Local history

AN INTRODUCTION TO SKOKIE HISTORY

By 1836, Native Americans in what is now Niles Township had been forcibly removed to other areas of the country. Though European American settlers had lived near Skokie in the early 1830s, the first wood-frame house was built by Prussian immigrants Henry and Louisa Harms in 1854. 

The growing community was known as Niles Center because it was located in the middle of Niles Township, and from the late 19th to early 20th century, it consisted largely of small farms and greenhouses. The village changed its name from Niles Center to Skokie in 1940. 

A transition from farming to real estate development began in the 1920s, which was cut short during the Depression, but which revived after World War II. For more information on these periods, look through our At Home in Skokie digital collection. 

In the second half of the 20thcentury, the racial and ethnic diversity of Skokie expanded as a result of specific policy, including the passage of one of Illinois' first fair housing ordinances. The annual Festival of Cultures celebrated this increasing diversity.

Research Overview

Here are some places to start learning more about local history:

• Explore our digital collections on a variety of topics related to Skokie’s history.
• For photos, the Skokie History Digitization Project has pictures from the 1800s and 1900s, including images of early families, churches and synagogues, maps from the collection of the Skokie Historical Society and Skokie Heritage Museum. 
• Books about Skokie are available at the library, including an illustrated history and Skokie: A Centennial History, which is also available online. 
• Browse Skokie Historical Society publications online, including chronologies of Skokie history and early histories of the village.

RESEARCHING PEOPLE

There are many ways to learn about our community members, whether they’re people you know, prominent people in our history, or simply people who lived and worked in the same places you do now:

• In the Skokie History Project, see photos of people and families from the late 1800s and early 1900s, and school pictures from the same time period.
• Look through our collection related to the history of the Skokie fire department, including photos of two fire dogs, Skippy and Sunshine. There is also a detailed chronology from the Skokie Historical Society.
• Hear Skokie community members in their own words through oral histories recorded from 2011 to 2013. A video on the history of Niles Township (which includes oral histories) is on YouTube.
• Peruse a digital collection devoted to the life and work of Dr. Louise Klehm, Skokie’s first female doctor. 
• Read a blog post about some of the women involved in the founding and history of the library.

If you’re doing genealogical research or looking for a specific person, look through our digitized newspapers. You can also search Ancestry Library Edition, a huge genealogical database of historical records (only available inside the library). We also have digitized yearbooks from Niles East, Niles North, and Niles West, as well as the NileHiLite, a student publication from Niles East from 1939 to 1980.

Newspapers and Obituaries

One of the best ways to research local history is by looking at local news. Skokie has had several newspapers throughout the years and you can access them through the library. From articles to classifieds ads to advertisements for the latest gadget, the newspapers will give you a unique look into Skokie’s history.

Newspapers

We have digitized historical newspapers from the 1930s through present day, including the Niles Center Herald, the Skokie Review, the Skokie Life, and the News. These are only available to view inside the library. If you’d like to explore headlines from outside the library, try our Skokie Newspaper Index. If you find an article you’d like to read, come to the library or contact us for a copy.

• The Villager was a published from 1958 and 1959.
• The NileHiLite, Niles East’s student newspaper, ran from 1939 to 1980.
• The Chicago Tribune is available from 1849 to the present.
• The Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections from UIUC include the German-language Eintracht (published in Skokie, 1950-2017), and the Chicago Jewish Post & Opinion (1962-1981).
• For more recent newspaper coverage, try the Chicago Community Newspaper Collection or Library PressReader, both of which carry a number of titles.

Obituaries

For local obituaries, start with the Skokie Newspaper Obituary Index, which will give you an exact citation. You can come to the library to view that obituary in our Historical Skokie Newspapers database or contact us for a copy.
If you’re looking for an obituary from somewhere else, try searching Ancestry Library Edition (only available inside the library) or Heritage Hub, both of which collect records from many sources.

RESEARCHING HOMES AND BUSINESSES

If you’re interested in the history of your home or another building in Skokie, a good place to start is our At Home in Skokie collection, which describes early 20th century real estate development.  The Skokie History Project includes photos of early Skokie homes and businesses.

For more recent records, search our public records database or the Cook County Clerk’s Office. The Niles Township Assessor has current maps.

Discrimination and Fair Housing

Like many mid-sized American communities, Skokie has a history both of housing discrimination and of increasing diversity. In Skokie and elsewhere in Chicagoland official policies went beyond individual prejudice. For instance, racial restrictive covenants limited the sale of property in an area to certain races. The practice of redlining assigned risk levels to certain areas, giving white residents better chances of getting a mortgage than others. For more information, Lake Forest College has a digital collection that includes an interactive map. Unvarnished is an online exhibit looking at housing discrimination in the northern and western United States.

Things slowly began to change in Skokie during the mid-20th century. In 1961, a Black couple from Hyde Park purchased a home in Skokie, despite significant difficulties and pushback from the community. These difficulties ultimately led to the passage of a fair housing ordinance. 

Maps and Directories

For overviews of the geography and changing boundaries of Skokie, Skokie: A Community History Using Old Maps covers 1830 to 1984. Geographical Growth of Skokie covers 1888 to 1983. View the changing landscape from a bird's-eye view through aerial photographs in our digital collections in addition to those in the Illinois Historical Aerial Photography database.

A number of individual maps and other resources are available from the library and elsewhere online:

• Early plat maps show the layout of Niles Center. 
• Real estate planning and zoning maps show the development of land in Skokie. 
• A real estate atlas from 1921, with amendments in 1924 and 1925, has maps of neighborhoods in Niles Township depicting the boundaries of towns, subdivisions, roads, cemeteries, and forest preserves. 
• An 1840 U.S. Surveyor’s map shows Niles Township’s boundaries. 
• A 1930 map from the Cook County Board of Commissioners also includes Niles Center.
• The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps from the Library of Congress identify the location of commercial and residential structures from 1924 to 1950 as well as construction type, roofing material, and business type. Be sure to use the key to symbols and color-coding on the first page of the volume.
• Research businesses and residential addresses using our online telephone books, which span 1924 through 1959. 
• Print telephone directories and business directories are available in the library, as well as our criss-cross directories, which are organized by address.
• Our digital collections include historical photographs and business materials. 
• The Library of Congress has digitized telephone books covering the north suburbs from 1958 to 1968
• The Dun & Bradstreet directories include Niles Center business listings from 1899 to 1924.

ATTEMPTED NAZI MARCH IN SKOKIE 

In the late 1970s, a Chicago-based neo-Nazi group attempted to hold a rally in Skokie, resulting in pushback from the community, counterrallies, and several court cases, one of which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. We have an online archive of newspaper coverage, audio recordings, a timeline, and other artifacts documenting what happened.

• The WTTW online documentary Skokie: Invaded But Not Conquered mentions our librarians in the credits! We also have DVDs to check out. 
• Skokie Archive on YouTube includes footage of Frank Collin and his followers and protests in Chicago, documentary films on rallies in Marquette Park from the Media Burn Archive, and a student film made at the time: Echoes of a Nightmare. Skokie residents reflect on their experiences in the retrospective Memories of a March.
• Books in the library address the controversy itself or the First Amendment. 
• The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center was founded by a group of Skokie citizens in direct response to the attempted neo-Nazi rally.