Lake Geneva flourished during the decades following the Civil War.
The key to this flourishing was the restoration of the railroad connection between Chicago and Lake Geneva in 1871.
The renewed rail connection with Chicago transformed Lake Geneva from being a non-descript isolated small town into a destination firmly in the orbit of the growing metropolis of Chicago 72 miles to the southeast. Ironically this transformation began not only with a restoration of the rail connection with Chicago but also as a consequence of the greatest catastrophe to ever devastate the metropolis of Chicago — the great Chicago Fire of 1871.
Prior to the Chicago fire, a few wealthy Chicagoans had purchased land on the shore of Geneva Lake including three brothers, George, Shelton and Buckingham Sturges. They were the vanguard of many wealthy Chicagoans who would buy land and build summer mansions on the shores of Geneva Lake, a development that would result in Lake Geneva becoming one of the premium summer resorts in the United States.
It was also during the 1870s that the downtown business district in the 700 block of Main Street would be created, including the buildings that are still there today. Foremost among these downtown structures are two of Lake Geneva’s three-story buildings, prior to Geneva Towers): The Metropolitan Building, today known as the Landmark Center, at the southeast corner of Broad and Main streets, designed by the famous architect William LeBaron Jenny; and the Walker Block at the northwest corner of Main and Center streets.
It was also during the 1870s that Lake Geneva’s size increased dramatically with the development of the Crawford Addition on the northeast side of the city. The Crawford Addition was the result of the opening of Lake Geneva’s first manufacturing firm, the Crawford Manufacturing Company near the White River and today’s Haskins Street; and the real estate ventures of two brothers, John and James Haskins, who developed the Crawford Addition to the city between Center Street on the west and the White River on the east, and from Water Street on the south to today’s Interchange Street on the north. The Crawford Addition increased the size of Lake Geneva by one-third. The neighborhood is still called the “Crawford.”
Many new jobs were created in Lake Geneva after 1871 by wealthy summer residents from Chicago and by the Crawford Manufacturing Company. The workers who took these new jobs eventually built homes in Lake Geneva which necessitated the employment of carpenters, masons, bricklayers and painters. The Third Ward School on Henry Street was opened in 1874.
Many of the leading citizens in Lake Geneva during the second half of the 19th Century were Civil War veterans. During the decades of the 1870s and 1880s new community, civic, and social organizations were established in Lake Geneva including the Masonic Lodge and a post of the Grand Army of the Republic. New church buildings were constructed including the Methodist Church at the southwest corner of Geneva and Cook streets.
The Marsh Addition to Lake Geneva was developed in 1874, west of the Pioneer Cemetery. It encompassed a block north of Dodge Street on Maxwell Street, Franklin Avenue, Jefferson Avenue and Fremont Avenue.
Because Lake Geneva’s original cemetery, the Pioneer Cemetery, was becoming full, the city purchased land at the northern edge of the city and in 1880 opened the Oak Hill Cemetery.
Another significant expansion of Lake Geneva did not occur until the beginning of the 1890s. It came in 1893 at the time when the Columbian Exposition — the World’s Fair — was held in Chicago. Real estate developers in Lake Geneva developed the Columbian Addition to the city which encompassed the area north and northwest of the Pioneer Cemetery and included today’s Park Row and Pleasant and Clover streets. Park Row was modeled after the Midway in Chicago which was located adjacent to the Columbian Exposition’s “White City,” south of the University of Chicago. Because of adverse economic conditions, however, only a few houses were built in the Columbian Addition until the 1920s.
As the 19th Century came to a close in Lake Geneva and the 20th Century was just around the corner, several significant events occurred that would have a lasing impact on the city and the surrounding area.
Five miles to the west in the village of Williams Bay, not far from the shore of Geneva Lake, the University of Chicago built an astronomical observatory that would become one of the best-known explorers of the universe over the next three quarters of a century. Named after the developer of the transit system in London, Charles Yerkes, construction of the observatory provided jobs for many tradesmen in Lake Geneva.
Lake Geneva’s new railroad station was built adjacent to the railroad tracks on North Street west of Broad Street. The new station welcomed thousands of visitors to Lake Geneva over the ensuing eighty years. The station’s capacious waiting room became one of Lake Geneva’s “social centers.”
On Jan. 1, 1900, residents of Lake Geneva celebrated the first turn of a century in the city’s history. The advent of a new century was greeted with optimism and expectation as well as trepidation about what the new century would bring.
Patrick Quinn is a Lake Geneva native who is the University Archivist Emeritus at Northwestern University. Quinn can be reached by email at [email protected]
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