Homewood is a village in
Cook County,
Illinois,
United States. The population was 19,543 at the
2000 census.
Geography As of the
census of 2000, there were 19,543 people, 7,552 households, and 5,256 families residing in the village. The
population density was 1,451.1/km² (3,755.5/mi²). There were 7,827 housing units at an average density of 581.2/km² (1,504.1/mi²). The racial makeup of the village was 78.14%
White, 17.51%
African American, 0.10%
Native American, 1.57%
Asian, 0.07%
Pacific Islander, 1.06% from
other races, and 100% from two or more races.
Hispanic or
Latino of any race were 3.05% of the population.
There were 7,552 households out of which 35.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.7% were
married couples living together, 11.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 30.4% were non-families. 27.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 13.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.55 and the average family size was 3.14.
In the village the population was spread out with 27.1% under the age of 18, 5.4% from 18 to 24, 26.8% from 25 to 44, 24.3% from 45 to 64, and 16.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 85.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 80.3 males.
The median income for a household in the village was $57,213, and the median income for a family was $70,941. Males had a median income of $50,689 versus $35,978 for females. The
per capita income for the village was $26,074. About 3.2% of families and 4.3% of the population were below the
poverty line, including 4.1% of those under age 18 and 6.5% of those age 65 or over.
Demographics Homewood is in
Illinois' 2nd congressional district.
Government The village of Homewood is located in the south suburbs of
Chicago. Although some of the southern suburbs have fallen victim to urban poverty and blight, due to
gentrification in Chicago, Homewood and its neighboring community of
Flossmoor have withstood these pressures and remain communities for the middle class and moderately wealthy, due to the strength and excellence of their educational systems.
Homewood sits on the edge of Lake Chicago, which was formed by a retreating glacier long before
Lake Michigan. Of one the main east-west roads through the town, Ridge Road, got its name because it runs along what used to be the ridge of the lake. The area is rich in
limestone deposits, and neighbors
Thornton Quarry. In its beginning, the area featured excellent topsoil making it an appealing place for farmers to settle.
James and Sally Hart were the first confirmed settlers in the area in
1834. They were
New Englanders, as were the families that immediately followed them; the Butterfields, the Campbells, the Clarks, and the Hoods. In
1839,
German and
Dutch families began to move into the area as well. The town began to use the name of Hartford.
The first store in Homewood was Hasting's General Store; Dr. William Doepp was its first doctor. Attracted by the country life after his Chicago practice was burned down, he moved to the area in
1851. His practice extended from
Crown Point, Indiana to
New Lenox, Illinois, and he was required to keep two teams of
horses in order to make all his calls.
In
1853, the
Illinois Central Railroad (IC) established a station in Hartford, calling it Thornton Station, as most of the passengers came from nearby Thornton. This began a serious period of confusion, as mail for the two separate towns was regularly mixed up. In
1869, settlers petitioned the post office to be renamed as Homewood, after the woods that the residents lived among.
The
1870s brought a new era to Homewood, ushered in by trains and by the crowded conditions of the city.
Country clubs such as the Homewood Country Club (later changed to Flossmoor Country Club), Dixmoor, Ravisloe, Idlewild and Calumet brought in trains just for golfers. The IC established the Calumet station specifically for their convenience. Wealthy families impressed by the area, and ease of getting to the city, established residences in the area, as permanent or summer homes.
At the beginning of the
twentieth century, it was determined that the small two-room schoolhouse that had been built in the
1880s was inadequate. The Standard school was built in
1904 on Dixie Highway and Hickory for a cost of fourteen thousand dollars. It had four classrooms, two cloakrooms, a tiny office, attic and basement storage. It provided the community with a variety of entertainments in the form of
spelling bees, box socials, school entertainment, and a play festival. As many of the children were expected to become farmers, garden and corn clubs were established. Nearby land was turned into gardening plots, but a dry season kept the project from being successful. However, one student, Elizabeth Szanyi made a total of fifty-nine dollars from her produce patch.
Enrollment for the schools continued to grow, and in
1914 the school was forced to convert the cloakrooms into classrooms. In
1918, a nearby residence, the Zimmer house, was rented to house primary grades. In
1923, construction on Central school began. The new school had three more classrooms, an assembly hall, a teacher's room, and a room for health services. By
1928, there were enough students in the district to make a kindergarten class feasible, and extensive additions were made to the school. These renovations included eight new classrooms and a
gymnasium-
auditorium.
In the
1920s, Homewood became an important railroad depot, and many IC workers and their families moved to the area. Automobiles became a common sight on the streets of downtown. As traffic in the area continued to increase, village officials decided to install the town's first manually operated traffic signal at the corner of Ridge Road and Dixie Highway. This period marks the change from Homewood as a farming community to Homewood as a suburb, as families began to use stores and businesses to supply their needs. The population of town increased from seven hundred and thirteen (730) to fifteen hundred and ninety-three (1593). Thirteen housing developments were recorded in Homewood from
1905 to
1930.
With the crash of the stock market in
1929, life in Homewood changed dramatically. People who worked in factories in
Harvey and
Chicago Heights lost their jobs, and many almost lost their homes. The Homewood State Bank was closed in the spring of
1932. Optimistic residents who had invested money in the bank until the day before it closed lost everything they had. The flood of trains to and from the city trickled down to three or four trains daily. Those people trying to make an income by
bootlegging were raided, and shut down. Transients were common, and the police officers gave them a place to stay at night, a cup of coffee and a donut before they left in the morning. In 1932 alone, the jail housed twelve hundred and twenty-four people (1224). The schools, which had already been operating in the red, scraped through by cutting programs and by the determined efforts of the PTA, which opened a thrift shop as a fundraiser. The village was reduced to issuing
scrip notes to its employees that could not be honored by local business; however, a rental of a large parcel of land by the Illinois Jockey Association ended this problem.
As the factories slowly began to reopen, the city began to tear down old buildings and replace them with new businesses. The most important of these was the Homewood Theater. At its "typical Hollywood opening" it was said, "bright lights will flood the sky, bands will blare, and the theatre will be officially presented to Mayor Fred Borgwordt of the town of Homewood." The opening picture was "
Double or Nothing" with
Bing Crosby and
Martha Raye. The theater seemed to symbolize the return of hope to the city, and remained an important landmark for many years. In
1983,
Richard Haas painted a mural on the backs of several buildings in the business district, matching their fronts to their backs. Most famous among these was on the back of the Homewood Theater, depicting it with three young women waiting to view
It's a Wonderful Life. It was demolished in
1992, despite the comparison made by a local student of "throwing away the Mona Lisa just because the frame is broken."
Early history (pre-1945) World War II brought a time of great change to the area, although life in the village during the war was about the same as life anywhere. The number of Homewood men who entered the service is unknown, but the village maintains a complete list of the men who died and the circumstances of their death. After the war, the veterans returned home to a rapidly growing Homewood. The desire of young couples to own a home of their own provided for a phenomenal growth and development of suburbs everywhere. To reflect these changes, the school board expanded the schools once again. In
1948, ground was broken for the new Ridge school, which was located immediately west of the Central school. It was immediately followed by the construction of Willow school, in
1953. In
1958, a junior high school was built and named after the area's first settler James Hart.
At the same time as the grade school expansion, a group of residents in Homewood and the neighboring community of
Flossmoor worked to bring about a long time dream of having a local high school, instead of sending students to Thornton, Bloom, Rich or Bremen Township High Schools.
Homewood-Flossmoor High School opened its doors in
1959. Almost immediately afterward, in
1962 and 1966, large additions were made to the school. The student body grew so large that students were taught on half-day schedules until a second building to house them could be built in
1974.
The businesses of the area boomed, with the building of Westgate shopping center, Ridge-Mar shopping center, Northgate shopping center, Cherry Creek, Washington Square Plaza, Southgate Shopping Center and the West Homewood Commons. Washington Square Plaza was torn down in the
nineties. A recent boom in business along
Halsted Street (
Illinois Route 1) has provided Homewood-area residents with a large number of chain stores. The downtown area has also been on the rise, with new stores moving in, and the recent announcement of the Chestnut Square development along Harwood Avenue at Chestnut Road, behind the village hall.
In
1981, the first Homewood Fine Art Fair was held in the center of the Village, on Ridge Road. Founder Barbara D. Smith (Homewood's first female Chamber of Commerce President) spent two years learning the recruiting, organizational and judging processes from a variety of experts, and ushered it through its first five years. The official portrait artist of Princess Grace of Monaco -- Mohamed Drisi -- observed the fair's progress for the first two years, after which he volunteered to bolster the status of the institution. The HFAF continues to be held each June in Marie Irwin Park, and is considered a backbone of the south suburban art scene. Not without controversy, Ms. Smith has expressed her concern at deviating from the original vision of "fine art only", and has been critical of what she terms downgrading to arts and crafts from juried fine art. Still, a testament to this new tradition is underscored by the fact that some of the original juried artists she procured continue to exhibit.
In
1993, Homewood celebrated its centennial. Summer saw scores of festivals, parades, and a play celebrating the history of Homewood.
Recent history (1945- ) Children in grades K-8 attend schools under the jurisdiction of Homewood public school district 153. School District 153 has four schools: Winston Churchill Elementary, Willow Elementary, Millenium School, and James Hart Junior High School. Children in grades K-2 attend Willow, then move on to Churchill for grades 3 and 4, then move on to Millenium for grades 5 and 6, and finish up grades 7 and 8 at James Hart.
The majority of students in the area then go on to attend the local public high school,
Homewood-Flossmoor High School. Homewood-Flossmoor High School is its own school district, school district 233. H-F is a twenty-time winner of the U.S. Department of Education's Blue Ribbon Award for excellence.
The most common destination for students after high school is the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. About 10 percent of H-F's graduating class goes there every year.
Examples
Further information
Industrial warfare
See also