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It is difficult to trace the old subdivisions built in Gladstone Park without physical access to old building plans from Chicago’s Department of Planning and Development. Few major Chicago newspapers discussed growth on the Far Northwest side when it was happening unless something exceptional occurred. Most small community newspapers that did write about growth are difficult to locate due to loss and the limited number of places where old issues that still remain are housed. The Northwest Chicago Historical Society, which attempts to keep history alive in the wider Far Northwest Side of the city, is particularly hampered in its research by the fact that no old hyperlocal newspapers have been digitized.

However, we can get some idea of how the community’s residential areas grew by examining advertisements placed in area publications by developers aiming to sell land and houses. Their focus was on getting the attention of (mostly) first-time homeowners eager to buy lots and/or ready-built dwellings by offering attractive financial terms. The author was able to find several of these in both English and Polish Chicago newspapers from the first decades of the 20th Century. Some of the real estate opportunities were marketed directly by developers and others were promoted and sold by realty companies, just as they are today.

Many of the subdivisions in Northwest Chicago, including Gladstone Park, were platted by Polish-immigrant-turned-property-developer William Zelosky. He strongly believed that by investing more money into the infrastructure of the communities he was building would make them “high class” and very desirable as places to live, according to the book The Chicago Bungalow by Dominic A. Pacyga & Charles Shanabruch of the Chicago Architecture Foundation, 2003. These improvements included wide paved roads, cement curbs, sidewalks, sewers, water and gas mains, electrical service, and provisions for parklands. Sometimes he even added entry gates and architectural monuments.

At his zenith, Zelosky had eight offices on the Northwest Side, including four on N. Milwaukee Avenue, as documented by Pacyga and Shanabruch. The subdivisions were built to target different markets, but all had a few aspects in common. He made sure that all his properties had access to good transportation while providing favorable financing to make it easier for people to buy into his communities. With banks of the era requiring a stunning 50% down for first mortgages, his privately-funded payment plans were instrumental in making it possible for many working-class Americans who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford it to become homeowners for the first time.

Gladstone Gardens, Zelosky’s first big venture in Gladstone Park, was located in the extreme southern part of the community. By the first decade of the 20th Century, many Germans had already been attracted to the area where they favored framed Dutch Colonial Revival designs they had brought from their homeland. When Polish immigrants arrived, architectural styles changed and Zelosky began building the sturdy and affordable brick bungalows for them that were then in vogue. (As trends changed again two decades later, homeowners gravitated to the more ornate Tudor Revivals and later the more minimalistic English Georgians that make English style the third most abundant kind of residential architecture in the community.)

It is unknown exactly when Zelosky began putting in the sidewalks and other infrastructure to pave the way for Gladstone Gardens. But he left a “cornerstone” in the form of a sidewalk plaque identifying his company as the subdividers for the development. But rather than just stamp his company name into the sidewalk as required by the city of Chicago of all concreters, he exceeded requirements by embedding a rare brass William Zelensky & Co. plaque. Located in the sidewalk at the northwest corner of W. Catalpa and N. Parkside, it is in remarkably good shape, its gleaming surface weathered to an attractive blue-green patina. It can still be seen today.

Rare brass sidewalk plaque installed by William Zelosky & Co. identifying the developer as the “subdividers” of Gladstone Gardens. At the northwest corner of W. Catalpa and N. Parkside, the gleaming plaque has weathered to a beautiful blue-green patina. In remarkably good shape, it can still be easily viewed today. Photo by author.

Although much of the original sidewalk has been replaced in Gladstone Park, the sections that remain hold further clues as to its residential development. Halfway up the west side of the 5500 block of N. Parkside from the Catalpa plaque, for example, is a contiguous run of paired numbers (49/50, 47/48, 45/46) stamped into one of the oldest sections of sidewalk. The speculation is that these identified the common borders of adjacent lot numbers for Zelosky’s development. One of these pairs is pictured below.

Three pairs of numbers (49/50, 47/48, 45/46) can be seen stamped on the edges of the oldest sidewalks halfway up the 5500 block of N. Parkside from the Catalpa plaque. The speculation is that the paired numbers originally identified lot numbers for the Gladstone Gardens development. Most of the adjacent sidewalks have been replaced since, obliterating other evidence. Photo by author.

As older sidewalks eroded down, progressively revealing more and more of their gravel substrate, they often cracked and then chipped apart. Concreters specialized in their replacement, no more so in the Far Northwest Side in the latter half of the 20th Century than Chicago Cement Contractor H. Killian. Sidewalks replaced and identified by the Killian stamp are found in these later-developing areas of the city from Albany Park to Gladstone Park and beyond. Despite how prolific this particular cement contractor was, no information could be located about the H. Killian business beyond his stamped phone number SP[ring] 7-4749, following the convention of the time when the first two digits of telephone exchanges in local areas represented a two-letter abbreviation for a word. Further research yielded the modern reiteration of the phone number (773) 777-4749 was a landline assigned to a home in Chicago’s Norwood Park neighborhood just on the edge of the suburban community of Niles that had once been owned by a Killian family member. Below is a photo of some of H. Killian’s work on N. Mango Avenue in Gladstone Park, noted as completed in 1971.

The more typical sidewalk stamp like this one from the latter half of the 20th Century can be found throughout the Far Northwestern part of the city from Albany Park to Gladstone Park and beyond. Prolific Chicago Cement Contractor H. Killian left his mark here on N. Mango in 1971 after older sidewalks on the block gradually eroded down to their gravel substrate, cracked, and needed replacement.

Park View Crest, Zelosky’s more ambitious 500-lot subdivision on 60 acres overlooking the Edgebrook Golf Course just south of W. Devon, was marketed in the 1920s to people seeking a community with adjacent parkland and open space. With housing tastes shifting over the next decade, this area became home to perhaps the largest group of English Tudor Revivals in Chicago. With one of the developer’s offices on the edge of the development’s borders at 6105 N. Milwaukee, Zelosky’s company was in the perfect place to self-promote these properties. No building at that office location remains today, located as it was in the area of Chopin Plaza not far from the McDonalds where N. Milwaukee merges with N. Elston.

Widely regarded as a visionary, Zelosky implemented “careful zoning,” separating homes from apartments and businesses to ensure his developments would be family-friendly and remain desirable through time, according to the September 28, 1926 Westchester Tribune article Tells Dream of Ideal Community as reprinted on the Franzosenbusch Heritage Project.

As you read the ads, you will get a good sense of the features property developers were touting 100 years ago in order to attract buyers.

The Best Investment in the World!

Ad for 8 developments Zelosky had in the works by 1924, including subdivisions in Jefferson Park and Gladstone Park, from Chicago Tribune, May 13, 1924.

Gladstone Gardens

Two ads for Gladstone Gardens lots in the extreme southern section of Gladstone Park from Polish language newspaper Dztennik Chicagoski (Chicago Daily News), February 27 and March 6, 1915, both from Library of Congress. This was the earlier development that attracted many German immigrants, who built the barn-roof style Dutch (“Deutsch”) Colonial Revivals for which the area is so well known. When the development began attracting Polish immigrants in the 1920s and early 1930s, styles changed as they tended to contract for brick bungalows. When English Tudor revivals became desirable in the 1940s, they filled in the subdivision’s remaining vacant lots, leading to a neighborhood with three distinct styles of architecture. Notice the different financial terms offered by Schultz, Baker & Co. for the 30×125-foot lots, which is the standard for the community.