How real estate developers created Mount Prospect
Developers played an integral part in the history of Mount Prospect for roughly 100 years. It all started in the 1870s when Ezra Eggleston bought some farmland roughly halfway between Des Plaines and Arlington Heights along the railroad tracks, built a train station and named the place "Mount Prospect."
During the late 1800s, four families moved to the area to start up where Eggleston left off when he went bankrupt. The Moehlings came to take over the running of a general store built by Christian Geils.
The Willes started a creamery next to the tracks, and later went into construction and other businesses. The Meyns were encouraged to move to the tiny settlement since John Meyn was a blacksmith and that trade was vital to every 19th century community.
Finally, a decade or so after the others arrived, William Busse settled his family in Mount Prospect so that he could more easily commute to Chicago for his job as a Cook County deputy sheriff.
By 1906, when the Busse and Wille families teamed up to subdivide some of the land they each owned, there were 10 houses and six businesses in the tiny community.
The residents knew that if they wanted to incorporate and improve their hometown through property taxes, they needed to attract more residents because the state required at least 300 residents to incorporate.
Over the next dozen years, Waldeman Krause subdivided both sides of Emerson Street, from Prospect Avenue to Lincoln Street, and Ernst Busse subdivided the parcel between Main Street, Elmhurst Avenue, Gregory and Henry streets (near today's post office).
By 1916, when George Busse and his brothers bought the remaining portions of the old Owen Rooney farm north of the tracks and east of Main Street for continued subdivision, the goal of incorporation was in sight.
By January 1917, Mount Prospect had its 300th resident and the necessary papers were filed with the state. Finally, taxes could be levied and improvements made.
Development came to Mount Prospect in earnest during the 1920s. The Busses were selling 50-by-157-foot lots on the Rooney farm for $450 each, with 10 percent down. The balance was paid at whatever rate the buyer could afford. A municipal water system was installed in 1921. Sewers were added in 1926, and the first 10 miles of streets were paved in 1927.
In 1922, George Meier began subdividing the old Walter Burke farm south of the tracks, between Prospect Avenue and Lincoln Street and between Main and Pine streets.
The big boys made their way to Mount Prospect, however, in 1925. Axel Lonnquist bought the Fred Schaefer farm and created the Prospect Park subdivision south of Lincoln Street, between Elmhurst Road and Main Street (south of the Route 83 S-curve today).
H. Roy Berry quickly followed in 1926. He was destined to subdivide several areas within Mount Prospect, but his first venture was transforming the John Katz farm on the north side into the Castle Heights subdivision. It ran from Main Street to Elmhurst Avenue and from Highland to Hill Street.
Shortly thereafter, he took on the subdivision of the William Seegers farm into Maplewood Heights. It was just west of Mount Prospect Road, between Northwest Highway and Lincoln Street.
During the late 1920s, farms disappeared at an amazing rate. Those owned by Germans like Friedrich Schaefer, Henry Mensching, Louis Katz, Carl Behlendorf, John Pohlman, and J.C. Moehling were all taken out of cultivation and transformed into residential lots.
A scant two months before the stock market was destined to plunge and start the lengthy Great Depression, the John Russell farm was also subdivided.
Developers with names like Albert Pick and Bert Laudermilk joined Berry, Lonnquist and the Busses in carving up Mount Prospect farms into residential lots.
Little-to-nothing happened in the 1930s and the first half of the 1940s, thanks to the Great Depression and World War II. But when the returning GIs wanted to establish homes of their own in the suburbs, things took off again.
Ranch homes quickly became popular and filled many of the still-empty lots subdivided earlier. In addition, new developers like Brickman Home Builders came to town and began subdividing even more farms, adding split-level homes to their repertoire of options.
As they did so, a progression of mayors and trustees in Mount Prospect annexed more and more former farmland to the village. Schools were built at an astounding rate. Two park districts were also added, as were shopping venues like Mount Prospect Plaza and Randhurst Mall and business parks like Kensington Business Center.