The Bain Wagon

For museums, an object's story is essential to preserving and telling a community's history. And sometimes an object has more than one story to tell.

Take for instance, "The Bain" wagon donated to the Bess Bower Dunn Museum in 2011. The wagon's story encompasses that of an immigrant farmer, local dairy industry, and Libertyville and Kenosha businesses.

Simon Roppelt's "The Bain" wagon, 1910. (2011.18.1)

Simon Roppelt (1876 - 1931) was born in Bavaria, Germany to Christian and Margaret Roppelt. In 1893, at the age of 16, Roppelt set sail for a new life in America on the SS Darmstadt. Shortly after his arrival, he settled in Lake County, Illinois.

On October 5, 1900, Roppelt became a naturalized U.S. citizen at the county courthouse in Waukegan. John Hertzing and John Bauer (husband of Margaret Herzing) were his witnesses. Both witnesses were also German immigrants and probably related to Roppelt.

On February 17, 1906, Simon Ropplet married Elizabelth "Lizzie" Herzing (1878 - 1946). The couple settled on acreage in Sections 11 and 12 of Fremont Township to farm the land and raise a family.

In 1910, Roppelt decided to make the important purchase of a new farm wagon. For many American farmers, the choice was clear: "The Bain" produced by the Bain Wagon Company of Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Bain Wagon advertisement, 1916.

The Bain Wagon Company was one of the most recognized and respected wagon makers in the United States. It began in the late 1830s as Mitchell & Quarles. Edward Bain and George Yule worked for the company. In 1852, Bain took over the Kenosha factory and established the Bain Wagon Company, and promoted Yule to superintendent. 

George Yule, had worked his way up from wagon maker in 1842 to president and owner of the Bain Wagon Company in 1911. Yule had emigrated from Aberdeenshire, Scotland to Somers, Wisconsin with his father and siblings in 1840. A number of family members settled in Millburn, Lake County, Illinois, including George's brother James Yule.

For Simon Roppelt, the closest Bain dealer was the Schanck Hardware Co. on Milwaukee Avenue in Libertyville.

The Schanck Bros. store is at the far right in this circa 1907

photo postcard view of Milwaukee Avenue in Libertyville. The Schanck building 

can still be seen today on the northeast corner of Cook and Milwaukee. (M-86.1.649)

Mundelein native, George Schanck (1837-1915), established his hardware store in 1870. The original building burned in Libertyville's fire of 1895. Schanck rebuilt in brick on the same site.

"The Bain" wagon purchased by Simon Roppelt has 
advertising for Schanck Hardware painted on the seat.

Like all Bain wagons, Roppelt's came with the company's name stenciled on the side.

The Bain Wagon Company painted its logo

on the side of  "The Bain" wagons.

Simon Roppelt used "The Bain" wagon to haul milk cans to the Soo Line Railroad "milk stop" at Harris Road in Grayslake (today's Prairie Crossing depot) for shipment to Chicago. Milk production was a big industry in Lake County and supplied a growing need for milk in Chicago. Daily "milk trains" took dairy farmers' filled milk cans to Chicago in the morning and returned the emptied cans in the evening. Each farmer had a number that was painted onto the milk can for identification.

Simon Roppelt with his team of horses and John Deere sickle mower, circa 1910.
The mower was also donated to the museum (2011.18.11).

Roppelt's "The Bain" wagon was used from 1910 to 1928. The wagon was never repainted and retains its original color and advertising.

- Diana Dretske, Curator ddretske@lcfpd.org

Sources:
Simon Roppelt, 1893, New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957, Ancestry.com
Simon Roppelt, 1900, U.S. Naturalization, Ancestry.com
"Prairie Farmer's Directory of Lake County," 1917. 
"Portrait and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens in Racine and Kenosha Counties," 1892 (Chicago: Lake City Publishing Co.)
Lewis Miller's Mitchell Collection blog
"George Yule and the Bain Wagon Company" by David Sneed 

Rare Maerlein Family Photograph

The museum's collections staff assists about 1,700 people each year. Many of these individuals need access to the Lake County history materials or the Teich postcard collection. They contact us by phone and email, and a portion of them visit the archives to complete their research.

We've had visitors from Europe, Canada, and across the United States. Lake County residents often stop in for one to two hours to pore over historic maps, photographs, manuscript collections, or to utilize our special library. It's not unheard of for researchers to make an appointment to spend an entire day, or even several days to fully delve into their research topic.

Recently, a couple visiting from San Diego, California, spent a day digging into their family's Lake County roots. They gave me a list of family names and asked if there might be any photos or other materials related to them. One of the surnames on the list was Maerlein or Merline.

A query of the archives database showed a couple of items of interest, but I recalled a collection of photos related to the part of the county they were researching that weren't yet catalogued on the computer. After checking the inventory for the Wagner Collection, I found the name Merline listed, and pulled the photograph to show the researcher.


Handwritten on the back was: "Merline family, daughter married Titus." No other information was known, other than the family was from Fremont Center. When I showed her the photograph, she was overjoyed. It was an extraordinary find for her. The photograph was of her grandmother and great grandparents, and the only photo of her great grandparents she had ever seen.

What turned out to be a great discovery for her was also a bonus for the archives. The researcher was able to identify the individuals in the photograph as John and Margaretha Maerlein, and their daughter Anna. Anna married John "Joseph" Titus in 1907.









After returning to California, the researcher sent me a note to thank me for assisting her and making a quality copy of the photo for her. She wrote: "I consider it one of my treasures, because I have few or no pictures past my grandparents' generation."

Finds like this don't happen every day, but they do happen, reminding me of the great value of organizing and making these materials available to people around the world.

Ravinia Nurseries

Tree nurseries for landscaping purposes were an important agricultural crop in Lake County as early as the 1840s. The earliest known nursery was Thomas Payne's in Fremont Township, established in 1841. Within a decade, Payne had 100,000 trees in his inventory, including Norway spruce and apple varieties.

Frederick D. Clavey in his nursery, circa 1910. Dunn Museum Collections. 

One of the best known nurseries on the North Shore was the Clavey Nursery of Highland Park, founded in 1885 by Frederick Clavey. Later the company was known as Ravinia Nurseries. 

Clavey started his business by selling trees off farm lots. To Clavey, the best trees came from fields where cattle had nibbled on them making them trimmed and bushy.

This estimate (above) for work at the Rothschild home in Highland Park includes extensive sodding and the planting of nine spireas all for less than $100.

Trees were dug by hand and transported by horsedrawn wagon. Clavey wasn't just a nurseryman, he was a landscaper, too.  

This business card shows an impressive workforce. Dunn Museum M-89.2

Ravinia Nurseries Fall 1926 and Spring 1927 catalogue.

Page views from the 1926-27 catalogue. Dunn Museum M-89.2

A 1923 advertisement for the nursery stated: "Trees selected with care as to variety and placed with relation to the house and views, give a feeling of quietness and an appearance of permanency to home grounds."

The ad went on to detail the nursery's growing practices: "Trees in our nurseries are planted far apart so as to develop a good top, and are frequently transplanted so as to produce a fine root system of fibrous roots. Because of this our extra-large size trees will transplant successfully and obviate years of waiting for their shade and proper effect."

Large tree for "immediate effect" being transplanted at a North Shore estate, circa 1930. Dunn Museum M-89.2

Clavey Nursery trees on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Dunn Museum M-89.2

In the late 1950s, the nursery provided trees to beautify Michigan Avenue in Chicago (left). The Clavey's also planted the ivy for the now famous "ivy wall" at Wrighley Field.

By 1970, Ravinia Nurseries' was headquartered in Lake Villa, selling evergreens, trees, shrubs and vines. They have since gone out of business.

Nordmeyer Sorghum Farm

Sweetener consumption has been on the rise in the U.S. and around the world for decades. Sugar, corn syrup, and Sucralose are just some of the sweeteners used in food and beverages. In the 19th century, the sweetener of choice was sweet sorghum made from sorghum cane.

This circa 1910 photo of the Charley Nordmeyer farm shows a sorghum mill. The farm was located north of Gilmer Road and east of Erhart Road in Fremont Township. Illinois was a large sorghum producer at this time. Not all farms had sorghum mills, but most produced sorghum for personal use or for profit. There was always at least one mill in the area for farmers to bring their cane to be crushed into juice.

Seen here is George Schneider feeding the mill. The sorghum is stacked at left and fed into the mill by hand. The horses are the power source, walking in a circle to grind the cane. The juice is then collected in the metal "milk" cans shown in the foreground, and taken home to be cooked into sweet sorghum, also known as sorghum molasses.

The sorghum molasses was used as a natural sweetener, sometimes poured as syrup over hot cakes. The various parts of the plant left after crushing the cane could be used for livestock and poultry feed.

For more information on the tradition of sweet sorghum mills check out this interesting website on the preservation of the art of making sweet sorghum.

Swan School

Community histories often include a section on the local school, but schools are rarely researched in and of themselves. One reason may be that school is so much a part of the infrastructure of our lives that it is overlooked in the grander scheme of things.

Many of us are quite sentimental for our school days; going to class reunions or meeting with former classmates over a cup of coffee to regale hilarious and sometimes embarrassing moments from the past.

In light of this curiosity, and to promote more interest in the history of schools, I've decided to regularly feature a school in my posts. One of the more substantial collections at the Lake County Discovery Museum's Archives (now the Bess Bower Dunn Museum of Lake County) is the School Collection. It includes histories for 52 one-room schools, photographs, and board of directors' ledgers for a number of schools.

To start, I've chosen the Swan School in Fremont Township for its somewhat central location.

The Swan School, once located at the southeast corner of Route 83 and Peterson Road, was named for Deacon Swan who donated the land for the school. The naming of schools was often handled in this way.

Swan School, circa 1900. Dunn Museum 81.21

 

As families settled newly opened regions of the country, the first building constructed after a home was a neighborhood school. The first school lessons taught in Lake County were in the home of Laura Sprague (1815-1899) in Half Day in 1836. Laura Sprague School in Vernon Township is named in her memory. The following year, the first proper schoolhouse was built in Libertyville.

The original Swan School was erected in 1856. By 1861, there were 70 one-room schoolhouses throughout Lake County.

Schools were central to each community. They were often used for church services, since schools were built before churches. Meetings and social gatherings such as dances and spelling bees were also held at the schools.

Miss Josephine Kische (later Ullrich) with her scholars in front of the Swan School's new brick schoolhouse, 1926. 

Dunn Museum 81.21

As listed on the back of the photo from left to right: Top row -- "Orphan" from Chicago who lived with a local farmer, Miss Kische, Ethel Meyer. Second row -- Dorothy Radke, Vernon Willard, Mary Fincutter, Anna Fincutter, Edward Fincutter, Jack Zahnle, Margaret Fincutter, Cecelia Grosser, ?? Willard, ?? Willard, Marge Sorenson (later Obenauf). First row -- Helen Radke, Helen Sorenson, Fiester boy, Fiester boy, Willard boy, Willard boy, Billy Meyer, Virginia ??, Fiester girl, Titus girl, Louis Meyer, Virginia Wirtz, Titus girl, Titus girl.

Swan School students, 1953. Dunn Museum 93.6.14

 

This above 1953 photograph of unidentified Swan School students retains much of the rural, farming atmosphere of earlier class photos. There's even a touch of mischief in their broad smiles.

Swan School lintel, circa 1926. Dunn  Museum. 95.6.2

In 1995, the Swan School was razed. Intersection improvements made it necessary for the school to be moved. The County of Lake tried unsuccessfully to find a buyer. 

For a selection of the Museum’s one-room school histories available online click here.

- Diana Dretske, Curator ddretske@lcfpd.org