I was about to kick off in Europe.
Aside from being a liquor purveyor, Wannemacher was also a civically minded resident, and served as a village trustee from 1904 to 1906. He sold beer at this location for decades, until the 1920 country wide prohibition on the sale and manufacture of most kinds of alcohol almost threw him out of business. The federal census that year listed John Wannemacher as the operator of a “soft drink parlor.” Around this timeframe, his son George, who tended the bar and waited tables in the tavern, began to take more of an active role in the affairs of the business. George Wannemacher was a unique personage in Mokena’s history, if only for a very serious disability that he had, namely the loss of his left eye. While working on a Minnesota farm as a 21-year-old in the summer of 1907, Wannemacher and some of the other young men he worked with were experimenting with dynamite caps and electric currents. While holding two caps in each hand, an electric battery was switched on and the wire touched to his hands, causing an explosion of “almost fatal results.” The young Wannemacher was sent to a specialist in Chicago for his severely injured eye, whereupon the doctor in charge ultimately removed it.
Like his father, George Wannemacher was elected to a spot on the Mokena village board, and held this office from 1919 to 1925. As the town and nation at large were officially dry for most of this time, the former taverns in the community removed the coverings on their storefront windows, in an effort to prove there was no shady business going on within. Oddly, George Wannemacher’s stayed in place, and when the village board asked him what was going on, he became oddly defensive. Rumors swirled around town, which eventually made their way to the county seat at Joliet. So it was that on the evening of January 19th, 1925, Will County Sheriff’s deputies raided the property, and discovered gambling equipment such as punch boards, as well as illegal moonshine, whiskey and wine. These items and Wannemacher himself were hauled to Joliet by the deputies. The village trustee made bail, but wound up paying a hefty $700 fine for keeping these materials on his property.
After having gotten his dose of legal medicine, a change of business was in order for George Wannemacher. He put saloon keeping (legal or not) behind him, and converted his place into a grocery store. Opening his newly-branded doors to Mokena on June 24th, 1925, after having the building “newly remodeled and painted”, Wannemacher carried “the standard brands of package, bottled and canned goods” as well as fruit and vegetables in season. He was a liberal advertiser in Mokena’s village newspaper, the News-Bulletin, one ad from July of his opening year reminded customers that a dry goods line had been added to the grocery department, and that shoppers would find “men’s work and dress shirts, overalls, straw hats, sheeting, calicos, ginghams and notions” at the store. Another from a year later boosted three ponds of Peaberry coffee for $1.35, one quart of Dellwood cocoa for 25 cents, and two cans of Freesland peas for the same price. Illustrative of the rural environment that was our village at the time, the store was kept open until 9:00 p.m. during threshing season.
The grocery store of George Wannemacher at today's 11116 Front Street, seen here around 1950. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)
Mokena was good to George Wannemacher and his business, sustaining him throughout the Great Depression and World War II. An accordion studio found a home in the building during the post-war years, and customers to the store could hear musicians practicing. In the prosperity of this era, the store became affiliated with chain of Midwest Stores, and in accordance with its color scheme, the front façade was painted yellow. Wannemacher also began carrying frozen food for the first time, and completed an addition to the western side of his building in the spring of 1955.
George Wannemacher (left) at the Front Street store with his nephew Wilbur Teske (center), and customer Margaret Madsen, 1962.
After 39 years in business on Front Street, George Wannemacher retired and sold the concern to his nephew, Wilbur Teske, in 1964. Teske kept up the store in the tradition of his uncle, which was simply known as Wilbur’s in the mouths of many locals, and it was known as a place among Mokena youth as a good spot to cash in empty pop bottles and spend the proceeds on penny candy. After Teske’s long tenure here, the old landmark became the home of a ski and sport shop briefly, before Bill Frankenberger opened A Pizza here in the 1980s. Feeding countless village folk until well into the early 21st century, this eatery was a home away from home for the youth who came to bask in the glow of the Ms. Pac-Man machine or smile at the motorized pizza chef in the window with his fuzzy mustache and outstretched hand. Around 2004, a new restaurant, Paul E’s, set up shop here.
Nowadays, the old place is for sale, and its future is in question. It’s been vacant for more than several years, and word on the street is that it’s not in optimal shape. When knowledgeable villagers are asked about this landmark, the asker is told with a downturned voice and furrowed brow that it “needs work.” As one of the lasts of its era in our village, it is imperative that this building be saved, if not for us, then for future Mokenians, so that they may understand where we came from as a community. Renown American author Robert Heinlein said “A generation which ignores history has no past – and no future.” Mokena, will this be our fate?
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