Morton Grove

Walk in the Woods

November 6, 2009
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One of the great things about living in Morton Grove is the amount of green space for a suburb that’s so close to the Chicago city limits. The North Branch of the Chicago River runs through the town not too far from our house, and the river is surrounded by the Cook County Forest Preserve. [...]

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Morton Grove Shout-Out

October 29, 2009

Every Friday, the Chicago Tribune publishes a feature story in the Homes section about one community in the Chicagoland area, and last Friday was Morton Grove’s turn. It was a pretty good article, I thought, however I think their home sale ranges are misleading as the recent home sale on the low end was a [...]

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Piecing History Together

February 12, 2009
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As I mentioned the other day, I went downtown to the Recorder of Deeds in the Cook County building at 118 N. Clark to try and learn more about the history of our house. Down in the basement you’ll find large binders containing handwritten logs which recorded all of the transactions related to your house [...]

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Club Rendezvous Trajedy

December 18, 2008
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I continued my research on our 1930 neighbor, who during Prohibition ran a speakeasy in his basement. I came across links to articles in various papers across the country: Reno, NV, Sheboygan, WI, and others. At first I thought, these must belong to another Elmer Cowdrey. Then I thought maybe he moved to one of [...]

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Roadhouse Hot Spot

December 12, 2008
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The next chapter in our little neighborhood’s 1930 history continues. In the last post, after years of rumor and hearsay, I wrote about discovering an article in the Chicago Tribune confirming that our neighbor’s bungalow was, in fact, a speakeasy during Prohibition. That owner, Elmer (Al) Cowdrey, went on to own and operate Club Rendezvous, [...]

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Speakeasy or Not?

December 10, 2008

When I decided to start researching our 1930 neighbors, the first ones who came to mind were the inhabitants of the middle bungalow across the street. If you’ve read my blog for a while, you might remember that this certain bungalow was rumored to be a speakeasy during Prohibition. The people who owned the house [...]

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Can You Dig It?

April 25, 2008
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Yesterday we ordered 5 cubic yards of Grade 8 Limestone for the paths and patio foundation. According to calculations it will fill the patio and about half of the paths. The delivery truck can only handle 5 yards at a time because of the weight of the stone, but we planned to order a portion [...]

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Recycling and Reducing around the House

April 2, 2008

Like Humphrey House and the other residents of Oak Park, we are also fortunate here in Morton Grove to have a recycling program that accepts virtually everything without our having to sort it all: office papers, newspapers, cardboard, chipboard, virtually all plastics including grocery bags, styrofoam containers, glass, cans (including the lid) —— even aluminum [...]

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From Speakeasies to Stripp Joynts

September 27, 2007
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Back in the roaring ’20s and early ’30s, Morton Grove was notorious for its roadhouses and speakeasies. It’s reputed that one of the bungalows on our block was a speakeasy. I’ve tried to find out the history on our house, but the only information I have so far is that a Leo Milke lived here [...]

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One of America’s Best for Families

July 18, 2007
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Our little village of Morton Grove was recently recognized in the August 2007 issue of Family Circle magazine as one of America’s Top 10 towns for families. They chose from among 1,850 towns across the country with a population between 15,000 and 150,000 (Morton Grove is around 22,000) that “combined big city opportunities with suburban [...]

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