Talk:Summit, Illinois

Argo
Does anyone know when this village changed its name from Argo? It redirects to this page, that is why I was wondering.--Kranar drogin 10:52, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * According to http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1220.html:


 * South of the village, in 1907, the Corn Products Refining Company began building what would become the largest corn-milling plant in the world. Summit annexed this area in 1911. Called Argo after one of the firm's products, this area continues to pull development in its direction.


 * The town is often called Summit-Argo and Argo-Summit, too. It gets confusing. --Stacecom (talk) 00:36, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Argo is actually an old Postal District that included all of the Village of Summit south of 59th Street to the North side of 63rd St (and beyond depending on how the postal districts were drawn from time to time). In 1906 E.T. Bedford, a director of the Standard Oil Company and his son, Fred, were looking for a place to build a flagship corn milling plant for their new glucose business, known as The Corn Products Refining Company. Ideally, it would be near good transportation for materials and products, have room for expansion, and provide a readily available supply of corn, coal, sulfur and water. It would need street cars and interurbans to bring employees to the plant. They decided the perfect spot was just southwest of Chicago, near what is now known as the Chicago Clearing Yards. The Clearing Yards were the largest railroad transfer yards in the US at one time.

Corn Products purchased 100 acres from the Chicago Transfer and Clearing Company (CT&C) for $250 an acre. The plant was constructed in four units. The first one was completed in the spring of 1910. The second was up and going by 1912. The third was completed not long after the second, and by 1916 all four units were operational. The Corn Products Refinery was built on unincorporated land at the western end of the CT&C's tract. The CT&C was a precursor to the present day Chicago Clearing Industrial District. Corn Products (a corporation which had numerous plants around the US) called this particular facility it's Argo plant, Argo being the brand name of a starch product they produced. Construction of the plant commenced at the end of 1907, and by 1909 an Argo Post Office was established within the Village of Summit's corporate boundaries to accommodate the refinery and future employees. For years there were two Post Offices in the Village of Summit, the Summit office on West Archer, and the Argo Post Office (more or less always located on 63rd St.) Both were entirely separate entities. In fact at one point the Argo office was granted permission for home delivery while the Summit office had to wait for a number of years. This, among other issues, created animosity in Summit residents between those who lived north of 59th St, and those who lived south of it.

By 1908 Real Estate speculators and developers had began buying up land in the southern half of Summit. They started selling under the title (amongst others) of "The Argo Industrial District". The selling point offered to prospective home buyers and shop keepers was the huge refinery that butted up to the village limits to the South. This brought in the shop keepers, tavern owners, and hotels but they didn't do much in way of home sales. E.T. Bedford realized that there needed to be affordable housing in the area for his employees. The railroad depot was over a mile to the north. In Summit, the Joliet-Lyons trolley helped, as did the Archer Avenue trolley, and Chicago Surface Line from the city. But any route to the plant was time consuming. The long ride, coupled with long working hours, discouraged potential employees. Corn Products needed to lure workers in close to the plant, so they went to the CT&T. It should be noted that the CT&C avoided municipal interference at all costs and kept to themselves on their unincorporated land tract. As early as 1911, CT&T began to develop single family homes on a tract they owned south of 63rd St from 74th Av. West to Archer Rd to fill the needs of Corn Products. The tract was called the Corn Products Subdivision. This subdivision, much to CT&C's dismay, was annexed by the Village of Summit on October 2, 1911. By 1912, the Chicago & Western Indiana railroad purchased the Clearing Yards who in turn leased the yards to the Belt Railway Company. The CT&C turned their interests to managing their industrial property under the Chicago Clearing Land Association moniker (CCLA). The name of the Chicago Transfer and Clearing Company was changed to the Clearing Industrial District in 1934.

However, Argo was still not the answer for the Corn Products Refining Company’s labor supply. One significant problem came in part from the insular nature of the community. With the workers unable to get away from the plant and its environs conveniently, grievances turned into strikes, lockouts and even riots. A strike in 1918 turned into a riot and a few laborers were shot by Corn Product's security. After these fires cooled, Corn Products decided that management had to be separated from labor.

In 1919, George M. Moffet of Corn Products purchased land from the CCLA for a management housing project just south of the plant. This new subdivision consisted of pleasant single family homes laid out in a residential suburb of two streets. The location was perfect, divided from Argo by a railroad right-of-way and a couple of blocks of open prairie. This subdivision was tentatively called Argo Manor, but shortly thereafter was titled Bedford Park, in honor of the company president. In early 1940, the Bedford Park community incorporated itself into a Village, including the land holdings of the Corn Products Refining Company, the lands of Clearing Industrial District's 65th Street Industrial tract and those of the Belt Railway’s Clearing Yards.

Not much is left of the original Argo Industrial District. A few crumbling brick buildings and residential housing spawned from low interest loans from Corn Products in the early 1920's is all that is really left. The theaters, roller rink, Elgin Motor Car factory, Stone's store - all gone but that is the short story of Argo - the town that wasn't. Trma1 (talk) 08:24, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Changing all mentions of village to city
Hey guys, what are our thoughts on changing village to city throughout the article unless it is mentioning the official title? Using the term village feels very awkward, especially given its population. This change could also be reflected on any pages it is mentioned on, like removing it from list of villages and putting it on list of cities. Let me know your thoughts. Alex Khuel (talk) 22:42, 16 May 2024 (UTC)