Historian documents early days of Hegewisch
Chicago’s ‘most isolated neighborhood’ a big manufacturer, according to book
Surrounded by waterways and railroads, Hegewisch on Chicago’s Southeast Side is the city’s most isolated neighborhood, according to Cynthia L. Ogorek, author of “Hegewisch,” released in November by Arcadia Publishing.
The book of historic photos also suggests the neighborhood may also be among the most productive in terms of manufacturing.
“People from other parts of Chicago don’t even know Hegewisch exists,” said Ogorek, a Hegewisch native now living in Danville. “They think it’s a suburb of Chicago, or in Indiana.”
Ogorek identifies herself as a public historian and earned a master’s degree in history from Purdue University. Three of her other Arcadia books explore early underpinnings of Chicago’s industrial sector — all with connections to Hegewisch.
One examines the Calumet River system which connects the St. Lawrence Seaway to the Mississippi and Gulf of Mexico. Another covers South Shore and South
Bend Rail Line which for decades has shuttled workers and tourists between locations in Chicago. Another sheds light on the Chicago & Western Indiana Railroad, a short line that gave five major railroads access to Chicago.
As with those books, Ogorek doggedly pursued facts and historic images, sometimes even venturing out of state to do research. But her “Hegewisch” book contains more personal connections.
She and her parents moved from Hegewisch to Calumet City when she was just 4, but she insists her family remained rooted in the old Chicago neighborhood.
“All of the relatives were there, and seven out of 12 of the people from my parents’ generation lived there until they died,” she said.
Much of Ogorek’s early knowledge of Hegewisch came from family gatherings, when relatives would eat cake, drink coffee and play a guessing game about Hegewisch locals. “They called it ‘Who Was She From Home?’ ” Ogorek said.
Her maternal grandfather, Joe Pavich, hailed from Dalmatia, a region of Croatia, and operated Joe’s Tavern at 13259 S. Baltimore.
He’s pictured in the book, along with several other relatives including Ogorek’s father, Walter Ogorek, a World War II Army sergeant.
Some images came from a collection maintained by Mike Aniol, owner of Aniol Ace Hardware, 13416 S. Baltimore St.
But for the lion’s share of photos and information, Ogorek spent more than a decade researching historic materials housed at the Southeast Chicago Historical Museum in the hulking Chicago Park District Calumet Park field house on Lake Michigan.
Appearing there at a recent open house, Ogorek sold copies of “Hegewisch” and instructed first time visitors to check out the permanent display of historic Hegewisch photos and artifacts among other exhibits dedicated to Chicago’s South Chicago, South Deering and the East Side neighborhoods.
The name Hegewisch was bestowed by Adolph Hegewisch, president of US Rolling Stock Company.
The wooden boxcar manufacturer once headquartered in New York City established operations throughout the United States, including one that opened in 1884 on what was then the outskirts of Chicago, at Brandon and Brainerd Avenues.
Housing was needed for workers, so around that time, investors set up the Hegewisch Land Company with Adolph Hegewisch as administrator.
The land syndicate purchased several hundred acres to north of the U.S. Rolling Stock plant, then sold off residential and commercial plots.
“(Adolph) Hegewisch never owned any of the homes as with other company towns like Pullman,” Ogorek said. “People bought the plots and built their own homes. That was it.” It’s doubtful there was any form of municipal government in early Hegewisch either, Ogorek said, but Adolph Hegewisch did work with the community to set up fire and police stations.
“The way it worked with a lot of company towns back then was they would maintain the infrastructure, mostly to keep things running, and to keep people happy,” she said. US Rolling Stock was sold at auction in 1893. The plant later resumed operations as US Car, then Western Steel Car and Foundry, then Pressed Car Company. Pressed Car eventually made military tanks and household appliances on the site.
Ogorek’s opens the book with a view of Hegewisch seen through the eyes of a reporter for the Inter Ocean newspaper in 1905.
The journalist came to interview Oscar “Battling” Nelson, a resident destined to fight the longest match in modern boxing history — 42 rounds — to become lightweight boxing champion of the world.
Though the city of Chicago had annexed Hegewisch a decade and a half earlier in 1889, the reporter noted the quiet of a country town surrounded by prairie, with streets not paved and water running through ditches.
Some of the neighborhood’s first European residents were farm families.
Brits, Germans and Scandinavians were followed by Polish, Greek, Italian and more German immigrants seeking employment in manufacturing.
Over the decades, they made rail cars, buses, fuselages for airplanes, military tanks, stoves, chemicals and automobiles.
US Steel established a warehouse in Hegewisch. Ford built an assembly plant
that still produces cars.
Hegewisch residents also sought work in nearby steel mills now long closed, as well as at a meat packing plant in Hammond, Indiana.
Early 20th Century commutes entailed miles of walking in all types of weather, crossing railroad bridges and riding in unheated rail cars.
During lean times, the first wave of factory workers
resorted to hunting game and carving huge blocks of ice from Wolf Lake. “The ice was used to refrigerate rail cars transporting meat to other parts of the country,” Ogorek said.
Factory work spelled opportunity for men and for women. Of the 43 boardinghouses of the early Hegewisch days, 23 were operated by women. Other women worked as laundresses and seamstresses. Still others later operated schools, set up libraries, and published a local newspaper.
Though heavy industry shaped lives of toil, as Ogorek tells it, people still managed to organize picnics and parades, play baseball on company teams, honor fallen heroes, worship in local churches, attend movies, practice music lessons, organize scouting projects, cultivate water lilies and create cookbooks.
After World War II, Chicago’s only trailer park — now prefabricated homes — took root in Hegewisch to supplement much needed housing for veterans and their families. Construction of brick bungalows also commenced on streets with letters for names.
For decades, the Hegewisch Chamber of Commerce and the Hegewisch News complained about Chicago aldermen failing to secure amenities other Chicago wards took for granted.
A circa 1949 photo shows one of Ogorek’s cousins in a snowsuit, standing on a patch of ice.
The caption notes children skating on puddles and swimming in Wolf Lake for lack of skating rinks or swimming pools.
Library access was also inconsistent, Ogorek said.
Things improved in the 1980s with construction of the Mann Park swimming pool, a skating rink and permanent library branch, but not long after, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley announced plans to flatten Hegewisch to establish a third regional airport.
Activists fought back, and the proposed airport never came to be.
Ogorek ends her book where it all started — the land first occupied by U.S. Rolling Stock. In 2019, CRRC Sinfang America, 13535 S. Torrence, began making a new form of rolling stock — rail cars for the Chicago Transit Authority.
“It’s the same land, just a different address, a different entrance,” Ogorek said.
“Hegewisch” is available for purchase at the Southeast Chicago Historical Museum, 9801 S. Avenue G, Chicago, which is open on Thursdays, at www.arcadiapublishing.com.