Move over Moose

The hall of the Loyal Order of the Moose, Brookfield Lodge #1599, at 4020 DuBois Blvd., is about to become nothing but a memory of better days gone by. It is slated for demolition, to make way for a six-story condominium tower.

Writing about the history of the Moose Hall has not been easy. It also meant that the history of the Brookfield Lodge had to be covered. As a charitable organization, it provided backstops for baseball fields, basketball courts on playgrounds, sponsored a Little League team and bought raincoats for school patrol boys. These were only a few of its many services to the community.

The Moose was, and still is, one of those secret societies, that have initiation rites and sealed records that apparently would take dynamite to crack open. I found this out when telephoning the Berwyn Moose Hall, at 3625 Harlem Ave. in Berwyn. I did this because I knew that some of the old Brookfield Moose members had gone over to the Berwyn Lodge #424, once the Brookfield Moose Hall was sold back in 1997.

I left several messages on the Berwyn lodge’s answering machine over the course of many weeks. No one ever called back. Finally, on one recent morning, a woman answered the phone. I told her that my questions were only a few in number”what was the exact date of the last meeting at the Brookfield Moose Hall, and whether I could talk to someone who had transferred to the Berwyn Lodge.

The woman told me that the Berwyn Moose had over 1,500 members, and that she didn’t know of anyone to talk to. Also, she said in no uncertain terms that the “records were sealed” and not available to outsiders, and that there was no way to determine the date of that last meeting at the Brookfield Moose Hall.

Who was this woman? I never found out, and I doubt if she would’ve told me in the first place. But she was magnificently unhelpful. She’ll probably be boiled in antler oil, however, for revealing that the Berwyn Moose has over 1,500 members. She was probably a member of the auxiliary, known as the Women of the Moose. The Brookfield Moose had its own auxiliary chapter, #426, since 1942.

Secretive as this organization is, their history has not entirely eluded investigation. Sometimes the Brookfield Moose was mentioned in newspapers, as early as the year 1921. At other times, they wrote short, generally unrevealing biographies about their lodge, little dreaming that someone would ever use that information in a report.

Here are the basics of the history of the Brookfield Moose Lodge #1599, especially in its beginning year, and its curious, sudden departure from the village.

Friday, July 22, 1921. A total of 69 men presented themselves for initiation as charter members of the Loyal Order of the Moose, LaGrange Lodge #1599. These included not only Brookfield men, but also men of LaGrange.

Undertakers from both communities became members: U.S. Bright from LaGrange, at 11 N. LaGrange Road; and W.J. Gillespie, who had a funeral parlor at 3742 Grand Blvd., which is today houses the Broadway School of Dance. At that time, no Brookfield village presidents had applied for membership. This first meeting took place at the LaGrange Town Hall, at 53 S. LaGrange Road. Some 32 additional men were to be legally admitted as charter members on the following Wednesday, July 27, 1921.

The Lodge was firmly established. By the way, they didn’t have a president or vice-president, as you might expect. They had, instead, a dictator, U.S. Bright, and a vice dictator, C J. Hengels. Neither of them was from Brookfield.

The Moose’s 1968 fact sheet states that in December 1929, the Hinsdale Moose Lodge “forfeited its charter, and the remaining members were admitted into [the LaGrange] Lodge, and [the] charter was re-issued under the name Suburban Lodge #1599. On April, 10, 1948, when Brookfield became our permanent meeting place, the lodge was incorporated and the charter re-issued, and renamed Brookfield Lodge #1599.”

Eight days earlier, on Friday evening, April 2, 1948, the Brookfield Moose announced plans to erect a new building for their use. According to the April 8 Brookfield Magnet, this building would be on Ogden Avenue, near Park Avenue, a few blocks’ distance east of Maple Avenue. It was going to be “a two-story building, 50 feet by 80 feet, with all facilities for handling lodge meetings, dinners, recreation and officer’s quarters.”

“The members are looking forward to having their own home,” stated the Magnet article.

Perhaps they were, but it wasn’t to be any time soon, nor was it to be at this site. Prior to this, they had met at National Hall, which is the old name for today’s Sokol Hall at 3907 Prairie Ave.

Four years later, on Sunday afternoon, April 20, 1952, officials of the Moose broke ground at 4020 DuBois Blvd. As a result of this delay, the new building, once projected to cost $40,000 to erect, now would cost $45,000. A year later, it was said to have cost $65,000, with radiant copper tube heating installed in its flooring.

John J. Shimanek, a charter member of the lodge since 1921, took up the ceremonial shovel, and turned over the first spadeful of earth.

Adjoining the new building was a small parking lot, not the large one that today extends over to Burlington Boulevard. This larger lot was not to become a reality until 1968, when the old house to the north of the site was destroyed by a controlled-fire burn by the Brookfield, LaGrange and Lyons fire departments.

Since 1933, this building at 4010 DuBois Blvd., had been the home of Brookfield philanthropist and civic leader John Staren. Staren had been so instrumental in completing the shelter in Kiwanis Park, that it was named after him. A plaque over the drinking fountain still proclaims that the open air building is the John Staren Shelter.

The building at 4010 DuBois Blvd. was erected in 1904 when this part of the village was still known formally as West Grossdale, and, informally, as Congress Park. Fred Schultz”land owner, builder, and vice president of the Brookfield State Bank”had lived here since 1904 at its old address number of 106 DuBois Blvd..

On Sunday, May 19, 1968, John Staren’s surviving wife, Louise, watched her old home go up in flames during the controlled burn. The Brookfield Enterprise newspaper reported that upon “seeing the [second floor] eaves collapse, she commented wryly: ‘Oh, good, that’s where I used to hide my old love letters!'”

The historic building was reduced to charred rubble to make way for the larger, asphalt-surfaced parking lot.

The garage out back was left intact, and was used until its last days for storage by the Moose. When the apartment building west of the garage was about to be built, it was discovered that part of this garage was over the property line, so the Moose simply cut off and removed that part of the garage. This garage, also soon slated for demolition, as well as the small cement walk across the parkway to the street, are all that remains to show that the Schultz/Staren house was once here.

The new Moose Hall was dedicated on Saturday, April 18, 1953, and, in 1966, a new, western addition was dedicated. For many years, the entrances to the hall have been through the north side, but, originally, the main entrance was streetside, up several cement steps from the sidewalk. This entrance was still here in the 1960s.

On Saturday, July 27, 1968, the Moose Hall was the site of the Diamond Jubilee Coronation Ball, a truly gala affair, with a “Pageant of Flags, Crowning of Miss Brookfield and Her Court, the Rhythm-Aires band, Theme Era 1890 Ladies’ and Gentlemens’ Costume Prizes, attendance by village, county, and state officials, and a Parking Lot Mixer for the youth of Brookfield.”

About 25 years later, on Saturday, Jan. 23, 1993, the first event of Brookfield’s centennial year was held at the Moose Hall.

So why did the hall close forever, four years later? The Berwyn Moose was unhelpful on this point. However, a former member of the Brookfield Moose, Max Dietrich, volunteered some revealing information. What follows are his very definite opinions about why the hall closed.

“The Moose had enough members [back in 1997], but a couple of big shots thought we should go to Berwyn,” Dietrich said. “It was all cut and dried before we went to that meeting. At the meeting, the Berwyn Moose said: ‘We’re taking over. That’s it.’ We all fell off our chairs. We asked, ‘How did you come to this? How did you come to that?’ The Moose Hall manager sold us down the river.”

Dietrich offered $275,000 for the hall and property, contingent that the hall now become a community hall, available for all kinds of functions, and the Moose could still meet here, too.

“It could have been used for a lot of things,” he said, “for dances, weddings, dinners. I would have taken care of the wiring, first. It was terrible. Maybe one of the members did it out of the goodness of his heart.

“I quit [the Moose] over the problem we had, and how it was done so underhandedly. Though I offered $275,000 for the Hall, they sold it to the Berwyn Moose for $265,000. It was a rotten deal all around. The Moose should still be there.”

There you have it, from some who was intimately involved in this situation. We will probably never know the Berwyn Moose’s side of the story. And what of the “orphaned” Brookfield Moose members? Well, some of them went to the Berwyn Moose, and some to other lodges, and some just outright quit, as did Dietrich.

In 1999, Steven Campbell bought the Moose property for $260,000, and, in 2001, rented out spaces for commuter and monthly parking. Later, he had the idea of creating a six-story condominium complex on the site. After winning a number of zoning variations for the project, Campbell sold the Moose Hall and lot for $1.3 million to Triumph Real Estate, which plans on making the property the ParcCongress Station condominiums.

Take your last looks at the old Moose Hall, the garage and the cement walk on the parkway. Within a few weeks, Triumph expects to obtain their demolition permit, and everything will be gone forever.