Skyscraper of the Prairie: the Mokena Grain Elevator

   Mokena is built upon a solid foundation of agricultural bedrock. Farmers were the lifeblood of our community for well over a century, and when one looks in just the right places, traces of this old way of life can still be found amongst the blur of modern suburban living. One building in the heart of the village is a stalwart reminder of this heritage. The steel-clad eminence rises behind Mokena Street’s Eggcetera café, standing defiant against the tide of time, the weathered metal sign across its side reading “Ebert Farm Service” bearing mute witness to its former purpose. Turning the pages of history even further back, this hulk served as a grain elevator, a place where our farmers stockpiled their harvest. It may be hard to imagine a time when this old structure wasn’t here, keeping watch over Front Street and the Rock Island tracks, but it’s not even the first grain elevator to stand on this site. 

 

The Mokena grain elevator, a village landmark for over 135 years. 

 

   What can verily be called the first industry in Mokena started on this spot as early as 1855, a mere three years after the village was first platted, when early entrepreneur Noble Jones and his uncle, Cyrus Cross, had a flour and saw mill built here. These two men are inseparable with the early development of our community, and did business under the name of their firm, Cross & Jones. Alas, this enterprise’s success wasn’t written in the stars, and by 1858 the steam-powered mill had eaten up all of Noble Jones’s savings, and the concern winked out. After a succession of other owners, the huge structure was gutted and converted into a grain elevator in 1865, with the end of the Civil War. 

 

   The world of our forefathers was one of wood and open flame, that on one hand brought shelter, heat and comfort to their lives, but on the other, could prove to be the scourge of their existence. The many disastrous fires that dot the history of Mokena starkly attest to this. Business hummed along at the local elevator until the dreadful winter’s night of February 26^th, 1884, when one of the worst conflagrations on record occurred. At about 11:30 that night, while returning from a party in one of the village saloons, resident William Miller in some way happened across a fire that had started in a corner of the structure’s basement. According to the Mokena correspondent to the Will County Advertiser, Miller “immediately gave the alarm” and in no time the fire brigade and a large number of village dwellers materialized on the scene. Our community’s ladies were in fine form, and the same correspondent described “the zeal and energy shown by a number of our very best women in carrying water”, while the writer lamented what he saw as a lackadaisical effort by a few of Mokena’s men, who “stood around with their hands in their pockets.” A real scribe with a flair for the dramatic, he ended his reportage with the quip “Bah with such specimens of Homo.”

 

    Despite the sweat and toil exerted by the Mokenians who fought the fire that night, it was all for naught. The blaze made short work of the wooden building, and despite the best efforts of those who came to fight the flames, the granary was completely destroyed. Five railroad carloads of grain stored inside also went up in smoke. By the time all was said and done, the total monetary loss of the elevator alone came out to about $3,000 or close to $88,000 in today’s figures. Villagers were at a loss as to how to explain the origin of the fire, and in time it came to be assumed that it was the work of an arsonist.

 

   In the aftermath of the conflagration, a heap of scorched timbers and an empty foundation marked the site. From this smoldering ruin arose a new edifice, a marvelous phoenix from the ashes. This rebirth was had at the hands of John A. Hatch, a man whose mark is still visible in more than one place in our community. Readers of this page will be familiar with him, a lifelong Mokena area resident who was born in the wilds of the yet-unnamed Frankfort Township on February 27^th, 1842, and who later served as a hero in President Lincoln’s army at the siege of Vicksburg with great distinction. After the end of the Civil War, he married Nancy Matilda McGovney and together the couple brought nine of children into the world. A wearer of many hats in town, John A. Hatch also served as Mokena’s first village clerk upon incorporation in 1880.

 

   Hatch had already been a grain buyer in Mokena before the 1884 fire, and on June 25^th of that year, he paid the princely sum of $700 for the site upon which the old elevator had stood, a fee which included the remnants of the original building’s foundation, along with track and wagon scales and some outbuildings that still stood. Construction then began on a new granary, one of the biggest projects in the history of the village up to that point. Piece by piece, it rose over the roofs of Mokena, and when it was finally completed by the beginning of that September, the faithful village correspondent to the Advertiser was given a personal tour of the premises by John Hatch. In the lines of the paper, with great pride in his voice, he reported that:

 

“All is in readiness to receive grain. The power and shafting have been put in, and ascending to the upper floor we peered down into the depths of eight large bins with chutes accessing two separate elevators, one for oats and one for corn. Everything is handled by machinery, and the turning of two or three levers puts the grain in any part of the building from the basement to the top, or into the cars. In front of the elevator a set of railroad track scales has been put in, and also a set of platform scales has been put it in at the office. Altogether the elevator is complete in every detail. We have reason to be proud of it!”

 

   John A. Hatch kept a thriving business at this location and in the small grain office just west of the elevator, the front door of which opened to Mokena Street. He was still going strong 15 years later, when a November 1899 ad in the Advertiser stated that his firm bought grain and paid the highest market prices, sold hard as well as soft coal, (from which most of the town gained its heat) as well as all kinds of feed and did “grinding on the most reasonable terms.” 

 

The granary of John A. Hatch, seen here around 1900. Mr. Hatch stands in the foreground.

 

   In July 1902, wishing to devote all of his energy to the flourishing general store he also kept in the village, Hatch sold the granary and its associated businesses to William Henry Bechstein of Seneca. While the exact details of the transaction weren’t openly discussed in town, some said that the elevator must’ve changed hands for around $5,000. While Bechstein was late of LaSalle County, he was an old Mokena boy at heart, having been born here of robust agricultural stock on February 13^th, 1872, later being wed with Emma Cappel, daughter of a long-established Mokena family in 1895. A former employee of John Hatch’s, W.H. Bechstein was an old hand at the grain business, having been involved in this trade while he lived in Seneca, while a contemporary of his confidently wrote that Bechstein “understands the business from A to Izzard” and that he was “a hustler and a young man of the strictest integrity.” The same writer gushed that the grain man was “genial and obliging, and therefore popular with all. Mokena gains by securing him and his good wife as citizens.” 

 

   The name of W.H. Bechstein is one that is writ large in the village’s history. One of the most prominent citizens of Mokena in his day, not only did he run the grain elevator in the early 20^th century, he was also one of the founders of the Mokena State Bank in 1909, serving as its first secretary and much later having ascended to the president’s chair. Bechstein was an active Freemason, a dedicated member of St. John’s German Evangelical Church, and was also associated with the village camp of the Modern Woodmen of America. He amassed no small fortune through his business ventures in town, and would also later be remembered as the owner of the first auto in Mokena, a Ford touring car which he purchased in the spring of 1912. 

 

   Towards the end of 1903, after having had ownership for a little over a year, W.H. Bechstein set out to improve the elevator. First, he had a new roof put on the massive structure, then ordered a new 12,000 pound hopper scale for use in weighing grain into railroad cars. By the end of February 1904, Bechstein’s concern was also the proud new owner of a six horse power gas fueled engine. The next year, a fresh business venture enticed the agriculturist back to Seneca, where he purchased a large share in another grain firm. Back in Mokena, the spring of 1905 saw the elevator rented to none other than John A. Hatch, who set forth grinding feed with his adolescent son Alfred. In November of that year, W.H. Bechstein formally sold the elevator along with its grain and coal business to Frank and Charles Liess, two Mokena brothers who also kept a general store on Front Street. They spent a total of $7,500, which included not only the stock on hand, but also figured in Bechstein’s recent improvements to the property. The Liesses had already dabbled in grain in our neck of the woods by this time, but were hindered by the fact that up to this point, they had no storage buildings to speak of. 

 

   Alas, the Liess chapter of the granary’s history is a brief one. As history often returns to familiar faces, our old friend W.H. Bechstein and is family moved back from Seneca to their old Mokena stomping grounds after only having been away for three years. On the crisp first day of 1908, papers were signed and Bechstein re-acquired the granary with its coal and feed business, and was soon back in action. By the end of the month, things were humming to such a degree that one Friday night, the machinery in the elevator was kept running until well past midnight, filling railroad cars with shelled corn. A man with an eye for betterment, Bechstein also had the elevator painted red in this era. 

 

The grain elevator during the W.H. Bechstein years, circa 1910. 

 

   The granary was a focal point for our farmers, and a place from which a good chunk of their income came. A typical case would be that of Dan Lauffer, who sold his first batch of oats for the 1910 season to Bechstein, and received 33 cents per bushel. Things were especially good for farmers six years later, when upon shipping the season’s first load of corn to the Chicago market in November 1916, Bechstein paid the highest price for the crop in Mokena since the Civil War, a hefty dollar a bushel to Conrad Bettenhausen.

 

   For the second time in the elevator’s history, the terror of fire struck again. On Sunday morning, November 5^th, 1916, Elmer Cooper, a newly minted garage owner, saw smoke pouring out of a barn that was near the granary. It was known that a horse was trapped inside, and local auctioneer Herbert Moriarty was the first on the scene to try to rescue the helpless animal, but was beat back by the dense clouds of smoke. The horse, badly burned and asphyxiated, was eventually dragged from the burning barn with a rope. A Frankfort veterinarian was summoned, but nothing could be done for the poor beast, who died that night. 

 

   While World War I was being waged overseas, its effect was also being felt in Mokena. In January 1918, the village was in the grip of a pronounced coal shortage, that also coincided with one of the worst blizzards in the community’s history. With hardly any coal to be had from local dealers, some residents were taking to soaking old ashes in their stoves with oil to gain their heat. Not wanting to leave his fellow town folk in the lurch, W.H. Bechstein took to selling wood cut to stove size to his customers in this time frame, which was better than no fuel at all. By February things had gotten a little better, but still weren’t quite where they should’ve been. On the morning of the first of the month Bechstein received a railroad car’s worth of soft coal, and by noon, it was all gone, after having been parsed out to 75 customers. 

 

   After having been in business at this old Mokena location for a combined total of 21 years, W.H. Bechstein had paid his dues and was ready to rest open his laurels. On August 7^th, 1926 he sold the elevator and its concerns to his brothers in law, Fred and Albert Cappel. They had much in common with Bechstein, as the two brothers, aside from being his kin, were also born into an old Mokena family that had much to do with the building up of the village. In Albert Cappel’s youth, he had also been an employee of Bechstein’s at the elevator.  As their predecessors did, Cappel Bros. handled grain, feed, as well as salt and tile, not to mention the all-important coal to boot. The latter they were known to deliver house to house, a service that yet a handful of Mokenians can still remember. A 1928 appendix of Mokena businesses called Fritz Cappel, as he was known, a “live, progressive man” in the village, while the same authority called his younger brother “one of the prominent young business men” in town. 

 

A 1929 advertisement for the local business of Fred and Albert Cappel.

 

   Cappel Bros. steered their business through the hard years of the Great Depression and World War II. After the war, the elevator went through a succession of hands, including the partnership of Robert Hohenstein and Harold Schuldt, who bought the granary from the Cappels in the first days of 1946. By the time of their tenure, the old elevator was starting to show its age, so a new aluminum roof was put on and the sides of gargantuan building were clad in steel, which is still in place to this day. At the time of these improvements, it was noted that the elevator had a capacity of 15,000 bushels of grain. In this timeframe, the old grain office just west of the elevator was pulled down and replaced by a bigger, steel-sided building.

 

   A new page in the history of this time-honored property was turned when Robert Niemann sold the elevator in 1966 to Chester and Dorothy Ebert. Chet, as he was known by more than a few around town, has a place in Mokena’s history that is just as venerated as John Hatch and W.H. Bechstein’s. A true son of the soil, he was born in August 1918 on a farm in Frankfort Township that stood on today’s St. Francis Road. After his family moved further north to a different farm north of the current intersection of 191^st Street and 88^th Avenue, as a lad he went to school at the old one room Summit Hill schoolhouse, and later became an alumni of Mokena’s two year high school. Like so many others of this Greatest Generation, Chet Ebert rose to our country’s defense during the Second World War, having served the duration in the Army Air Corps, spending nearly three years in Panama. 

 

Chester Ebert, far right, inspecting a corn crop in September 1963. (image courtesy of Ruth Welzen)

 

   In the years after the war, Ebert was no stranger to business in our community, and was already a familiar face here when the elevator came into his family’s hands in the 1960s. As early as 1946, he started a concern in a simple building just east of the grain elevator, selling limestone to area farmers, which they used to enrich their soil. In 1950, Chet Ebert took on Warren Mancke of Tinley Park as a business partner for a brief period and expanded into a phosphate service, becoming a pioneer in this line. Phosphate was favored by local agriculturists who valued it for its use as a fertilizer, who would receive it delivered by Ebert, who would also spread it in their fields. To accommodate his growing business, the same year Chet Ebert had a large storage bin built just to the east of the grain elevator, it measuring 25 feet high by 16 feet in diameter, with a respectful capacity of 175 tons. 

 

   Aside from being a successful Mokena businessman, Ebert wore many hats in town as a respected local leader, having a seat on the boards of Immanuel Lutheran church, Mokena Public School, the Will County Farm Bureau, as well as the village board of trustees from 1969 to 1973. In conjunction with the phosphate business, he also founded Ebert Farm Service, which for many years operated out of the steel-clad building on Mokena Street immediately west of the grain elevator. A wide array of products could be had here, all reflective of the needs of Mokenians in this era. A 1976 ad listed everything from “feed, seed, grain, fertilizer and horse supplies” to “lawn and garden supplies”, making the store truly a one-stop shop for villagers. 

 

The grain elevator and Ebert Farm Service on Mokena Street, as they appeared in the 1970s. (image courtesy of Ruth Welzen)

 

   The family business reached into the end of the 20^th century, when Chet Ebert’s daughter Ruth, and her husband Dave Welzen, took over the former Ebert Farm Service in 1981 and re-christened it The Feed Bucket, to let Mokenians know that the concern was under new ownership. The Welzens started out primarily selling livestock feed, which would come to town on pallets, which would be stacked inside the now century-old grain elevator. Live ducks, geese and turkeys were also for sale here, along with baby chicks, which a visitor to the store would find in wooden crates bathed in golden light. 

 

   The era in which The Feed Bucket existed, was a time of great change for Mokena. With the population climbing to astronomical heights, the village was rapidly changing from the rural farm town it had been for generations to a Chicago suburb. By the 1990s, Main Street America was in decline as big box stores made their headway into our environs. One of the many casualties of this unfortunate development was The Feed Bucket, which ultimately shut its doors on Mokena Street in 1996. 

 

   Today we can look back over a century and half of history at this storied location. Most of the figures that make up the long narrative of this landmark we can only see through the hazy eye of memory. Their contributions to our community were great, and they deserve our dearest reverence. The grain elevator still stands triumphant, a monument to their love, work and lives in Mokena. 

Pioneer Scribe: The Story of Julia Atkins and the Mokena Star

    Looking back upon Mokena’s history, prominent names are sprinkled throughout the pages, such as that of Allen Denny, the founder of our village, or Ozias McGovney, the first mayor. Well over a century after their deaths, we still benefit from their ardor and dedication, their deeds having made their memory immortal. Where would our appreciation of the past be, if not for those who labored equally as hard to note it? Their roles are just as important in our narrative; without them we’d know nothing of our heritage. One young lady stands above other writers in her time, and the role of Julia Atkins as the editor of the Mokena Star, our then-newly born community’s first journalistic endeavor, is one that has left us with an irreplaceable view into her world.  

    To understand Julia, one must know her roots. She was born July 28^th, 1834, the same year her father and grandfather settled the wild, untamed prairie where Mokena would later stand. Both Vermonters named John Atkins, the new Illinoisans could count their neighbors using only one hand. The historic record indicates that John Atkins Jr officially purchased 80 acres of raw prairie along Hickory Creek from the federal government in the summer of 1842, where he likely set up a homestead for himself and his young family.  

 

   Living in what at the time was loosely referred to as the Hickory Creek Settlement, Julia’s upbringing contained a level of ruggedness totally unfamiliar to us in the 21^st century. Before her teenage years were out, Julia had lost her mother Anna to the hardships of pioneer life, as well as three siblings, who found eternal rest in Denny Cemetery, or what is today known as Pioneer Memorial Cemetery. 

 

    As Julia Atkins came of age, she was known as a young woman of intense intellectual drive; she not only worked as a teacher, but also read from the New Testament in Greek. Frontier journalism would have played a role in her life, as her father and grandfather were subscribers to The Western Citizen, a fiercely anti-slavery newspaper published in Chicago. Thus with the written word, Julia Atkins sealed herself into Mokena’s history. 

 

    With the construction of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad between the former city and Joliet in 1852, Mokena was born. Spikes were freshly driven between the new rails, while a depot was constructed along a newly platted Front Street; and that November, 18 year-old Julia set pen to paper in the first, and as far as anyone living knows, only issue of the Mokena Star. Lacking a press, her flowery script covered two huge broadsheets which bore chatty items such as the fact that the few villagers could expect an evening train out of Joliet at 7:30, as well as that tradesmen of all kinds were “vying with each other to see which will become the first established in business” in the new community. At the time, Julia’s Mokena, a “flourishing village in the western country” contained two finished buildings, along with a third under construction, with more expected in the near future.  

 

     As much at the Star carried newsy items, it was also a kind of literary journal, carrying poetry and various op-ed pieces. Among others, the young journalist penned a cautionary anti-tobacco and liquor treatise titled “Habit” in which the horrors of addiction were laid out, as well as a philosophical piece called “The Mind”, in which she pondered its meaning, proudly stating that it “distinguishes man from the brute creation.”

A Portrait of Julia Atkins, seen here around 1870, after she had moved from Mokena.

 

    Less than two years after Julia Atkins’ journalistic accomplishment, she and her family moved away from Mokena and to Livingston County. Befitting of her scholarly standing, she eventually attended a girls’ college in Evanston that eventually would be integrated into what is today Northwestern University. After her marriage to Dr. John L. Miller in 1862, she moved east, and ultimately passed away at age 72 in 1906 in Massachusetts. 

 

    Nowadays, the one and only known copy of the Mokena Star resides in an archive in our public library, resting in a place from which our community marches forward. Her role as an interested and vested local observer has left us with an irreplaceable record of Mokena’s first days. As such, Julia Atkins and her efforts are worthy of our utmost praise and respect. 

Sons of the Soil: The Story of the Cleveland Family

   History has been kind to the earthly memory of our earliest settlers, those honored few who braved the fierce unknown of the American west, and were the first to break the virgin soil upon the prairie where Mokena would later stand. The families of John McGovney and Allen Denny are well remembered, as they rightfully should be, while the collective recollection of other early clans has all but evaporated from local memory. One of these, the Clevelands, weren’t exactly the first to make their home here, but they still were made of the brave and hearty stock that has earned them the honor to be called our pioneers. 

 

   As all stories have a beginning, ours opens with William Bryan Cleveland, who was born in the state of New York on October 21^st, 1820. Being composed of the rugged stuff that characterized our forefathers, he heard the call of the west as a young, unmarried man, and carved out a home for himself in the wilds of the yet-unnamed Frankfort Township in 1844. As was typical of the pioneer’s lot in this time frame, the early residents of our region lived in hardscrabble log cabins and tended to modest farms on the wide-open plains of eastern Will County. 

William Bryan Cleveland, circa 1860.

 

   In the same period, another Cleveland made his home in our midst, this time being Orrin Baker Cleveland, a fellow New Yorker who was three years the senior of William. When the dense fog of time is parted, the historic record seems to indicate that the men were cousins. Which one of them got here first is lost to the ages, although a shred of evidence exists that Orrin might have been here as early as 1839. 

 

   An 1850 census taker found the men living in the same household, and with the formation of Frankfort Township’s government that year, William Cleveland was elected as its first supervisor, indicative of his status as a well-respected resident of the area. In 1854, William  took as his wife Emily Haven, the daughter of prominent New Lenox settlers and a niece of our own Allen Denny. Pioneer life being one of toil and hardship, Emily passed away a little over a year later at the age of 23, joining their infant son Willie, who died the same year. 

 

   During these years, a rustic blacksmith’s shop could also be found on the Cleveland place, housed in a little building that was fashioned out of hand-hewn oak timbers. It would’ve likely been lost to the ages, if not for a tale told a 100 years later. The teller would say that he heard that none other than Abraham Lincoln’s horse had been shod there, while his master, not yet our president, lodged at the time-honored Old Brick Tavern on the Haven property further west on today’s Route 30. While an exciting story, it must be regarded as just that, a patriotic tall tale, as by this late date, there is no way to verify its truth. 

 

   By the time of the Civil War, William Cleveland’s farm contained a narrow but solidly sized stretch of land, the center of which would be located at today’s intersection of Wolf Road and Route 30. Reaching all the way north into the space that now contains the Old Castle Woods subdivision, and measuring south to the Joliet Cut-Off railroad, it was enough to provide an existence for this man of the soil. Orrin Cleveland’s property sat immediately to the west, and contained more or less the same acreage. The timeline is murky, but it would be remembered decades later that somewhere in this era, William supplemented his income by keeping a store in the young community of Frankfort. 

 

   During the trying days of the Rebellion, the Cleveland family contributed greatly to the North’s war efforts, when Orrin’s sons Frederick and Charles bore arms with Will County’s 100^th Illinois Volunteer Infantry and marched in the Union army for three years. Both young men were lucky to return home in one piece. In the euphoric days after the end of the Civil War in 1865, William Cleveland married a second time, this betrothal being on May 22^nd of that year to Stella M. Martin, a native of Vermont. While she was 26 years his junior, the two Clevelands welcomed six children into the world that modern research has been able to identify, namely Lillian, another Willie, Clarence Martin, Mabel, and Eva. A young daughter, Emily, didn’t live to adulthood. 

 

   William B. Cleveland was very involved in the community, and aside from his supervisor’s seat, he held the office of justice of the peace for eight years, and also served at least one term as the director of the small, one-room schoolhouse that sat in the middle of his property, having stood at our current intersection of Wolf Road and Route 30. Sometime before 1873, William’s farm grew by absorbing the property of his cousin Orrin, who for the time being, disappeared from the historic radar. In these days, in addition to farming his 125 acres, William Cleveland also made a living as a stock raiser. 

 

A slice of Americana, this lithograph shows the farm of William Bryan Cleveland as it appeared in 1873. With a viewpoint looking to the south, modern-day Route 30 is in the foreground of the image, with what is now Wolf Road leading into the background at left. At left can be seen the small Cleveland schoolhouse, with students playing in the road.  

   The long-established agriculturist breathed his last in the summer of 1883, and a little over a decade later, in early 1894, word trickled in that Orrin Cleveland died back in the family’s ancestral home of New York. In silent testimony to the fact that he considered Frankfort Township his home, the mortal remains were shipped back to our neck of the woods to be interred in the Cleveland plot in Frankfort’s Pleasant Hill Cemetery. 

 

   A new era dawned in the history of the family’s acreage outside Mokena in May 1908, when Clarence Cleveland, the 35-year-old son of William and Stella, bought the farm from his father’s estate. Lately a resident of Chicago, the young Cleveland now found himself the owner of a property which by this time had grown to include a large tract stretching north almost to Hickory Creek, hugging the east side of modern-day Wolf Road. Shortly after the transaction was complete, Clarence Cleveland returned to the farm of his birth with his wife Anna. An educated man, he received part of his learning in Joliet as well as at a business college in Chicago. With the passage of time, Clarence Cleveland became a prosperous and respected dairyman, and could afford to hire the Mokena firm of Julius Oswald to build one of the first concrete block silos in our neighborhood in fall 1912. By and by he set about improving the old place, and the following summer, also had a massive barn built, measuring in at 124 by 36 feet. Both the silo and the barn were local landmarks for decades. 

Seen here around 1999, the concrete block silo on the former Cleveland farm was long a familiar sight to Wolf Road travelers. Situated slightly west of the intersection of Route 30 and Wolf Road, the old silo was demolished shortly after this image was made.

 

   Clarence Cleveland was very involved in dairy affairs, and represented the Mokena local of the Milk Producer’s Association before the state legislature. He also held strong opinions, and would distinguish himself as an avid letter writer, not just to editor William Semmler of the News-Bulletin, but also to such prominent papers as the Chicago Tribune. His communiques covered a wide range of topics, all of which were matters important to his fellow dairymen.  

 

   Not only was he one of the most influential dairy farmers in early 20^th century Mokena, but he also had a particularly strong sense of boundaries. Over the years, more than one village child would be warned not to venture onto his property, as he was known to guard it by shotgun, with which he also stringently enforced hunting laws on his farm. This aspect of Cleveland’s reputation became so well known in Mokena, that a friend of his felt compelled to write to the News-Bulletin in February 1931 and come to the defense of his character. Jay Butler, who had resided on the farm with Clarence Cleveland for two years, put forth that anyone would be allowed to enjoy the immaculate woodland of the Cleveland estate, as long as they first kindly asked permission to venture therein. 

 

   Before all else, Clarence Cleveland was a man of nature. He created a wild flower preserve on his property, one that was described by a contemporary as “one of the outstanding beauty spots in the county.” His passionate love of the natural environment also led to one of the most colossal shakeups that Mokena has ever seen. When Wolf Road was due to be concreted for the first time in the 1920s, plans called for the new road to deviate slightly from its original route and be built through a large tract of forest on the farm. From 1929 to 1934, Clarence Cleveland waged a bitter, four-year war against the county, in which he personally attempted to halt the construction of the road through his land. From his battle station, he gave as his motive the protection of his priceless, pristine timberland, which would be decimated by road construction, specifically having cited “the destruction of several hundred of (his) most beautiful forest trees, flowering bushes and vines.” Cleveland also readily stated that more than a few of the trees were over a century old. In his corner for the fight, were groups as prestigious as the Illinois chapter of the Wild Flower Preservation Society and the Illinois Conversation Council. In the end, a suit was brought against him by county bigwigs, and compromise was finally reached in April 1935. The road was finished, and a minimum of trees were hurt.

 

   Clarence Cleveland died on the old homestead in what would have been his 74^th year on April 30^th, 1947, after a long illness. His passing was observed with great attention in Mokena, with the News-Bulletin shouting the headline from the front page of its May 2^nd issue. Before long, the property was no longer in the family. The old Cleveland farm house, which saw over a century of history pass by its door on the southwest corner of today’s Wolf Road and Route 30, is long gone, as well as is any other trace of the Clevelands’ existence on their property. A little way north of the intersection is a quiet street that now bears the family’s name, having been laid out long after their existence here. Venturing down this road, one is surrounded by serene woodland. When the moment is just right, one can feel the spirit of Clarence Cleveland and his love for the land that was his own. 

 

Thy Great Commercial Tree: The Story of James Ducker

   Commerce drives a community, and businesses such as Berkots and Mokena Video immediately bring our village to mind. Known for miles around, they are not only fixtures in our landscape, but they also have the earthy credence of long-established houses that have been a part of Mokena for decades. Long before their and our time, came James Ducker, who was not only one of the first merchants to speak of in town, but whose name is intertwined with the heady, early days of Mokena. 

     Ducker first saw the light of day on October 27^th, 1823 in a small town called Epworth, not far off England’s east coast. The Duckers were a farming family, and members of the peace-loving Society of Friends, better known as Quakers. As a mere lad of 15, James Ducker ventured to the medieval city of Hull, a place around 25 miles northeast of his home. While there, the young man worked in a store for about 5 years, where he learned the ins and outs of the business. As England’s dreary weather came to plague Ducker’s health, so it was that in 1852, at the age of 29, that he set sail for America. 

 

    After whiling for a bit in Chicago, James Ducker headed south to sparsely settled Frankfort Township, where he took up farming. He tried his hand at cultivation for a year, until a disastrous hailstorm ruined his crops. This experience soured Ducker, and in the words of a later historian, “convinced him that agriculture was not his forte in life.” Out of this pitfall, fate led him to relocate to Mokena in 1853, where his name would be sealed to the ages. 

 

    The town as it was when James Ducker moved here was barely worthy of the name, being more so a tiny hamlet clustered around the new Rock Island tracks, which had just been constructed the year before. He was an Englishman surrounded almost entirely by Germans, the community being mostly populated by the latter. The community needed goods, and where there was a want, Ducker found an opportunity, and opened a store upon his arrival. A 19^th Mokenian shopping at Ducker’s would find all sorts of general goods for sale, while almost 100 years later, one Mokena old-timer specifically remembered Ducker selling “boots and kerosene.” An 1870 ad from his store, having appeared in the Joliet Republican, specifically mentioned wares such as "Dry Goods, Groceries, Hats and Caps, Boots and Shoes, and Yankee Notions" while another from a year later listed off “Dress Goods, Flannels, Blankets, and Scarves”. In his Mokena heyday, Ducker had also come to be known across the region as a grain dealer.  

James Ducker, one of Mokena's pioneer merchants, as seen in this circa 1880 image. 

 

     The exact location of James Ducker’s general store remains vague. In the generations after his time, memories became foggy, and conflicting explanations came to light. A 1937 retrospective article in Mokena’s News-Bulletin placed it in a long-gone building close to the southeast corner of Front and Mokena Streets. This jives with the fact that Ducker came to own a sizeable chunk of real estate along the south side of Front Street, running from Mokena Street and stretching east almost half the distance to Division Street. 

 

    As a newly minted storekeeper, Ducker wed Scottish-born Jeanette Allison in 1854, and came to raise a large family with her, at least five of their children surviving into adulthood. By 1862, the Duckers had built a stately home at today’s 11122 Third Street to house their young family. Looking much as it did in the 19^th century, the house was declared a Will County Historic Landmark in 2011. 

 

    After having found commercial success in Mokena, James Ducker moved to Joliet in 1874, re-establishing his store where it would become a fixture for generations. While in business there, Marshall Field & Co. reached out to him as a possible foreign buyer for their firm, but he declined, preferring to stay in Will County. Ducker breathed his last on December 16^th, 1885, in the county seat. His mortal remains were buried in scenic Oakwood Cemetery, where a distinguished monument still stands over his bones. 

 

    Decades after his death, a local history book remembered him as “one of the county’s most influential residents” and one who “long held a prominent place among businessmen of northeastern Illinois.” Before he became wealthy in Joliet, and years before his name was theirs, James Ducker was a Mokena mainstay.  

Beyond the Milky Way: Mokena's History with the Bowman Dairy Company (Part 2)

   If you haven’t already, be sure to read Part 1 of this entry! (The first piece below this one on the page)

 

   In the aftermath of the 1909 tumult, the Milk Producers’ Association grew in influence, and came to boast of an active Mokena local, headed by dairyman and auctioneer Herbert Moriarty. Through the Association’s efforts, patrons of the Bowman plant were receiving $2 per 100 pounds of milk they sold to the company by January 1911. Five years came and passed, and as 1916 rolled around, World War I tightened its grip on Europe, and the Battles of Jutland, the Somme and Verdun dominated the headlines. Meanwhile in Mokena, another battle was brewing, one that dwarfed the troubles of 1909. Eventually dubbed the Milk War by the Joliet press, it luckily didn’t claim any lives, but it wasn’t for a lack of brutality. So it was, that another grim chapter in Bowman’s relationship with its Mokena suppliers began. 

 

Local auctioneer and dairy farmer Herbert Moriarty was the head of the Mokena local of the Milk Producer's Association.

 

   The trouble first started towards the end of March 1916, when the Association suggested to area dairymen to sell their milk for no less than 4 cents a quart, half the cost of retail in Chicago. Initially, Bowman would have none of it, sticking earnestly to its guns with its old price. Mokena producers were incensed, and the March 25^th issue of the Joliet Herald-News shouted that they were “on war paths.” The 187 area farmers who were in a position to sell their product to the Bowman plant set forth an ultimatum to the Chicago-based giant, urging that the new price be met by April 1^st, or they’d cut off their supply. 

 

    As the days dragged on, things looked dire for Bowman, when on March 30^th, all local members of the Association convened at the Mokena Hall on Front Street. A vote was taken, and with one fell swoop, the dairymen stood with other milk producers in Wisconsin and Indiana, and cut off Bowman. 

 

    The dairymen took steps to prevent any milk whatsoever from reaching Chicago. The Herald-Newsdescribed “Mokena seething with farmers”; some had formed a cordon around Bowman’s plant on Marti Lane, while others gathered at the Rock Island depot and shooed away shippers. Roads leading into town were under guard by bands of strikers, some of whom were said to be armed with “hoe handles and stale eggs.” At a time when the US military was pursing raider Pancho Villa south of the nation’s border, media accounts of the local boycott were rife with militant imagery. A newspaper report said the stretch of the Rock Island between Mokena and Chicago “resembled the Mexican border without the firearms.” 

 

    Bowman employee George Osmus was sent to pick up milk from some hold-out suppliers, and while en route to his destination outside town, he came across six farmers guarding a crossroad. Where exactly this happened in Mokena has been lost to time, but when the gang tried to force Osmus’s team of horses to turn back, their heavy handedness backfired. Village constable Fred Mau came to Osmus’s rescue and leveled a revolver at the dairymen, one of whom sensibly talked Mau into putting his gun away. Once the piece was holstered, Mau then brandished a “big hickory stick” and attacked the strikers. Serious injuries abounded after the melee; Byron Nelson came out with head wounds, Daniel Kohl had a fractured arm, and Fred Hentsch was knocked almost unto unconsciousness. 

 

    Tensions were hair-trigger after the brawl. The same day, Fred Brown of New Lenox tried to cross a picket, and was met by outraged farmers who threw his full milk cans into a roadside ditch. They were only later able to be recovered and brought to the Bowman plant under guard. Despite the fact that another warlike meeting took place at Mokena Hall, things were a little more under control on April 2^nd. The tense calm in Mokena was largely due to the fact that sheriff’s deputies from Joliet had by then arrived in town to allow milk to pass through the blockade. Town marshal Conrad Schenkel helped, whose presence drew “hoots” from onlookers. 

 

    Bowman’s reinforcements helped bring a trickle of product to the Mokena facility, infusing the company with a sense of confidence. Meanwhile, farmers around the village that still refused to cooperate fed milk to their pigs rather than sell at the old price. Within a few days, the Herald-News grimly predicted that Chicago was “near a milk famine” due to the situation in our neck of the woods. Miraculously, on April 3^rd, the blockaders stood down, and by the 7^th, news broke that the city dealers had finally caved, and agreed to buy milk from Mokena dairymen for nine cents a quart, a price that the Herald-News snidely commented would be passed on to the consumer. 

 

    As if 1916 wasn’t already bad enough for Bowman, it was about to get a lot worse. Barely three hours after Mokena’s dairymen signed the peace terms, the engineer of an eastbound freight train passing through town in the dead of night spotted flames shooting out of the plant. He slowed his locomotive until it ground to a halt, and laid on his whistle to alert the small village of the emergency, one account even has the intrepid man, whose name was never noted for posterity, dismounting his locomotive and running door to door to awake residents.  Conrad Schenkel, the aforementioned village marshal, was also commander of the Mokena fire brigade, and assumed charge of those who turned out and fought the flames for the next three hours. The only firefighting equipment the village had to boast of in this time was a hand-drawn hose cart, which incidentally, is still the property of the village to this day. Railroad cars on the switch tracks at the plant proved on early obstacle to putting out the fire, but easier access was gained once two switch engines shunted them away. 

   It would later be ascertained that the flames got their start in the boiler room. No one was ever able to get to the bottom of what caused the fire. Despite the best efforts of the 50 or so men who put out the blaze, machinery in the building’s boiler room, engine room and ice plant was totally destroyed, and over half of the mostly wooden plant was gutted. The company assessed its total damage at around $10,000, with all operations at the Mokena facility being totally shut down for ten days.  Meanwhile, on April 16^th, 1916, theHerald-News stated that “a large force of carpenters, machinists and electricians have been working day and night to get the plant in running order.”

   One can’t help but take notice of the timing of this conflagration. To say that it was suspicious, coming on the same night the Milk War ended, would be putting it mildly. Could this have been arson? The smoke still hadn’t cleared. Barely a month after the first fire, another blaze broke out on May 8^th, 1916, when a heap of tar-soaked cork used in the ice plant spontaneously combusted. While the windows in the engine room shattered due to the heat, the employees of the plant were able to put out the flames with a fire house on hand. 

 

Bowman Dairy's milk bottling plant as it appeared after the large 1916 addition, as seen looking west from the intersection of today's Wolf Road and McGovney Street.

 

   Business marched on, and years came and passed. However, beneath a veneer of prosperity in the post-World War I era, discontent was brewing. In the 1920s, a prickly issue reared its head amongst the local dairy farmers, namely that of having their herds tested for tuberculosis. This was a simmering problem that was long in the making, and had been grumbled about as early as 1908. A prime example is the state law that came into effect on New Year’s Day 1909, which directed that dairymen “have their cow barns whitewashed and kept as clean as possible, also that concrete floors be laid in these cow barns, and that each milker be attired in a white apron and that such milkers wash their hands after each milking.” What to our modern ears sounds like common sense, was a somewhat new-fangled idea to the farmer of yore. These directives, combined with the fact that inspection of cattle by government officials was thought to be near, didn’t sit well with a fair number of the agriculturists in Mokena. The opposition lay chiefly in the fact that no small expense was involved in bringing their farms up to snuff, and out of a fear that government meddling in their herds would result in their cows being condemned. 

 

   Health and sanitization were always number one with the Bowman company, and the whole process of accepting milk from the outside farms of the producers was no trifling matter. A typical example of their earnestness about the subject was when the company cut off the supply from local farmer August Hentsch in early 1912 due to typhoid in his family, much to his vexation. When hoof and mouth disease appeared in our neck of the woods at the end of 1914, a shallow ditch was dug in the Mokena plant’s driveway, which was then filled with a liquid disinfectant. Every team of horses hauling milk into the plant had to step through this chemical stew, of which the dairymen were not fans, piping up that the mixture was so strong that it was eating away at their horses’ hooves. 

 

   The issue with the cattle testing never really went away. The Chicago Board of Health began especially strongly campaigning for the tuberculin test in the 1920s, and a measure was even passed that forbade the selling of milk in the city that came from untested cattle. This spelled big trouble for our dairymen, who continued to strongly argue against the testing. A positive result in their herds would effectively put them out of business. In this case, neither state nor federal government would come to their rescue in any meaningful way. So unpopular was the testing measure that in March 1926, of the 162 farmers in and around Mokena who supplied milk to Bowman, only 18 of them had tested their herds. The movement had picked up a huge amount of steam, and a hard deadline of April 1^st was given to the dairymen to have the cattle testing done, after which point if the numbers had not significantly climbed, the Mokena plant would be shuttered. 

 

   So it was, that the first of the month came, and no great sudden change of sentiment had occurred, no last-minute wonder to save the plant once and for all. The doors were padlocked, and this time for good. The local men who worked there were given jobs at a Chicago facility of Bowman’s, and became commuters overnight. The closing was a staggering blow to Mokena, and the significant amount of trade from surrounding farms that came to town via the bottling plant was now lost. The News-Bulletin, our village’s home newspaper, shouted from its masthead the closing in its April 2^nd, 1926 issue, and starkly rued that “this effects every business in town and will mean less money spent locally”, going on that “in short, the dairy business in this section has been nearly ruined and it is probable that the dairy industry will never again be as flourishing as it has been.”  The many dairy farmers possessed of untested herds now faced a decision, either to change businesses, or feed their milk to pigs. A sliver of hope was held out that enough of the dairymen would come around and decide to test their cows, therefore allowing the Mokena plant to reopen in the summer or fall, but this never came to pass.

 

Mokena Mills, a Wolf Road mixed residential and commercial development, now stands on the site of the old Bowman Dairy plant.

 

   Thus the bottling plant on today’s Wolf Road was permanently shut down and mothballed for the next seven years. Mitchel Brewery occupied the premises from 1933 to 1940, and beginning in 1941, the Mokena Wallpaper Mill set up shop here. In 1988 Mokena Mills took over, another wallpaper concern, which kept up operations until June 1998. The rambling building was an old landmark, one that announced to Wolf Road travelers that they had arrived in our village. It was altered and added onto so many times in its long history, that looking at the massive, old place in its later years was like reading a beloved old book, with each new roofline and wing representing a new chapter in its history. It met the wrecking ball in the spring of 2004, and was forever erased from our landscape. What was once an important industry in Mokena, is also permanently gone. Not only is the Bowman plant with its glass bottles and big metal milk cans nowhere to be found, the 21^stcentury Mokenian would also be hard-pressed to find a single dairy cow in our neighborhood. 

  

Beyond the Milky Way: Mokena’s History with the Bowman Dairy Company

    Some places are forever tied with a certain industry, a giver of work and bringer of money to a community. One place might be known for steel, for example, while another might be known for coal mines. While the days in question are now long behind us, Mokena was once a dairy town, through and through. Milk is not only the great nourisher of life, but was also the lifeblood of our community as well. Vast dairy herds once grazed our pastures and brought a livelihood to their owners. In the early part of the 20^th century, the bottling plant of the Bowman Dairy Company not only provided employment for a good number of Mokenians, but also put us on the map as being the center of eastern Will County’s dairy district. 

 

 

   The earliest history of Mokena can’t be written without the humble milk cow. On the record of our years, it stands that in 1860, LaPorte Road farmer Diederich Brumund became the first in our neighborhood to ship milk over the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad to city markets. The single can was pulled into Mokena on a small cart by the brute force of Brumund’s powerful Newfoundland dog. This set a precedent that was followed for decades by local agriculturists, who sent untold thousands of gallons of milk over our railroad for urban retail. After many years of this practice, it was with this very road that an enterprising group of village fathers sought to revitalize the town. 

 

   In the first years of the twentieth century, Mokena found itself in a slump. The completion of the Wabash Railroad through neighboring communities funneled trade that normally came to us through the newer hamlets of Alpine, Marley and Orland, and a nationwide depression that pummeled the country in 1893 also bode very badly for Mokena. The bad condition of the roads leading into town also didn’t help the dire economic situation in this era. As such, after many erstwhile Mokenians moved away to seek their fortunes elsewhere, a federal census taker counted a meager 281 village residents after having made his rounds in 1900. 

 

   Mokena would be a very foreign place to modern eyes in this time, possessing of three modest churches, some unassuming houses, and a handful of mom-and-pop businesses lined up on Front Street. Looking to give the town a shot in the arm, options were discussed and explored amongst the movers and shakers, and it was decided to work with what the village had, namely a robust foundation in the dairy business and solid rail connections. By 1906, prominent citizens began a flirtation with the Bowman Dairy Company of Chicago, which in this time operated at least six plants in the municipalities around the city. On December 22, 1906, a group of villagers made up of mayor Ozias E. McGovney, cattleman Emil Krapp, hardware store owner William Niethammer and prominent farmer Fred Warning made the journey to Bowman’s plant in Barrington. They were impressed with what they saw, and in the words of a local journalist, were “convinced of the desirability of securing such an institution for Mokena.” It was stated that the company would need a minimum of 200 cans of milk through its doors daily in order to run, an order which our dairymen would have no problem filling. Bowman reckoned that a dozen or more jobs would be created in town, a welcome addition to the village in this era. Two days after Christmas another field trip to Barrington was organized, this time the travelers were the mayor’s son Ona McGovney, leading resident W.H. Bechstein and farmers Christian Bechstein, George Cooper and Christian Warning, among others. They also were won over with Bowman’s operation, and thus, through the lobbying of these civic-minded men, the company became very interested in our burg. 

 

   The ball got rolling in early January 1907, when Elizabeth Cappel sold ten acres of her family’s property to the company, this being situated on the west side of Marti Lane, (or today’s Wolf Road) just south of the Rock Island tracks. That April, Bowman turned the first shovel of dirt on the tract when they began building a drain which ran south to Hickory Creek. By June, construction had begun in earnest with the pouring of the new bottling plant’s concrete foundations. With the boundaries of the building staked out, they came to measure 150 by 20 feet, no small edifice in the Mokena of this timeframe. As its wooden walls began to rise courtesy of local contractor George Hacker and his crew, the village’s correspondent to the Lockport Phoenix-Advertiser was already singing its praises, proudly writing in his column that “the milk factory is evidence of Mokena’s rejuvenation.” Meanwhile, within a month, a well on the property was sunk to the depth of 175 feet, containing an impressive 125 feet of water. The work of building the plant moved slowly but purposefully, with an 80-horse power marine boiler being installed in September, along with an automatic engine, water purifier and ice crusher. Finally, the plant’s smokestack rose in the beginning of October, and the operation opened for its first day on the morning of Friday, November 1^st, 1907, when a company bigwig presented Front Street resident Julia Blaeser, one of the village’s oldest inhabitants, with the first bottle of milk to come off the line. By the time all was said and done, it had cost Bowman Dairy $30,000 to build its new Mokena plant.

 

The bottling plant of the Bowman Dairy Company at Mokena, seen here in its original form, circa 1907. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)

   In those first days, the outlook was jubilant and optimistic. It was reported that Bowman was “very encouraged” by the amount of local milk that was pouring into the plant on a daily basis, and it was expected that by New Year’s Day 1908, this number would be doubled, when the most prominent dairymen of Mokena and Frankfort would have stocked up on even more cows. These agriculturists, who were on a contract with the company, hauled their milk in big cans to the plant, where it was offloaded and ran through machines before being sorted into smaller glass bottles on site. From there, the bottles were loaded in crates into special refrigerated box cars and shipped over the Rock Island to Chicago, where they were put on the market. By 1910, Preston Hird, a Wisconsin native, had been taken on as superintendent, and around 12,500 pounds of milk was being processed daily, or two boxcar loads.

 

A typical milk can, the faithful workhorse of the dairy farmer.

 

   The bottling plant was an industrious place, but that Bowman could sometimes be a dangerous one to work is proven by the long list of accidents that took place there. Take Fred Werner, the plant’s engineer, whose right eye and face were badly burnt when hot water squirted at them in March 1908. Next up, in the summer of that year, Oscar Christenson had his toe crushed when a cake of ice fell on it. In June 1913, a lightning strike near the building was beamed in through the iron bottle washer inside and the five men working the machine were tossed to the ground by the current. Miraculously, none of them were hurt. Another typical mishap took place on July 22, 1914, when a fast-revolving brush shattered a bottle that was being washed. A storm of glass shards flew in every direction, and John Schenkel’s right hand was nastily cut. These incidents, when taken with all of the others that happened over the years, read like a battlefield casualty report. 

 

   Despite the danger, it was noted in May 1911 that the rank and file who manned the plant were earning $50 a month, or close to $1,500 in modern figures. In the spring of 1918, the plant’s 20 workers were “compelled” to join the American Federation of Labor. The joining fee for the union came out to a steep $5, with dues of a $1 a month thereafter. 

   The Bowman Dairy plant had firmly become a part of Mokena. There was a receiving platform on the side of the building containing an incline upon which farmers had to drive their teams to unload milk. During winter the whole thing would become covered with ice, and to prevent accidents, Bowman’s workers would spread cork particles over the ramp. Years after the fact, local scribe Clinton Kraus recalled how he and his friends, come summer, would collect all the cork, stuff it into gunny sacks, and use the same for buoys when swimming in Hickory Creek. Kraus also fondly remembered how the company sold Mokenians ice from the plant in the dog days of summer, and how Bowman’s engineer would treat him to ice cream that was on hand. Activity at the plant had piqued the curiosity of many in the village, and loiterers and lollygaggers had become such a problem that in October 1908, a sign was hung in the building’s entryway that stated visitors were welcome, but stark red letters “politely inform that loafing is not allowed.”

 

The local crew of Mokena's Bowman Dairy bottling plant, pictured on the plant's loading dock around 1910. They are, top row left to right, George Aschenbrenner, August Pfleger, Ed Schenkel, William Weber and John Schenkel. Bottom row, left to right, are August Teske, Fred Steinhagen, John Helenhouse, William Werner, Howard Beagley and August Werner.

 

   Business at the bottling plant hummed along to such a degree that the building was quickly bursting at the seams. By August 1911, plans were afoot to expand the structure. A wooden wing would be tacked on to the building’s east side, running parallel to the Rock Island tracks and stopping a few feet short of Marti Lane, along with another small addition to the south. George Hacker and his carpenters, the plant’s original builders, were at work again, and by November a new 100-foot brick chimney was finished, which towered over the village for decades. $40,000 later, the ribbon was cut on the new wings in the first part of 1912, with the first electric lights in the concern coming soon after. More workplaces came as well, with employment now being offered for a crew of 18 men. 

 

The newly expanded Bowman Dairy bottling plant at Mokena, pictured circa 1912. (Image courtesy Richard Quinn)

 

   Just as the new additions were ready to be used for the first time, Bowman proudly announced that the Mokena plant was taking on a grand 20,000 pounds of milk every day. Prosperity reigned supreme, and around 34,000 pounds were being handled daily in the spring of 1915. Another addition came in the fall of 1916, when trusty George Hacker’s firm built a masonry section measuring 20 by 100 feet onto the ever-growing factory’s south side, which was to contain the offices of the manager and roomy storage space. 

            

   The history of Bowman’s time in Mokena is one of progress and industry, but also one of occasional disputes with its local suppliers, these being a litany of intensely sharp and acrimonious disagreements. Enter at this point in history the Milk Producers’ Association, a statewide organization not unlike a union. Made up of dairy farmers, it advocated on their behalf to secure the best possible prices for their products. By early 1909, the work of the Association had awoken the interest of many Mokena area farmers, and by and by, they began to join its ranks. After a particularly bad falling out with Bowman in that year, they began discussing alternative uses for their dairy products, and it was collectively decided that separating the cream from their milk and marketing it was a viable alternative. As such, that spring the dairymen banded together under the auspices of the Milk Producers’ Association, leased a vacant lot from Philipena Bechstein on the southwest corner of Front Street and Marti Lane and hired none other than village contractor George Hacker to build a rustic, one story wooden building thereon to house their skimming station. 

 

Seen here posing on the plant's floor around 1915 are the Mokena workers of Bowman Dairy. John Schenkel is at second from right. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)

 

   Although the majority of milk producers decided that skimming cream would be the way of the future, not all were in favor of the plan. Two of them, Henry Yunker and Fred Hinspeter sold their cows and left the business during that season. At the end of April, a haughty Bowman manager from Barrington came to town and told the farmers to be done with the strife, and demanded that they sign the company’s contract and stop building the skimming station. This was rejected. The Joliet Weekly News predicted that Bowman’s Mokena branch might close, even after a company man presented the dairy producers with what were considered good prices, but nevertheless the milk men dug in their heels and held out, stating they wanted the prices that the Producers’ Association was recommending. By the start of May, the worst had come true, and the milk bottling plant closed its doors, not quite two years after they first opened. A resident of neighboring Marley watched from the sidelines and opined to the Weekly News that “…it is a short-sighted policy on the part of the farmers and a hard blow to the business interests of Mokena, to compel the closing of the plant, none will deny.” Those in our environs who were still looking to sell their milk shipped it directly to Chicago themselves, and Front Street’s Rock Island depot was swamped with 147 cans on May 1^st, 1909. 

 

   That week, the skimming station was officially up and running, having received a whopping 5,310 pound of milk to be processed in its first few days. 8 cans’ worth of cream were skimmed from this initial bulk, which were shipped to the Beatrice Creamery Company, a man from this company was also on hand by May 13^th to help with operations. Meanwhile, across the railroad tracks to the south, the Bowman plant was being slowly gutted, with much of its machinery being stripped away and shipped to the company’s plant in Barrington. 

 

     What could’ve been a truly dire situation for Mokena was avoided when Bowman manager Preston Hird and another company man finally negotiated a contract with the local dairymen that was to their liking. With this, young cobwebs were dusted away and the plant’s doors were thrown back open after having been closed for about two weeks. On May 13^th, 1909, Bowman’s Mokena plant re-opened with a boom, finding more milk cans delivered to it then on its first opening day.

 

Mokena's Bowman workers man a machine called "the Ferris wheel", which was used for washing milk bottles. Seen here around 1915 is manager Herman Schweser at far right, next to him stands John Schenkel. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)

 

   However, the dust hadn’t settled yet, and not everyone was happy. A letter from an anonymous dairyman appeared in the May 20^th issue of the Joliet Weekly News, and the author huffed that “The re-opening of the bottling plant by no means signifies a victory for Bowman.” He went on that the product now being sold to the plant would be shoddy, namely that “the milk it receives will be drawn from four to six miles in the summer sun, in very filthy cans, but it is claimed that by its cooking and doctoring process the stuff will keep for weeks.”  The new-found sense of calm that had settled in after the re-opening in the spring was misleading, as that November the dairy farmers were once again not signing Bowman’s contracts after it was felt they were slighted by low prices. A very critical situation was felt in the community, and again a closing of the plant was threatened. The farmers sent the company a petition for an increase of 20 cents per 100 pounds of milk, and by the end of December the situation had evened out enough that dairymen felt they were again getting fair treatment and were coming back to Bowman.

 

   Meanwhile, the Front Street skimming station closed in the summer of 1909, briefly re-opened that fall in fits and starts during the second round of trouble with the company, but by the following year the venture was on hiatus, and the whole endeavor was officially extinct by the spring of 1911, when the station was rented to a pair of Orland blacksmiths.

Check back next week for part two of this installment!