Blue Island, Illinois
Encyclopedia
Blue Island is a city in Cook County, Illinois
. The population was 22,556 at the 2010 census.
Blue Island was established in the 1830s as a way station for settlers traveling on the Vincennes Trace, and the settlement prospered because it was conveniently situated a day's journey outside of Chicago. Since its founding, the city has been an important commercial center in the south Cook County region, although its position in that respect has been eclipsed in recent years as other significant population centers developed around it and the region's commercial resources became spread over a wider area. In addition to its broad long-standing industrial base, the city enjoyed notable growth in the 1840s during the construction of the feeder canal (now the Calumet Sag Channel) for the I & M canal
, as the center of a large brick-making industry beginning in the 1850s (Blue Island was at one time considered to be the brick-making capitol of the world), and, beginning in 1883, as host to the car shops of the Rock Island Railroad. Until the Eighteenth Amendment
put them out of business in 1919, Blue Island was home to several breweries who used the east side of the hill to store their product before the advent of refrigeration. A large regional hospital and two major clinics are located in the city.
Although initially settled by "Yankee
" stock, Blue Island has been the point of entry for many of America's immigrants, beginning in the 1840s with the arrival of a large German population that remained a prominent part of the city's ethnic makeup for many years. Indeed, by 1850 fully half of Blue Island's population was either foreign born or the children of foreign born residents. Later, significant groups came from Italy, Poland, Sweden and Mexico.
According to the United States Census Bureau
, the city has a total area of 4.1 square miles (10.7 km²), of which, 4.0 square miles (10.4 km²) of it is land and 0.1 square miles (0.2 km²) of it (2.18%) is water.
According to the U.S census
as of 2010 there were 22,556 people, 7,783 households, and 5,194 families residing in the city. The population density
was 3,462 people per square mile. The racial makeup
of the city was 38.96% White, 29.42% African American
, 0.17% Native American
, 0.47% Asian
, 0.08% Pacific Islander
and 30.9% from other races. Hispanic
or Latino
of any race were 40.72% of the population. There were 7,783 households of which 37.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 39.0% were married couples
living together, 37.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.26% were non-families. The average household size was 2.89.
In the city the population was spread out with 31.65% under the age of 18, 11.92% from 18 to 24, 28.28% from 25 to 44, 19.22% from 45 to 64, and 8.93% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 29.20 years. For every 100 females there were 98.81 males. For every 100 males age 18 and over, there were 95 females.
The median income for a household in the city was $47,872, and the average income for a household was $58,810. The per capita income
for the city was $20,293.
Blue Island is so named because it is situated on the south end of a glacial moraine
that was once an island when Lake Chicago
covered the surrounding area thousands of years ago at the end of the last ice age. Early pioneers gave the ridge the name because at a distance it looked like an island set in a trackless prairie
sea. The blue color was attributed to atmospheric scattering or to blue flowers growing on the ridge. From the Chicago Democrat
, February, 1834:
In the 1903 edition of Blue Book for the State of Illinois, the state shows 1843 as the year Blue Island was granted "incorporation under special acts", recognizing the existence of Portland, but not as an incorporated entity. (Blue Island would not officially incorporate for almost another three decades - see below).
as a "Preserve America" community.
trains, with six stations, four of them along the Rock Island District Line: 119th Street
, 123rd Street
, Prairie Street
, and Vermont Street. The Rock Island District Line splits at Gresham
, north-east of Blue Island, and the branch (known alternately as the 'Beverly', 'Blue Island', or 'Suburban' branch) serves the Chicago communities of Gresham, Beverly Hills
and Morgan Park
and the stations in Blue Island between 119th Street and Vermont Street, where the tracks re-join the main line. (The branch line was built in 1888 as a result of efforts by the Blue Island Land and Building Company to promote its interests in what was to become the town and eventually the Chicago neighborhood of Morgan Park.) The Vermont Street station, which is one of the oldest in the Metra network (having been built in 1868) is across the street from the fifth station, which serves as the terminus of a Metra Electric (formerly the Illinois Central
)
spur line. The sixth station, also on the electric line, is a half mile north on Burr Oak Ave.
(127th St.) and Lincoln Ave. Blue Island is also served by Pace Suburban Bus
.
The city is 34 miles (45 minutes) from O'Hare Airport
, and 12.5 miles (30 minutes) from Midway Airport. It is located a half mile west of Interstate 57
, one and a half miles east of the Tri-State Tollway
and is bisected by Western Avenue
, which in Blue Island is part of the historic Dixie Highway
that in its heyday connected Chicago with Miami, Florida.
Norman Rexford came to Chicago from Charlotte, Vermont
in 1835 and became the first permanent settler of Blue Island when he established the Blue Island House inn there in 1836. (The site where the building stood can best be described using current landmarks as being at the confluence of Western Avenue and Gregory Street just north of the Western Avenue bridge.) Before Rexford built the Blue Island House, he had constructed a four-room log cabin in the wilderness at the north end of the blue island ridge that he intended as a tavern for wayfarers, but after a year realized that the place was not likely to be profitable for him and began to look for another site where he might have more success. Although farther from the settlement at Chicago (which by that time was incorporated and had a population of several thousand persons) and Fort Dearborn
by about three miles (5 km), the new inn was better situated because it was located on the Wabash Road (in Blue Island now Western Avenue), which was then a part of the Vincennes trail that went from Chicago to Vincennes, Indiana
. It was considerably larger and more refined than Rexford's previous venture, being a -story white frame building that also had various outbuildings to accommodate the needs of his guests.
Because it was a day's journey from Chicago, within a few years the inn became the nucleus for a group of businesses that catered to the soldiers, cattlemen (with their herds) and other travelers who arrived by stagecoach
or otherwise frequented the Vincennes trail.
From this time and through the 1970s, Blue Island's central business district
('uptown' to the locals) was regarded as an important regional commercial center,
with stores such as Woolworth's
, Kline's, Sears
, Montgomery Ward
, Spiegel and Steak 'n Shake. Today, downtown Blue Island is better known for its antique stores, art galleries, ethnic delicatessens and fine dining.
Much of this shift in business activity has been brought on by "big box
" development outside of town that space constraints make it impossible for uptown to accommodate. To this day Blue Island maintains a healthy business climate, though, as is evidenced by the fact that several local businesses have served the area for generations. DeMar's Restaurant, for example, opened its doors in 1950, Jebens Hardware was established in 1876, and Krueger Funeral Home was founded in 1858.
As a nod to the 21st Century, however, the city and a dedicated group of volunteers, working with The Metropolitan Planning Council of Chicago and the Center for Neighborhood Technology
have devised the Blue Island Plan for Economic Development which addresses not only the commercial expansion of the historic uptown business district, but the continued improvement of the housing stock and industrial base as well.
Moraine Valley Community College
operates a satellite facility uptown.
and Sullivan
designed a large complex for the Wahl Brothers brickyard (the main building of which was 250' x 350') on the west side of the Grand Trunk tracks between 119th and 123rd St. These buildings had been demolished by 1935, and all of Blue Island's brickyards were re-purposed by the latter part of the mid-20th Century. The larger ones for a while become landfills, and the Wahl Brothers location is now the site of the Meadows Golf Club.
A lending library
has been in existence in some form or another in Blue Island since about 1845, when Thomas McClintock began to make his private library of about 100 volumes available to the public for a nominal fee. The founding of the library as a publicly supported institution dates to 1854, when the library's collection, which at this time numbered around 800 volumes, was housed in the new Whittier School building on Vermont St. The library expanded again in 1890 when the Current Topics Club, predecessor to the Blue Island Woman's Club, opened a small reading room above Edward Seyfarth's hardware store on Western Avenue with a collection of about 1500 books and various periodicals
which were acquired with funds that were donated by the community through public subscription. Except for what was in the hands of patrons, this library's collection was destroyed by the Great Blue Island Fire of 1896.
The public library as a taxpayer supported institution per se was founded in 1897, and the first building built in Blue Island expressly for the purpose of housing the library's collection (by this time up to 3,200 volumes) was made possible by a matching grant of $15,000 (about $375,000 in 2008) provided by Andrew Carnegie
in 1903. This building was demolished in 1969 when the current library, which opened housing the library's collection of over 70,000 volumes, was built.
Today The Blue Island Public Library provides a host of services, including multi-language reading materials, computers with internet access, public meeting rooms and a wide variety of educational programs. It is a member of the Metropolitan Library System and is host to the Blue Island Historical Society's award-winning Museum Room.
Although religious gatherings have taken place in Blue Island almost since it was settled in 1836, the first denominational services took place in 1850 with the founding of the Central Methodist Church (predecessor to today's Grace United Methodist Church). Blue Island continues to respect the tradition of its early settlers by maintaining many of the congregations that were established there during these early years, and also by hosting new places of worship that serve the needs of new residents of this culturally diverse community. The following institutions, many of them well over a hundred years old, serve the Blue Island area today:
Church of Christ
Church of God of Prophecy
Conservative Congregational Christian Conference
Disciples of Christ
Episcopal
Evangelical Covenant
Lutheran
Methodist
Mormon
Non Denominational
Nazarene
Pentecostal
Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic – Lay Ecclesial Movement
Salvation Army
United Church of Christ
Blue Islanders have enjoyed a system of parks since 1912 when the park district (which was formed in 1909) acquired the property of the late Benjamin Sanders, who was Blue Island's first village president when the town incorporated in 1872 and served as the chairman of the building committee of the Cook County Board
after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The 9 acres (36,421.7 m²) property, which is bounded by Gregory Street, High Street, Irving Avenue and York Street, came with Sanders' home, which was remodeled into a field house and provided living quarters for the park's superintendent. Central Park eventually offered tennis courts, playground equipment, and the community's first swimming pool. It was vacated by the park district in 1965 when St. Francis Hospital acquired the property for $325,000. (about $2.15 million in 2008) to build its east campus there.
Memorial Park, the city's next public park, was dedicated on Decoration Day (now Memorial Day
), 1922 in ceremonies that were presided over by Brigadier General Abel Davis of Glencoe, Illinois
, who was Commander of the 132nd Infantry during World War I. The section of Memorial Park running adjacent to Burr Oak Ave. with 330 feet (100.6 m) of frontage on Highland Ave. had originally been laid out as a cemetery in the early 1850s, when this section of Blue Island was a healthy walk from the settled section of the town. Although the cemetery was added to and improved in subsequent years, it was closed by village ordinance in 1898, and almost all of the bodies that were interred there were moved to Mt. Greenwood Cemetery in Chicago, which had been developed by citizens from Blue Island. The acquisition of the entire parcel bounded by Burr Oak Ave., Highland Ave., Walnut St. and the B & O tracks was completed by the park district in 1935. The park at that point had reached its present size of 10 acres (40,468.6 m²), and eventually, with the help of President Franklin D. Roosevelt
's Alphabet agencies
, it was provided with landscaping and acquired an outdoor swimming pool, playground equipment, and a handsome Art Deco
stadium that seated 1000 persons (The stadium was demolished in December, 2009). With the closing of Central Park, Memorial Park has become the flagship of the Blue Island park system.
The 8.5 acres (34,398.3 m²) site of Centennial Park at Vermont St. and Division St. on the east side was acquired from the East Side Development Association in 1935 for $11,500 (about $176,300 in 2008). This park provides a field house, convenient athletic fields and playground equipment for the East Side community.
The city operates the Meadows Golf Club, a 6549 yards (5,988.4 m), 18-hole golf course that was designed by J. Porter Gibson ASGCA and opened in 1994. It has a course rating of 71.3 and a slope rating
of 121.
Blue Island athlete Don Kolloway
became a Major League Baseball
player when he became an infielder for the Chicago White Sox
in 1940. Except while he was in the service during WWII, Kolloway played most of the '40s with the White Sox. He was traded to the Detroit Tigers
in 1949, and to the Philadelphia Athletics in 1953, where he ended his baseball career. September 15, 1946 was "Don Kolloway Day" at Comiskey Park
, where he was presented with a new automobile. Topps
honored him with a baseball card (#97) while he was a member of the Athletics. For many years after his retirement, Kolloway operated a tavern in Blue Island called 'Kolloway's'. Los Angeles Dodgers
pitcher Joe Moeller
was born in Blue Island and spent the early years of his life there. Moeller pitched for the Dodgers between 1962 and 1971 and at age 19 years and 2 months became the youngest starting pitcher in the history of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Topps released a baseball card
(#444) for Moeller in 1969.
Don Rizzs had a very personal connection to the Hall of Fame. His son Rick
, voice of the Seattle Mariners
since 1983, grew up in Blue Island and graduated from Eisenhower High School
.
] As the largest settlement in the southern part of Cook County in the middle of the nineteenth century, Blue Island was an important trading and cultural center. The village offered educational opportunity to its residents as early as 1845 in the form of a private school for girls that was operated by local citizens, and public education was introduced in 1846 with the construction of a one-room schoolhouse that served the community exclusively for that purpose until the first Whittier School was built in 1854. The one-room schoolhouse was repurposed several times in subsequent years and still stands, much remodeled, as a comfortable house on Greenwood Ave. The public school district as a legal entity (now Cook County School District 130) was established in 1887, and the current high school district (Community High School District 218) was created in 1927, replacing earlier versions from 1897 and 1903. Blue Island Community High School (Now Dwight D. Eisenhower High School) was accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools (now North Central Association - Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement) in 1899. As president of Columbia University
, Eisenhower
was the keynote speaker at the dedication of the new facility on Sacramento Ave. for Blue Island Community High School in 1951, and the building was renamed in his honor in 1962.
Blue Island hosted a number of educational conferences during the 1850s, and because of this (and through the influence of Benjamin Sanders, whose tenure with the Cook County Board was during that time) Chicago State University
was founded in Blue Island in 1867 as the Cook County Normal (or Teacher's) School in the classrooms of the old Whittier School building on Vermont Street. This arrangement lasted until 1870, when the new campus for the college was completed in what is now the Englewood
neighborhood of Chicago on 10 acres (40,468.6 m²) of land that was donated by L. W. Beck for the purpose in 1868.
The following schools serve Blue Island today:
Elementary and middle schools - private
High school - public
High school - private
Higher education - public
Special education - public
Special education - private
Technical and vocational - private
Blue Island is home to MetroSouth Medical Center. Founded in 1905 as Saint Francis Hospital in the former mansion of Ernst Uhlich when this section of Gregory Street was lined with churches and the homes of some of Blue Island's more prosperous citizens, the hospital has long been nationally recognized as one of the nation's premier cardiovascular primary care centers. The founders of the hospital, the Sisters of St. Mary (currently the Franciscan Sisters of Mary
), relinquished ownership of the facility to MetroSouth Medical Center on July 30, 2008.
Because of its long history, the built environment
of Blue Island exhibits a broad range of architectural styles and periods. Although largely built in the vernacular
tradition, the works of notable architects, including George Maher
, Oscar Wenderoth
, Robert E. Seyfarth & , Perkins and Will
and Bertrand Goldberg
are featured throughout the community. The oldest section of Blue Island's city hall, built in 1891, was designed by Edmund R. Krause, who was the architect of the Majestic Building (along with its recently restored Bank of America Theatre) in Chicago's Loop
. The first buildings of Northwest Gas, Light and Coke Company in Blue Island were designed by Holabird and Roche in 1902 (demolished). The city also has 22 houses known to have been built with mail-order kits sold by Sears Modern Homes
. There is one building in Blue Island listed on the National Register of Historic Places
, twenty-seven are included as part of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency's Historic Architectural and Archaeology Resources Geographic Information System, and forty-one individual buildings and one district have been designated as local landmarks by the Blue Island Historic Preservation Commission.
The city's newest development is Fay's Point, a gated community built at the confluence of the Calumet River and the Calumet Sag Channel on the site of the historic farm of Jerome Fay.
One of the oldest buildings in Blue Island, The American House was built in 1839 as the courthouse for Lake County, Indiana
- a function it never actually had the chance to serve as the county seat was moved from Liverpool to Crown Point
in 1840. In 1844 the building was dis-assembled and sent by raft up the Little Calumet River and re-assembled in Blue Island. Although its Greek Revival roots are clearly discernible, the building is much remodeled and serves today as a private residence.
Greek Revival was the architectural style of choice in the early years of Blue Island's history. Many of the buildings that remain from those days have been similarly remodeled - perhaps the best 'pure' examples of the style, albeit in a vernacular form, can be seen either in the Walter P. Roche House on York Street or the Henry Schuemann House house on Western Avenue.
The house was built by Carlton Wadhams (1810–1891), who came to to Blue Island in 1839 from Goshen, Connecticut
and farmed on land north of the village until he opened the American House Hotel (building extant) in 1844. During his time in Blue Island Wadhams made his first fortune as the owner of the hotel and as a cattle dealer, staying until c. 1857 when he sold his holdings and moved to South Bend, Indiana
. In South Bend he was one of the founders of the Dodge Manufacturing Company and of the First National Bank, where he was a director until his passing. Wadhams sold the house along with all of the property on which it was located, which included the American House and all of the land between what is today Western Ave., Maple Ave., Burr Oak Ave. and Vermont St. to Joshua Palmer Young (1818–1889), who, by himself beginning in 1848 and in a partnership with John K. Rowley that was established in 1866, played an important role in the development of the Chicago communities of Beverly Hills
; Morgan Park
;, Near West Side
, Washington Heights
and Englewood
; as well as the suburban communities of Blue Island; South Lawn (now Harvey, IL); Homewood, IL and South Holland, IL.
Young operated the hotel for a time and was otherwise active in local affairs. He served from 1878–1880 as the president of the village board, and was a founder of the Congregational church (now Christ Memorial United Church of Christ). He was one of the incorporators, a director and secretary of the Chicago, Blue Island and Indiana Railroad Company (now part of the Grand Trunk Railway
), whose charter was approved by the state of Illinois on March 7, 1867.
The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is included in the State of Illinois' Historic Architectural and Archaeology Resources Geographic Information System.
" by President Franklin D. Roosevelt
, Victory ship
s were armed cargo ships that were built during World War II
to transport troops and supplies wherever in the world their services were required. Of the 550 or so built, 218 were named after American cities.
The U.S.S. Blue Island Victory was a type VC 2-S-AP2, which was 455 feet (138.7 m) long, 62 feet (18.9 m) wide, and had a 25 feet (7.6 m) draft
. It was equipped with a 5 inches (127 mm) gun on the stern for enemy submarines, a three inch (76 mm) anti-aircraft gun, and a 20 mm cannon. The U.S.S. Blue Island Victory served variously as a troop ship and as a cattle transport ship, and saw service in the Korean War
. It was scrapped in 1972. The picture shown here is the U.S.S. Lane Victory
, which is a twin to the U.S.S. Blue Island Victory that today serves as a museum in Los Angeles, California. It is a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places
.
winning author Margaret Ayer Barnes
wrote the novel Edna, His Wife, an American Idyll, using Blue Island as the first locale of the four that make up her story (the other three being Chicago, Washington, D.C.
and New York City
). The book is the story of the life of a simple country girl who was raised in Blue Island but becomes increasingly unhappy as she becomes older and leads a more sophisticated life elsewhere. The book was later adapted into a play by Cornelia Otis Skinner
. It is not known if Barnes had a personal connection with Blue Island, but it is clear to anyone who knows the town and has read the book that if she didn't, she researched its history and makeup thoroughly to give the reader an authentic view of life in Blue Island in the early years of the twentieth century.
Twenty-two years later, Gus the Great, the Book of the Month Club
selection for September 1947, was published. The book was a run-away best seller, and its author, Thomas W. Duncan, is reputed to have earned $250,000 in royalties from it, including $100,000 from Universal Studios for the movie rights. It is the story of the life and adventures of Gus Burgoyne, a circus owner of questionable character. Duncan was a college friend of Hill Lakin, the editor of the Blue Island Sun-Standard, and, after a visit to the town's industrial section, he was inspired to use it for several scenes for his book.
Several writers of distinction have had their roots in Blue Island. Noted author Michael A. Black graduated from Eisenhower High School. Black writes short stories and has written a number of books on various subjects, including a critically acclaimed series of mystery novels. His book A Final Judgement won a Lovey Award (formerly the Reader's Choice Award) in 2007. One of his later works, I Am Not a Cop, was co-authored with Richard Belzer
, who plays Detective John Munch
on NBC's
police drama series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
. The book was published by Simon & Schuster
and was released on October 14, 2008. A second book in the series by the duo, I Am Not a Psychic, was released by Simon & Schuster in 2009.
Another graduate of Eisenhower High School is the noted financial author and editor Andrew Leckey. He is best known in Chicagoland as having been the financial editor for WLS-TV
in the 1980s before going to New York to be a financial anchor for CNBC. He has either authored or edited ten books on finance, and for the past 20 years has written a nationally syndicated investment column for the Chicago Tribune Co.
.
Blue Island was the hometown of well-known Chicago author and sportswriter for the Chicago Sun-Times
Taylor Bell, and of Dave Nightingale, who wrote for the Chicago Daily News
and the Chicago Tribune
.
Because of the wide popularity of performers such as W. C. Handy
, the blues
became a popular musical genre during the roaring twenties
. It is not surprising, then, that when Wendell Hall
, Harry Geise and Emory O'Hara were looking for a title for their 1923 composition, they hit upon the name Blue Island Blues. The sheet music for it was published that year by Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co. Described by the New York Times art critic John S. Wilson as a "striking and colorful original composition" http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D07EFDF1731F932A1575BC0A967948260&scp=2&sq=%22blue+island+blues%22&st=nyt, it is a plaintive love song about a man who is missing his girl and "...has a ticket to Chicago..." that will be used to help him "... lose - those Yesterday's - Blue Island Blues". It was performed in 1923 by Hall with The Virginians on the Victor Talking Machine Company
(now RCA Records
) record label and again in 1929 by Tiny Parham
. An instrumental version is currently available on the CD by George Shearing
and Brian Torff entitled Lullaby of Birdland: Blues Alley Jazz/On a Clear Day which was released by Concord Records
in 2000.
A closer connection between Blue Island and the music world has been made by several individuals. On December 26, 1937 resident La Julia Elizabeth Rhea
(1908—1992) broke the color barrier by being the first black woman to sing the title role in Giuseppe Verdi's
Aida
with the Chicago Civic Opera
. Chicago Tribune
drama critic Cecil Smith was there and made this assessment "...A musical event without parallel in grand opera in America took place at the Civic Opera House
last night when two colored singers, La Julia Rhea and William Franklin, sang the Ethiopian roles of Aida and Amonasro in a special performance of Aida ... Both singers won a goodly success and were warmly applauded." On August 29, 1941 the two reprised their roles for the inaugural performance of the National Negro Opera Company
, for which the music critic for the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph wrote "...“We have rarely heard so impressive a chorus in all [our] opera experience”. During her career she appeared with the jazz
and blues vocalist and actress Ethel Waters
in a 1931 production of Rhapsody in Black, and toured in 1935 with a group of winners from the Major Bowes Amateur Hour
.
The rock band Enuff Z'Nuff
, also has members who lived there. One of their songs on the album Strength is named "Blue Island", and a later album is titled Welcome to Blue Island. The group has appeared on MTV
, Howard Stern and David Letterman
. Their music has been released on Atco Records
and Arista Records
.
The singer, songwriter and music producer Peter Brown
was born in Blue Island. Brown was a popular performer in the late 1970s and early 1980s with hits that included Do Ya Wanna Get Funky With Me (the original version of which was recorded in his bedroom) and Dance With Me. He was introduced to a somewhat younger group of fans as the writer, with Robert Rans, of Madonna's
smash hit signature song
"Material Girl
", which was later sung by Nicole Kidman
as part of the "Sparkling Diamonds" medley in the 2001 Golden Globe-nominated and Academy Award winning 20th Century Fox
motion picture Moulin Rouge!
.
Another musical group that called Blue Island home is the pop punk band Mest. Former Mest
frontman Tony Lovato grew up there. Their performance of "I Melt With You
" was part of the soundtrack from the 2001 Columbia Pictures
film Not Another Teen Movie
. The CD for it was released by Maverick Records
the same year.
Saxophonist Eugene Rousseau
was born in Blue Island.
Marty Grebb, a multi-instrument musician, grew up in Blue Island attending St. Benedict’s Elementary School. He was a member of The Exceptions, a local group from the 60s that some might remember. Next Marty joined The Buckinghams
as keyboardist; the band went on to earn multiple top recordings for singles and albums with Columbia Records
. Marty went on to become part of the group Chicago
with Pete Cetera in the late 70s. Through Marty’s multi-faceted and sought-after musical talent as player, producer, and songwriter, Blue Island can claim a connection to a wide and deep musical family. He’s worked with Etta James
, Buddy Guy
, B.B. King, Paul Butterfield
, Mike Bloomfield
, Bonnie Raitt
, Rosanne Cash
, Taj Mahal
, and Leon Russell
. Eric Clapton
has covered his songs. You can hear some of Marty’s latest work on the new CD from Elton John
/Leon Russell
coming in October 2010. Marty is still an active part of the musical community and lives in California.
Folk singer Anna Stange has lived and worked in Blue Island for many years. She has released several albums including When Will We Ever Learn: Songs for Justice and Peace and Miss Anna's Music Class Volumes I and II. As an advocate for environmental responsibility, Anna Stange was highlighted in the Chicago Tribune in 2008 as being one of the most 'green' inhabitants of Chicagoland, with a carbon footprint of just 11,500 lbs/year.
in several movies and television series. For example, scenes from the 2006 Paramount Pictures
film Flags of Our Fathers
, directed by Clint Eastwood
, were filmed in Blue Island. The movie was based on the book of the same name by James Bradley
with Ron Powers
about the Battle of Iwo Jima
, the six men who became famous for raising the American flag
there, and the sensation it caused after the photograph that was taken of it by Joe Rosenthal
was published by the Associated Press
. Scenes from the 1987 film Light of Day
, starring Michael J. Fox
, were also filmed there, including the scenes at the arcade "The Video Zone" (which for many years after filming was completed served as a Big Boy submarine sandwich shop - it was demolished in June 2009), as were scenes from the 2008 Universal Studios
film The Express
. The Express is the story of Ernie Davis
, who was the first black football player to win the Heisman Trophy
. Scenes from the 2008 film The Lucky Ones
were also filmed in Blue Island. The film, which stars Tim Robbins
, Rachel McAdams
and Michael Pena
, is the story of three veterans of the Iraq War as they try to pick up the threads of their lives after they return home. It was directed by Neil Burger
and produced by Liongate Films
. And winter came early to Blue Island in 2010 when, on October 21, leaves were plucked from trees and artificial snow fell as New Line Cinema
prepared to film exterior shots for the film The Rite. The movie stars Anthony Hopkins
as Father Lucas, a veteran exorcist who works at a Vatican school of exorcism, and focuses on his relationship with seminary student Michael Kovak (played by Colin O'Donoghue
) as the priest himself becomes the victim of demonic possession. Directed by Mikael Håfström
, the film is said to be based on actual events. It was released in January 11, 2011.
Blue Island also appeared regularly in the television show Cupid
and two episodes of the TV series Early Edition
were filmed there.
Several actors have ties to Blue Island as well. Acclaimed actor Gary Sinise
was born in Blue Island. Sinise has had a distinguished career: In 1974 he and fellow actors Terry Kinney
and Jeff Perry founded the Tony Award
-winning Steppenwolf Theatre Company
in the basement of a church in Highland Park, Illinois
. He has won an Emmy Award
for his portrayal of George Wallace
in the 1997 Turner Network Television
production of the same name, and a Golden Globe Award
for his role as the title character in the HBO film Truman. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Lt. Dan Taylor in the 1994 Amblin Entertainment
production of Forrest Gump
, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor
. He is a star in the television series CSI: NY
, whose creator and executive producer, Anthony E. Zuiker
, was also born in Blue Island. In December 2008 Sinise was presented with the Presidential Citizen Medal by George W. Bush
.
Also from Blue Island is the actor and writer John Franklin, who may be best known for his highly regarded work in two of the films based on Stephen King's
short story Children of the Corn
. Franklin has appeared in other films, including two Paramount Pictures
: The Addams Family
and the Academy Award and Golden Globe-nominated Addams Family Values
. His work on television includes appearances in the series Highway to Heaven
, Chicago Hope
and Star Trek: Voyager
.
Former Blue Island resident Nicole "Nikki" Kaapke, then a 29-year-old administrative assistant, was one of the Bachelorettes on the 2009 season of ABC's television show The Bachelor. She later appeared on a spin-off called "the Bachelor-Pad". Kaapke has also held the title of Miss Illinois Galaxy and Miss Galaxy International (beauty pageants).
Nearly all of Blue Island is in Illinois' 1st congressional district
; the portion east of the Dan Ryan Expressway
is in the 2nd district.
Cook County, Illinois
Cook County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois, with its county seat in Chicago. It is the second most populous county in the United States after Los Angeles County. The county has 5,194,675 residents, which is 40.5 percent of all Illinois residents. Cook County's population is larger than...
. The population was 22,556 at the 2010 census.
Blue Island was established in the 1830s as a way station for settlers traveling on the Vincennes Trace, and the settlement prospered because it was conveniently situated a day's journey outside of Chicago. Since its founding, the city has been an important commercial center in the south Cook County region, although its position in that respect has been eclipsed in recent years as other significant population centers developed around it and the region's commercial resources became spread over a wider area. In addition to its broad long-standing industrial base, the city enjoyed notable growth in the 1840s during the construction of the feeder canal (now the Calumet Sag Channel) for the I & M canal
Illinois and Michigan Canal
The Illinois and Michigan Canal ran from the Bridgeport neighborhood in Chicago on the Chicago River to LaSalle-Peru, Illinois, on the Illinois River. It was finished in 1848 when Chicago Mayor James Hutchinson Woodworth presided over its opening; and it allowed boat transportation from the Great...
, as the center of a large brick-making industry beginning in the 1850s (Blue Island was at one time considered to be the brick-making capitol of the world), and, beginning in 1883, as host to the car shops of the Rock Island Railroad. Until the Eighteenth Amendment
Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Eighteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution established Prohibition in the United States. The separate Volstead Act set down methods of enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment, and defined which "intoxicating liquors" were prohibited, and which were excluded from prohibition...
put them out of business in 1919, Blue Island was home to several breweries who used the east side of the hill to store their product before the advent of refrigeration. A large regional hospital and two major clinics are located in the city.
Although initially settled by "Yankee
Yankee
The term Yankee has several interrelated and often pejorative meanings, usually referring to people originating in the northeastern United States, or still more narrowly New England, where application of the term is largely restricted to descendants of the English settlers of the region.The...
" stock, Blue Island has been the point of entry for many of America's immigrants, beginning in the 1840s with the arrival of a large German population that remained a prominent part of the city's ethnic makeup for many years. Indeed, by 1850 fully half of Blue Island's population was either foreign born or the children of foreign born residents. Later, significant groups came from Italy, Poland, Sweden and Mexico.
Geography
Blue Island is located at 41°39′30"N 87°40′46"W (41.658412, -87.679424).According to the United States Census Bureau
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau is the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census. It also gathers other national demographic and economic data...
, the city has a total area of 4.1 square miles (10.7 km²), of which, 4.0 square miles (10.4 km²) of it is land and 0.1 square miles (0.2 km²) of it (2.18%) is water.
Demographics
United States Census
The United States Census is a decennial census mandated by the United States Constitution. The population is enumerated every 10 years and the results are used to allocate Congressional seats , electoral votes, and government program funding. The United States Census Bureau The United States Census...
as of 2010 there were 22,556 people, 7,783 households, and 5,194 families residing in the city. The population density
Population density
Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...
was 3,462 people per square mile. The racial makeup
Race (United States Census)
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, as defined by the Federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether or not they are...
of the city was 38.96% White, 29.42% African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
, 0.17% Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
, 0.47% Asian
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...
, 0.08% Pacific Islander
Pacific Islander
Pacific Islander , is a geographic term to describe the indigenous inhabitants of any of the three major sub-regions of Oceania: Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia.According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, these three regions, together with their islands consist of:Polynesia:...
and 30.9% from other races. Hispanic
Hispanic
Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...
or Latino
Latino
The demonyms Latino and Latina , are defined in English language dictionaries as:* "a person of Latin-American descent."* "A Latin American."* "A person of Hispanic, especially Latin-American, descent, often one living in the United States."...
of any race were 40.72% of the population. There were 7,783 households of which 37.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 39.0% were married couples
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
living together, 37.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.26% were non-families. The average household size was 2.89.
In the city the population was spread out with 31.65% under the age of 18, 11.92% from 18 to 24, 28.28% from 25 to 44, 19.22% from 45 to 64, and 8.93% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 29.20 years. For every 100 females there were 98.81 males. For every 100 males age 18 and over, there were 95 females.
The median income for a household in the city was $47,872, and the average income for a household was $58,810. The per capita income
Per capita income
Per capita income or income per person is a measure of mean income within an economic aggregate, such as a country or city. It is calculated by taking a measure of all sources of income in the aggregate and dividing it by the total population...
for the city was $20,293.
Origin of the name
Moraine
A moraine is any glacially formed accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris which can occur in currently glaciated and formerly glaciated regions, such as those areas acted upon by a past glacial maximum. This debris may have been plucked off a valley floor as a glacier advanced or it may have...
that was once an island when Lake Chicago
Lake Chicago
This article is about the prehistoric lake, For other geographic features with this name, see ChicagoLake Chicago was a prehistoric proglacial lake that is the ancestor of what is now known as Lake Michigan, one of North America's five Great Lakes....
covered the surrounding area thousands of years ago at the end of the last ice age. Early pioneers gave the ridge the name because at a distance it looked like an island set in a trackless prairie
Prairie
Prairies are considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type...
sea. The blue color was attributed to atmospheric scattering or to blue flowers growing on the ridge. From the Chicago Democrat
Chicago Democrat
The Chicago Democrat was the first newspaper in Chicago, Illinois. It was published from 1833 to 1861.-History:Publisher was a Jacksonian Democrat, lured west at the end of 1833 from Watertown, New York to start the Democrat inspired by traveler's stories about Chicago after a series of newspaper...
, February, 1834:
"Nearly south of this town and twelve miles [19 km] distant is Blue Island. This name is particularly appropriate. It is a table of land about six miles [10 km] long and an average of two miles [3 km] wide, of an oval form and rising some forty feet out of an immense plain which surrounds it on every side. The sides and slopes of this table, as well as the table itself, are covered with a handsome growth of timber, forming a belt surrounding about four or five thousand acres of beautiful table land. In summer, the plain is covered with luxurious herbage. It is uninhabited, and when we visited it, from its stillness, loneliness, and quiet, we pronounced it a vast vegetable solitude. The ridge, when viewed from a distance, appears standing in an azure mist of vapor, hence the appellation 'Blue Island'."
The Portland question
The statement is sometimes made that the city of Blue Island was once officially known as Portland. This claim is erroneous, as the chronology below will illustrate:- Norman Rexford established the “Blue Island House” at the southern edge of the ridge in November 1836, where in 1838 he became the settlement’s first postmaster. In his reminiscences published in the Blue Island Standard in 1876, Heber Rexford (who first came to the area and 1834 and was Cook County treasurer at the time of the Great Chicago FireGreat Chicago FireThe Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned from Sunday, October 8, to early Tuesday, October 10, 1871, killing hundreds and destroying about in Chicago, Illinois. Though the fire was one of the largest U.S...
in 1871) related the following:
“The north end of the bench of land on which Blue Island stands was originally covered with a dense forest, and from Chicago, before the view was obstructed by buildings, this timber presented a blue appearance like smoke. Water was like-mirrored forth by the mirage which almost always prevailed, giving the timber the appearance of land surrounded by water, and it was from this circumstance that the hunters called it Blue Island, which name was perpetuated by my brother getting a Post Office located there, which was also called Blue Island – so much for the name.”
- On April 13, 1839 Peter Barton and his partners (who included Gurdon HubbardGurdon Saltonstall HubbardGurdon Saltonstall Hubbard was an American fur trader, insurance underwriter and land speculator. Hubbard first arrived in Chicago on October 1, 1818 as a voyageur...
and John H. KinzieJohn H. KinzieJohn Harris Kinzie was the eldest son of John Kinzie, one of Chicago's first permanent settlers...
) registered the plat of “Portland” with the state of Illinois. Portland had been laid out on land which had been purchased from the federal government that was situated south of Vermont Street (more or less) and east of Wabash Road (what is now Western Avenue uptown, again, more or less). The Little Calumet River ran through the center of the platted area, and its promoters felt with this advantage that it would become a prosperous river town. They used their influence to have the local post office name changed from Blue Island to Portland, (a circumstance that as time went by would be a source of aggravation to the people of Blue Island) and on May 1, 1839, this was accomplished. The post office, however, wasn’t located within the platted area of Portland since there were no buildings in which to operate it, but in fact was on contiguous property to the west at the Blue Island House. Portland was never incorporated – it existed for many years by and large only as a plat of surveyLot and Block survey systemThe Lot and Block Survey System is a method used in the United States and Canada to locate and identify land, particularly for lots in densely populated metropolitan areas, suburban areas and exurbs...
. No buildings of any consequence were erected there for nearly half a century. While some of the street names from Portland remain (although sometimes not entirely on their original courses), any of them that were laid out (and in fact a majority of them never were) waited in most cases for many years until they were needed. About half of the area was eventually annexed within what would become the corporate boundaries of Blue Island as time went by, and significant other sections of it became parts of the village of Calumet Park, the Joe Louis the Champ golf course, and unincorporated Calumet townshipCalumet Township, Cook County, IllinoisCalumet Township is one of thirty townships in Cook County, Illinois, USA. As of the 2000 census, its population was 22,374.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, Calumet Township covers an area of ; of this, is land and is water.-Cities, towns, villages:* Blue Island *...
. According to John Volp, whose family had lived in Blue Island since 1862:
“Portland” did not become a river town. Neither did the name “Portland” ever come into general use. In spite of all the efforts of its promoters to popularize the locality the people preferred to live on top of the hill and call the place “Blue Island”...”
- For reasons that remain unclear (but most likely because all of the development that was taking place in the area was occurring in the as yet unincorporated settlement of Blue Island to the north and west), the state legislature changed the name of the platted "town" of Portland to correspond with that of its neighbor. From the Laws of Illinois - 1842 and 1843:
At the same time, the post office department in Washington, D.C. changed the name of the post office to “Blue Island".
An Act entitled "AN ACT TO CHANGE THE NAME OF PORTLAND IN COOK COUNTY TO THE NAME OF BLUE ISLAND: Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly that the name of the place called Portland in Cook County, Illinois is hereby altered and changed to Blue Island and the same shall hereafter always be known and called by such name of Blue Island. Approved February 24, 1843.”
In the 1903 edition of Blue Book for the State of Illinois, the state shows 1843 as the year Blue Island was granted "incorporation under special acts", recognizing the existence of Portland, but not as an incorporated entity. (Blue Island would not officially incorporate for almost another three decades - see below).
- April 20, 1850, the post office name was changed to “WorthWorth Township, Cook County, IllinoisWorth Township is one of thirty townships in Cook County, Illinois, USA. As of the 2000 census, its population was 152,239. It was founded in 1849, when the county voted to subdivide itself into townships.-Geography:...
”, this time to coincide with the name of the township in which it was located. - The Rock IslandChicago, Rock Island and Pacific RailroadThe Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad was a Class I railroad in the United States. It was also known as the Rock Island Line, or, in its final years, The Rock.-Incorporation:...
railroad inaugurated service to the community in 1852. From the Chicago Journal, May 27, 1852:
The "Rocket" pulled into the Vermont Street station (the only one in town then) for the first time on October 10, 1852. The Rock Island called the station "Blue Island".
"The work of laying ties upon this Road (sic) between Chicago and Blue Island will be commenced next week. Mr. H. Fuller... will complete the work in the course of ten or fifteen days. Two hundred and thirty-six men are now employed on it". .”
- January 10, 1860, the post office name reverted again to “Blue Island”.
- On October 26, 1872 Blue Island incorporated as a village using the name by which it has always been known. Although about twenty percent of Portland was included within the corporate boundaries of the new village, that Portland was not an incorporated entity can be determined from the following excerpt that was taken from the petition that was submitted to the state to permit the election to consider incorporation: "...Your petitioners further represent that the territory herein described and bounded is not more than two (2) square miles, and that no part of the same is now included within the limits of any incorporated town, Village or City..."
Preserve America
The city is one of seven incorporated areas in Illinois to have been designated by the White HouseWhite House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
as a "Preserve America" community.
Transportation
The city is a hub for MetraMetra
Metra is the commuter rail division of the Illinois Regional Transportation Authority. The system serves Chicago and its metropolitan area through 240 stations on 11 different rail lines. Throughout the 21st century, Metra has been the second busiest commuter rail system in the United States by...
trains, with six stations, four of them along the Rock Island District Line: 119th Street
119th Street - Blue Island (Metra)
119th Street Station is one of four Metra railroad stations in Blue Island, Illinois, along the Beverly Branch of the Rock Island District Line, and five within Blue Island generally. It is from LaSalle Street, the northern terminus of the line, and is named after 119th Street and located between...
, 123rd Street
123rd Street - Blue Island (Metra)
123rd Street Station is one of four Metra railroad stations in Blue Island, Illinois, along the Beverly Branch of the Rock Island District Line, and five within Blue Island generally. It is from LaSalle Street, the northern terminus of the line, and is named after and located on 123rd Street...
, Prairie Street
Prairie Street (Metra)
Prairie Street Station is one of four Metra railroad stations in Blue Island, Illinois along the Beverly Branch of the Rock Island District Line, and five within Blue Island. It is from LaSalle Street, the northern terminus of the line, and is both located on and named after Prairie Street...
, and Vermont Street. The Rock Island District Line splits at Gresham
Auburn Gresham, Chicago
Auburn Gresham, one of the 77 official community areas, is locatedon the far south side of the city of Chicago, Illinois. It was the original location of the South Side Irish Parade before it was relocated to the Beverly neighborhood farther southwest in the city.St. Sabina Church is located here,...
, north-east of Blue Island, and the branch (known alternately as the 'Beverly', 'Blue Island', or 'Suburban' branch) serves the Chicago communities of Gresham, Beverly Hills
Beverly, Chicago
Beverly is one of the 77 official community areas of Chicago, Illinois. It is located on the South Side on the southwestern edge of the city. Beverly Hills was built by English engineers as an exclusive streetcar suburb and the homes and large lots reflect this historic distinction...
and Morgan Park
Morgan Park, Chicago
Morgan Park, located on the far south side of the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States, is one of the city's 77 official community areas.-Morgan Park:...
and the stations in Blue Island between 119th Street and Vermont Street, where the tracks re-join the main line. (The branch line was built in 1888 as a result of efforts by the Blue Island Land and Building Company to promote its interests in what was to become the town and eventually the Chicago neighborhood of Morgan Park.) The Vermont Street station, which is one of the oldest in the Metra network (having been built in 1868) is across the street from the fifth station, which serves as the terminus of a Metra Electric (formerly the Illinois Central
Illinois Central Railroad
The Illinois Central Railroad , sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, is a railroad in the central United States, with its primary routes connecting Chicago, Illinois with New Orleans, Louisiana and Birmingham, Alabama. A line also connected Chicago with Sioux City, Iowa...
)
spur line. The sixth station, also on the electric line, is a half mile north on Burr Oak Ave.
Burr Oak (Metra)
Burr Oak is the penultimate station along the Blue Island Branch of the Metra Electric line in Blue Island, Illinois. The commuter rail station is located on Burr Oak Avenue near Lincoln Street, and is and is away from the northern terminus at Randolph Street Station...
(127th St.) and Lincoln Ave. Blue Island is also served by Pace Suburban Bus
Pace (transit)
Pace is the suburban bus division of the Regional Transportation Authority in the Chicago metropolitan area. It was created in 1983 by the RTA Act, which established the formula that provides funding to CTA, Metra and Pace. In 2010, Pace had 35.077 million riders. Pace's headquarters are in...
.
The city is 34 miles (45 minutes) from O'Hare Airport
O'Hare International Airport
Chicago O'Hare International Airport , also known as O'Hare Airport, O'Hare Field, Chicago Airport, Chicago International Airport, or simply O'Hare, is a major airport located in the northwestern-most corner of Chicago, Illinois, United States, northwest of the Chicago Loop...
, and 12.5 miles (30 minutes) from Midway Airport. It is located a half mile west of Interstate 57
Interstate 57
Interstate 57 is an Interstate Highway in Missouri and Illinois that parallels the old Illinois Central rail line for much of its route. It goes from Miner, Missouri, at Interstate 55 to Chicago, Illinois, at Interstate 94. I-57 essentially serves as a shortcut route for travelers headed between...
, one and a half miles east of the Tri-State Tollway
Tri-State Tollway
The Tri-State Tollway is a U.S. toll road maintained by the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority in northeastern Illinois which is considered one of the most heavily traveled highways in the country...
and is bisected by Western Avenue
Western Avenue (Chicago)
Western Avenue is the longest continuous street within the city of Chicago at in length. Western Avenue extends south as a continuous road to the Dixie Highway at Sibley Boulevard in Dixmoor, giving the road a total length of . However, Western Avenue extends intermittently through the...
, which in Blue Island is part of the historic Dixie Highway
Dixie Highway
The Dixie Highway was a United States automobile highway, first planned in 1914 to connect the US Midwest with the Southern United States. It was part of the National Auto Trail system, and grew out of an earlier Miami to Montreal highway. The final result is better understood as a small network of...
that in its heyday connected Chicago with Miami, Florida.
Uptown
Charlotte, Vermont
Charlotte is a town in Chittenden County, Vermont, United States. The town was named for Sofia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, youngest daughter of Duke Charles Louis Frederick of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.The population was 3,569 at the 2000 census....
in 1835 and became the first permanent settler of Blue Island when he established the Blue Island House inn there in 1836. (The site where the building stood can best be described using current landmarks as being at the confluence of Western Avenue and Gregory Street just north of the Western Avenue bridge.) Before Rexford built the Blue Island House, he had constructed a four-room log cabin in the wilderness at the north end of the blue island ridge that he intended as a tavern for wayfarers, but after a year realized that the place was not likely to be profitable for him and began to look for another site where he might have more success. Although farther from the settlement at Chicago (which by that time was incorporated and had a population of several thousand persons) and Fort Dearborn
Fort Dearborn
Fort Dearborn was a United States fort built in 1803 beside the Chicago River in what is now Chicago, Illinois. It was constructed by troops under Captain John Whistler and named in honor of Henry Dearborn, then United States Secretary of War. The original fort was destroyed following the Battle of...
by about three miles (5 km), the new inn was better situated because it was located on the Wabash Road (in Blue Island now Western Avenue), which was then a part of the Vincennes trail that went from Chicago to Vincennes, Indiana
Vincennes, Indiana
Vincennes is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Indiana, United States. It is located on the Wabash River in the southwestern part of the state. The population was 18,701 at the 2000 census...
. It was considerably larger and more refined than Rexford's previous venture, being a -story white frame building that also had various outbuildings to accommodate the needs of his guests.
Stagecoach
A stagecoach is a type of covered wagon for passengers and goods, strongly sprung and drawn by four horses, usually four-in-hand. Widely used before the introduction of railway transport, it made regular trips between stages or stations, which were places of rest provided for stagecoach travelers...
or otherwise frequented the Vincennes trail.
From this time and through the 1970s, Blue Island's central business district
Central business district
A central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city. In North America this part of a city is commonly referred to as "downtown" or "city center"...
('uptown' to the locals) was regarded as an important regional commercial center,
with stores such as Woolworth's
F. W. Woolworth Company
The F. W. Woolworth Company was a retail company that was one of the original American five-and-dime stores. The first successful Woolworth store was opened on July 18, 1879 by Frank Winfield Woolworth in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store"...
, Kline's, Sears
Sears, Roebuck and Company
Sears, officially named Sears, Roebuck and Co., is an American chain of department stores which was founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck in the late 19th century...
, Montgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward
Montgomery Ward is an online retailer that carries the same name as the former American department store chain, founded as the world's #1 mail order business in 1872 by Aaron Montgomery Ward, and which went out of business in 2001...
, Spiegel and Steak 'n Shake. Today, downtown Blue Island is better known for its antique stores, art galleries, ethnic delicatessens and fine dining.
Much of this shift in business activity has been brought on by "big box
Big-box store
A big-box store is a physically large retail establishment, usually part of a chain. The term sometimes also refers, by extension, to the company that operates the store...
" development outside of town that space constraints make it impossible for uptown to accommodate. To this day Blue Island maintains a healthy business climate, though, as is evidenced by the fact that several local businesses have served the area for generations. DeMar's Restaurant, for example, opened its doors in 1950, Jebens Hardware was established in 1876, and Krueger Funeral Home was founded in 1858.
As a nod to the 21st Century, however, the city and a dedicated group of volunteers, working with The Metropolitan Planning Council of Chicago and the Center for Neighborhood Technology
Center for Neighborhood Technology
The Center for Neighborhood Technology is a non-profit organization, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, which is committed to sustainable development and livable urban communities. CNT, as an “innovations center for urban sustainability”, researches, invents, and tests urban strategies that use...
have devised the Blue Island Plan for Economic Development which addresses not only the commercial expansion of the historic uptown business district, but the continued improvement of the housing stock and industrial base as well.
Moraine Valley Community College
Moraine Valley Community College
Moraine Valley Community College is a community college located in Palos Hills, Illinois in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. Founded in 1967, it is the second largest community college in the state. It has an enrollment of approximately 35,000...
operates a satellite facility uptown.
Brickyards
After it was discovered in the early 1850s that rich deposits of clay surrounded the ridge, Blue Island became the center of a significant brick-making industry that lasted for over a century. In the early years, these efforts were small with the bricks being made by hand and the turnout created mostly for local use, but by 1886 the Illinois Pressed Brick Company (organized in 1884) was employing about 80 men and using "steam power and the most approved machinery", which allowed them to produce 50,000 brick per day. By 1900 the Clifton Brickyard alone (which had opened in 1883 under the name of Purington at the far north-east corner of the village) was producing 150,000,000 bricks a year. In 1886, the Chicago architectural firm of AdlerDankmar Adler
Dankmar Adler was a celebrated German-born American architect.-Early years:...
and Sullivan
Louis Sullivan
Louis Henri Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called the "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism" He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an...
designed a large complex for the Wahl Brothers brickyard (the main building of which was 250' x 350') on the west side of the Grand Trunk tracks between 119th and 123rd St. These buildings had been demolished by 1935, and all of Blue Island's brickyards were re-purposed by the latter part of the mid-20th Century. The larger ones for a while become landfills, and the Wahl Brothers location is now the site of the Meadows Golf Club.
Public library
Lending library
A lending library is a library from which books are lent out. The earliest reference to or use of the term "lending library" yet located in English correspondence dates from ca. 1586; C'Tess Pembroke Ps. CXII. v, "He is .....
has been in existence in some form or another in Blue Island since about 1845, when Thomas McClintock began to make his private library of about 100 volumes available to the public for a nominal fee. The founding of the library as a publicly supported institution dates to 1854, when the library's collection, which at this time numbered around 800 volumes, was housed in the new Whittier School building on Vermont St. The library expanded again in 1890 when the Current Topics Club, predecessor to the Blue Island Woman's Club, opened a small reading room above Edward Seyfarth's hardware store on Western Avenue with a collection of about 1500 books and various periodicals
Periodical publication
Periodical literature is a published work that appears in a new edition on a regular schedule. The most familiar examples are the newspaper, often published daily, or weekly; or the magazine, typically published weekly, monthly or as a quarterly...
which were acquired with funds that were donated by the community through public subscription. Except for what was in the hands of patrons, this library's collection was destroyed by the Great Blue Island Fire of 1896.
The public library as a taxpayer supported institution per se was founded in 1897, and the first building built in Blue Island expressly for the purpose of housing the library's collection (by this time up to 3,200 volumes) was made possible by a matching grant of $15,000 (about $375,000 in 2008) provided by Andrew Carnegie
Carnegie library
A Carnegie library is a library built with money donated by Scottish-American businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. 2,509 Carnegie libraries were built between 1883 and 1929, including some belonging to public and university library systems...
in 1903. This building was demolished in 1969 when the current library, which opened housing the library's collection of over 70,000 volumes, was built.
Today The Blue Island Public Library provides a host of services, including multi-language reading materials, computers with internet access, public meeting rooms and a wide variety of educational programs. It is a member of the Metropolitan Library System and is host to the Blue Island Historical Society's award-winning Museum Room.
Religious life
Places of worship
BaptistBaptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
- California Gardens Christian of Love Baptist Church – 13911 S. Kedzie Ave.
Church of Christ
- Blue Island Church of Christ – 2304 W. 120th St.
Church of God of Prophecy
Church of God of Prophecy
The Church of God of Prophecy is a Christian denomination with beliefs and principles similar to Pentecostal Holiness Christian faith. It is one of five Church of God bodies headquartered in Cleveland, Tennessee that descended from a small meeting of believers who gathered at the Barney Creek...
- Glorious Life Worship Center – 12654 S. Maple
Conservative Congregational Christian Conference
Conservative Congregational Christian Conference
The Conservative Congregational Christian Conference, colloquially known as the CCCC or 4C's, is a Protestant Christian denomination operating in the United States. The denomination maintains headquarters in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, a suburb of St. Paul...
- Evangelical Community Church – 2237 W. 120th Pl.
Disciples of Christ
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
The Christian Church is a Mainline Protestant denomination in North America. It is often referred to as The Christian Church, The Disciples of Christ, or more simply as The Disciples...
- Family of Hope Christian Church - 2324 W. Orchard St.
Episcopal
Episcopal Church (United States)
The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...
- St. Joseph’s and St. Aiden’s Episcopal Church – Oak St. at Greenwood Ave.
Evangelical Covenant
Evangelical Covenant Church
The Evangelical Covenant Church is an evangelical Christian denomination of more than 800 congregations and an average worship attendance of 179,000 people in the United States and Canada with ministries on five continents. Founded in 1885 by Swedish immigrants, the church is now one of the most...
- Mission Covenant Church of Blue Island – 2501 W. Collins St.
Lutheran
Lutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
- First Evangelical Lutheran Church – 2515 W. Grove St.
- Salem Lutheran Church – 12951 S. Maple Ave.
- St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church – 13153 S. Greenwood Ave.
- St. Philip Lutheran Church – 2500 W. 121st St.
Methodist
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
- Grace United Methodist Church – 12739 S. Maple Ave.
Mormon
Mormon
The term Mormon most commonly denotes an adherent, practitioner, follower, or constituent of Mormonism, which is the largest branch of the Latter Day Saint movement in restorationist Christianity...
- Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – 2445 W. Birdsall
Non Denominational
Non-denominational Christianity
In Christianity, nondenominational institutions or churches are those not formally aligned with an established denomination, or that remain otherwise officially autonomous. This, however, does not preclude an identifiable standard among such congregations...
- Fortress Bible Church – 2237 W. 120th Pl.
- Calvary Chapel Blue Island - 12640 Sacramento Ave
Nazarene
Church of the Nazarene
The Church of the Nazarene is an evangelical Christian denomination that emerged from the 19th century Holiness movement in North America with its members colloquially referred to as Nazarenes. It is the largest Wesleyan-holiness denomination in the world. At the end of 2010, the Church of the...
- Church of the Nazarene – 12815 S. Gregory St.
Pentecostal
Pentecostalism
Pentecostalism is a diverse and complex movement within Christianity that places special emphasis on a direct personal experience of God through the baptism in the Holy Spirit, has an eschatological focus, and is an experiential religion. The term Pentecostal is derived from Pentecost, the Greek...
- Bethel Pentecostal Church - 2726 W. Broadway
- Life Changing Ministry - 2817 139th St.
Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
- St. Benedict Church – 2339 W. York St.
- St. Donatus Church – 1944 W. High St.
- St. Isidore Church – 1811 W. Burr Oak Ave.
Roman Catholic – Lay Ecclesial Movement
Roman Catholic lay ecclesial movement
Lay ecclesial movements are one form of associations of the faithful of the Catholic Church.Associations of the faithful are groups of baptized Catholics, clerics or laity or both together, who jointly foster a more perfect life or promote public worship or Christian teaching, or who devote...
- Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima – 13811 S. Western Ave.
Salvation Army
The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....
- Salvation Army Community Center - 2900 W. Burr Oak Ave. (127th St.)
United Church of Christ
United Church of Christ
The United Church of Christ is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination primarily in the Reformed tradition but also historically influenced by Lutheranism. The Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches united in 1957 to form the UCC...
- Christ Memorial United Church of Christ – 2440 W. York St.
Parks and recreation
Cook County Board of Commissioners
The Cook County Board of Commissioners is a legislative body made up of 17 commissioners who are elected by district for four year terms. Cook County, which includes the City of Chicago, is the nation's second largest county with a population of 5.2 million residents...
after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The 9 acres (36,421.7 m²) property, which is bounded by Gregory Street, High Street, Irving Avenue and York Street, came with Sanders' home, which was remodeled into a field house and provided living quarters for the park's superintendent. Central Park eventually offered tennis courts, playground equipment, and the community's first swimming pool. It was vacated by the park district in 1965 when St. Francis Hospital acquired the property for $325,000. (about $2.15 million in 2008) to build its east campus there.
Memorial Park, the city's next public park, was dedicated on Decoration Day (now Memorial Day
Memorial Day
Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the fallen Union soldiers of the Civil War...
), 1922 in ceremonies that were presided over by Brigadier General Abel Davis of Glencoe, Illinois
Glencoe, Illinois
Glencoe is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2010 census, the village population was 8,723. Glencoe is located on suburban Chicago's North Shore. Glencoe is located within the New Trier High School District. Glencoe is regarded as one of the most affluent suburbs on...
, who was Commander of the 132nd Infantry during World War I. The section of Memorial Park running adjacent to Burr Oak Ave. with 330 feet (100.6 m) of frontage on Highland Ave. had originally been laid out as a cemetery in the early 1850s, when this section of Blue Island was a healthy walk from the settled section of the town. Although the cemetery was added to and improved in subsequent years, it was closed by village ordinance in 1898, and almost all of the bodies that were interred there were moved to Mt. Greenwood Cemetery in Chicago, which had been developed by citizens from Blue Island. The acquisition of the entire parcel bounded by Burr Oak Ave., Highland Ave., Walnut St. and the B & O tracks was completed by the park district in 1935. The park at that point had reached its present size of 10 acres (40,468.6 m²), and eventually, with the help of President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
's Alphabet agencies
Alphabet agencies
In total, at least 100 offices were created during Roosevelt's terms of office as part of the New Deal, and "even the Comptroller-General of the United States, who audits the government's accounts, declared he had never heard of some of them." While previously all monetary appropriations had been...
, it was provided with landscaping and acquired an outdoor swimming pool, playground equipment, and a handsome Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
stadium that seated 1000 persons (The stadium was demolished in December, 2009). With the closing of Central Park, Memorial Park has become the flagship of the Blue Island park system.
The 8.5 acres (34,398.3 m²) site of Centennial Park at Vermont St. and Division St. on the east side was acquired from the East Side Development Association in 1935 for $11,500 (about $176,300 in 2008). This park provides a field house, convenient athletic fields and playground equipment for the East Side community.
The city operates the Meadows Golf Club, a 6549 yards (5,988.4 m), 18-hole golf course that was designed by J. Porter Gibson ASGCA and opened in 1994. It has a course rating of 71.3 and a slope rating
Slope rating
The slope rating of a golf course is a measure of its difficulty for bogey golfers. The term comes from the fact that when playing on more difficult courses, players' scores will rise more quickly than their handicaps would predict. The "slope rating" of a course thus predicts that rise...
of 121.
The Blue Island Area Sports Hall of Fame
As part of its focus, the park district serves the needs of the community by sponsoring little league, football and other sports activities. It is also host to the Blue Island Area Sports Hall of Fame, which was sponsored by the Blue Island Sun Standard and founded by its sports editor, Don Rizzs. As a community that is heavily involved in sports on many levels, the Hall of Fame is a repository of photos and biographies of many individuals who have distinguished themselves on the playing field, both on the local level and in the international spotlight.Blue Island athlete Don Kolloway
Don Kolloway
Donald Martin Kolloway , was a Major League Baseball player who played 12 years as an infielder for the Chicago White Sox , Detroit Tigers , and Philadelphia Athletics .Raised on Chicago's south side, he debuted with the White Sox in 1940...
became a Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
player when he became an infielder for the Chicago White Sox
Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox are a Major League Baseball team located in Chicago, Illinois.The White Sox play in the American League's Central Division. Since , the White Sox have played in U.S. Cellular Field, which was originally called New Comiskey Park and nicknamed The Cell by local fans...
in 1940. Except while he was in the service during WWII, Kolloway played most of the '40s with the White Sox. He was traded to the Detroit Tigers
Detroit Tigers
The Detroit Tigers are a Major League Baseball team located in Detroit, Michigan. One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the club was founded in Detroit in as part of the Western League. The Tigers have won four World Series championships and have won the American League pennant...
in 1949, and to the Philadelphia Athletics in 1953, where he ended his baseball career. September 15, 1946 was "Don Kolloway Day" at Comiskey Park
Comiskey Park
Comiskey Park was the ballpark in which the Chicago White Sox played from 1910 to 1990. It was built by Charles Comiskey after a design by Zachary Taylor Davis, and was the site of four World Series and more than 6,000 major league games...
, where he was presented with a new automobile. Topps
Topps
The Topps Company, Inc., manufactures chewing gum, candy and collectibles. Based in New York, New York, Topps is best known as a leading producer of baseball cards, football cards, basketball cards, hockey cards and other sports and non-sports themed trading cards.-Company history:Topps itself was...
honored him with a baseball card (#97) while he was a member of the Athletics. For many years after his retirement, Kolloway operated a tavern in Blue Island called 'Kolloway's'. Los Angeles Dodgers
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Los Angeles Dodgers are a professional baseball team based in Los Angeles, California. The Dodgers are members of Major League Baseball's National League West Division. Established in 1883, the team originated in Brooklyn, New York, where it was known by a number of nicknames before becoming...
pitcher Joe Moeller
Joe Moeller
Joseph Douglas Moeller is a former pitcher in Major League Baseball who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1962-1971. Moeller is the youngest starting pitcher in Los Angeles Dodgers history at 19 years, 2 months of age...
was born in Blue Island and spent the early years of his life there. Moeller pitched for the Dodgers between 1962 and 1971 and at age 19 years and 2 months became the youngest starting pitcher in the history of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Topps released a baseball card
Baseball card
A baseball card is a type of trading card relating to baseball, usually printed on some type of paper stock or card stock. A card will usually feature one or more baseball players or other baseball-related sports figures...
(#444) for Moeller in 1969.
Don Rizzs had a very personal connection to the Hall of Fame. His son Rick
Rick Rizzs
Rick Rizzs is an American sportscaster and is the lead radio voice for Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners.-Early life and career:Rizzs is a 1975 graduate of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. From 1975 to 1980, he handled baseball play-by-play duties at the double-A level for...
, voice of the Seattle Mariners
Seattle Mariners
The Seattle Mariners are a professional baseball team based in Seattle, Washington. Enfranchised in , the Mariners are a member of the Western Division of Major League Baseball's American League. Safeco Field has been the Mariners' home ballpark since July...
since 1983, grew up in Blue Island and graduated from Eisenhower High School
Eisenhower High School (Blue Island, Illinois)
Dwight D. Eisenhower High School is a public four-year high school located in Blue Island, Illinois, a southern suburb of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. It is part of Community High School District 218 along with sister schools Alan B. Shepard High School and Harold L...
.
Education
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
was the keynote speaker at the dedication of the new facility on Sacramento Ave. for Blue Island Community High School in 1951, and the building was renamed in his honor in 1962.
Blue Island hosted a number of educational conferences during the 1850s, and because of this (and through the influence of Benjamin Sanders, whose tenure with the Cook County Board was during that time) Chicago State University
Chicago State University
Chicago State University is a state university of the U.S. state of Illinois, located in Chicago.-History:Cook County Normal School was founded in 1867, largely through the initiative of John F. Eberhart, the Commissioner of Schools for Cook County...
was founded in Blue Island in 1867 as the Cook County Normal (or Teacher's) School in the classrooms of the old Whittier School building on Vermont Street. This arrangement lasted until 1870, when the new campus for the college was completed in what is now the Englewood
Englewood, Chicago
Englewood, once known as "Junction Grove" , is one of the 77 official community areas of Chicago. At its height, over 97,000 people lived in its approximately 3 square miles , but the neighborhood's population has since dropped dramatically...
neighborhood of Chicago on 10 acres (40,468.6 m²) of land that was donated by L. W. Beck for the purpose in 1868.
The following schools serve Blue Island today:
Schools
Elementary and middle schools - public- Everett F. Kerr Middle School – 12915 S. Maple Ave.
- Greenbriar School - 12015 S. Maple Ave.
- Greenwood School - 12418 Highland Ave
- Lincoln Elementary School – 2140 W. Broadway St.
- Paul Revere Intermediate School – 12331 S. Gregory St.
- Paul Revere Primary School – 2300 W. 123rd Pl.
- Veteran’s Memorial Middle School – 12320 S. Greenwood
- Whittier Elementary School – 13043 S. Maple
Elementary and middle schools - private
- St. Benedict School – 2324 W. New St. Top 25 Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of Chicago.
High school - public
- Dwight D. Eisenhower High SchoolEisenhower High School (Blue Island, Illinois)Dwight D. Eisenhower High School is a public four-year high school located in Blue Island, Illinois, a southern suburb of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. It is part of Community High School District 218 along with sister schools Alan B. Shepard High School and Harold L...
– 12700 S. Sacramento Ave.
High school - private
- Marist High School - 4200 W. 115th St.
Higher education - public
- Moraine Valley Community College – 12940 S. Western Ave.
Special education - public
- Able Program, Garfield School – 13801 S. Chatham St.
- Academy for Learning – 13813 S. Western Ave.
Special education - private
- Blue Cap School – 2155 W. Broadway St. The keynote speaker for the dedication of Blue Cap in October 1967 was then-Senator Charles H. PercyCharles H. PercyCharles Harting "Chuck" Percy was president of the Bell & Howell Corporation from 1949 to 1964. He was elected United States Senator from Illinois in 1966, re-elected through his term ending in 1985; he concentrated on business and foreign relations...
.
Technical and vocational - private
- Environmental Technical Institute – 13110 S. Division St.
Health care
Franciscan Sisters of Mary
The Franciscan Sisters of Mary is a Roman Catholic religious congregation for women based in St. Louis, Missouri that founded hospitals throughout the Midwest....
), relinquished ownership of the facility to MetroSouth Medical Center on July 30, 2008.
Buildings and architecture
Built environment
The term built environment refers to the human-made surroundings that provide the setting for human activity, ranging in scale from personal shelter and buildings to neighborhoods and cities that can often include their supporting infrastructure, such as water supply or energy networks.The built...
of Blue Island exhibits a broad range of architectural styles and periods. Although largely built in the vernacular
Vernacular architecture
Vernacular architecture is a term used to categorize methods of construction which use locally available resources and traditions to address local needs and circumstances. Vernacular architecture tends to evolve over time to reflect the environmental, cultural and historical context in which it...
tradition, the works of notable architects, including George Maher
George W. Maher
George Washington Maher was a significant contributor to the Prairie School-style of architecture during the first-quarter of the 20th century. He also was known for blending the traditional with the Arts & Crafts-style. According to architectural historian H...
, Oscar Wenderoth
Office of the Supervising Architect
The Office of the Supervising Architect was an agency of the United States Treasury Department that designed federal government buildings from 1852 to 1939....
, Robert E. Seyfarth & , Perkins and Will
Perkins and Will
Perkins+Will was founded in Chicago in 1935 by and ., on the belief that design has the power to transform lives and enhance society...
and Bertrand Goldberg
Bertrand Goldberg
Bertrand Goldberg was an American architect best known for the Marina City complex in Chicago, Illinois, the tallest residential concrete building in the world at the time of completion.-Life and career:...
are featured throughout the community. The oldest section of Blue Island's city hall, built in 1891, was designed by Edmund R. Krause, who was the architect of the Majestic Building (along with its recently restored Bank of America Theatre) in Chicago's Loop
Chicago Loop
The Loop or Chicago Loop is one of 77 officially designated Chicago community areas located in the City of Chicago, Illinois. It is the historic commercial center of downtown Chicago...
. The first buildings of Northwest Gas, Light and Coke Company in Blue Island were designed by Holabird and Roche in 1902 (demolished). The city also has 22 houses known to have been built with mail-order kits sold by Sears Modern Homes
Sears Catalog Home
Sears Catalog Homes were ready-to-assemble kit houses sold through mail order by Sears, Roebuck and Company, an American retailer. Over 70,000 of these were sold in North America between 1908 and 1940. Shipped via railroad boxcars, these kits included all the materials needed to build a house...
. There is one building in Blue Island listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
, twenty-seven are included as part of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency's Historic Architectural and Archaeology Resources Geographic Information System, and forty-one individual buildings and one district have been designated as local landmarks by the Blue Island Historic Preservation Commission.
The city's newest development is Fay's Point, a gated community built at the confluence of the Calumet River and the Calumet Sag Channel on the site of the historic farm of Jerome Fay.
The American House
Lake County, Indiana
Lake County is a county located in the U.S. state of Indiana. In 2010, its population was 496,005, making it Indiana's second-most populous county. The county seat is Crown Point. This county is part of Northwest Indiana and the Chicago metropolitan area. The county contains a mix of urban,...
- a function it never actually had the chance to serve as the county seat was moved from Liverpool to Crown Point
Crown Point
Crown Point is the name of several towns or cities, and geographic features:United States*Crown Point, Alaska*Crown Point, Indiana - Lake County*Crown Point, New York**Fort Crown Point, built in 1759 on Lake Champlain by the British...
in 1840. In 1844 the building was dis-assembled and sent by raft up the Little Calumet River and re-assembled in Blue Island. Although its Greek Revival roots are clearly discernible, the building is much remodeled and serves today as a private residence.
Greek Revival was the architectural style of choice in the early years of Blue Island's history. Many of the buildings that remain from those days have been similarly remodeled - perhaps the best 'pure' examples of the style, albeit in a vernacular form, can be seen either in the Walter P. Roche House on York Street or the Henry Schuemann House house on Western Avenue.
The Joshua P. Young House
Goshen, Connecticut
Goshen is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 2,697 at the 2000 census.Each July, the Connecticut Agricultural Fair is held in town. It is also home to the Goshen players.-Geography:...
and farmed on land north of the village until he opened the American House Hotel (building extant) in 1844. During his time in Blue Island Wadhams made his first fortune as the owner of the hotel and as a cattle dealer, staying until c. 1857 when he sold his holdings and moved to South Bend, Indiana
South Bend, Indiana
The city of South Bend is the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States, on the St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2010 Census, the city had a total of 101,168 residents; its Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 316,663...
. In South Bend he was one of the founders of the Dodge Manufacturing Company and of the First National Bank, where he was a director until his passing. Wadhams sold the house along with all of the property on which it was located, which included the American House and all of the land between what is today Western Ave., Maple Ave., Burr Oak Ave. and Vermont St. to Joshua Palmer Young (1818–1889), who, by himself beginning in 1848 and in a partnership with John K. Rowley that was established in 1866, played an important role in the development of the Chicago communities of Beverly Hills
Beverly, Chicago
Beverly is one of the 77 official community areas of Chicago, Illinois. It is located on the South Side on the southwestern edge of the city. Beverly Hills was built by English engineers as an exclusive streetcar suburb and the homes and large lots reflect this historic distinction...
; Morgan Park
Morgan Park, Chicago
Morgan Park, located on the far south side of the city of Chicago, Illinois, United States, is one of the city's 77 official community areas.-Morgan Park:...
;, Near West Side
Near West Side, Chicago
The Near West Side, one of the 77 defined community areas of Chicago, is located , adjacent to the downtown central business district . The rich history of the Near West Side of Chicago has its genesis in the Hull House phenomenon...
, Washington Heights
Washington Heights, Chicago
Washington Heights, one of the 77 official community areas, is located on the far south side of the city of Chicago, Illinois, loosely bordered in the south by 107th street, the north by 89th street, the west by Beverly Avenue and the East by Eggleston Avenue. It was once a bedroom community of...
and Englewood
Englewood, Chicago
Englewood, once known as "Junction Grove" , is one of the 77 official community areas of Chicago. At its height, over 97,000 people lived in its approximately 3 square miles , but the neighborhood's population has since dropped dramatically...
; as well as the suburban communities of Blue Island; South Lawn (now Harvey, IL); Homewood, IL and South Holland, IL.
Young operated the hotel for a time and was otherwise active in local affairs. He served from 1878–1880 as the president of the village board, and was a founder of the Congregational church (now Christ Memorial United Church of Christ). He was one of the incorporators, a director and secretary of the Chicago, Blue Island and Indiana Railroad Company (now part of the Grand Trunk Railway
Grand Trunk Railway
The Grand Trunk Railway was a railway system which operated in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario, as well as the American states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The railway was operated from headquarters in Montreal, Quebec; however, corporate...
), whose charter was approved by the state of Illinois on March 7, 1867.
The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is included in the State of Illinois' Historic Architectural and Archaeology Resources Geographic Information System.
The USS Blue Island Victory
On December 28, 1945, 91 days after her keel was laid, the U.S.S. Blue Island Victory was launched from the Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard in Baltimore, Maryland. Dubbed "the Ugly Duckling of the merchant marineUnited States Merchant Marine
The United States Merchant Marine refers to the fleet of U.S. civilian-owned merchant vessels, operated by either the government or the private sector, that engage in commerce or transportation of goods and services in and out of the navigable waters of the United States. The Merchant Marine is...
" by President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
, Victory ship
Victory ship
The Victory ship was a type of cargo ship produced in large numbers by North American shipyards during World War II to replace shipping losses caused by German submarines...
s were armed cargo ships that were built during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
to transport troops and supplies wherever in the world their services were required. Of the 550 or so built, 218 were named after American cities.
The U.S.S. Blue Island Victory was a type VC 2-S-AP2, which was 455 feet (138.7 m) long, 62 feet (18.9 m) wide, and had a 25 feet (7.6 m) draft
Draft (hull)
The draft of a ship's hull is the vertical distance between the waterline and the bottom of the hull , with the thickness of the hull included; in the case of not being included the draft outline would be obtained...
. It was equipped with a 5 inches (127 mm) gun on the stern for enemy submarines, a three inch (76 mm) anti-aircraft gun, and a 20 mm cannon. The U.S.S. Blue Island Victory served variously as a troop ship and as a cattle transport ship, and saw service in the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
. It was scrapped in 1972. The picture shown here is the U.S.S. Lane Victory
SS Lane Victory
SS Lane Victory is a Second World War Victory ship which is preserved as a museum ship in the San Pedro area of Los Angeles, California. As a rare surviving Victory ship, it is a U.S...
, which is a twin to the U.S.S. Blue Island Victory that today serves as a museum in Los Angeles, California. It is a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.
Writers and literature
Over the years, Blue Island has provided the setting for the works of at least a couple of writers. In 1935, for example, the Pulitzer PrizePulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
winning author Margaret Ayer Barnes
Margaret Ayer Barnes
Margaret Ayer Barnes was an American playwright, novelist, and short-story writer....
wrote the novel Edna, His Wife, an American Idyll, using Blue Island as the first locale of the four that make up her story (the other three being Chicago, Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
and New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
). The book is the story of the life of a simple country girl who was raised in Blue Island but becomes increasingly unhappy as she becomes older and leads a more sophisticated life elsewhere. The book was later adapted into a play by Cornelia Otis Skinner
Cornelia Otis Skinner
Cornelia Otis Skinner was an American author and actress.-Biography:Skinner was the daughter of the actor Otis Skinner and his wife Maud Skinner. After attending the all-girls' Baldwin School and Bryn Mawr College and studying theatre at the Sorbonne in Paris, she began her career on the stage...
. It is not known if Barnes had a personal connection with Blue Island, but it is clear to anyone who knows the town and has read the book that if she didn't, she researched its history and makeup thoroughly to give the reader an authentic view of life in Blue Island in the early years of the twentieth century.
Twenty-two years later, Gus the Great, the Book of the Month Club
Book of the Month Club
The Book of the Month Club is a United States mail-order book sales club that offers a new book each month to customers.The Book of the Month Club is part of a larger company that runs many book clubs in the United States and Canada. It was formerly the flagship club of Book-of-the-Month Club, Inc...
selection for September 1947, was published. The book was a run-away best seller, and its author, Thomas W. Duncan, is reputed to have earned $250,000 in royalties from it, including $100,000 from Universal Studios for the movie rights. It is the story of the life and adventures of Gus Burgoyne, a circus owner of questionable character. Duncan was a college friend of Hill Lakin, the editor of the Blue Island Sun-Standard, and, after a visit to the town's industrial section, he was inspired to use it for several scenes for his book.
Several writers of distinction have had their roots in Blue Island. Noted author Michael A. Black graduated from Eisenhower High School. Black writes short stories and has written a number of books on various subjects, including a critically acclaimed series of mystery novels. His book A Final Judgement won a Lovey Award (formerly the Reader's Choice Award) in 2007. One of his later works, I Am Not a Cop, was co-authored with Richard Belzer
Richard Belzer
Richard Jay Belzer is an American stand-up comedian, author, and actor. He is perhaps best known for his role as John Munch, which he has portrayed as a regular cast member on the NBC police drama series Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, as well as in guest...
, who plays Detective John Munch
John Munch
Sergeant John Munch is a fictional character played by actor Richard Belzer. Munch first appeared on Homicide: Life on the Street. Upon that series' cancellation, the character was transplanted to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the first spin-off of the Law & Order franchise...
on NBC's
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
police drama series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is an American police procedural television drama series set in New York City, where it is also primarily produced...
. The book was published by Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
and was released on October 14, 2008. A second book in the series by the duo, I Am Not a Psychic, was released by Simon & Schuster in 2009.
Another graduate of Eisenhower High School is the noted financial author and editor Andrew Leckey. He is best known in Chicagoland as having been the financial editor for WLS-TV
WLS-TV
WLS-TV, virtual channel 7, is an owned-and-operated television station of the Walt Disney Company-owned American Broadcasting Company, located in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The station operates their full power digital operations on UHF channel 44, with their digital fill-in translator on VHF channel...
in the 1980s before going to New York to be a financial anchor for CNBC. He has either authored or edited ten books on finance, and for the past 20 years has written a nationally syndicated investment column for the Chicago Tribune Co.
Tribune Company
The Tribune Company is a large American multimedia corporation based in Chicago, Illinois. It is the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, with ten daily newspapers and commuter tabloids including Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida...
.
Blue Island was the hometown of well-known Chicago author and sportswriter for the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
Taylor Bell, and of Dave Nightingale, who wrote for the Chicago Daily News
Chicago Daily News
The Chicago Daily News was an afternoon daily newspaper published between 1876 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois.-History:The Daily News was founded by Melville E. Stone, Percy Meggy, and William Dougherty in 1875 and began publishing early the next year...
and the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
.
Music
W. C. Handy
William Christopher Handy was a blues composer and musician. He was widely known as the "Father of the Blues"....
, the blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
became a popular musical genre during the roaring twenties
Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties is a phrase used to describe the 1920s, principally in North America, but also in London, Berlin and Paris for a period of sustained economic prosperity. The phrase was meant to emphasize the period's social, artistic, and cultural dynamism...
. It is not surprising, then, that when Wendell Hall
Wendell Hall
Wendell Woods Hall was an American country singer, vaudeville artist, song writer, pioneer radio performer, Victor recording artist and ukelele player.-Biography:...
, Harry Geise and Emory O'Hara were looking for a title for their 1923 composition, they hit upon the name Blue Island Blues. The sheet music for it was published that year by Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co. Described by the New York Times art critic John S. Wilson as a "striking and colorful original composition" http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D07EFDF1731F932A1575BC0A967948260&scp=2&sq=%22blue+island+blues%22&st=nyt, it is a plaintive love song about a man who is missing his girl and "...has a ticket to Chicago..." that will be used to help him "... lose - those Yesterday's - Blue Island Blues". It was performed in 1923 by Hall with The Virginians on the Victor Talking Machine Company
Victor Talking Machine Company
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American corporation, the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. It was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey....
(now RCA Records
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
) record label and again in 1929 by Tiny Parham
Tiny Parham
Hartzell Strathdene "Tiny" Parham was a Canadian-born American jazz bandleader and pianist of African-American descent....
. An instrumental version is currently available on the CD by George Shearing
George Shearing
Sir George Shearing, OBE was an Anglo-American jazz pianist who for many years led a popular jazz group that recorded for MGM Records and Capitol Records. The composer of over 300 titles, he had multiple albums on the Billboard charts during the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and 1990s...
and Brian Torff entitled Lullaby of Birdland: Blues Alley Jazz/On a Clear Day which was released by Concord Records
Concord Records
Concord Records is a U.S. record label now based in Beverly Hills, California. Originally known as Concord Jazz, it was established in 1972 as an off-shoot of the Concord Jazz Festival in Concord, California by festival founder Carl Jefferson, a local automobile dealer and jazz fan who sold his...
in 2000.
A closer connection between Blue Island and the music world has been made by several individuals. On December 26, 1937 resident La Julia Elizabeth Rhea
La Julia Rhea
La Julia Rhea was an American operatic soprano, and a pioneering African American figure in Chicago. Rhea was trained in Louisville, Kentucky and later in Chicago. She debuted in Chicago's Kimball Hall in 1929. She continued to make regular concert performances as she studied operatic roles...
(1908—1992) broke the color barrier by being the first black woman to sing the title role in Giuseppe Verdi's
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
with the Chicago Civic Opera
Chicago Civic Opera
The Civic Opera Company was a Chicago company that produced seven seasons of grand opera in the Auditorium Theater from 1922 to 1928, and three seasons at its own Civic Opera House from 1929 to 1931 before falling victim to financial difficulties brought on in part by the Great Depression.-...
. Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
drama critic Cecil Smith was there and made this assessment "...A musical event without parallel in grand opera in America took place at the Civic Opera House
Civic Opera House (Chicago)
The Civic Opera House is an opera house located at 20 North Wacker Drive in Chicago. It is part of a building which contains a 45-story office tower and two 22-story wings. This structure opened on November 4, 1929 and has an Art Deco interior....
last night when two colored singers, La Julia Rhea and William Franklin, sang the Ethiopian roles of Aida and Amonasro in a special performance of Aida ... Both singers won a goodly success and were warmly applauded." On August 29, 1941 the two reprised their roles for the inaugural performance of the National Negro Opera Company
National Negro Opera Company
The National Negro Opera Company was the first African-American opera company in the United States.Organized in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, under the direction of Mary Cardwell Dawson, the company was resident in a Queen Anne-style house at 7101 Apple Street in the city's Homewood...
, for which the music critic for the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph wrote "...“We have rarely heard so impressive a chorus in all [our] opera experience”. During her career she appeared with the jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and blues vocalist and actress Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters was an American blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues.Her best-known recordings includes, "Dinah", "Birmingham Bertha",...
in a 1931 production of Rhapsody in Black, and toured in 1935 with a group of winners from the Major Bowes Amateur Hour
Major Bowes Amateur Hour
Major Bowes Amateur Hour, American radio's best-known talent show, was one of the most popular programs broadcast in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s...
.
The rock band Enuff Z'Nuff
Enuff Z'nuff
Enuff Z'Nuff, pronounced "enough's enough," is an American glam rock band from Blue Island, Illinois. Founded by singer Donnie Vie and bassist Chip Z'Nuff, this Chicago area band is best known for their charting singles "Fly High Michelle" and "New Thing." Enuff Z'Nuff has continually recorded and...
, also has members who lived there. One of their songs on the album Strength is named "Blue Island", and a later album is titled Welcome to Blue Island. The group has appeared on MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
, Howard Stern and David Letterman
Late Show with David Letterman
Late Show with David Letterman is a U.S. late-night talk show hosted by David Letterman on CBS. The show debuted on August 30, 1993, and is produced by Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants Incorporated. The show's music director and band-leader of the house band, the CBS Orchestra, is...
. Their music has been released on Atco Records
Atco Records
ATCO Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group, currently operating through WMG's Rhino Entertainment.-Beginnings:Atco Records was founded in 1955 as a division of Atlantic Records. It was devised as an outlet for productions by one of Atlantic's founders, Herb Abramson, who...
and Arista Records
Arista Records
Arista was an American record label. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment and operated under the RCA Music Group. The label was founded in 1974 by Clive Davis, who formerly worked for CBS Records...
.
The singer, songwriter and music producer Peter Brown
Peter Brown (singer)
Peter Brown is an artist, songwriter and record producer. He grew up in Palos Heights, another Chicago suburb. His mother, Virginia, was artistic and musically talented and gave Peter music lessons at a very young age. Peter’s father, Maurice, was an electronic engineer and unwittingly helped him...
was born in Blue Island. Brown was a popular performer in the late 1970s and early 1980s with hits that included Do Ya Wanna Get Funky With Me (the original version of which was recorded in his bedroom) and Dance With Me. He was introduced to a somewhat younger group of fans as the writer, with Robert Rans, of Madonna's
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
smash hit signature song
Signature song
A signature song is the one song that a popular and well-established singer or band is most closely identified with or best known for, even if they have had success with a variety of songs...
"Material Girl
Material Girl
"Material Girl" is a song performed by American singer-songwriter Madonna. It was released on January 30, 1985, by Sire Records, as the second single from her second album Like a Virgin. It also appears slightly remixed on the 1990 greatest hits compilation, The Immaculate Collection, and in its...
", which was later sung by Nicole Kidman
Nicole Kidman
Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...
as part of the "Sparkling Diamonds" medley in the 2001 Golden Globe-nominated and Academy Award winning 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
motion picture Moulin Rouge!
Moulin Rouge!
Moulin Rouge! is a 2001 romantic jukebox musical film directed, produced, and co-written by Baz Luhrmann. Following the Red Curtain Cinema principles, the film is based on the Orphean myth, La Traviata, and La Bohème...
.
Another musical group that called Blue Island home is the pop punk band Mest. Former Mest
Mest
Mest was a pop punk band from Blue Island, Illinois. The band's lineup, prior to their breakup in 2006, consisted of vocalist and guitarist Tony Lovato, guitarist Jeremiah Rangel, bassist Matt Lovato, and drummer Nick Gigler...
frontman Tony Lovato grew up there. Their performance of "I Melt With You
I Melt With You
"I Melt with You" is a song by the British post-punk and New Wave band Modern English. The song, produced by Hugh Jones, was a single from the 1982 album After the Snow, and is about a couple making love as nuclear bombs fall. It reached #7 on Billboard's Top Tracks chart and #78 on the Billboard...
" was part of the soundtrack from the 2001 Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
film Not Another Teen Movie
Not Another Teen Movie
Not Another Teen Movie is a 2001 American comedy film directed by Joel Gallen, released on December 14, 2001 by Columbia Pictures. It is a parody of teen movies which have accumulated in Hollywood over the last few decades...
. The CD for it was released by Maverick Records
Maverick Records
Maverick Recording Company is an American record label owned and operated by Warner Music Group, and distributed through Warner Bros. Records.-Company history:...
the same year.
Saxophonist Eugene Rousseau
Eugene Rousseau (saxophonist)
Eugene Rousseau is an American classical saxophonist. He plays mainly the alto and soprano saxophones....
was born in Blue Island.
Marty Grebb, a multi-instrument musician, grew up in Blue Island attending St. Benedict’s Elementary School. He was a member of The Exceptions, a local group from the 60s that some might remember. Next Marty joined The Buckinghams
The Buckinghams
The Buckinghams are an American Sunshine Pop band from Chicago, Illinois. They formed in 1966 and went on to become one of the top selling acts of 1967. The band dissolved in 1970 but reformed in 1980 and continue to tour throughout the United States....
as keyboardist; the band went on to earn multiple top recordings for singles and albums with Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
. Marty went on to become part of the group Chicago
Chicago (band)
Chicago is an American rock band formed in 1967 in Chicago, Illinois. The self-described "rock and roll band with horns" began as a politically charged, sometimes experimental, rock band and later moved to a predominantly softer sound, becoming famous for producing a number of hit ballads. They had...
with Pete Cetera in the late 70s. Through Marty’s multi-faceted and sought-after musical talent as player, producer, and songwriter, Blue Island can claim a connection to a wide and deep musical family. He’s worked with Etta James
Etta James
Etta James is an American blues, soul, rhythm and blues , rock and roll, gospel and jazz singer. In the 1950s and 1960s, she had her biggest success as a blues and R&B singer...
, Buddy Guy
Buddy Guy
George "Buddy" Guy is an American blues and jazz guitarist and singer. He is a critically acclaimed artist who has established himself as a pioneer of the Chicago blues sound, and has served as an influence to some of the most notable musicians of his generation...
, B.B. King, Paul Butterfield
Paul Butterfield
Paul Butterfield was an American blues vocalist and harmonica player, who founded the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in the early 1960s and performed at the original Woodstock Festival...
, Mike Bloomfield
Mike Bloomfield
Michael Bernard "Mike" Bloomfield was an American musician, guitarist, and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his instrumental prowess, since he rarely sang before 1969–70...
, Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...
, Rosanne Cash
Rosanne Cash
Rosanne Cash is an American singer-songwriter and author. She is the eldest daughter of the late country music singer Johnny Cash and his first wife, Vivian Liberto Cash Distin....
, Taj Mahal
Taj Mahal (musician)
Henry Saint Clair Fredericks , who uses the stage name Taj Mahal, is an American Grammy Award winning blues musician. He incorporates elements of world music into his music...
, and Leon Russell
Leon Russell
Claude Russell Bridges , known professionally as Leon Russell, is an American musician and songwriter, who has recorded as a session musician, sideman, and maintained a solo career in music....
. Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
has covered his songs. You can hear some of Marty’s latest work on the new CD from Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
/Leon Russell
Leon Russell
Claude Russell Bridges , known professionally as Leon Russell, is an American musician and songwriter, who has recorded as a session musician, sideman, and maintained a solo career in music....
coming in October 2010. Marty is still an active part of the musical community and lives in California.
Folk singer Anna Stange has lived and worked in Blue Island for many years. She has released several albums including When Will We Ever Learn: Songs for Justice and Peace and Miss Anna's Music Class Volumes I and II. As an advocate for environmental responsibility, Anna Stange was highlighted in the Chicago Tribune in 2008 as being one of the most 'green' inhabitants of Chicagoland, with a carbon footprint of just 11,500 lbs/year.
Television and Hollywood
Because of its picturesque nature, Blue Island has been used for location shotsFilming location
A filming location is a place where some or all of a film or television series is produced, in addition to or instead of using sets constructed on a movie studio backlot or soundstage...
in several movies and television series. For example, scenes from the 2006 Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
film Flags of Our Fathers
Flags of Our Fathers (film)
is a 2006 American war film directed, co-produced and scored by Clint Eastwood and written by William Broyles, Jr. and Paul Haggis. It is based on the book of the same name written by James Bradley and Ron Powers about the Battle of Iwo Jima, the five Marines and one Navy Corpsman who were involved...
, directed by Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
, were filmed in Blue Island. The movie was based on the book of the same name by James Bradley
James Bradley
James Bradley FRS was an English astronomer and served as Astronomer Royal from 1742, succeeding Edmund Halley. He is best known for two fundamental discoveries in astronomy, the aberration of light , and the nutation of the Earth's axis...
with Ron Powers
Ron Powers
Ron Powers is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, novelist, and non-fiction writer. His face include White Town Drowsing: Journeys to Hannibal, Dangerous Water: A Biography of the Boy Who Became Mark Twain, and Mark Twain: A Life...
about the Battle of Iwo Jima
Battle of Iwo Jima
The Battle of Iwo Jima , or Operation Detachment, was a major battle in which the United States fought for and captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Empire of Japan. The U.S...
, the six men who became famous for raising the American flag
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima is a historic photograph taken on February 23, 1945, by Joe Rosenthal. It depicts five United States Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman raising the flag of the United States atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.The photograph was extremely...
there, and the sensation it caused after the photograph that was taken of it by Joe Rosenthal
Joe Rosenthal
Joseph John Rosenthal was an American photographer who received the Pulitzer Prize for his iconic World War II photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, taken during the Battle of Iwo Jima. His picture became one of the best-known photographs of the war.-Early life:Joseph Rosenthal was born on...
was published by the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
. Scenes from the 1987 film Light of Day
Light of Day
The soundtrack to the film was released in 1987. As a single, "Light of Day" reached number 33 on the Billboard Hot 100 and received additional album-oriented rock airplay due to the connection of Joan Jett and Bruce Springsteen....
, starring Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox, OC is a Canadian American actor, author, producer, activist and voice-over artist. With a film and television career spanning from the late 1970s, Fox's roles have included Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy ; Alex P...
, were also filmed there, including the scenes at the arcade "The Video Zone" (which for many years after filming was completed served as a Big Boy submarine sandwich shop - it was demolished in June 2009), as were scenes from the 2008 Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
film The Express
The Express
The Express is a 2008 American sports film produced by John Davis and directed by Gary Fleder. The storyline was conceived from a screenplay written by Charles Leavitt from a book titled Ernie Davis: The Elmira Express, authored by Robert C. Gallagher...
. The Express is the story of Ernie Davis
Ernie Davis
Ernest "Ernie" Davis was an American football running back and the first African-American athlete to win the Heisman Trophy. Wearing number 44, Davis competed collegiately for Syracuse University before being drafted by the Washington Redskins, then almost immediately traded to the Cleveland...
, who was the first black football player to win the Heisman Trophy
Heisman Trophy
The Heisman Memorial Trophy Award , is awarded annually to the player deemed the most outstanding player in collegiate football. It was created in 1935 as the Downtown Athletic Club trophy and renamed in 1936 following the death of the Club's athletic director, John Heisman The Heisman Memorial...
. Scenes from the 2008 film The Lucky Ones
The Lucky Ones (film)
The Lucky Ones is a 2008 American dramedy film with a road movie plot directed by Neil Burger. The screenplay by Burger and Dirk Wittenborn focuses on three United States Army soldiers who find themselves drawn together by unforeseen circumstances.-Plot:...
were also filmed in Blue Island. The film, which stars Tim Robbins
Tim Robbins
Timothy Francis "Tim" Robbins is an American actor, screenwriter, director, producer, activist and musician. He is the former longtime partner of actress Susan Sarandon...
, Rachel McAdams
Rachel McAdams
Rachel Anne McAdams is a Canadian actress. After graduating from a theatre program at York University, Toronto in 2001, she worked steadily as an actress until finding fame in 2004 with starring roles in teen comedy Mean Girls and romantic drama The Notebook...
and Michael Pena
Michael Peña
Michael Anthony Peña is an American film and television actor. He is probably best known for his roles in the films Crash, World Trade Center, Observe and Report, 30 Minutes or Less and Tower Heist...
, is the story of three veterans of the Iraq War as they try to pick up the threads of their lives after they return home. It was directed by Neil Burger
Neil Burger
Neil Burger is an American film director who has filmed the pseudo-documentary, Interview with the Assassin , the period drama, The Illusionist, and the 2011 thriller Limitless.-Life and career:...
and produced by Liongate Films
Lions Gate Entertainment
Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation is a North American entertainment company. The company was formed in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1997, and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California...
. And winter came early to Blue Island in 2010 when, on October 21, leaves were plucked from trees and artificial snow fell as New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema, often simply referred to as New Line, is an American film studio. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne as a film distributor, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of Time Warner in 1996 and was merged with larger sister studio Warner...
prepared to film exterior shots for the film The Rite. The movie stars Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...
as Father Lucas, a veteran exorcist who works at a Vatican school of exorcism, and focuses on his relationship with seminary student Michael Kovak (played by Colin O'Donoghue
Colin O'Donoghue
-Early life:O'Donoghue was born and raised in Drogheda, County Louth, in a Roman Catholic family. He initally attended Dundalk Grammar School, and then the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin. When he was 16, O'Donoghue went to Paris for a month to learn French....
) as the priest himself becomes the victim of demonic possession. Directed by Mikael Håfström
Mikael Håfström
Jan Mikael Håfström , known as Mikael Håfström, is a Swedish screenwriter and director.-Biography:Håfström directed the exorcism thriller The Rite, which is based on a novel from Matt Baglio.- Filmography :...
, the film is said to be based on actual events. It was released in January 11, 2011.
Blue Island also appeared regularly in the television show Cupid
Cupid (TV series)
Cupid is a 1998–1999 American comedy-drama series created by Rob Thomas, which featured Paula Marshall as Dr. Claire Allen, a Chicago psychologist who is given charge of a man named Trevor Hale . Hale believes he is Cupid, sent down from Mt...
and two episodes of the TV series Early Edition
Early Edition
Early Edition is an American television series that aired on CBS from September 28, 1996 to May 27, 2000. Set in the city of Chicago, Illinois, it follows the adventures of a man who mysteriously receives each Chicago Sun-Times newspaper the day before it is actually published, and who uses this...
were filmed there.
Several actors have ties to Blue Island as well. Acclaimed actor Gary Sinise
Gary Sinise
Gary Alan Sinise is an American actor, film director and musician. During his career, Sinise has won various awards including an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1992, Sinise directed, and played the role of George Milton in the successful film adaptation of...
was born in Blue Island. Sinise has had a distinguished career: In 1974 he and fellow actors Terry Kinney
Terry Kinney
Terry Kinney is an American actor and theatre director, and is a founding member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, with Gary Sinise and Jeff Perry.-Early life:...
and Jeff Perry founded the Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
-winning Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Steppenwolf Theatre Company is a Tony Award-winning Chicago theatre company founded in 1974 by Gary Sinise, Terry Kinney and Jeff Perry in the basement of a church in Highland Park, Illinois. It has since relocated to Chicago's Halsted Street, in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. Its name comes from...
in the basement of a church in Highland Park, Illinois
Highland Park, Illinois
Highland Park is a suburban municipality in Lake County, Illinois, United States, about north of downtown Chicago. As of 2009, the population is 33,492. Highland Park is one of several municipalities located on the North Shore of the Chicago Metropolitan Area.-Overview:Highland Park was founded...
. He has won an Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for his portrayal of George Wallace
George Wallace
George Corley Wallace, Jr. was the 45th Governor of Alabama, serving four terms: 1963–1967, 1971–1979 and 1983–1987. "The most influential loser" in 20th-century U.S. politics, according to biographers Dan T. Carter and Stephan Lesher, he ran for U.S...
in the 1997 Turner Network Television
Turner Network Television
Turner Network Television is an American cable television channel created by media mogul Ted Turner and currently owned by the Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner...
production of the same name, and a Golden Globe Award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
for his role as the title character in the HBO film Truman. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Lt. Dan Taylor in the 1994 Amblin Entertainment
Amblin Entertainment
Amblin Entertainment is an American film and television production company founded by director and producer Steven Spielberg and film producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall in 1981. Amblin is only a production company, and has never distributed its own movies, nor has it fully financed its...
production of Forrest Gump
Forrest Gump
Forrest Gump is a 1994 American epic comedy-drama romance film based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom. The film was directed by Robert Zemeckis, starring Tom Hanks, Robin Wright and Gary Sinise...
, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
. He is a star in the television series CSI: NY
CSI: NY
CSI: NY is an American police procedural television series that premiered on September 22, 2004, on CBS. The show follows the investigations of a team of NYPD forensic scientists and police officers as they unveil the circumstances behind mysterious and unusual deaths as well as other crimes...
, whose creator and executive producer, Anthony E. Zuiker
Anthony E. Zuiker
Anthony E. Zuiker is the creator and executive producer of the American television show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He produces all three editions of the CSI franchise: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami and CSI: NY...
, was also born in Blue Island. In December 2008 Sinise was presented with the Presidential Citizen Medal by George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
.
Also from Blue Island is the actor and writer John Franklin, who may be best known for his highly regarded work in two of the films based on Stephen King's
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
short story Children of the Corn
Children of the Corn
"Children of the Corn" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the March 1977 issue of Penthouse, and later collected in King's 1978 collection Night Shift.- Plot summary :...
. Franklin has appeared in other films, including two Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
: The Addams Family
The Addams Family (film)
The Addams Family is a 1991 American black comedy film based on the characters from the cartoon of the same name created by cartoonist Charles Addams....
and the Academy Award and Golden Globe-nominated Addams Family Values
Addams Family Values
Addams Family Values is a 1993 sequel to the 1991 comedy The Addams Family. The film was written by Paul Rudnick and directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, and many cast members from the original returned for the sequel, including Raúl Juliá, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd, and Christina Ricci...
. His work on television includes appearances in the series Highway to Heaven
Highway to Heaven
Highway to Heaven is an American television drama series which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.- Season 1 :- Season 2 :- Season 3 :- Season 4 :- Season 5 :...
, Chicago Hope
Chicago Hope
Chicago Hope is an American medical drama series created by David E. Kelley that ran from September 18, 1994, to May 5, 2000. It takes place in a fictional private charity hospital.-Premise:The show stars Mandy Patinkin as Dr...
and Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Voyager is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe. Set in the 24th century from the year 2371 through 2378, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet vessel USS Voyager, which becomes stranded in the Delta Quadrant 70,000 light-years from Earth while...
.
Former Blue Island resident Nicole "Nikki" Kaapke, then a 29-year-old administrative assistant, was one of the Bachelorettes on the 2009 season of ABC's television show The Bachelor. She later appeared on a spin-off called "the Bachelor-Pad". Kaapke has also held the title of Miss Illinois Galaxy and Miss Galaxy International (beauty pageants).
Government
Illinois' 1st congressional district
Illinois's 1st congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of Illinois. Based in Cook County, the district includes much of the South Side of Chicago, extending into the city's southwest suburbs until reaching the border of Will County, and covers , making it one of the 40...
; the portion east of the Dan Ryan Expressway
Dan Ryan Expressway
The Dan Ryan is an expressway in the city of Chicago that runs from the Circle Interchange with I-290 near downtown Chicago through the South Side of the city. It is designated as both Interstate 94 and Interstate 90 south to 66th Street, a distance of...
is in the 2nd district.
Notable residents
- Henry Seyfarth was born and raised in Blue Island and began his legal career in an office above the First National Bank of Blue Island (now Great Lakes Bank of Choice), a business with family associations that was founded in 1896 as Zacharias, Bourke & Co. In 1945, Seyfarth left the now defunct Chicago Law firm of Pope Ballard Shepard & Fowle with Lee Shaw and Owen Fairweather to found what is now known as Seyfarth ShawSeyfarth ShawSeyfarth Shaw LLP is an American law firm. It has offices in the United States, including Chicago, New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento, and an office in London, England.- Labor & Employment :...
, recognized today as one of the world's largest and most respected law firms, which specializes in business and employee relations. Lawyers from the firm helped draft the Taft-Hartley ActTaft-Hartley ActThe Labor–Management Relations Act is a United States federal law that monitors the activities and power of labor unions. The act, still effective, was sponsored by Senator Robert Taft and Representative Fred A. Hartley, Jr. and became law by overriding U.S. President Harry S...
- Robert A. SchullerRobert A. SchullerRobert Anthony Schuller is an American televangelist, author, and television executive. He was formerly a minister on the Hour of Power weekly television program broadcast from the Crystal Cathedral in Orange County, California, where he was named senior pastor in 2006...
, televangelist, was born in Blue Island. He is a minister of the Christian denomination the Reformed Church in AmericaReformed Church in AmericaThe Reformed Church in America is a mainline Reformed Protestant denomination in Canada and the United States. It has about 170,000 members, with the total declining in recent decades. From its beginning in 1628 until 1819, it was the North American branch of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1819, it...
, and since 2006 has been the spiritual leader of the megachurchMegachurchA megachurch is a church having 2,000 or more in average weekend attendance. The Hartford Institute's database lists more than 1,300 such Protestant churches in the United States. According to that data, approximately 50 churches on the list have attendance ranging from 10,000 to 47,000...
Crystal CathedralCrystal CathedralThe Crystal Cathedral is a Protestant Christian church building in the city of Garden Grove, in Orange County, California, United States. It is the headquarters and principal place of worship for Crystal Cathedral Ministries, a church founded in 1955 by Robert H. Schuller and affiliated with the...
in Garden Grove, CAGarden Grove, CaliforniaGarden Grove is a city located in northern Orange County, California. The population was 170,883 at the 2010 census. State Route 22, also known as the Garden Grove Freeway, passes through the city running east-west. The city is known outside the Southern California area for being the home of Robert H...
. The church was designed by architect Phillip JohnsonPhillip JohnsonPhillip Johnson, Philip Johnson, or Phil Johnson may refer to:*Philip Johnson , American architect*Philip Johnson , U.S. Congressman from Pennsylvania*Philip Johnson , retired American tennis player...
and built from 1977–1980 during the tenure of his father Robert H. SchullerRobert H. SchullerRobert Harold Schuller is an American televangelist, pastor, speaker, motivator and author. He is principally known for the weekly Hour of Power television program which he began in 1970. He is also the founder of the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, where the Hour of Power program...
. The church has over 10,000 members and is the home of the television ministry Hour of Power, which has an audience of over 25 million viewers a week. - Robert E. SeyfarthRobert Seyfarth- Background : Robert Seyfarth grew up as a member of a prominent local family. His grandfather William Seyfarth had come to the United States in 1848 from Schloss Tonndorf in what is now the state of Thuringia, Germany, with the intention of opening a tavern in Chicago...
, early 20th century architect, born and raised in Blue Island. - Curtis GrandersonCurtis GrandersonCurtis Granderson is an American Major League Baseball player for the New York Yankees. Before joining the Yankees in 2010, he played with the Detroit Tigers . A center fielder, Granderson is known for being a five-tool player...
, professional baseball player for the New York YankeesNew York YankeesThe New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the The Bronx, New York. They compete in Major League Baseball in the American League's East Division...
, born in Blue Island.