To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Hoffman Estates in 1969, the village put out this neat little booklet called Community From Cornfields: The Story of the Village of Hoffman Estates.
It is 24 pages and includes everything from a brief history of the village to blurbs on the various village departments to lists of government officials and board members to a list of Hoffman Estates churches.
The library is fortunate to have two copies of the original document that was sent to the Thomas Guiney household on Northview Lane and the Carl Soderholm household on Bonita Drive. The most interesting part of the little booklet, though, are the surprising number of photos that are here for you to check out.
This is a photo of the Gieseke family farm that was originally located off of Bode Road and is currently the site of the Children’s Advocacy Center, St. Hubert Catholic Church and School, Alliance Fellowship Church and Hoffman Estates Fire Department Station 21.
The Giesekes sold the farm in 1943 to Arthur and Dorothy Dalton Hammerstein. They lived there until 1954 when Arthur passed away and Dorothy subsequently sold the farm to Jack Hoffman of F & S Construction.
This photo probably looks familiar to you. It is the Gieseke/Hammerstein house that became the Hoffman Estates village hall and is today’s Children’s Advocacy Center. When Dorothy Hammerstein sold the property to F&S, they used the house as their field headquarters. F&S then relinquished the property to the Village in 1959 and they adapted the house as their municipal center.
At the time of the printing of this booklet, the village was trying to decide what to do with the property as they felt they had outgrown the building and needed a more modern structure. “The Trustees are reluctant to tear down more than a hundred years of history, however, our growing community requires a decision soon.” To their great credit they preserved the house and it exists as one of the oldest structures in the village today.
It was, initially, a bit puzzling to discern what we are looking at in this aerial photo–except that the big grove of trees had to be either Sarah’s Grove or Walnut Grove. It took a bit but the thing I kept going back to is the diagonal road that crosses through the upper middle of the photo. It had to be Illinois Avenue. When I looked more closely I could see Schaumburg Road in the middle of the photo on the far right. It bisects Sarah’s Grove which puts the Timbercrest subdivision in the very foreground of the photo. Friendship Village is yet to be built, since it opened in 1974. Thus, we are looking at Parcel C and the Highlands in the background.
We then move into the photos that cover some aspects of Hoffman Estates government that were in place in 1969. This was Village Clerk Grace Kindelin’s office.
Fire Station #1 opened in 1960 and, sixty years later, exists as Station #21.
This was Fire Station #2 that was located at 469 Hassell Road. This station existed until 1974 when the village sold the building to the Schaumburg Township Public Library. The library used the building as their Hoffman Estates Branch Library until 1992. It was later torn down and the current Branch Library was erected on the spot.
The Village Board’s chamber was the location for all board meetings.
The three photos above represent the Hoffman Estates Park District which was formed in 1964–five years after the formation of the village. None of the photos are identified in the booklet. The top two are clearly built around a pond or a lake–and are possibly the same park. (The consensus in the comments below indicate that this was Evergreen Park near Lakeview School.) The last photo is likely the Community Pool.
Other photos, such as the ones below, represent the various parades that took place in the young village.
If you recognize any of the parades or locations of the parks, please leave something in the Comments or send me an email. It would be great to put a name to the location.
Next week, schools and businesses will be featured. The businesses, in particular, were a wonderful surprise!
Jane Rozek
Local History Librarian
Schaumburg Township District Library
jrozek@stdl.org
History of Schaumburg Township 