Mike,
As others have noted, Naperville was already a town 30 years before the
railroad. There was plank road through town that preceded the CB&Q
(there was a street called Plank Road when I lived there 40 years ago).
So the orginal town grew up around the river as a power source. As
Gerald Edgar noted, one can look at the Sanborn maps and see how the
CB&Q had a spur down paralleling Mill Street to the quarries and just
southwest of downtown. It was a big deal when the rail served Nabisco
plant opened on the edge of town around the BN merger.
In the eight years I lived there, the DuPage River never flooded the
downtown. I don't even remember it ever even flooding the Cock Robin or
Burger King which were directly next to it along Washington Street. The
city was only 15,000-20,000 then and there was still a lot of farmland
and open country to absorb all that rainwater. There was still a Future
Farmers of America chapter at the high school when I was there. You had
to watch which commuter train to ride home after a day in Chicago
because a number of them skipped or never got to Naperville during rush
hour.
Bill Hirt
On 7/28/2013 5:29 PM, MIKE wrote:
> Perhaps this is the wrong forum since it's more about the town itself but
> I've noticed how its downtown grew around the DuPage River instead of the
> tracks like most towns along the CBQ.
>
> Anyone know why?
>
> Probably wasn't a good idea considering how badly DT Naperville flooded the
> spring but that's a different story.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CBQ/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CBQ/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
CBQ-digest@yahoogroups.com
CBQ-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
CBQ-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
|