The oldest known house in Gladstone Park appears to be a Brick Colonial on W. Peterson registered in official tax records as built in 1869. Another trio of surviving homes from the late 1880s are within two blocks of each other in the southern area of the community in the vicinity of N. Parkside and N. Lovejoy. They are a Gothic Revival built in 1887 and two Victorians from 1886 and 1889 respectively. All existed before the land they were built on became part of Chicago through the Grand Annexation of 1889 that absorbed 125 new square miles of outlying suburban towns into the city in one fell swoop.

Ironically, the oldest home in Chicago is another house that didn’t become part of the city until the Great Annexation and thus has never been officially recognized as such. A mere 1.5 miles away in the Norwood Park neighborhood to Gladstone Park’s west is the 1833 Noble-Seymour-Crippen House, built in 1833. (The Clarke-Ford House from 1836 takes the title of Chicago’s oldest house.)

The four oldest homes in Gladstone Park, according to official tax records, are (from left to right) a 1869 Brick Colonial on W. Peterson, a Gothic Revival on N. Parkside from 1887 and two Victorians from 1886 and 1889 on N. Lovejoy. In the community’s southern end, the latter three houses are closest to the incorporated hub of Jefferson Township one mile further south. Photos by Mina.​

Most of the settlement in the area had earlier occurred to Gladstone Park’s south when a small group of traders, hunters and farmers joined with a nearby tavern owner in 1850 to incorporate Jefferson Township (where Jefferson Park’s commercial center is now). The territory to the north that was always called Gladstone Park remained blithely undeveloped. At the time, farmers were using its still mostly open land for the robust onion-growing business, hauling and marketing them and other fresh produce 10-12 miles south in downtown Chicago. (More on this history can be read in the section Gladstone Park: Our Quirky Past.)

It wasn’t until the turn of the 19th Century that actual housing single-family housing developments came to Gladstone Park. The 1900s-1910s saw Volga German immigrants building Dutch (Deutsch) Colonials in the extreme southern end of the community, the section most people today refer to today as “Old Gladstone.” During the next 10 years, a few stucco bungalows following California design standards popped up here and there, along with American Foursquares and Federal Colonials. But the real building flurry came only after Chicago came up with its own distinct Brick Bungalow style, attracting waves of Polish immigrants to the modest dwellings in the community in the 1920s and 1930s. English Tudor Revivals with their steeper roofs (but similar interior floor plans) became the next great thing in the 1930s and 1940s. During the post WWII-era more minimalist English-style Georgians and raised ranches filled out nearly all vacant residential land. (For more description of these housing styles, along with hundreds of photos, check out all the categories in the Architecture section of this website.)

The then-limited number of rental properties were available in Neo-Classical/Art Deco two-three flat and small apartment buildings on corners or along main roads starting around the 1920s. Another wave of multi-family housing went up in the economically buoyant 1950s and 1960s in the form of modern two-three flats in midcentury style.

Up until now, it has been very difficult to trace exactly where and when the subdivisions were built in Gladstone Park. Indeed, few people today have even heard of “Gladstone Gardens,” “Rosedale Manor,” “Park View Crest,” or any of the other names of developments their houses sit in. There hadn’t previously been easy physical access to old maps and 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 an exceptional event occurred. Most small community newspapers that did publish articles about new housing when it was being built are hard to locate due to loss and the limited number of places where old issues have been gathered and 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.

Now, for the first time, two sets of official Development Maps mounted online provide the opportunity for historical researchers to structure an accurate timeline of residential development in Gladstone Park. The community’s homeowners also have the ability to search for specific information about the construction details of their historic homes. This website has consolidated the information, along with original research in this file, to provide direct access. (Scroll down or click on Chicago’s 80-Acre and Sidwell Maps here to go directly to these documents that reveal vital details about land development in Gladstone Park including subdivider/builder names, dates, and document numbers.)

Besides the new map information, Gladstonians can peruse the first-ever known repository of photos taken of development markers that still exist in the community. These are found by scrolling down to or going directly to The Zelosky Brass Development Plaques. They can get an even better idea how the community’s residential areas grew by examining advertisements found during research conducted on various archival sites with digitized newspapers. Developers aiming to sell land and houses in their various subdivisions at the time focussed on getting the attention of (mostly) first-time homeowners eager to buy lots and/or ready-built dwellings by offering attractive financial terms. Several of these ads were found in both English and Polish Chicago newspapers published in the Gladstone Park area from the first decades of the 20th Century. As you will see, 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.

William Zelosky, Land Developer Extraordinaire

Many of the subdivisions in Northwest Chicago, including Gladstone Park, were platted by Polish-immigrant-turned-property-developer William Zelosky. His penchant was for investing significant chunks of money into the infrastructure of the communities he was building to make them “high class” and desirable places to live, as detailed by the book The Chicago Bungalow by Dominic A. Pacyga & Charles Shanabruch (Chicago Architecture Foundation, 2003). Instead of just plunking houses down, Zelosky had a holistic infrastructure plan. His improvements included wide paved roads, cement curbs, sidewalks, sewers, water and gas mains, electrical service, and provisions for parklands. Sometimes he even added decorative entry gates and architectural monuments. His philosophy, put into action, strongly influenced the clientele he attracted as well as the end result.

Widely regarded as a visionary, Zelosky implemented what he called “careful zoning,” separating homes from apartments and businesses, a concept that then was before its time. It ensured his developments would be family-friendly and remain desirable through the decades, according to the September 28, 1926 Westchester Tribune article detailing his philosophy in Tells Dream of Ideal Community as reprinted on the Franzosenbusch Heritage Project (go to links for entire article).

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 typically still 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.

With one of his offices in the center of the community at 6105 N. Milwaukee, Zelosky’s company positioned itself perfectly to promote Gladstone Park properties. No building at that office location remains today, but its coordinates position it in the area of Chopin Plaza not far from where N. Milwaukee merges with N. Elston near the McDonalds Restaurant today.

Reading the ads for Zelosky’s Gladstone Park developments gives a good sense of the features he and other topnotch builders were touting 100 years ago in order to attract buyers. One of the earliest ads that was discovered from The Chicago Tribune, May 13, 1924 named 8 developments Zelosky had in the works by 1924, including subdivisions in Jefferson Park and Gladstone Park. Of these, Gladstone Gardens, Catalpa Park, Park View Crest (repeated a second time to advertise its two phases), and Rosedale Manor were in what is now considered Gladstone Park by most people. It is displayed below:

Gladstone Gardens, one is located just west of the community’s southern commercial center west of N. Milwaukee and N. Northwest Highway. Consisting of the equivalent of about eight full blocks of about 40 homesites each (slightly over 300 homes), it is bound by what we today know as W. Foster on the south, W. Austin to the west, the diagonal Metra Union Pacific Northwest Rail Line on the north, and N. Menard on the east. (The Gladstone Park Chamber of commerce considers this section part of the community because its commercial concerns are contiguous to those at the adjacent N. Milwaukee/W. Foster intersection; the Gladstone Park Neighborhood Association does not.)

If Zelosky installed developer plaques in Gladstone Gardens, they have all vanished. Virtually every corner in the platted area has become the site of a new ADA Sidewalk Ramp with new concrete extending to all the slabs that, by pattern, would have held them. As general contractor for the ADA program, Chicago’s Department of Transportation legally exempts the subcontractors it hires from having to stamp their ramped sidewalk conversions, so no one knows who’s responsible for what.

Two ads for Gladstone Gardens lots in the extreme southern section of Gladstone Park are below. They were found in the Polish language newspaper Dztennik Chicagoski (Chicago Daily News), February 27 and March 6, 1915, both made available through the Library of Congress. By offering attractive financial terms, such ads attracted Polish immigrants hoping to achieve the American dream with their own single-family homes. Lots were sold and modest single-family brick bungalows and stripped-down English Tudor revivals (at least compared to those later built in Park View Crest) rose. Filling in Gladstone Gardens’ remaining vacant lots were raised ranches that had became popular in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Notice the different terms offered by Schultz, Baker & Co. for the 30×125-foot lots, which is the standard size for the community.

Catalpa Park was probably Zelosky’s first in Gladstone Park after Gladstone Gardens. It was just east across N. Milwaukee and slightly north, compromising the equivalent of four blocks averaging 40 homesites each (approximately 160 total.) Bordered by W. Catalpa on the south, N. Milwaukee on the west, W. Bryn Mawr on the north and N. Central on the east, it was perhaps the developer’s first subdivision in which he wasn’t content to merely stamp his company name into the sidewalk to identify it as his own. Marking the subdivision with a flourish in the sidewalk on the corner of W. Catalpa and N. Parkside, he embedded what may be his first stately brass William Zelosky & Co. plaque. It can still be seen there today.

Although many of the original Catalpa Park sidewalks have been repinstalled nearby (some are in third generation replacement), some of sections that remain in hold further clues as to the subdivision’s residential development. Halfway up the west side of the 5500 block of N. Parkside from the Catalpa plaque is a contiguous run of paired numbers (49/50, 47/48, 45/46) stamped into the oldest parts of the sidewalk. These match the subdivider lot numbers on the Sidwell maps. One of these sidewalk sections showing a paired set of numbers is pictured below.

Rosedale Manor, in the middle of the Gladstone Park community, was Zelosky’s eight-block subdivision of more than 300 homesites. It is bound by W. Ardmore to the south, N. Nagle to the west, W. Peterson to the north and N. Melvina to the east. A lone remaining Zelosky Brass Development Plaque recently discovered under an overgrowth of grass on the corner of W. Ardmore and N. Mobile marking one edge of the subdivision, pictured below. The Sidwell Maps identified it as on the edge of Zelosky’s eight-block Rosedale Manor bordered by Nagle on the west, Peterson on the north, Melvina on the east, and Ardmore on the south. Nearly one full block, bordered by W. Rosedale to the south, N. Mulligan to the west, and N. Mobile to the east, later became the Chicago Park District’s Rosedale Park. It had been originally slated to have 28 homesites.

Park View Crest, Zelosky’s most ambitious subdivision in Gladstone was his 500-lot subdivision on 60 acres overlooking the Edgebrook Golf Course (now in the Cook County Forest Preserve). He used the tract’s fortuitous location bordering on the Edgebrook Golf Course (and adjacent property that later became the Forest Preserves of Cook County) to great marketing advantage. The housing development was promoted in the 1920s to people seeking a more suburban-like Chicago community with adjacent parkland and open space.

Built in separate phases, Park View Crest’s first phase encompassed the equivalent of about six full blocks in the most northerly area of W. Austin where the Chicago Park District’s Indian Road Park (originally named “Spartin Park”) is today. Continuing west to N. Melvina, it included all blocks north of N. Matson to N. Indian Road. Presumably, things were going so swimmingly that Zelosky began his second phase, adding about four more blocks to the prestigious development starting at N. Melvina and going three blocks west to N. Milwaukee where it bordered on W. Devon to the north and Huntington Avenue to the south. All told, Park View Crest encompassed the equivalent of nearly 10 full blocks with an average of about 40 homesites in each.

While low-slung more modest bungalows were the the most common architectural styles built on Park View Crest’s homesites during the 1920s, tastes began shifting in the 1930s and 1940s. After the Great Depression ended with the economic buildup to WWII in the mid- to late-1930s, more and more homeowners had the money to contract for bigger and more elaborate English architectural designs with all their decorative elements, particularly in the northernmost section near the desirable parkland. The end result is that this area became home to perhaps the largest stock of brick-and-stone English Tudor Revivals in Chicago. Later yet, more minimalistic English Georgians were built on remaining lots in the subdivision, making that English style the third most abundant kind of residential architecture in Gladstone Park (second after bungalows).

This ad for Park View Crest appeared in The Chicago Daily Tribune, May 31, 1924.

The Zelosky Brass Development Plaques

Chicago contractors have long been legally required to stamp any sidewalks with their company names and locations to ensure quality work whenever concrete walking paths are newly-installed or replaced. But because Zelosky wanted to mark Park View Crest as his most upscale community, he went whole hog exceeding the requirement. He did this by setting special brass plaques into sidewalks at street corners, identifying his company as the subdivider.

Today there are at least seventeen of these William Zelosky & Co. brass development plaques still in existence in the subdivision’s sidewalks. (There are two more, one from Zelosky’s Rosedale Manor and another from Zelosky’s Catalpa Park in the southern part of the Gladstone Park community.) Placed at corners in pairs perpendicular to each other, they mark both cross streets. Most of them are in remarkably good shape, their gleaming surfaces weathered to an attractive blue-green patina. A few othersshow their age.

Sets of plaques start at the extreme northern edge of the development opposite the highly touted golf course/parkland at the corner of Indian Road and N. McVicker (just west of Indian Road Park). They go four blocks west, representing Park View Crest’s first building phase. Other sets of plaques are located in intersections one and two blocks south at corners crossing W. Huntington and W. Raven. Some of these, as noted because with their photos, were reset in new concrete sidewalks installed by KS Energy Services and G&V Construction Company, Chicago, Chicago in the early 2020s.

However, in some newly-replaced sidewalk sections where the Zelosky plaques are expected to be found by virtue of the patterns in which they were originally installed, there are cavernous blanks. None remain in any of the sidewalk sections replaced by Norvilla LLC 2021 Broadview, Il. Not that we can let KS and G&V off the hook, as some of their sidewalk replacements, too, are absent plaques where they would be expected to be found. The only logical conclusion, given the fact there are no consistent policies in place as to what to do with the historic markers, is that some concrete contractors may not have been as cognizant of the worth of preserving them as others when they did their work. Apparently the markers are accorded no legal protection as there is no known law on Chicago’s books saying the plaques must be reset in new concrete when new sidewalk slabs are poured.

The problem is that sidewalks in Chicago can last as little as 20-30 years, what with stresses from extreme winter temperatures and tree root intrusion…even as some concrete slabs poured in Gladstone Park during the early days of the 20th Century have survived more than 100 years. As more and more of these are showing their extreme age, eroding down to their gravel substrate, cracking and breaking apart, they must be replaced for walking safety. The reality is that most city sidewalks get replaced about every 50 years, meaning that many in the community are entering their 3rd generation.

At this time, it falls upon locals to try to communicate to subcontractors during any concrete replacement to see that the brass sidewalk plaques are not removed and discarded. However, relying on individual homeowners to protect these historic markers when they may not themselves know or appreciate what they even represent is a very difficult proposition. Especially since so many different governmental agencies (street and water departments) and quasi-public utilities (gas companies) regularly replace sidewalk sections as part of their work. Other contractors install new sidewalks as part of Chicago’s Shared Cost Sidewalk Program after homeowners request voluntary replacement for fractured, buckled, or degraded sidewalks running in front of their homes. In another initiative that began in 2006, the Chicago Department of Transportation installs sidewalk ramps for its ADA Sidewalk Ramp Program, removing curbs and old concrete to make sidewalks more accessible for people of many more abilities to use. All of which leaves property owners without any control over how, when or which subcontractors do new sidewalk installation at the same time workers are often given no direction about what to do with the historic Zelosky brass plaques.

Neighborhood lore has it that when one contractor recently began ripping out the cracked and broken sidewalk on a Park View Crest corner containing a Zelosky brass development plaque, the homeowner ran out and demanded the company reinsert it in the new cement. It’s just the kind of advocacy Gladstone Park needs to preserve these valuable pieces of its history.

But maybe it’d be safer to ask the City Council recognize historic Chicago sidewalk plaques—which are found in other Chicago neighborhoods as well—for landmark status. It’d just take expanding upon Municipal Code Section 10-20-515 (Nameplates), the one that requires contractors who pour concrete sidewalks to embed a permanent stamp or plate displaying their name, address and year the word was done, requiring cement contractors to reembed any plaques it finds when replacing a sidewalk slab.

For each corner that boasts Zelosky Brass Development Plaques, the top photo of the paired set below shows them in relation to one another. Underneath are the same one or two plaques in closeup view so that residents can better keep reference them and their conditions for the future.

Zelosky Brass Development Plaques, above, corner of N. McVicker and N. Indian Road opposite the golf course. Photos by Mina.

Zelosky Brass Development Plaques, above, corner of N. Meade and N. Indian Road opposite the golf course. When these markers were replaced in new sidewalks, different spacing was employed, as they are now centered in each slab rather than set closer to each other at the corner. Interestingly, the plaque identifying Meade Avenue, named for the Union General George Meade (who was victorious in the Battle of Gettysburg in 1963) is mistakenly spelled “Mead.” The guess is that the error is compounded from an 80-Acre/Sidwell Map Page 1305D typo that doesn’t spell the name correctly. Photos by Mina.

Zelosky Brass Development Plaque, above, on the opposite corner of N. Indian Road and N. Meade across from the golf course. While the Indian Road plaque is present, the Mead(e) plaque that would that would be expected to complete the pair in the adjacent sidewalk block is missing from a section of cement newly-poured and stamped by Norvilla LLC 2021 Broadview, Il. Photos by Mina.

View of the corner of N. Indian Road and N. Moody absent either of the Zelosky Brass Development plaques that, by pattern along N. Indian Road in Park View Crest, would be expected to be found perpendicular to each other along the grassed edge of the front lawn. The picture reveals sidewalks that were replaced by two different projects, at two obviously different times. Some slabs were inset through the Chicago Department of Transportation’s initiative to make sidewalks more accessible as part of its ADA Sidewalk Ramp Program by removing curbs. Judging by the many individual blocks of replaced sidewalk sections along N. Indian Road (which appear as lighter-colored concrete), the other project looks to be part of a homeowner’s voluntary sidewalk replacement as part of Chicago’s Shared Cost Sidewalk Program

Zelosky Brass Development plate, above, corner of N. Indian Road and N. Melvina across from the golf course. Only the Melvina plate remains in an older section of sidewalk while the Indian Road plate that would be expected to be there is absent from a new section of sidewalk stamped by Norvilla LLC 2021 Broadview, Il.

Zelosky Brass Development Plaques, above, corner of N. Melvina and W. Huntington. Photos by Mina.

Zelosky Brass Development Plaques, above, opposite corner of N. Melvina and W. Huntington. Photos by Mina.

Zelosky Brass Development Plaques, above, corner of N. Moody and W. Huntington with the expected Moody plaque missing from where a sidewalk section was replaced. Photos by Mina.

Zelosky Brass Development Plaques, above, corner of N. Melvina and W. Raven. Photos by Mina.

Zelosky Brass Development Plaques, above, corner of N. Merrimac and W. Raven. Photos by Mina.

Zelosky Brass Development Plaques, above, opposite corner of N. Merrimac and W. Raven. Photos by Mina.

At the very edge of Zelosky’s Park View Crest subdivision at the southwest corner N Mevina & W Huntington is a competitor’s developer’s plaque, the only one of its kind found in Gladstone Park, below. As if to capitalize (or hone in on) the panache of Zelosky’s grand success, Edward J. Lesker mounted his own “Addition to Chicago 1977” brass plaque connoting his one block area of homesites. The Sidwell Maps confirm Lesker’s development as a “resub of prt. It 208 in WM ZELOSKY’S PK. VIEW CREST.”

Of all the sidewalks replaced in Gladstone Park about fifty years in, one contractor had an outsized influence on sidewalk replacement locally well into the 1990s and should be recognized. Chicago Cement Contractor H. Kilian, called to put his specialized skills into action in many Far Northwest Side communities including Gladstone Park, nearby Mayfair and Albany Park, installed many of the newer sidewalk slabs of this second generation. These are identified by the Kilian stamp, whose mark is still seen everywhere, along with his stamped phone number of 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, research yielded the modern reiteration of the phone number (773) 777-4749 as a landline once assigned to a home in the adjacent Norwood Park neighborhood. Although once owned by a Kilian family member, the phone line and business no longer appear to be active. Below is a photo of some of H. Kilian’s work on N. Mango Avenue in Gladstone Park as completed in 1971.

Other Noteworthy Gladstone Park Developers of at Least Two Full Blocks (80 homesites)

Frank A. Rockhold Subdivision is approximately 5 full blocks with an average of 40 homesites each. It occupies the triangle where N. Milwaukee and N. Nagle converge and include Gladstone Park’s “H” streets of N. Haft, N. Hermione, N. Huntington, N. Hyacinth and N. Holbrook along with a section of W. Raven thrown in.

Rockhold, a Wilmette resident, is better known for his hometown work. He is credited by the Wilmette Historical Society in its Historic Downtown Wilmette Neighborhood History Guide as the builder of the city’s former U.S. Post Office in 1921 as well as the faux-Tudor style Rockhold Building (designed by prominent Chicago architect Alfred Alschuler) in 1923.

James Murdock & Co.’s Milwaukee Ave. Add. went in on three full blocks south (between N. Matson and W. Miami.

Edgewood is found in nearly five full blocks of homesites further south between W. Miami and W. Peterson.

A.T. McIntosh’s Bryn Mawr Ave. Add. to Chicago contains nearly four full blocks of nearly 200 homesites in in a triangle of land between W. Ardmore and what was then the diagonal C&NW Railway. Another section Moody and Melvina south of Ardmore added another two full blocks for a total of approximately six full blocks.

Elmore’s Ardmore Manor consists of two full blocks between Moody and Meade south of Ardmore, ending in a small irregularly-shaped quadrilateral with another 15 homesites.

Edgewood Terrace occupies four full blocks between Meade and Austin south of Ardmore.

Christmann & Gnaedinger’s Add. to Chicago takes up nearly four full blocks between Miltimore and Markham just east of Milwaukee.

Forest Crest being George C. Hield’s Sub. of approximately three full blocks west of Central butts against Forest Preserve parkland.

Mills & Vessey’s Gladstone Park Add. occupies sections of nearly five full blocks between Menard and Central bound by Elston on the northeast and Bryn Mawr on the south. It also includes two tiny triangles of land west of Menard: one with 12 homesites bordered by Seminole (south) and Miltimore (west) and another with 16 homesites bordered by Milwaukee (southwest) and Bryn Mawr (north).

Angeline Dyniewicz Park Blvd. Add. north of Foster with slightly over five full blocks of homesites. Not considered part of the community by GPNA, it is included by GPCC.

Kinsey’s Forest Garden (phase 1) originally occupied nine full blocks of homesites on the entire portion of land southwest of Avondale/what was then the C&NW Rail Line south to Foster between Austin and the alley behind Moody. “Kinsey’s Forest Gardens No. 2” picked up where the first part of the subdivision left off with the equivalent of a bit over six more full blocks of homesites northwest to N. Nagle.

Although at the outset the ambitious development totaled more than 15 full blocks of some 40 lots each for a total of some 600 homesites, the scope of Kinsey’s Forest Garden got severely pared down. One of the blocks became the Chicago Park District’s Austin/Foster Park. But the biggest hit came when Chicago constructed the John F. Kennedy Expressway in the late 1950s, cutting a swatch through many neighborhoods between downtown and O’Hare Airport. The Jefferson Park neighborhood was divided in half, isolating the sub-community of Gladstone Park to the north. Using Avondale Avenue as its corridor, the Kennedy shoved that road to the southwest, then relocated it to where the ends of blocks in the entire northern parts of both phases of Kinsey’s Forest Garden had been. Remaining residents, who before had only to deal with the sound of trains going by a handful of times a day, were left subject to the constant cacophonous noise of speeding cars and trucks of a busy six-lane highway.

One of the few photos of the construction of the John F. Kennedy Expressway in the Jefferson Park neighborhood shows a view from where what is now the Metra Union Pacific Northwest Rail Line as it veers diagonally northwest over N. Milwaukee Avenue in the extreme southern end of Gladstone Park. The super highway was constructed in the corridor where Avondale Avenue originally ran and took out some 200 homesites—approximately five blocks worth—or nearly one-third of the entire Kinsey’s Forest Garden subdivision. Only a portion of that area, displayed as a cavernous pit, is in view here in the upper left-hand corner. The photo, which ran in Nadig Newspapers https://nadignewspapers.com/decades-old-photo-shows-jefferson-park-as-kennedy-expressway-being-built-includes-current-development-site-at-long-argyle-where-dairy-once-stood/, is owned by Kurt Kuhlman who reportedly bought it on eBay.

While no sources claim to know exactly how many houses were moved or demolished to make way for the Kennedy in Kinsey’s Forest Garden, we can get a pretty good idea by juxtaposing the number of homesites that had been platted on the 80 Acre/Sidwell Maps over how many homes exist today according to Google Maps. (Google locates homes on its maps with shadowed boxes using a combination of satellite/aerial imagery, street view data, and government property records.) Although it is unknown whether all of the Forest Garden homesites had been built out by the time the super highway went in, this comparison reveals an estimated loss of 165 lots from both phases of the subdivision (87 and 78 respectively on Sidwell Map Pages 1308C and 1308D). Ultimately, what’s remaining today of Kinsey’s Forest Gardens, what with the the devastation stemming from Kennedy Expressway and the loss from Foster-Austin Park, is perhaps only 300 homesites.

Another 32 lots on Page 1308A further east in Gladstone Gardens also vanished with the construction of the Kennedy for a total loss of 197 homesites.

Perhaps partly to assuage the community at least a little, a very handy pedestrian bridge was built for residents to walk over the Kennedy Expressway from Avondale at Austin, connecting them to Metra’s Gladstone Station on what is now the Metra Union Pacific Northwest Rail Line…and the rest of the community. The super highway also separated K-8 students living in the Kinsey’s Forest Garden development from the rest of their school district, and they today use this walkway to traverse the one extra block once across to get to Rufus M. Hitch Elementary School in the Gladstone Park community.

Old Gladstone By the first decade of the 20th Century, many German immigrants had already been attracted to the very southern tip of Gladstone Park, building the two-story barn-roofed Dutch (“Deutsch”) Colonial Revivals they favored from their homeland along the Volga River.Word of mouth was apparently the greatest factor in bringing the Volga Germans to the part of the community most people now call “Old Gladstone,” as there was no one subdivision selling homesites there. In fact, the Sidwell Maps indicate perhaps as many as nine different builders/small subdividers were responsible for divvying up the property in its area of approximately eight blocks. So technically, Old Gladstone is not a subdivision because the selling of lots there occurred in more piecemeal fashion.

But Old Gladstone was one of the first areas of the community that was fully built out. With people of like mind, it became a cohesive little community whose people worked together to better their circumstances. Investing years of petitioning, they finally managed to get the Chicago Park District to develop (William) Gladstone Park on a triangle of property ringed by many of their homes on N. Manila, N. Menard and N. Magnet. The land, in the very center of Old Gladstone, was originally slated to have 16 homes.

L.E. Crandall’s Jefferson Sub. consists of the equivalent of about six blocks northeast of the what was then the C&NW Rail Line.

Butler’s Carpenter & Milwaukee Ave. Sub. takes up approximately three full blocks of homesites south of Catalpa just east of Milwaukee.

Chicago’s 80-Acre and Sidwell Maps

Fortuitously, Chicago has been expanding access to ever-increasing numbers of searchable online zoning and land use maps since 2002 with its Department of Planning & Economic Development’s geographic information systems (GIS) interface. A number of years later it mounted Chicago’s 80-Acre Maps from the U.S. Public Land Survey System, a big step forward. Originally created in 1820, these maps platted land across the nation by dividing 6-by-6-mile townships into 1 square mile sections of 640 acres each before splitting them again into quarters of 160 acres each before dividing that in half once more to get 80 acre-parcels (exactly 1/8 square mile). The bigger scale of the maps made them much more workable for helping local government entities—from small towns to great cities—plan development through the decades with their identification of street grids, block numbers, lot lines, and dimensions.

Most important to us today is the fact that, as Chicago grew, our city planners overlayed the area’s 80-Acre Maps with hand-written development information identifying the subdivision applications that were approved. They are detailed with subdivider/builder names, exact location, and document numbers, some with dates and further descriptions. The local Sidwell Map Company cleaned up the information on the 80-Acre maps, page by page, and put them into pdf form. Its 2025 version is now mounted online is so boldly stamped on each as “Property of the Cook County Clerk’s Office” that they are hardly readable. As such, copies that can be viewed clearly are not easy to find, especially since they are not directly accessible through their URL addresses. Full viewing and printable copies are only available via accounts on the Sidwell site. However, this website has made it possible for Gladstone Park residents to obtain this historic information on the development of their community and their specific lots through the 80-Acre or Sidwell Maps in one of two ways:

Method #1: To peruse the eight historic 80-Acre maps of the community (and the portions of four others), users can go directly to the 80-Acre Chicago Map Library online through the CDOT portal. By entering an address in the “Select 80 Acre search method…” blank and hitting the question mark, they will be given the opportunity to click on “Download 80 Acre Page” to see the section the property is in. Blocks coded by capital letter are keyed to indices on the left or right side of each map providing hand-drafted subdivision information detailing who developed specific parcels. Note that most subdivisions use auxiliary lot numbers to the left or right, not the one centered in the middle of the property that’s ordinarily on your deed.

Method #2: As luck would have it, the gladstonepark.com website was able to download the Sidwell map pdfs that cover the community and post them without alteration here. They are listed below under the page numbers the company has given them in its map book. The maps are ordered from the community’s northwest corner and go east in a row before starting the next row south. Full attribution and thanks go to the Sidwell Map Company for deciphering and printing the subdivision information and the Cook County Clerk’s Office for publishing it.

To make it easier to find a specific Sidwell Map, descriptions below their links describe where their boundaries begin and end. Also mentioned are the names of major subdivisions, which are defined as consisting of at least two full blocks of 25-, 30-, or 35-wide lots. Any striking discrepancies that changed the file plans as shown on the maps, if any, are noted. Realize that the bulk of Gladstone Park subdivider/builder/landowners had only small plats, maybe a half of a street long or even just a few lots; while not mentioned here, they are all painstakingly documented in the margins of the Sidwells. However, research revealed there are at least 13 major subdividers who developed approximately 100 or more homesites in Gladstone Park. Directional prefixes (N, S, E, and W) to street names are omitted only in this part of the website to be consistent with the maps.

Dev Map 1305C

Sidwell Map 1305C Borders: Peterson (south), Nagle (west), Devon (north), Melvina (east); the entirely of its 80 acres lie within Gladstone Park

Major Subdivisions:

“Wm. Zelosky’s Park View Crest” (Phase 2) of approximately four full blocks between Melvina and Milwaukee in the northern section butting up to Devon

“Frank A. Rockhold’s Sub.” on the west side of Milwaukee where it merges with Nagle to form a triangle of approximately five full blocks

Dev Map 1305D

Sidwell Map 1305D Borders: Peterson (south), Melvina (west), Devon/Indian (north), Austin (east); the entirely of its 80 acres lie within Gladstone Park

Major Subdivisions:

“Wm. Zelosky’s Park View Crest” (Phase 1) making up the equivalent of about five full blocks in the northern section along the parkland/golf course at Indian Road

“James Murdock & Co.’s Milwaukee Ave. Add.” (partial) occupying the equivalent of two full blocks between Matson and Miami

“Edgewood” (partial) taking up slightly more than one full block of homesites further south between W. Miami and W. Peterson

Discrepancies: typos in the misspelling of Meade as Mead and Huntington as Hunting. Spartin Park (originally 26 homesites) is now the Chicago Park District’s Indian Road Park.

Dev Map 1305A

Sidwell Map 1305A Borders: Peterson (south), Austin (west), Devon (north), parkland/golf course (east); the entirely of its 80 acres lie within Gladstone Park

Major Subdivisions:

“James Murdock & Co.’s Milwaukee Ave. Add.” (partial) with the equivalent of one full block between Matson and Miami

“Edgewood” (partial) taking up about four blocks between Miami and Peterson; a small triangle of land just south of Peterson on Sidwell Map 1305F is labeled “Edgewood Add.”

Discrepancies: The northern quadrant had originally been platted with several more roads with over 100 more homesites divvied up by three different developers. Never built due to economic fallout from the Great Depression, these extensions of Miami and Matson as well as new roads slated to be called Mohican, Midas, and Manasses (now only “paper” roads) were long ago officially vacated by the city. The absence of a continuation of Indian Road with a cojoined alley here is perhaps the reason why the 6000 block of N. Menard is one of the few streets in Gladstone Park not to have an alley running behind it.

Dev Map 1305E

Sidwell Map 1305E Borders: Bryn Mawr (south), Nagle (west), Peterson (north), Melvina (east); the entirely of its 80 acres lie within Gladstone Park

Major Subdivisions:

“Wm. Zelosky’s Rosedale Manor” with homesites on eight full blocks on half the land area in the northern part

“A. T. McIntosh’s “Bryn Mawr Ave. Add. to Chicago” (partial) occupying nearly four full blocks in a triangle on land between Ardmore and the diagonal C&NW Rail Line

Discrepancies: One block of Rosedale Manor slated to have some 40 homes instead became Chicago Park District’s Rosedale Park.

Dev Map 1305F

Sidwell Map 1305F Borders: Bryn Mawr (south), Melvina (west), Peterson (north), Austin (east); the entirely of its 80 acres lie within Gladstone Park

Major Subdivisions:

“A. T. McIntosh’s Bryn Mawr Ave. Add. to Chicago” (partial) taking up two full blocks between Moody and Melvina south of Ardmore

“Elmore’s Ardmore Manor” consisting of two full blocks between Moody and Meade south of Ardmore extending into a small irregularly-shaped quadrilateral on Sidwell Map 1308D with another 15 homesites

“Edgewood Terrace” occupying four full blocks between Meade and Austin south of Ardmore

Dev Map 1305G

Sidwell Map 1305G Borders: Bryn Mawr (south), Austin (west), Peterson (north), Menard (east); the entirely of its 80 acres lie within Gladstone Park

Major Subdivisions:

“Christmann & Gnaedinger’s Add. to Chicago” taking up nearly four full blocks between Miltimore and Markham just east of Milwaukee

Dev Map 1305H

Sidwell Map 1305H Borders: Bryn Mawr (south) Menard crisscrossed with Milwaukee (west), Peterson (north), Central (east); the entirely of its 80 acres lie within Gladstone Park

Major Subdivisions:

“Forest Crest being George C. Hield’s Sub” of approximately three full blocks west of Central butting against Forest Preserve parkland

“Mills & Vessey’s Gladstone Park Add.” occupying sections of nearly five full blocks west of Central between Elston and Bryn Mawr (a tiny triangle of land on Sidwell Map 1308A with 12 homesites and another tiny triangle of 16 homesites on Sidwell Map 1305G are also part of this subdivision)

Discrepancies: Miltimore is mistakenly identified as Milwaukee Ave.

Dev Map 1308C

Sidwell Map 1308C Borders: Foster (south), Nagle (west), Bryn Mawr (north), the alley east of Melvina (east); this area south of Avondale is not considered part of the Gladstone Park community by most organizations and residents

Major Subdivisions:

“Kinsey’s Forest Gardens No. 2” encompassing half of the land area to the north with the equivalent of a bit over six full blocks of homesites

“Angeline Dyniewicz Park Blvd. Add.” taking up the southern part of the map with slightly over five full blocks of homesites

Discrepancies: Untold numbers of houses (estimated at around 87) in the northern portion of Kinsey’s Forest Gardens No. 2″ were moved or demolished to make way for the construction of the new John F. Kennedy Expressway in the late 1950s.

Dev Map 1308D

Sidwell Map 1308D Borders: Foster (south), the alley west of Moody (west), Bryn Mawr (north), Austin (east); this area south of Avondale is not considered part of the Gladstone Park community by most organizations and residents

Major Subdivisions:

“Kinsey’s Forest Garden” occupying nine full blocks of homesites on the entire portion of land southwest of the C&NW Rail Line

Discrepancies: An unknown number of homes (estimated at around 78) in the northern portion of the original Kinsey’s Forest Gardens were moved or torn down to make way for the construction of the new John F. Kennedy Expressway in the late 1950s.

One full block of Kinsey’s Forest Garden initially slated to have 40 more homes instead became the Chicago Park District’s Austin-Foster Park.

Dev Map 1308A

Sidwell Map 1308A Borders: Gettysburg (south), Austin (west), Bryn Mawr (north), Menard (east); the one-third of this area south of Avondale is not considered part of the Gladstone Park community by most organizations and residents

Major Subdivisions:

“L.E. Crandall’s Jefferson Sub” takes up the equivalent of about six blocks northeast of the C&NW Rail Line

“Gladstone Gardens” (a Zelosky development) of nearly four blocks encompassing the area southwest of Avondale/C&NW Rail Line and is not considered part of the Gladstone Park community by most organizations and residents.

Discrepancies: During the construction of the new John F. Kennedy Expressway on the southern edge of Gladstone Park during the late 1950s, the number of houses from Gladstone Gardens that were moved or demolished is estimated at around 32; at the same time entry ramps were installed, the nearby Foster/Milwaukee intersection was rejiggered and vacated parts of Gettysburg Street west of Milwaukee were replaced by Foster.

Dev Map 1308B

Sidwell Map 1308B Borders: Gettysburg (now called Foster) south, Menard (west), Bryn Mawr (north), Central (east); the entirely of its 80 acres lie within Gladstone Park

Major Subdivisions:

“Zelosky’s Catalpa Park” occupying all four full blocks (east to west) north of Catalpa

“Butler’s Carpenter & Milwaukee Ave. Sub” taking up approximately three full blocks of homesites south of Catalpa just east of Milwaukee

Discrepancies: In the process of constructing the new John F. Kennedy Expressway on the southern edge of Gladstone Park during the late 1950s, houses were moved or torn down, entry ramps were installed, the nearby Foster/Milwaukee intersection was rejiggered, and vacated parts of Gettysburg Street west of Milwaukee were replaced by Foster.

Dev Map 1309E

Sidwell Map 1309E Borders: Lawrence (south) Central (west), Gettysburg (now called Foster) on the north, Long (east)

The top half of this map where Milwaukee passes north under the railroad bridge from greater Jefferson Park to merge with the origin of Northwest Highway is kind of a no man’s land with some regarding the area between Gettysburg and the C&NW Rail Line as part of the sub-community of Gladstone Park and others identifying it as an unspecified section of the greater neighborhood of Jefferson Park.