Zion Movie Theater and the Blue Laws

On New Year's Eve 1947, the Zion movie theater opened after the city council amended laws to permit movies. The city's first theater had opened in 1913, but was raided by police and ordered closed by the mayor.

Zion movie theater, March 1951. Chicago Sun-Times photograph. Dunn Museum 2012.10.1

The owners of the new theater quickly began to ruffle feathers by announcing in April 1948 that they would open on Sundays in defiance of the city's "blue laws" forbidding business on Sunday. 

Zion's blue laws went into effect with the founding of the city in 1901. Blue laws have been used since Colonial times and originally were directed at prohibiting personal activities such as gambling and the consumption of alcohol. In the 19th century, state and local governments began passing blue laws (based on Christian beliefs of keeping the Sabbath holy) that forbade businesses from operating on Sunday.

The Zion theater owners pointed out that the ordinance was already violated by restaurants and drug stores, and the annual Zion Passion Play, which charged admission, also conducted business on Sunday.

Three of the theater's owners were Lake County board supervisors—Martin B. Ruesch, Edwin Gus Peterson, and Frank L. Davis.

On Sunday, April 11, 1948, the owners of the theater and neighboring bowling alley opened their businesses and were promptly arrested.

Zion Bowling Lanes with Zion Hotel visible in the distance, circa 1955. Dunn Museum. 

Zion's Chief of Police Alven Ruesch, bearing a complaint issued by Mayor Richard Hire, arrested Onnie Bridges (the police chief's brother-in-law) at the theater, and then went down the street to the bowling alley and arrested Otto Lawrence.

The ban on Sunday movies (and other "amusements") was upheld by Judge Ralph Dady of the Circuit Court in Waukegan in August 1948. Following this ruling, the movie theater owners circulated a petition requesting a special election to determine whether the ban on Sunday business should be repealed.

Despite a vigorous campaign, on December 21, 1948, Zion residents voted to retain the "blue laws" by a vote of 1,756 to 1,564. The city council then voted to enforce prohibiting Sunday trade, including the sale and delivery of ice cream, milk, and newspapers.

Downtown Zion, circa 1956. Dunn Museum 2000.2.9

William Bicket's drug store (red brick building on right) was permitted to remain open on Sundays to "sell only emergency drugs and ice cream consumed on the premises." 

Business owners continued to work toward the repeal, and on April 5, 1949, another vote of Zion residents was taken. This time voters were in favor of the repeal—1,746 to 966, bringing 48 years of blue laws in Zion to an end.

Children standing in line at the Zion Theater. Their arms are in the air celebrating the repeal of the blue laws, allowing movies to be shown on Sundays. Chicago Sun-Times photograph, April 11, 1949. Dunn Museum 2012.10.7

In 1950 and 1951, proponents of the blue laws brought the issue back to voters, who voted against their reinstatement.

In May 1959, the Zion movie theater announced its closing. Onnie Bridges, president of the Zion Theater corporation, stated that "the closing was dictated by his desire to retire rather than failing audiences."

Special thanks to museum volunteer Al Westerman for assisting with this research.

Titanic's Lake County Passengers

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. On April 15, 1912, 1,514 lives were lost after the steamer hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Photo postcard of the Titanic at Southampton, England before setting sail on April 10, 1912. Brian Bossier Collection/Curt Teich Postcard Archives BB317.

The Titanic remains the most memorialized and talked about maritime disaster. Perhaps this is due to the ship being promoted as "unsinkable" and that it sank on its maiden voyage.

Two men with connections to Lake County perished in the historic sinking—William James Elsbury of Gurnee and Alfred Ossian Gustaffson emigrant to Waukegan.

Unfortunately for both, they were ticketed Third Class passengers. If you were a man in third class you had the least chance of survival.

William James Elsbury (1863 - 1912) was born in the County of Somerset, England. He immigrated to Lake County, Illinois in 1884, and settled in Gurnee where he purchased 105 acres to farm. In 1886, he married an American, Eliza Jane Hucker (1862 - 1946) in Waukegan, and had four children. Image courtesy of Geoff Whitfield.



On 20 November 1911, Elsbury returned to England to assist his younger brother, John, in the settling of their recently deceased father's financial affairs. He was due to return to Gurnee in March of 1912, but on hearing of the Titanic's maiden voyage, decided to buy passage on the new ship.

He boarded the Titanic at Southampton, travelling third class under ticket number 3902, which cost £7 5s (approximately $12). His fate remained in doubt for weeks.

At one point, Elsbury's wife received word that a man had been "picked up in an unconscious condition by the rescue ship, [Carpathia,] and had been placed in a New York hospital." The man's only words were "Lake County, Illinois." It was later determined by the White Star Line (owner's of the Titanic) that the man was not Elsbury. One wonders, however, if this unidentified man had been trying to convey a message about Elsbury.

In early May, the family received final confirmation that Elsbury had not survived. A telegram arrived from New York stating that he was not among the survivors. His body, if recovered, was never identified.

Alfred Ossian Gustafsson, was a 20-year old, native of Finland (Kökar, Åland). His destination was Waukegan, Illinois, which had a thriving Finnish community. Several people with the surname Gustafsson were already living in Waukegan at the time, and it appears that Alfred was immigrating there.

Since relatively little is known about Gustafsson, his story can only be told in terms of other Finnish third class travelers. An article published in Siirtolaisuus - Migration, from January 1998, states that 63 of the Titanic's 2,227 passengers were from Finland. Only twenty of them survived the sinking.

The Titanic's third class rooms were far superior than other ships, mainly because it was a new ship. The third class passengers passed the long hours at sea by eating, sleeping, reading, playing cards, and getting fresh air on the deck. There was a third class general room in the stern with a bar and a piano for passengers' use.

Courtesy of Titantic-nautical.com.

After the ship hit the iceberg about 11:40 p.m. April 14, Finnish third class passenger, John Niskanen, went on deck to see what had happened. When he came back to the third class compartments, he warned his friend, Erik Jussila: "nouse ylös kuolematas katsomaan" (Get up and see your death).

While there was much confusion all around, generally first and second class passengers were urged to the lifeboats on the top deck. The third class passengers were told to wait in their own part of the ship. A combination of locked gates, language problems, lifeboats not filling to capacity and open discrimination resulted in more first class men surviving than third class children.

The rescue ship, the RMS Carpathia, arrived about 4:30 a.m., two hours after the Titanic had disappeared into the sea. By 8 a.m., the 712 survivors were on board and the ship went on to New York.

Individual cases were brought against the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, the parent company of the White Star Line for personal losses of loved ones and property; the verdicts of these are wide and varied. The White Star Line settled out of court and agreed to pay $663,000 total.

The Antioch News reported on January 1, 1913, that Elsbury's widow was attempting to sue for damages, but it is unclear if she received any compensation. Eliza Elsbury is not included on official lists among those who filed claims involving death. However, there is no central archive for the settlements.

There is a grave marker for James Elsbury at the Warren Cemetery in Gurnee (above), and a memorial near his hometown of Taunton, in County Somerset, England.

Elm Theater, Wauconda 1950-1984

The Elm Theater was located at Liberty (Route 176) and Mill Streets in Wauconda. It opened in 1950 with seating for 610 people, and parking for 125 cars.

Photo of the Elm Theater taken in 1950, the year the theater opened. This image was used by the Curt Teich Company for their Wauconda large letter postcard (below). Teich Postcard OCH1780.

Large letter postcard featuring Wauconda landmarks, including the Elm Theater in the letter "U". Curt Teich postcard, 1950. OCH1780.

Through the 1950s and 1960s, the theater's movie listings appeared regularly in the Daily Herald.

In 1967, Transfiguration Catholic Church purchased the theater. Church officials bought the property because they feared "purchase by others would hinder the expansion program of the church."

Initially, the theater was staffed by church members who volunteered as ushers and cashiers. Later, the church leased it to Leonard Deasey, whose children and their friends worked the concessions and ticket booth.

Transfiguration Catholic Church, circa 1935. Dunn Museum M-86.1.7121.

Because of the church's control, the content of the movies shown changed. Many parents were pleased that only movies permitted under the National Legion of Decency Code were shown.

Established in 1933, the National Legion of Decency was an organization dedicated to identifying and combating objectionable content in motion pictures, from the point of view of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. For several decades, the Legion wielded great power in the American motion picture industry.

In 1984, the theater was torn down. The reason given for razing it was that Transfiguration "could no longer subsidize it." The new church was built on this site.

In 2012, an original sign from the Elm Theater (above) was donated by Glen Halverson to the Lake County Discovery Museum (now the Bess Bower Dunn Museum). Dunn Museum 2012.4.

Lake County's Irish Place Names

St. Patrick's Day postcard, 1911. CTPA G1428.

There are at least ten place names in Lake County attributed to the Irish. 

Some of the earliest Irish place names were surnames given to an area by settlers. Meehan's Settlement, for example, was located in today's West Deerfield Township along Telegraph Road, approximately one-mile south of Everett. In 1835, the location was settled by Michael Meehan (1808-1892) and his wife Bridget (nee Monahan), from County Meath, Ireland. 

Dulanty was located on Greenbay Road on the Shields-Deerfield Township line (and sometimes referred to as an early name for Lake Bluff). In 1837, Michael Dulanty (1799-1886) and his wife Ellen (nee Armstrong), arrived from County Tipperary, Ireland. They established a stage relay station and tavern known as the Centerville Inn or Dulanty's.

The area became officially known as Dulanty in 1846, when the post office took that name. It was common for post offices to be named for the postmaster, since the post office was located in their home or place of business. 

Leahy Hill in Newport Township is located south of Wadsworth Road and east of Cashmore Road. It was named after the Leahy family, Irish settlers, who owned the land. 

The place name Kennedy appears to have been used in southern Shields Township in the area where Irish immigrant, John Kennedy,  settled. 

Two locales in Lake County were named for the high percentage of Irish who settled there: Irish Hills in  Newport Township, and Ireland in Libertyville/Vernon Townships. Irish Hills was named for the settlers and the hilly topography in the area west of Route 41 along Route 173; and Ireland was the region east of and adjacent to the Des Plaines River. These names were commonly used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

Though Killarney Lake no longer exists, the name suggests an Irish connection. The "lake" was a marshy area once located in Antioch Township, west of Fox Lake, in Section 35.   The area was most likely drained for development and farming. 

The only Irish-influenced place names still in use are O'Plaine and Blarney Island. O'Plaine is derived from Aux Plains River, an early appellation of the Des Plaines River. Irish settlers reportedly changed the spelling of Aux Plains to O'Plain, and through the 1870s, the river was listed on maps as the O'Plain River. Today, the name is preserved in O'Plaine Road, with the addition of  an "e" on the end. 

Blarney Island was named by Irish immigrant, Jack O'Connor, who took over the famous bar on Grassy Lake in the 1920s. 

St. Patrick's Day postcard, 1908. CTPA G4296.

The most anecdotal of the county's Irish place names is Codfish Town. This name described an Irish settlement in Lake Forest near Washington Road. The name seems to have originated in the mid to late 1800s from the smell of codfish cooking on Friday evenings. Residents in the area were also referred to as "codfishers."

Franklin McMahon 1921 - 2012

Internationally known artist, Franklin McMahon, passed away on March 3. In his own words, he was an "artist-reporter" always in pursuit of history with his sketch pad and artists' pencils in hand.

McMahon lived in Lake Forest, but traveled the world to cover events that would be recognized as key moments in  American and world history. McMahon went on assignment for Life and Look Magazines, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and Sports Illustrated, to name a few. Those assignments included the Emmet Till trial in Alabama, the March from Selma to Montgomery, the Chicago 8 Conspiracy Trial, the Watergate hearings, and the first walk on the moon (drawn from inside NASA's Mission Control).

Deerfield Elementary School gymnasium, November 1959, by Franklin McMahon. Artist's caption: "Deerfield citizens signal opposition to the racially integrated housing proposal." (LCDM 2010.17.6) 

In 1959, McMahon got word about a meeting to discuss the integration of a proposed subdivision in Deerfield. Since the meeting was at a local elementary school near his home, he decided to attend (though not on assignment). That evening he made nine drawings, which are now part of the museum's permanent collections.

Drawing titled "Lives 12 feet from Project," by Franklin McMahon, November 24, 1959. Artist's caption: "There were several meetings on both sides...Including a visit by Eleanor Roosevelt, supporting the subdivision." (LCDM 2010.17.11)

The Lake County Discovery Museum acquired a total of 14 drawings for its permanent collection with the support of the Friends of the Lake County Discovery Museum. The drawings are related to Lake County and include the Deerfield Racial Housing Controversy, Panel of American Women held in Lake Forest in 1970, and the Senate Watergate Hearings as seen on television by Lake Countians.

"Therefore, I Shall Resign..." President Richard Nixon on television at the Shrimp Walk Restaurant in Highwood, Illinois, by Franklin McMahon, August 8, 1974. (LCDM 2010.17.4)

I had the great privilege of spending an afternoon with Franklin McMahon a couple of years ago. We looked at dozens of his drawings, so numerous and beautiful that I was overwhelmed by his talent. Perhaps even more impressive were the memories he shared. He remembered making every sketch, and told the story of how he came to be in that place, sometimes at risk of bodily harm. Hearing about these experiences gave me a new perspective on American history.

McMahon produced 8,000 to 9,000 drawings in his career. He was an eyewitness to history, and his artworks evoke the emotions of those times.

Joice Family of Ivanhoe - African-American Settlers

In 1862, James Joice (1822 - 1872), an enslaved African American from Kentucky, became the cook and valet for First Lieutenant Addison Partridge (1807 - 1888) of the 96th Illinois Regiment. 

Joice's service with the Union Army would lead him and his family to freedom in Lake County, Illinois.

Addison Partridge of Ivanhoe from the "History of the Ninety-Sixth Regiment Illinois Volunteers" 1887.

During the Civil War, it was common for enslaved men to approach Union troops "desiring to accompany the command." However, it was tricky business for the troops to accept these men into their camps since the Fugitive Slave Laws made it illegal.

The 96th Illinois's officers "nearly all were radically opposed to slavery, and the negro who sought refuge in the camp was protected, but in such a manner as not to involve any one in a legal way." They accomplished this in part by not allowing citizens into camp whenever it was suspected they were hunting for runaway slaves.

In late October 1862, in Crittenden, Kentucky, James Joice approached the men of the 96th Illinois to "be of service" to their command. 

Crittenden, Kentucky, the area believed to be where James Joice first encountered the 96th Illinois, located to the left and below Cincinnati, Ohio, at the top of the map. The map shows the lines of march of the 96th Illinois Regiment through Kentucky. "History of the Ninety-Sixth Regiment Illinois Volunteers," 1887.

On November 2, Joice assisted Lieutenant Montgomery and a dozen soldiers of Company D on a foraging expedition as its "pilot" or guide. He directed them to a plantation, where Lt. Montgomery knocked on the door and spoke to a man explaining that they were a "detachment from the command encamped on Eagle Creek, and that, being short of rations, they had come for a few bushels of potatoes... if he was a loyal citizen a receipt would be given so that he could collect pay."

The man pretended there were no potatoes on the plantation, but Joice had assured the Lieutenant that there were potatoes in the fields. The Lieutenant kept the man occupied by making him repeat a long oath, while the soldiers went in search of the potatoes, which they found.

After this incident, Joice remained with the 96th Illinois "until Nashville was reached" as First Lieutenant Addison Partridge's cook and valet. Partridge was a known abolitionist, and his influence on Company C was "excellent as he helped in making both its moral and military standing high."

In February 1863, Partridge resigned his commission when he was unable to sufficiently recover after contracting “camp disease.” Joice accompanied Partridge to his home in Ivanhoe, Lake County, Illinois, (then known as Dean's Corners), where Partridge owned 80 acres.

View of Ivanhoe, previously known as Dean's Corners, circa 1913. Courtesy of private collector. 

After the war's end in spring 1865, Joice returned to Kentucky to bring his wife, Jenna "Jemima" Scruggs (1834 - 1920) and their young children Asa (1860 - 1924) and Sarah (1863 - 1941), back with him to Lake County, Illinois.

James Joice's wife and daughter, Jenna and Sarah, pictured at a picnic in Ivanhoe, 1897. Dunn Museum 76.30

Census records list Jenna and Sarah's occupations as "servant" and "housekeeper." 

In 1897, the Lake County Independent noted that Miss Sarah Joice "is taking orders for carpet stretchers." 

James Joice worked as a farm laborer, and over the years his family lived in rented homes along Route 176 near Lincoln School in Mundelein and further west near Ivanhoe. They eventually settled on a 10-acre farm on Route 60, one-quarter mile south of Hawley Street.

Fremont Township plat map (1907) with Asa Joice's property highlighted in green. 

Asa and Sarah attended Mechanics Grove School where they took piano and singing lessons. They were small children when they came to Lake County, and by all rights, this was the only home they knew. According to census records, the entire Joice family could read and write. 

On Joice's death in 1872, the Waukegan Gazette ran a short column: "Death to Colored Citizen - On Tuesday last occurred the death of James Joyce of Fremont in this County. 'Darky Jim' as he was familiarly known was with the Ninety Sixth Ill. Regt. during a part of their term of service and has most of the time since the war lived in the vicinity of Diamond Lake. He leaves a wife in rather destitute circumstances."

The Joices were members of the Ivanhoe Congregational Church, and attended prayer meetings. Asa served as church clerk and Sunday school treasurer.

Ivanhoe Congregational Church, circa 1913. Before and during the Civil War, this congregation was outspoken against slavery. Image courtesy of private collector. 

Jenna, Asa, and Sarah Joice were members of the Christian Endeavor Society, which was founded in 1881  in Maine. The CE became a national organization and took up many causes, including the temperance movement. In June 1897, Asa was elected as the local CE Society's president.

Christian Endeavor Society picnic on the grounds of the Ivanhoe Congregational Church, 1897. Asa Joice is seated in the middle to the right of center, and his mother and sister are standing to the far right. Dunn Museum 76.30

In addition to being a farm laborer, the civic-minded Asa became the first African-American elected to public office in Lake County. In 1889, he was elected as town constable and re-elected to the post for nine years.

Asa Joice photographed at a church picnic in 1897. Dunn Museum 76.30

On June 24, 1898, the Lake County Independent reported, "Constable Asa Joice of Ivanhoe arrested Charles Ray, a character who some years ago was employed in the Gilmer creamery..." In Lake Mills, Wisconsin, Ray had allegedly stolen a horse and a rig from a doctor and was traced to Diamond Lake (where the Ray clan lived).

Constable Joice took Ray before Justice Berghorn of Rockefeller (Mundelein) for a hearing, where Ray pleaded guilty. Joice then took him to the Waukegan jail "where he was lodged in default of bail to await the action of [the Grand Jury]." Shockingly, the next morning, Ray was found dead, supposedly of apoplexy.

Sarah and Jenna Joice were photographed on their farm in 1917. 

Photo courtesy of the Mundelein Heritage Museum.

In 1920, Jenna Scruggs Joice died after becoming ill while tending to influenza patients. She likely contracted the flu from being close to the sick. The flu pandemic lasted from June 1918 to December 1920, mainly striking healthy young adults and killing at least 3% of the world's population.

Asa Joice passed away in 1924 in Elgin, and Sarah Joice lived on her own near Ivanhoe until her death in 1941.

Ivanhoe Cemetery, circa 1918. Dunn Museum 2003.0.26

All members of the Joice family are buried at the Ivanhoe Church Cemetery on Route 176. 

For more on the 96th Illinois Infantry and their role as an "Abolition Regiment," read The Bonds of War: A Story of Immigrants and Esprit de Corps in Company C, 96th Illinois Volunteer Infantry by Diana Dretske. Available from SIUPress.com. 

- Diana Dretske, Curator ddretske@lcfpd.org

Lake County's 49ers and the California Gold Rush

The California Gold Rush (1848 - 1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California.

U.S. Postal stamp commemorating the sesquicentennial of the California Gold Rush, 1999 issue.

Word spread slowly at first, and the initial gold-seekers were mainly from the west—Mexico, California and Oregon.

In the fall of 1848, George Allen Hibbard left for the gold mines, "being the first adventurer in that direction from Lake County." (Elijah Haines) Hibbard went to St. Louis, Missouri where he joined Colonel Fremont's expedition, apparently as a means of reaching the California gold fields.

Colonel Fremont, also known as the Great Pathfinder, shown in an 1856 campaign image, glorifying his expeditions to the West.

Fremont was seeking a new route for the railroad to connect St. Louis and San Francisco along the 38th parallel through the Rockies. On December 12, on Boot Mountain in Colorado, it took the party 90 minutes to progress 300 yards. George Hibbard, along with nine others, perished in that snowstorm.

By the spring of 1849, word of the Gold Rush had spread worldwide. Among the "forty-niners" from Lake County: Isaiah Marsh, George Ferguson, D.H. Sherman, William and James Steele, Jacob Miller, Joseph Lamb.

The name "forty-niners" was derived from the year 1849.

Joseph Lamb of Warren Township was one of the 49ers from Lake County. Photo circa 1900. LCDM 2003.0.43

By 1850, the most easily accessible gold had been collected, but the influx of emigrants continued to increase. Some notable Lake Countians who ventured to California in that year included: Isaac L. Clarke (Waukegan), Mark Bangs (Wauconda), John Closes (Shields), George Gridley (Vernon), and Jeremiah Stowell (Benton/Waukegan).

Eleazar Stillman Ingalls (1820-1879) of Antioch left for the Gold Rush on March 27, 1850, and reached Placerville, California (formerly Hangtown) on August 21st. He was accompanied by Patrick Renehan, Thomas John Renehan and Charles Litwiler of Avon Township (among others).

Eleazar Stillman Ingalls, circa 1860. Ingalls lived in Antioch from 1838 - 1859. Photo from the collections of the Menominee County Historical Society. 

In Ingalls' extraordinary account of his journey titled: "Journal of a Trip to California by the Overland Route Across the Plains," he describes coming across newly dug graves, dead cattle and horses, and "emigrants" begging for food, who by miscalculation or bad luck had run out of supplies.

He wrote in his journal on July 28: "The appearance of emigrants has sadly changed since we started. Then they were full of life and animation, and the road was enlivened with the song of "Oh, California, that's the land for me," but now they crawl along hungry, and spiritless, and if a song is raised at all, it is "Oh carry me back to Old Virginia..."

Ingalls remained in California 18 months where he was profitably engaged in merchandising. He returned to Antioch and practiced law there and in Waukegan. In 1859, he moved his family to Wisconsin, finally settling in Menominee.

At least fifteen men from Lake County joined Captain Parker H. French's ill-fated "Overland Express Train" in the spring of 1850. French promised to take the travelers from New York to San Diego, California in 60 days for the cost of $250 each. It was in fact a scheme to swindle money. French duped the gold-seekers out of tens of thousands of dollars, and the merchants who supplied them out of much more.

Parker H. French from a lithograph in Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, 1856.

By the time they reached San Antonio, Texas after much frustration and many delays, French's scheme had caught up with him and he was arrested. The 60 day time limit on the trip had expired, and they were still 1,500 miles from San Diego. The men of the expedition gathered what supplies and cash they could, broke into groups, and continued west or went home.

Another interesting character from Lake County who headed for the gold fields was Archimedes Wynkoop (1812-c. 1880) of Libertyville. Wynkoop was a farmer, county recorder of deeds from 1839-1841, and the publisher/editor of the county's first newspaper, The Little Fort Porcupine and Democratic Banner. 

In 1851, Wynkoop left  for California, forcing his wife Eliza (nee Slocum) and their children to move to Wauconda to live with her sister. It was understood that there had been a “tragic and mysterious interruption” in Eliza’s marriage.

A letter from Wynkoop to his brothers in Chemung, New York in November 1851 describes his share in three California gold mines. He noted that the gold was fine and had “to be taken up by quicksilver,” also known as mercury. The next record of Wynkoop is from the 1860 census where he is listed as 48-years old and residing in the Stockton Insane Asylum in California and listed as insane and suffering from a “religious affliction.” It is very probable his insanity was caused by his use of mercury in mining for gold. He died some time after August 1880 at the asylum.

Emigrant party on the road to California lithograph from the book, "The Emigrants Guide to the Golden Land." 1850. The guide was written for English "emigrants" to California, giving useful information on history, geography, and laws.

It is estimated that at least 100 men traveled from Lake County to the gold fields of California between 1848 - 1853. Some perished from the rigors of travel or disease, others remained in California and sent for their families, but most returned home to Lake County.