MILWAUKEE 6th and Michigan
Harrison St. SHOPS
Austin Ave.
So. Milwaukee Rd. College Ave.
Oak Creek
Five Mile Road Six Mile Road
Three Mile Road Four Mile Road
RACINE Pipers Berryville Birch Road KENOSHA South Kenosha
WISCONSIN ILLINOIS
Zion Beach Glen Fora Edison Court State Line Winthrop Harbor
In 1963, a lunch consisting of an Electroburger, pie, and coffee would have set you back $1.75. COLLECTION J.J. SEDELMAIER
WAUKEGAN County St.
North Chicago Jct.
Great Lakes North Chicago
MUNDELEIN Deerpath Sheridan Elms
Highmoor Briergate
Woodbridge Northbrook
Skokie Valley Line
Northfield Glenayre
Harmswoods Skokie (Dempster St.) CNSM
Lake Bluff Lake Forest
Fort Sheridan Highwood SHOPS
Highland Park Ravinia
Braeside Glencoe
Hubbard Woods Winnetka Kenilworth Wilmette
Linden Ave.
Church St. Central St.
Howard St.
CNSM- Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee CNW- Chicago & North Western CTA- Chicago Transit Authority EJE- Elgin, Joliet & Eastern MILW- Milwaukee Road SOO- Soo Line
Shore Line (abandoned 1955)
daily activities. I followed the cars along the streets of Milwaukee, watched the sailors jam the platforms at North Chicago Junction on their way for a weekend away from the naval base, and rode the trackage on the ele- vated into Chicago. The trains were getting shorter, but there were no cut- backs in schedules or maintenance. What I did not know about were the grand traditions and accomplishments, especially beginning in 1916 when Samuel Insull purchased the bankrupt Chicago & Milwaukee Electric Railway and renamed it the Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee (no commas re- quired). Learning and writing about these has opened my eyes to a host of groundbreaking North Shore endeav- ors, sometimes far ahead of those of the steam roads that operated in the same Chicago-Milwaukee corridor. Here are some examples beginning before the Insull era.
Wilson Ave. Belmont Ave.
In 1904 the A. C. Frost Company cre- ated Ravinia as an amusement park to bring riders to the Chicago & Milwau- kee railroad headed by Frost. The park evolved into what is now the oldest out- door music festival in North America, one that presents world-class music every summer.
Yesterday on the North Shore Line
Roosevelt Rd. CHICAGO
Map illustration by Otto M. Vondrak ©2013 Carstens Publications, Inc. Not an official map. Not all routes and stations shown.
Insull management invested heavily in track and equipment improvements while initiating the use of innovative advertising and art-quality
posters.
First published in 1921 in cooperation with other Insull railways and utilities,
these posters represent the best adver- tising campaign of the 20th century that focused on a single urban area in the U.S. They show an unprecedented commitment to a regional outlook far in advance of their times. The poster art- work of Oscar Rabe Hanson and others frequently appeared in exhibitions of advertising art held by the New York Art Directors Club, and remain prized collector’s items today.
The line won the first Charles A. Cof- fin gold medal in 1923 “for
distin-
guished contribution to the develop- ment of electric transportation for the convenience of the public and the bene- fit of the industry.” General Electric es- tablished the award in honor of the re- tirement of Coffin, one of its founders. The 23-mile, high-speed bypass route through the Skokie Valley opened in 1926 to the west of the shore line, and in 1927 the North Shore won Electric Traction magazine’s speed trophy. The railway went on to win the trophy five times in nine years, and took perma- nent possession of it in 1933. Donald M. Steffee listed the Chicago Limited’s 15.4 mile, 13-minute run at 71.1 m.p.h. from Deerpath to Skokie in his annual speed survey until the end of North Shore service.
On the closing day of the 28th Inter- national Eucharistic Congress of the Catholic Church on June 24, 1926, at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary at Mundelein, the North Shore delivered a loaded train every 40 seconds for
CTA/CNSM
CNSM
SOO
Knollwood Rondout
Thornbury Village Libertyville
St. Mary’s
EJE
M
CNSM
I
G
A
MILW
CNW
MILW
A L
CNW E K
H I C
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