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Elk Grove's Birthday Present is a New Home

Posted on: Thursday, 29 December 2005, 12:00 CST

By Liam Ford, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Tribune

Dec. 29--When Elk Grove Village was founded almost 50 years ago, it had about 100 residents, many descendants of German immigrants who were selling off their dairies and oat fields.

Now with about 34,000 residents, the community will mark its first half-century this summer by giving away a new $600,000, four-bedroom home built by the same company responsible for most of the village's housing.

"What better way to celebrate our anniversary than to help people achieve the American dream?" said Mayor Craig Johnson.

The village got its name from Elk Grove Township, which was founded in 1850, a few decades after Americans of European descent first settled there.

"There were small farms, and the farmers were mostly German in the 1850s," said Peggy Rogers, curator of the Biermann-Schuette Farmhouse Museum, which dates to 1856. "And in the 1950s, the farms were still owned by the same families."

Suburbs such as Elk Grove Village were built in response to a dramatic need for housing for returning World War II veterans and their families, Rogers said. The village began as a partnership between Centex Corp. of Dallas and Chicago's Pritzker family, according to news articles written at the time and village histories.

The partnership bought 5,000 acres of farmland northwest of O'Hare Airport, and the village was incorporated on July 17, 1956, with 116 residents.

Elk Grove Village was laid out according to what was considered modern planning theory at the time, with residential areas isolated from through streets and commercial corridors. An industrial park was meant to serve as a buffer between the village and O'Hare.

After the idea for a raffle occurred to those planning the 50th anniversary celebration, reality set in: The state doesn't allow local governments to conduct raffles. Elk Grove Village officials then asked Alexian Brothers Medical Center to run the event. The local hospital will be among 11 charities to benefit from the proceeds.

Tickets for the house raffle will cost $50. The commemoration also will feature an international bicycle race in August and a concert and fireworks the weekend before July 17.

The two-story, 3,250-square-foot home is being built in the 1000 block of Cheltenham Road and includes such amenities as a theater.

Centex was asked by the committee planning the celebration to build the home because of its heavy involvement in the village's housing stock.

"It was only natural when they asked us participate in the 50th anniversary that we do, because we like to say that we build community as well as building homes," said Gayle Goodman, a spokeswoman at Centex's Dallas headquarters.

Centex built more than 90 percent of the 10,000 homes in Elk Grove Village, and the village remains a unique part of the company's history, Goodman said. Centex continued building homes in the town until the 1990s, she said.

The anniversary home marks a symbolic milestone because of how little open land remains for new homes, Johnson said.

"Since Centex built the first homes here, we wanted them to build the last home in Elk Grove Village," or close to the last one, he said.

lford@tribune.com

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Source: Chicago Tribune

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