Deer Park Glen

This is a true story of a time and place that is no longer, but at one time played a big part in our families' lives.

Fred, Andrew, and Annie Hutt came directly to Deer Park Glen in 1874 and spent their entire life here. The Thomas Stanton family as well as David Jones, Sr. and Catherine Stanton Jones's children were all born near Deer Park Glen in Utica, LaSalle County, Illinois. I remember the Thomas Welch family lived in Deer Park Glen.

I remember going to school (mentioned in the story) just over the hill. The school was tucked under the brow of the hill.

I remember the store, but I don't remember who lived there at that time.

Some of our relatives are mentioned in the story and are underlined: Mary Snell Steele, John Snell, her father, and Mable Welsh Watts as well as Ethel Jones Murphy's picture taken at the toll booth of the Swinging bridge. The newspaper article was written by John Barron, when, where, and for whom, I do not know.

"I think I found another ghost town for you." Mrs. Dottie Conerton said. "It's kind of a spooky place to get to and it once had a haunted house and there was a murder or a hanging at one time. You might like to look into it".

The first thing to do was look the place over. It is on the east side of Oglesby, yet most people in Oglesby (Illinois) that we asked didn't seem to remember that the place existed. Getting to it was a little spooky. There is a little single-lane gravel road with trees on each side meeting overhead and keeping the road dark as it winds down a steep hill like going down into Edgar Allen Poe's dark town of Auber in "Ulalume".

But at the botton of the hill you will come out onto a flat, sunlit plain near the Vermilion river. There is not much down there today: three houses, one tumble-down house half hidden in the brush, two sets of rusted railroad tracks. That's about it.

But it wasn't always like this.

For once there was a railroad station here, many homes, a hotel, store, post office, a combination farm and park, a dance hall, even a haunted house. And the most spectacular swinging bridge you ever did see! And those rusted tracks, once brought loaded excursion trains each weekend from Galesburg, Chicago and Pana (?). The crowds came to spend the day in the gardens, fishing, swimming, crossing the bridge to picnic and dance.

This was Deer Park Glen, the backdoor entrance to Deer Park, now known as Matthiessen State Park. Most people have forgotten that there even was a Deer Park Glen, forgotten the daily trains that went through on their was from LaSalle to Streator, too.

Martin Reynolds and his wife, Elizabeth Hitt, were the first settlers here, having come from Ohio in 1829. Elizabeth died in 1949 leaving six children and Mr. Reynolds subsequently married the widow Thurston. One of the sons was the first white child born in Deer Park Glen. The place was variously know over the years as the Clayton farm, and Vroman, but its real name was Deer Park Glen. Coal was discovered just across the Vermilion and Dawson's and one or two other slope mines operated there during the Civil War, transporting the coal across the river by cable, later by a bridge suspended by cables. Tom Pryde of Oglesby remembers the coal mine bridges.

The settlement beside the river grew up gradually with the homes of miners, first from Dawson's mine, later from the Black Hollow coal mine. The Illinois Zinc Company's general store was opened. It was operated by Ed Chapin. Mary Snell Steele clerked in the store and lived in the Glen when she was a young girl. "My youngest brother was born there." Eva Krancic of Oglesby says some foundations of the store remain today. The tiny original one-room post office still stands on land now owned by Russ Bunker.

The place sprang to prominence after the railroad came through. Besides the station there was an Adams Express Co., Office. Then came the Chapin Farm and Market, a sort of resort that was like a park and visitors loved to stroll there. Chapin raised strawberries, vegetables, gladioli, and had an orchard of apple and other fruit trees. Excursion train visitors wanted fruit and vegetables, so the Chapins, Ed and Carrie, set up a stand and did a thriving business.

Deer Park Glen. Almost lost now in the shadows of the past. It was the remarkable Swinging Bridge that brought it to prominence, for CB&Q brought it to prominence, for the CB&Q brought its weekend excursionists to the Glen so they could get to Deer Park and this was the only way to get there by rail. The Vermilion river separates Deer Park Glen from what was Deer Park, now Mattiessen State Park and there had to be a way to cross the river.

The unique Swinging Bridge made it possible. You climbed the stairs on the Glen side and crossed over. The vbridge was owned by F. W. Matthiessen of LaSalle, Illinois and for a time there was a toll of 10 cents per person. Matthiessen donated the money to the Tri-Cities Charities. This was a long, long bootbridge suspended by cables, and just to walk across it was a thrill.

Harold Trench of LaSalle tells about crossing the bridge with crowds of kids on school picnics. "We boys were very courteous." he says. "We would let all of the girls go ahead of us. Then, when the girls were part way across, we boys would run onto the bridge and start it swinging. You should have heard the girls scream!"

"Yes, and I was one of those screaming little girls," says Mrs. Mary Steel, who lived in the Glen, now in Morris, Illinois. "I would not go on the bridge if boys were present. Believe me, that bridge really swung!"

F. W. Mattiessen dropped the toll charge later. His family had a summer home at Dee Park and fixed the grounds up like a park and permitted the public to see it. It was a popular place for school and club picnics.

Also on the east side of the swinging bridge was a dance hall owned by John Clayton. It had living quarters upstairs and a stage for the band. "My father, John Snell, was a square dance caller," says Mrs. Steele. "People came from all around. We danced only square dances, waltzes, and two-steps."

Joe Cavaletto, of Oglesby, remembers Deer Park Glenn in its golden years. "We moved to the Glen from Joliet when I was eleven years old," he says, "and I acted as a sort of a visitor's guide, showing excursionists around the place. I earned about 35 cents a dy in tips; that was pretty good money in those days"

"Deer Park Glen was like a little piece of paradise." say those who see it today through eyes of memory. Mrs. Mabel Watts recalls; "I lived near the swinging bridge when I was a girl. And I learned to swim in the river there. The place was very beautiful."

Mrs. Eva Krancic who, with her husband, now has a summer home on the side of the hill overlooking the Glen, says that she has been told that the original road was on the opposite side of the tracks from the present one. "Most of the houses in the settlement are gone." she says. "There is a big, old oak tree down there. Old timers say that one of the houses stood next to it."

Every self-respecting ghost town should have a haunted house and Deer Park Glen had its own, complete with creaking stairs and squeaking doors. At least so 'twas said.

And if you are afraid of haunted houses and comforted that the Glen's house is gone, if you live in Oglesby, I wouldn't be too confident if I were you. Because parts of that old haunted house might have been transplante4d right smack into your own back yard.

There once was a house far up the canyon from the Glen, also in very early days, a little store named Miners Camp. The store was operated by Mr. and Mrs. Glen Clayton. It is reputed that Indians traded there at one time, their foot trail through the woods visible long after the Indians departed the country. Mr. and Mrs. Clayton lived in the old house.

If there were ghosts, unfortunately they beve showed up. But if they had padded through the creaking building, I am sure they would have hurt no one. For they would have been the ghosts of those who had lived in Deer Park Glen back in the days when life was simple, life was happy.

Curiously, the haunted house is gone from the Glen, but it might be part of your house or garage if you live today in Oglesby. You see, the old place was given to Ed Towne of Oglesby if he would tear it down. He carted the lumber home, stacked it up. When friends were doing a little building or repairing, Ed Towne gave them his haunted lumber from Deer Park Glen's old haunted house.

by Vivian Hutchins; Rewritten and slightly edited by her niece, Cheryl J. Cash