Naperville man presents a postcard view of town's past

Steve Hyett isn't old enough to remember when horses shared the streets with motorcars in downtown Naperville or when the 5th Avenue train station was on the north side of the tracks.

He never actually saw the grand Heatherton House that mysteriously burned down in the 1920s or sampled the beer from Stenger Brewery.

But anyone listening to his "Non-walking, Walking Tour of Old Naperville" would hardly know that as he projects postcard scenes of early 20th century Naperville on the screen and spins stories of days gone by.

"Just like it is today, it was a vibrant town 100 years ago," said Hyett, who recently presented his program to the Young Professionals group of the Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce.

His next presentation will be at 7 p.m. Oct. 2 at the Nichols Library, 200 W. Jefferson Ave., Naperville.

By profession, Hyett is a financial adviser with the north Naperville office of Wachovia Securities. By avocation, he's an amateur historian who has collected more than a 1,000 postcards of Naperville from the first quarter of the 20th century.

He shows scenes from the cards on an old-fashioned slide projector and jokes that younger people ask, "What's that?" when they see his equipment.

"These folks grew up with PowerPoint," he said. "Slides are an ancient art form."

Postcards still exist, of course, but they've lost the importance they once enjoyed as a way to communicate experiences with friends and family.

"The postcard was used for just about everything," Hyett said. "That was the text message of 100 years ago."

Postcards came into use with the Columbian Exposition of 1893, Hyett said. The early cards had a divided front with space for a small picture and a short message because the back was reserved for the address.

That changed when Congress passed a law in 1907 that allowed room for a message on the back so the picture could fill the entire front.

"From then, these things exploded. It was an industry," he said.

Photographers would come to towns such as Naperville, shoot pictures and return with their work to a local pharmacy to ask if the store would like the images mass produced. Many of the cards were printed in Germany, which explains why they became less prominent after the United States entered World War I in 1917.

Hyett's own collection of postcards dates from 1905 to 1925. He began collecting them 30 years ago after his mother-in-law, a teacher at Ellsworth Elementary School in Naperville for 39 years, gave him her collection. They included some scenes from old Naperville.

"I found the pictures were fascinating," Hyett said, and he started picking up cards himself at garage sales, flea markets and through collector magazines.

"i'm utterly surprised there were so many postcards," Hyett added. "It (Naperville) was a small town, but there was so much going on."

Naperville had a railroad, a college and industry, and that made it a hub.

Hyett has postcards that show the stream engines that came through town, North Central College when it was still North-Western College, and the Kroehler Manufacturing Company that became the world's largest producer of upholstered furniture.

Postcards were used to show disasters, too. One of Hyett's cards depicts the devastation wrought by a 1913 tornado that took out the east end of the Kroehler factory. The former factory building is now the site of Fifth Avenue Station.

Hyett moved into Naperville as an adult, but has lived in the area since he was a fifth-grader in 1956. He lived on a small farm on Eola Road and for two years attended the one-room Waubonsie Grade School.

He went onto Washington Junior High School when it was the only junior high in town and graduated from Naperville Community High School, now Naperville Central. He credits a high school history teacher with instilling in him an interest in the past.

"I had a good history teacher in high school who made history come alive," he said.

Hyett had a short, happy career as a radio announcer in St. Ambrose College in Davenport, Iowa, before being drafted and sent to Vietnam.

He returned to finish college and moved back to Naperville in 1971. Hyett and his wife, Mary Kay, raised their four children in the community, where he has been active in everything from the Heritage Group YMCA to the Naperville North High School Boosters Club.

Hyett has been master of ceremonies for Naperville's Labor Day Parade for 28 years, and is pleased to be on the board of directors for the Century Walk.

His interest in history extends to the electric railways that connected the suburbs with Chicago. Hyett has a second presentation he gives about the Prairie Path that was the right-of-way of the Chicago Elgin & Aurora Railroad. He also has published two short books and contributed to dozens of articles and books about interurban and street railways in the Chicago area.

Hyett said he has been giving his Naperville presentation for 30 years to civic groups, heritage societies and homeowners associations. He dreams of having the time to take photos that would allow him to contrast his postcard scenes with what is there today.

"I love the history of the town. I love talking about it," he said. "I love to hear why did this affect us."

If you go

What: "Non-walking, Walking Tour of Old Naperville" with Steve Hyett

When: 7 p.m. Oct. 2

Where: Nichols Library, 200 W. Jefferson Ave., Naperville

Cost: Free

Register: Online at naperville-lib.org or at any Naperville public library