Web sites offer peek at local history

In addition to occasional feedback from this column, I also receive queries about Naperville via the "Contact Us" link on various Naperville Web sites, including ones for the Riverwalk Foundation, Naperville Responds and Positively Naperville.

I spend a portion of every day checking e-mails, many from far beyond our borders. When necessary -- which is often -- I forward questions to the proper parties while trying to keep the Web sites up to date with fresh input and photos, thanks to help from trusted techies.

This Thanksgiving weekend found more visitors online that the usual lot. In addition to new photos from a photographer in Pass Christian, Miss., depicting progress in the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast city, two e-mails in particular helped bring local history to life.

On Sunday, I was fascinated to hear from former resident Margaret Walsh, who was visiting her sister here for Thanksgiving. She now hails from Monticello, Wis.

Walsh enhanced the photo credits associated with a 1927 picture of Beidelman Furniture and the old gas station to the south across Jackson Avenue.

Longtime residents remember when Bev Patterson Frier ran the Bev Patterson Piano and Organ Co. at the site, following Charlie Burgess' Standard Oil Gas Station. Frier sold her business in 1982, and the new buyer operated under her name for one year.

Next, the property became the Landmark Restaurant, then the Metro Grill and now Jimmy's Grill.

But Walsh helped us trace the site's history a bit further.

"The former Burgess Standard Station on South Washington Street … was the site of Phillip Beckman's Harness Shop long before it was a gasoline station," Walsh said via e-mail. "Philip Beckman was my great-grandfather."

"I grew up on my father's farm, on the Will County side of 87th Street. When I was a child, our house was about four miles from the south city limits, which I think were along the south edge of the Naperville Cemetery. I am amazed and amused by how the south city limits boundary has passed our farm by and has gone down to meet Plainfield."

And what does Walsh think of Naperville now?

"Such a big town! Wow."

Another reader discovered the Web site hosted by the Riverwalk Foundation. "Frequently asked questions" on the site usually concern staging weddings, taking photographs, ordering commemorative bricks or renting picnic pavilions along the winding brick path.

This reader provided enlightening information, too.

"Last night, I viewed the true original hand-drawn (including the mathematical calculations) designs for the actual blueprints of the original dam and riverwalk designs," e-mailed someone who had attended a Thanksgiving family reunion in Naperville.

"These designs were viewed at a family reunion at the home of Ann and Ward Shoger, along with their seven children. The originals, which had been kept for many years, clearly indicate their grandfather, Paul Baumgartner, was the creator (an engineer originally from Sweden) of Centennial Park/Riverwalk. There were as many as 30 drawings and sketches as well as original plats of survey including topographical.

"History appears to be incorrect regarding the true originators," he wrote.

Eager to know more, I responded with a desire to learn from the early renderings and a heap of other stories about the riverwalk's evolution. And I forwarded the e-mail to the Naperville Park District and the Riverwalk Commission.

The Web site says that Centennial Beach predates the Riverwalk, havign come about "when 32 Naperville citizens contributed $500 each -- a most generous amount amid The Depression -- to purchase land for a park to commemorate Naperville's centennial year in 1931."

The Riverwalk with a capital R, the one most people envision when they think "Riverwalk," started along the DuPage River in 1981 as Naperville's sesquicentennial gift to itself. Building on earlier concepts from the 1930s, new recommendations from city planners and architects in the 1970s were created to revitalize downtown Naperville.

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: no two people see our rich history in exactly the same light.

Depending upon where you stand while history is in the making, reliable sources you interview, what newspapers you read or TV you watch, your recollection of the past and recent events is based on your personal experiences and interpretation.

And in this city, "nothing worthwhile is ever achieved without the collective spark of enthusiasm."

I know I read that last statement someplace.