Bill,
I grew up in Downers Grove and I do recall that both Naperville and Downers had flooding problems in the mid to late 1950s. When that occurred, the Cock Robin, (I believe it was Prince Castle at that time), was flooded along with other buildings in the area close to the river as was the Washington St. bridge. AS you indicated, when I graduated from DG High School in 1961, Naperville had a population of a little over 14000 while DG's population was about 25000. Now, Naperville is 140000 and DG is 48000! How things change over time. BTW, many years ago, what is now Ogden Avenue, was known as Plank Road all through the western suburbs.
As for the RR, I seem to recall that Moser Lumber had a spur track on the south side and, of course, Kroeler Furniture also had a siding. Was the Moser siding possibly a truncated portion of the old quarry siding?
Bill Barber Gravois Mills, MO Mon Jul 29, 2013 8:08 am (PDT) . Posted by: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
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