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June 2008
At least one Montgomery Village Board member believed the board should just start saying “no” to new residential projects. Pete Heinz told his board colleagues he would vote against any new residential projects that came before the board.
“If any more subdivision (developers) come in, I think this board should turn them down,” Heinz said. “We don’t need any more houses.”
June 1998
At the request of U.S. Rep. Dennis Hastert, R-Yorkville, the Kendall County Board agreed to delay putting the county’s dilapidated old courthouse building up for public auction. Hastert made the request to allow time to see if he could secure federal funding to pay for the Yorkville building’s restoration. Hastert suggested a restored courthouse could have a new use as a museum and/or cultural center. In a related matter, State Rep. Tom Cross, R-Oswego, confirmed he would work to see if state funds could be obtained for the courthouse’s preservation.
The Oswegoland Park District found itself in the middle of an ongoing annexation struggle between the villages of Montgomery and Oswego. The park district had received requests from both villages to annex park district-owned land along the east bank of the Fox River. The two villages were seeking to annex the Boulder Hill Market area at Ill. Route 25 and Boulder Hill Pass. But both first needed the park district’s consent to annex the river bank property before they could legally annex the Boulder Hill Market.
The Montgomery Village Board’s newly adopted budget included funds to hire a consultant to prepare a study analyzing the village’s long-term office space needs. Police Chief Dennis Schmidt described the status of the village’s office space planning efforts as “extremely preliminary.” Schmidt added the completed study would serve as a “starting point” for planning discussions by the village board.
June 1993
About 30 Montgomery and Boulder Hill residents presented petitions to the Oswego Public Library District Board asking the board to enlarge and offer additional services at the storefront branch library at the Douglas Square shopping center at U.S. Route 30 and Douglas Road in Oswego. The petitions were signed by 1,100 residents of the village and Boulder Hill.
The Oswego Village Board and Oswego School District Board approved an agreement creating the full-time position of a police liaison officer at Oswego High School. The agreement was approved as the school district completed what school officials acknowledged was a difficult year for discipline cases at the high school which included a stabbing in February. “It’s not the old Oswego, back when you could call some kid’s dad and he would come and get him. Nowadays, they’ll answer you with another volley of bullets,” said Don Dahm, a village board member.
A long range plan to develop a Metra commuter rail station along the Burlington Northern main line tracks north of Webster Street in Montgomery was endorsed by the village’s plan commission. A Metra official had told the Ledger-Sentinel two months earlier the agency could begin work on the station between 1995 and 1999. The project, the official said, was a “matter of time and money.”
The Kendall County Forest Preserve District Board voted to hire an engineering firm to design the proposed extension of the Fox River Trail linking Montgomery and Oswego.
June 1988
In a 4-2 vote, the Oswego Village Board approved plans for the construction of the Townes Crossing shopping center at the southeast corner of U.S. Route 30 and Douglas Road in the village. Board members Robert Zielke and Mary Distler cast the two negative ballots on the motion citing their concerns over location of the center’s primary entrance drive on Douglas Road just 450 feet south of Route 30. The two officials maintained the entrance should have been located further south, opposite Fernwood Road.
June 1983
Contract negotiations between the Oswego School District and the Oswego Education Association, the district’s teachers’ union, were stalled, representatives for both parties confirmed for the Ledger-Sentinel.
The Village of Oswego celebrated its sesquicentennial by expanding the annual Oswego Days community celebration to a week-long event.
More than 15,000 area residents had visited Oswegoland Park District pools in the Boulder Hill Subdivision over the preceding three weeks to escape a continuing heat wave, agency officials reported.
June 1978
The Verona Fathers held their annual open-to-the -public Strawberry Festival on the grounds of their novitiate on Ill. Route 71 south of Oswego. (The property is now the site of the Oak Creek Subdivision.)
Oswego resident Mark Harrington was race director for the first Aurora Marathon. Noting the Chicago Marathon had attracted 5,000 runners, Harrington told the Oswego Ledger he expected between 500 and 1,000 runners to sign up for the Aurora event.
June 1973
Montgomery Village Board member Ellis Van Meter announced he was organizing a carp fishing contest in conjunction with the village’s community picnic set for July 29.
A ministerial student’s request for permission to work as a street preacher in downtown Oswego for the summer months was granted by the Oswego Village Board on a “temporary basis.” The student, who was sponsored by the Oswego Baptist Church, told the board he would not use loudspeakers and would speak from locations that would not interfere with customers entering and leaving downtown stores.
Pedestrian safety on the Mill Street bridge in Montgomery was a concern for village board members. The board received a letter from Illinois Department of Transportation indicating a chain link fence was not necessary on the bridge deck to help protect pedestrians.
June 1968
Attendance for Oswegoland Park District summer playground programs topped 4,700 youths during the program’s first week, a new all-time record, park district officials announced.
In his weekly column in the Ledger, State Sen. Robert Mitchler, R-Oswego, reported the dual issues of rising crime and gun control were, in his opinion, an even greater concern to Illinois residents than the ongoing war in Vietnam. Further fueling the concern over guns, Mitchler wrote, was the assassination of Democratic presidential candidate Robert Kennedy a few days earlier in Los Angeles. “We have a problem and we must find the answer,” Mitchler wrote.
Chuck Shuler, owner of Shuler’s Drugstore in Oswego, announced he expected work would be completed in October on his family’s new, modern store at Main and Jackson streets. The drugstore had been operating since 1937 in a storefront at 68 Main Street.
June 1963
The Montgomery Village Board voted unanimously to authorize the village president and clerk to sign the necessary papers granting the village permanent rights to the water tower at the Armour (Dial) site on the village’s west side. The board also voted to waive all bids and purchased a new squad car for the village police department at a total cost of $2,150. The squad car was to replace one that had been wrecked by an officer.
The Boulder Hill Civic Association issued a reminder in the Ledger to Boulder Hill residents that they were residing in an unincorporated community. “The township and county officials are the ones to whom we in Boulder Hill must look to for our government services and which whom we should cooperate.”
The Ledger also reported Kendall County expected to lose an undetermined amount of state vehicle license fee revenue due to many Boulder Hill residents incorrectly identifying themselves as residents of Kane County on their license application forms.
June 1958
Business was booming in Oswego. The Ledger reported a renovation project was underway at the Alexander Lumber yard, Luis Russ was adding another greenhouse to his business on North Adams Street, and Hank McDowell was almost ready to move his business into a new building on Ill. Route 71. A Standard gas station had also recently opened at U.S. Route 34 and Route 71.
All male softball players entering freshman year of high school or older were invited to meet at the Oswego High School (now the Oswego 308 Center) baseball diamond June 11 for the purpose of organizing softball teams for the summer, the Ledger reported. Ledger editor Ford Lippold added, “There has been a gradual decrease in softball interest throughout the state in past years due to the emphasis on hard ball and it becomes increasingly difficult to get enough active players to formulate a league.”
June 1903
Oswego High School held its graduation for the 15 members of the Class of 1903 on June 1. The Record reported: “It was the first time a class contained a colored member; the Negroes were well represented in the audience and Uncle Nathan Hughes was there to see his grandson take this important step. The background of the platform was darkened with foliage and the girls, an exceptionally pretty lot, all dressed in white, sitting against it formed a charming aspect; and then Ferdinand Smith sitting between the two nearest of being blonds brought out his complexion admirably. Ferdinand Smith, the colored member of the class, had one of the most interesting numbers on the program, ‘Power to Meet Our Wants’ was a strong plea for assistance and help from the white brothers of his race and he paid a flowing compliment to Booker T. Washington. ‘Why should we not receive the benefits of the free schools of this country? Our race is here and here to stay, not of a voluntary change of habitation, but because we were brought here by the white race. Of course there is a prevalent idea that we will be educated above our sphere, but what is our sphere? Nothing but that of a loyal American citizen. How are we to become useful citizens of this country without the intellectual and industrial ability to create and assimilate the necessities of our own maintenance? Give us a fair show with no favors; judge our race by the best and not by the worst; do not condemn the whole people for the faults of a few. We know our failings and our weaknesses and with a chance to offset them through a better education we can go a long way toward redeeming the race.’ He holds the distinction of being the first colored graduate of a Kendall county school and the young fellow is popular with the whole class.”
Another report from the Record: “An Italian with the construction gang of the CB&Q was hurt near here by being run into by a handcar. He was taken to an Aurora hospital.”
In local sports news, the Record reported: “A very one-sided game of baseball was played here Friday between the Wheatlands and the [East Oswego] Pirates, the latter about 15 runs ahead.”
June 1883
“Pitching quoits has been revived here and is being much practiced this season on the old National Hotel grounds,” the Kendall County Record’s Oswego correspondent reported on June 28, 1883. He added that “Some think that the sweet clover growing on the streets should be cut. There is a good crop of it.”
“H.S. Humphrey, the publisher of the first newspaper in Oswego, the Kendall County Courier, started in 1852, and afterwards the Free Press from 1856-1864, was here on a visit last week,” the Record reported that same week from Oswego.
June 1873
“Because there are so many Oswegos in the U.S. and the mail keeps getting mixed up, U.R. Strooley suggests that the name be changed,” the Record’s Oswego correspondent wrote on June 26, 1873. “‘Oswego,’ pronounced in ordinary conversation, the first two syllables are generally merged into each other. One of our correspondents, who doubtless got the name by merely hearing it spoken, always directs his letter ‘Swego.’ This is the case with other places such as ‘Rora’ instead of Aurora. So he suggested in that issue that the name of the town be changed to Swego. Evidently it did not happen.” U.R. Strooley was the pen name of the Record’s Oswego correspondent, Lorenzo Rank, the Oswego postmaster.