As we Mokenians know, the roots of our village lie not just in agriculture, but also in the steel rail. The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad is the reason for the village’s very existence, and reflections on our collective past are filled with locomotives puffing soot. One image often overlooked in our minds’ eye is that of the humble wooden shack on the north side of the Mokena Street crossing. Aesthetically speaking, the little shanty was totally unremarkable, however it was from here that a generation of men worked a very important job. Known as flagmen for their tools of the trade, it was the responsibility of these Mokenians to assure safety at the railroad crossing in the days before electric gates. Working by themselves from the small hut, the flagmen were employees of the Rock Island who heralded the arrival of a train by standing in Mokena Street and waving a green flag, and later, a small stop sign.
While another flagman came to guard the Wolf Road crossing, the shack most widely remembered was the one that stood at the “depot crossing” on Mokena Street. Teasingly described by an early 20th century journalist as a “mansion by the tracks”, the shanty was far from it – merely a small wooden building, roughly the size of a tollbooth, complete with a stove and at least two small windows. The exact date of its construction has long since been lost to time, but sagely residents of Mokena would remember the shack first appearing as a response to a deadly accident that occurred around 1900. Comparing these memories with the historical record, it appears likely that the calamity recalled was the death Irma Reese in 1896. A teenage relative of the McGovney family, she was killed by a rushing train for the simple yet tragic reason that she didn’t look both ways while crossing the tracks.
In the immediate aftermath of the accident, the village board asked the Rock Island to “place a flagman at Mokena Street on or before June 15th, 1896.” Records indicate that a crossing guard had indeed been stationed at the crossing, but some unknown hiccup occurred that resulted in the railroad doing away with the flagman just as quickly as he had been posted. Recognizing the gravity of the situation, certain townsfolk unleashed a torrent of criticism on village trustees, who they perceived to be responsible for the guard’s absence. The buck was passed to the general manager of the Rock Island Railroad, and while he refused to have a flagman placed on Mokena Street, did compromise by suggesting that the local station helper perform the task. At a special meeting later that summer, Village Clerk John Liess drafted an indignant letter back to the company, wherein he described that this would be asking the impossible, for the overtaxed gent’s responsibilities already included “having to load and unload baggage, carry the mail bags to and from the post office” and “attending to the loading of milk and unloading of milk cans.”
Regardless of when a flagman was permanently posted to the crossing and when his shelter was constructed, Mokena’s train passengers knew it as a place to chew the fat or find solace within its walls on cold winter mornings. Among the earliest Mokenians to work the flagman’s shack upon its installation were Patrick Brennan and Thomas Kiniry, both having settled in the village years before during its infancy.
By 1909, Ferdinand Tonn was on regular duty there. A middle-aged man of German birth, Tonn waved a green flag, and was praised that year by the Joliet Weekly News as having great “artistic tastes and talents” when he spelled the village’s name in whitewashed brick and stone in the ground at the guardhouse. Not too long after this creation appeared, the status of Tonn’s shack as a hangout was threatened. The roadmaster of the Rock Island appeared in town to personally warn him not to allow people to gather there, and made it clear that any such huddlings were viewed as distractions from his duty. Apparently the order had no effect, for soon thereafter another was passed down, this one specifically mandating “no loafing”.
Looking northwest toward Front Street, local flagman Ferdinand Tonn is seen here at his post on Mokena Street, circa 1915. (Image courtesy Richard Quinn)
Ferdinand Tonn retired from his service at the crossing in 1922, at the lofty age of 70. At some point thereafter, Front Street resident and former butcher Paul Rinke Sr. took the helm, but it is unclear when and for how long. Sometime around 1931, Harry Schoen succeeded Rinke as the Mokena Street flagman, who then manned the post for about thirteen years. Called “Slim” by folks around town, Schoen was a baseball fan whose radio carried the sounds of games down Front Street. One dramatic incident highlights Slim Schoen’s time as flagman, namely the bravery he displayed saving the lives of two local women in 1941. Only days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the two ladies were disembarking from an eastbound train, when one of them took an unfortunate tumble. With a westbound locomotive barreling down on them from the other track, Schoen sprung into action and halted the departing eastbound, whereupon he then pressed the two ladies and himself flush against the side of a coach while the westbound sped past, a foot and a half from their faces. Miraculously, no one was hurt, although a local news report mentioned that they all “suffered greatly from excitement and shock.”
A leisurely day at the "mansion by the tracks" around 1915. (Image courtesy Richard Quinn)
While initially delayed by World War II, electric gates were first installed at the Mokena Street and Wolf Road crossings in the fall of 1944. Flagmen in the village were now made obsolete, and Slim Schoen was sent to Joliet to work on a crossing there. With no use for the flagmen’s shanty, the old haunt was sold privately and moved to the new Sunny Acres subdivision just north of town where it was converted into a shed. Noting the demise of the hut, Mokena’s News-Bulletin invoked its status in the village by referring to it as an “old landmark.” From here, it faded into the pages of history. While an era ended, the stories of the unique men who waved the flag here have forever been sealed into Mokena’s story.
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