Camp Altgeld

[Lowbatts]

Has anyone here located this one yet, It's still on my To Do list.
Wanted to know if it's on anyone's done list.
As an aside, a familiar sounding headline from over a hundred years ago:

ALTGELD'S BAD FINANCING; Through Him and His Friends the State of Illinois Will Lose Nearly a Million Dollars. JUGGLING WITH STATE FUNDS. Way in Which Spalding, of the Defunct Globe Savings Bank, Was Forced in as Treasurer of the State University.

April 18, 1897, Wednesday

CHICAGO, April 17. -- During the past six months evidence has accumulated at a rapid rate to show that John P. Altgeld, the recent Governor of Illinois, has juggled with State funds in such a manner as to put upon the Commonwealth a loss of nearly a million dollars. At present the State stands fair to lose at least the following:

 

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[dirtyJohn]

He must be the guy they name Altgeld gardens (row houses way on the south side aka "the Hood") after. A guy I work with grew up there. Pretty rough area from the sound of it.

 

[Lowbatts]

He was Governor of Illinois.
When Illinois National Guard Troops are mustered for any reason, they would setup camp near their primary patrol area. Such camps would always be first named after the sitting governor.

I know that in reading part of the story, the Elgin guard unit was targeted by the labor forces as they boarded a train for home. Large amounts ofdynamite were put under a bridge and were intended to destroy the train and the troops on it. The charges failed to go off and were discovered.

The camp was the result of the railroad strikes. The location eludes me and I simply have not found the particular spot where it was. Reading some of the letters home from the camp that were published in the local papers at the time there were stories that might indicate some good finds are very possible, if the camp site is still undeveloped and not under a highway or parking lot.

 

[oz_il]

Here's a (bad) scan of a newspaper article I found (PDF format)
August 24th, 1893

The scan is garbled, but I believe this mentions where they were encamped:

The camp is situated on the eighty acres known as the Wentworth tract,
bounded by Seventy-fifth and Seventy-ninth streets and Yates and French avenues


If so, looks pretty developed (using the Windsor Metra as a landmark)

 

[dirtyJohn]

Hey Tim,
I don't know if this helps. This is where I was talking about. It's actually in Dolton, IL but I wouldn't go detecting down there without an armoured escort. I grew up on military bases and these are definately military style row houses. It looks like Oz_il might of found the correct spot though.

 

[Lowbatts]

Yeah, gotta a lot of urban removal to do there to get at the dirt. I'll get right on it!