v27-1 Edgewater Teaser #31

Vol. XXVII No. 1 - SPRING 2016

In our last issue we asked: In 1913 what radical action did some Edgewater housewives propose to take to remedy the city’s failure to provide regular and adequate garbage pickup?

Answer: In a word: Pigs. The Chicago Tribune reported in its November 3, 1913, issue that a group of Edgewater women upset about the city’s failure to timely pickup the garbage, decided to take matters into their own hands. They fenced in a vacant lot on either Hood or Glenlake (the article states at Hood and Glenlake, but that is in error), and “stocked it with the old fashioned garbage disposers – large, hungry pigs.”

“Mrs. Leonard Peterson, 1320 Glenlake avenue, who first thought of the plan, said she could see no reason why women should donate their garbage to the city when they could turn the refuse into pigs and get pay.”

The other women engaged “in the new local live stock enterprise” were Mrs. William De R. Knight of 1325 Hood Avenue, Mrs. Robert P. Campbell of 1318 Glenlake Avenue, Mrs. S.M. Schall of 1321 Glenlake Avenue, Mrs. G.H. Bennett of 1330 and Mrs. Henry Krauter of 1314 Glenlake Avenue.

It appears that it was primarily a 1300 block of Glenlake effort. There is no follow-up article, so we don’t know how it all turned out, but it was clearly another early example of community activism, the other being the effort to get an “L” stop at Thorndale. In that effort, women also played a key role.

Teaser #32

What current Edgewater business has been in operation the longest at the same location and under the same name?