It’s time for the people of Brookfield to celebrate, but nearly all of them don’t know what it is they are supposed to be celebrating. The answer is a simple one. It is the Centennial of Brookfield.
“Wait a minute,” some may object, “didn’t we celebrate the Brookfield Centennial, way back in the olden days, in 1993?”
Yes, we did, because that was the centennial of the village’s incorporation date, Nov. 7, 1893.
However, today”Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2005″is the 100th anniversary of Brookfield being named Brookfield. Prior to Aug. 17, 1905, and as early as Dec. 1, 1888, the village was completely tagged with the name Grossdale by its founder Samuel Eberly Gross.
But some villagers were growing tired of the name Gross. While he donated $1,300 to the building of a schoolhouse in 1894, villagers had to put up with his condition for doing so. It was arranged that forever after, the school would bear his name. Even today the S.E. Gross School exists at the corners of Lincoln and Maple avenues.
The charming little hamlet of Hollywood, a name once used by Gross himself as a sales lure, was changed by him in October 1895 into the less bucolic East Grossdale. The citizens of that area were outraged.
In November 1896, a suit was filed against Gross by the Village of Grossdale against extending Grossdale Avenue (Brookfield Avenue today) eastward over Salt Creek over to his East Grossdale subdivision. The village won its case, and the proposed extension failed. This time, citizens on both sides of Salt Creek were sorely annoyed by Gross’s arrogant actions.
On July 7, 1897, the wooden building at the corner of Brookfield and Prairie avenues burned to the ground. In it were housed a schoolroom, grocery, drug store and, most importantly, the Grossdale Village Hall courtroom.
After the fire, Gross, who owned the building, vowed to rebuild it. But he never did, which turned the people against him more than ever. Two years later, they had raised the money themselves to build a new brick village hall which remained in use until 1974, when it was razed.
From 1897-99 and 1901-05, the village even had a Gross running it, as village president. This man was John Wesley Gross, the founder’s brother.
It was in late 1900 and early 1901, when the village president was not a Gross, but George W. Borous, that the village attempted its first change of name. Citizens for and against the change banded together, and pressed their cases from December to February.
It was on Feb. 7, 1901 that the final vote was tallied from all the petitions for a change of name: 131 votes were for Montauk, and only 130 were needed for the official change. But three of the votes were later declared illegal, making the new total only 128″two less than were required for the change.
It was not until 100 years later, in 2001, that a careful and minute inspection of the village board minutes books from those months revealed that the three votes had been taken off twice, whether due to clerical error or deliberate intent.
Going by the books, Brookfield should have been named Montauk for the last 104 years. It is not known if the East (Hollywood) and West (Congress Park) Grossdales would have been converted to East and West Montauk. Probably the residents of those sections would not have stood for such a thing.
Four years later, villagers made another attempt at a name change. A contest held in early 1905 resulted in Mrs. Lillian Behrens of 3609 Forest Ave. being awarded that April with a small cash prize for her contributed name of Brookfield”made up by combining the “brook” (Salt Creek), with the “fields” around it.
On April 13, 1905, the village board accepted the petition for the naming of Brookfield and set aside a date, May 8, 1905, to act on it. Villagers rightly sensed that this was a political hot potato, and the sitting board wanted to delay discussion of it until after the forthcoming election.
As a result of the election, John W. Gross met his political end, as Henry C. Cox took office as village president. For the first time in years, no longer were the village’s municipal matters ruled by anyone named Gross.
In his inaugural message, reproduced in the village board minutes books, Cox made his priorities clear.
“A fundamental principal of the [political] party by whose [voice] we were chosen was that the name of the village should be changed to Brookfield. We must … go forward with a determination that nothing can daunt.”
Counting Cox, four Independent Party (pro-change) candidates took office. New trustees were Peter M. Nelson, George G. Newell and Dennis J. O’Leary. Two Citizens Party (against change) candidates were retained: Thomas Alway and Joseph N. Vasey.
Trustee Alexander H. Thorne was apparently without an opinion on the name change. He had tendered his resignation on March 30, 1905, saying that he was going to be moving out of the village, but the board would not accept it.
Neither would the voters, for, amazingly enough, he was reelected. Increasingly absent at meetings, his name was still being called for a vote as late as the first public hearing on the name change held on May 8, when he was not in attendance. The election candidate with the next highest tally of votes, Adolph Klabuhn, replaced Thorne as trustee during the regular board meeting the next day, on May 9.
On April 29, Congress Park resident Walter S. Parker began a newspaper to chronicle and champion the cause of the change. Parker was quite critical of the doings of ex-President Gross, and considered Trustee Alway as something of what we would call today a loose cannon, subject to fits of shouting and near violence, even at board meetings.
Major changes were happening, with many yet to come. A second public hearing, to be held during a regularly scheduled meeting of the village board, was set for June 1. But, the Honorable Marcus Kavanagh of the Superior Court of Cook County “entered an order [of] a Writ of Injunction” on the village board “to absolutely desist and refrain … from doing anything … relating to the change of the corporate name of the Village of Grossdale to that of Brookfield.”
In response, Village Attorney Byron C. Thorpe investigated the basis for the injunction, and the injunction was dismissed.
The pro-Brookfield Independent Party fought back by passing a resolution stating that former Villager President John Gross had “double-dipped” while in office, taking money above and beyond his presidential salary of $72 per year, accepting an additional $225 as a member of the Board of Local Improvements. By Aug. 24, Gross had not repaid or admitted to anything, and the village attorney was directed to institute a suit against him.
A third public hearing on the name change was scheduled to be held on Thursday, Aug. 17, 1905, during a regular board meeting. Tensions and passions ran high. That evening, after the previous two meetings’ minutes were read and approved, President Henry Cox addressed the board and attending audience that filled the courtroom. What he said was directly opposed to what he had stated in his inaugural message.
“While all of us represented [here] tonight were elected by parties, no one of us was elected to serve a party. The oath taken was not taken to further the interests of the party by whose votes we were placed in office, but to perform the duties devolving on us as officers of the village to the best of our knowledge and ability.”
Cox then went on to take up normal board business, such as acting on sewers, sidewalks, the narrowing of Grand Boulevard and the paying of bills. The audience could barely contain their impatient excitement.
Trustees Newell moved and O’Leary seconded “that the question of changing the name of the village be taken up.”
The motion was carried unanimously. A petition was then presented against the changing of the name, and was read. Cox then stated “that the matter of changing the name of Grossdale is now open for a public hearing,” and asked for remarks. A second petition in favor of the name change to Brookfield was presented, signed by 24 voters who had not signed the original petition received by the board in April.
A letter of opinion was read from John Worthington, the manager of the Real Estate and Loan Department of the Chicago Savings Bank, wherein he expressed the belief that the name change “to Brookfield would increase the value of real estate in Grossdale 50 percent, and for purposes of loaning, at least 100 percent.”
This looked bad for the pro-Grossdalers, trustees Alway and Vasey. Alway moved, and Vasey seconded that this public hearing be put off for one week. This delaying tactic failed. Klabuhn was no longer a trustee, as the way in which he had been put into office had become something of a legal problem.
But Alway wasn’t through yet. He now questioned the legality of the public hearing being held at this time. Cox wasn’t having any of that nonsense, and stated plainly to Alway that “the action being taken is in accord with the law,” and proceeded to read an extract from the Illinois Statutes in support of his ruling.
“Is there anyone present who desires to speak further?” Cox asked. No one spoke up, and he declared the Public Hearing thus closed.
Trustee O’Leary read the Order for Change, and moved for its adoption, which as seconded by Newell. The statements outlined what had been done previously to secure the renaming of the village, and the accompanying legalities.
Remarks were made by Alway, O’Lear, and Newell, and then the vote for adopting this measure was called for. “The vote was as follows: Nelson, Newell, O’Leary”Aye. Alway and Vasey”Nay.” President Cox declared the motion carried.
While the Old Grossdalers sulked and simmered and steamed, the New Brookfielders went mad with joy, screaming and shouting as if it were New Year’s Eve, determining to tear down every sign in the village that still read Grossdale.
The first one to go was the sign on the front of the brick Village Hall, once located where, ironically, the old Grossdale Train Station is now. The “Grossdale” part of the hall’s sign was ripped off, but they left untouched the “Village Hall” part. Street signs saying “Grossdale Avenue” were torn down.
The New Brookfielders met their match when they tried to snatch the lone “Grossdale” sign from the middle front of the train station, on the south side of the tracks. Mr. and Mrs. Malone, the station agents living on the second floor, trained a shotgun on the would-be destroyers of all things Grossdale, announcing that the sign was railroad property, and they’d take a shot at anyone trying to make off with it. The Malones stayed up the rest of the night and into the next morning watching over the sign.
Two days later, the Grossdale Independent newspaper ran their version of the historic event, comparing the name change process to a train ride heading for a destination, sometimes going out of control, but still remaining to stay on the tracks until at last the Brookfield stop was reached. In September, the paper was renamed The Brookfield Independent.
Though everyone considered the village as being Brookfield, it wasn’t until Oct. 1, 1906 that the central post office was officially renamed. The Hollywood and Congress Park offices did not have to be changed, having been legally designated by those same names a few years earlier.
It must’ve irked the Brookfielders to learn that S.E. Gross still owned the three train stations, so those names couldn’t be changed. The railroad bought the buildings from him, paying $25,000. In 1907, they were then renamed as Brookfield, Hollywood and Congress Park.
In other words, while today is the Centennial of the name of Brookfield, technically today’s residents can celebrate for the next two years. Talk about having a long, long party!