Andrew Scheuer

Andrew Scheuer Interview*

History of Uptown, Rosehill District/Period Around 1903, Document #10

Source: Informant Andrew Scheuer, 5739 North Clark Street, a saloon keeper at that address since 1903. Interviewed January, 1928.

The history of the building I live in begins when it was built by a man named Schneider. He sold it to someone who then sold it to Tony Goetzinger, a German. Then a man called Bondurant who was French exchanged the place for a farm near South Bend where he lived. I bought the place from this man but he never lived here. It has always been a saloon. When I came here twenty-three years ago most all the people were Germans. There were farms from Wilson Avenue to Rogers Park and from the lake to about the Northwestern tracks. The land was not all wooded, but it was in truck farms. I can’t remember more than two houses.

There used to be a saloon at Ridge and Peterson on the northwest corner. The one at Bryn Mawr and Clark was running in 1904. Albert Wagner had a saloon west of Clark Street on Edgewater which was torn down when Clark was widened. It was on the northwest corner and was built a long time ago, I guess. Seventy-five or eighty horses could be put up there and the people could stay all night. Wagner was still living in it and it was a saloon when it was wrecked. The southwest corner of Devon and Broadway had a saloon on it opened by J.P. Jaeger and Peter Evert. This was twenty-three years ago. They built it in partnership. Later it turned into a Bicycle Club. The saloon on the southeast corner came in later. Peter Evert had a saloon on the south of Cemetery Drive facing Ravenswood Avenue where the restaurant is now. His cousin, Matt Evert, had one north of the Drive on Ravenswood about in the middle of the block. There were here when I came.

The building to the north of my place was a blacksmith shop. We never had places for horses or overnight travelers here. I guess this was too near Chicago. But the funeral processions used to stop here on the way to Calvary.

Not one-third of the people that are here now were here when I came. Peter Kinn had a store on Clark’s west side, which was wrecked with the widening of the street. His son Nick is living here. The man who ran the blacksmith’s shop was named Emil and he worked here until four years ago. The tire shop just north of his shop has only been here two years.

When you say Rosehill you mean form about Ridge to Catalpa but not east of Clark. On the west it goes to High Ridge and altogether is about four or five blocks long. Summerdale is further south around Winnemac and Summerdale Streets.

* Andrew Scheuer was born about 1862 in Luxemburg. He immigrated in 1896 to the United States, following his brother Lambert Scheuer who had immigrated in 1891. Together they operated the saloon at 5739 North Clark. Since neither married, they lived in the household of their niece Catherine and her husband John Schmitt, also at 5739 North Clark. The building was later sold to the Veterans of Foreign Wars and is now a store for Gethsemene Gardens.

Cover page: Documents: History of the Uptown Community, Chicago. Prepared for the Chicago Historical Society and the Local Community Research Committee, University of Chicago. Research under the direction of Vivien M. Palmer; staff investigators Marion Lindner and Beatrice Nesbit. These documents contain data just as it was secured form old residents and from existing documents. A final check of the data will appear in the volume of the Social History of Chicago.

Format: Photocopy of a typescript without page numbers in the Chicago History Museum library; volume 2 of a 6-volume set containing documentary information on 20 Chicago community districts/areas.

Publication date: 1925-1930.