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1920 – 100 YEARS AGO
Kids at the Glidden school put in a busy morning today. For many months they have wanted a playground and now that football season is here it became a necessity. There are two vacant lots just back of the school but on one of them was the excavation where a house use to be. The kids got together and some of them brought rakes others hoes and others wheelbarrows. Within an hour’s time the hole was filled and the result is the kids have as fine a playground as they could wish for.
Today dawned fair for the Waterman Annual Fall Festival and Community day which is being held at that village today. The indications were that before the day was over the attendance would rival that of last year. The parade formed at the school house at 9:30 this morning and it is estimated that fully 400 people took part. The parade lasted for about three quarters of an hour.
The police here received a wire from Milan last evening saying that two men in a Ford car had stopped at one of the homes there and appeared to be suspicious characters. The men seemed to be in a hurry and said they wanted to be on their way as soon as possible. The police here made inquiries of all the cities near here to find if there had been any robberies but up to the present none have been heard of.
Charles Broughton has arrived home after his northern trip and when asked about the building of a theatre house, admits that he has purchased the land next to the Knights of Columbus building and that he intends to build but just what he is not ready to make public.
James Scheitler of Chicago will know better than to park on the wrong side of the street when he comes here the next time and he will also remember not to talk back to any police office wherever he is at. The car, a large Stutz, attracted the attention of a great many people as it was parked on the wrong side of the street. When an officer told the owner that the car was wrong, the owner started telling how the parking laws worked in other cities and did not think that the cars ought to turn around. He was hauled into the police court and fined $5 and costs.
1945 – 75 YEARS AGO
Dr. J. F. Eggers was engaged in the first phases of resuming civilian life in Sycamore last evening. He was moving back into his office suite in the Jams building. He was discharged at Ft. Sheridan late in September after three and a half years’ service, much of which was done in the Pacific area.
Nearly 900 German prisoners of war who have been working at Branch camps near Sycamore, Lanark and Hampshire are to be sent to the Ninth Service Command, the Pacific Coast, next week. It is assumed that the prisoners would work in the California fruit and vegetable harvest although no reason for the move was given. The prisoners have been employed by canning factories and with the end of the harvest season at hand in the Midwest, they have apparently volunteered for similar work in the west.
J.D. Ward of the Fargo hotel management, revealed that the Greyhound bus station would move. Beginning Friday, the station will be located at Arthur Taylor’s garage across from the court house. The bus depot has been located at the hotel for a number of years.
Vernon Eldred of Somonauk was caught under a car in the Plano garage where he is employed. The machine fell when the door of the elevator opened. He was taken to Aurora where x-ray examinations were made.
Guy W. Morgan, 218 North Walnut Street, has opened a new business in Sycamore. In his garage at home he has installed electrically operated machines with which to repair saws. In the trade this is known as changing the points. All his work will be of the precision variety.
It is learned that Dr. L. A. Westgate, the only woman doctor to staff a hospital in Sycamore medical history is dead. Death came at 8:00 o’clock last Sunday at the Westgate farm home near Triumph. The Westgate name will live long in the memory of this community. The doctor’s father built the structure now known as the Sycamore Elk’s home. In those early days it was the Sycamore Hospital.
1970 – 50 YEARS AGO
DeKalb city police have let it be known they will not tolerate any tampering with parking lot equipment at city parking lots. Police report that individuals have been lifting the gates and parking for free instead of paying the required parking fees. One person has been arrested and forfeited bond thus far on a charge of Theft of Services. Police have indicated there will be more arrests if the practice is continued.
Pizza Villa, Now Open at Our New Location, 824 West Lincoln Hwy., DeKalb
More than 70 local and nationally known stock car drivers will be on hand for the second annual National Gold Cup Dirt Track Championship set Friday night at the Sycamore Speedway. The race is billed as the richest and biggest ever held at the Sycamore clay oval.
Did you ever wonder what those odd-shaped bars were on the firemen’s uniforms and caps? The tradition of these symbols comes from the military and was picked up by the fire department after the turn of the century when the use of the megaphone bugle ceased. This old-style horn was used by the captain, lieutenant or fire chief at the scene of a blaze to shout orders to the firefighters and was replaced by more modern methods in the early 1900s. The DeKalb Fire Department still has such a bugle in its historical collection.
1995 – 25 YEARS AGO
DeKalb Genetics Corporation said that it has received a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for claims to corn cells that have been transformed via electroporation technology.
The resurgence of LSD in DeKalb County took a dangerous turn in Genoa yesterday when police say two students reported in sick after taking the drug.
The Sycamore Library Board now will have to seek additional private donations or grants to pay for its expansion project. The Sycamore City Council voted to deny a library board request for an additional $400,000 in city support for the $2.6 million expansion. The city has already given $100,000 to the project.
It appears the local theater group Stagecoach Players will remain center stage at their current facility on Barber Greene Road. There was a chance Stagecoach would be offered a new home at the former Wurlitzer Headquarters in far southern DeKalb, but the theater group recently decided not to move.
– Compiled by Sue Breese