Bill and Rupert-
We are talking pre-1870 Bill, a little before your time….
1868 Timetable
Central Depot
Chicago Station (roughly at 14th Street and Canal)
Cicero
Hawthorne
Clyde
Chevoit (became Berwyn) (was not on earlier maps)
Lyons (became Riverside)
West Lyons (later Stone Avenue LaGrange)
Hinsdale
Greggs (became Clarendon Hills)
Downers Grove
Lisle
Naperville
Lund’s
Aurora
They were replaced a number of times with the probable exception of Lisle which may very well be the original 1864 station. All were not built on the South Side of the tracks…..following the Galena Road example Lisle and Hinsdale were built on the North Side.
The Riverside, logically, I guess, was built in the middle of the end of double track. Downers Grove, the other major stop at the time, was built in the middle of the passing track. All but Lisle got replaced when the second and third tracks were added and apparently Lisle was either shifted or was far enough away from the tracks so that the fourth track could be added. I think the fourth main started West of the Downers Grove Station which by then wouldn’t have been impacted anyway since it was on the South side of the tracks. Nothing about the layout of any of the towns or the railroad itself would have prevented the stations from being located differently. I think Lisle stayed the same because it wasn’t until the 1970s that it was much of a commuter stop because of the development of Woodridge and Bollingbrook to the south along Rt. 53…until then it was pretty rural. Now it is SUVs and shopping centers all the way out to Sandwich along Rt 34…..if it wasn’t for the county borders and politics preventing funding commuter agencies we would have had Double Deckers terminating a lot further out than Aurora, maybe even up the C&I to Rochelle as well….
Some of the first stations listed may have been “on the wrong side of the tracks” as well….I haven’t run across early plats of them yet. Most of them were pretty rural in the 1870s and probably existed more for the milk business than passengers.
Charlie
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