Here you can see on this 1886 map that the downtown Skokie area was called at the time Niles Center and the road was not Oakton but rather the Harms & Evanston Road.

This image is from an 1886 map.   I guess someone along the way decided to name the street after these residents naming the street Pfingsten rather than their name's actual spelling of Pingston.   I guess that would have been too silly.

On a less silly note - did you know that Pfingsten translates to Pentecost in German?   Maybe the family way way way back chose their last name when German law changed and mandated people have a surname?  Let me know your thoughts on this.  I'm curious to learn more.

Here in this map from 1886 you see that Wm Dearlove owned a large piece of land west of Milwaukee and south of today's Glenview Road.  Relatives named K & G Dearlove owned another sizable piece of land just northwest of that one.  Between the two is a smaller piece that belonged to a W. Dearlove.

Hello

Didn't I tell you I love maps?   If you're still here with me, maybe you do too.  Welcome.

The famous (for Wilmette) Roemer Little League Park is home to countless memories of family fun.  I've shown you their old farm and farmhouse.   Let's go one farm east and show you the farm of J. J. Rangel.  

The great thing about this property is that it is sort of still there.  In the map above from 1886, the vertical red line is where Locust Road is today.  The horizontal one is today's Old Glenview Road.   Locust doesn't extend all the way south to Old Glenview Road.  Know why?    Because the original (I'm pretty sure) Rangel home is still standing there!  How cool is that?

The home and it's garage and a lot of land are all for sale now as a package.  Here is the photo and link to the MLS listing.

Here's the collaborative part - who knows something interesting about the Rangel or Roemer farms?  Please - nothing personal or gossipy.  I am just interested in hearing about what they grew, how life was like as a farmer at that time, etc.

Summer in Wilmette tends to find you here at least once or twice.  How can you resist a ball park, kids, baseball, families & Sno-cones?    Roemer Park is home to our wonderful little league baseball stadium but did you ever wonder what was here before?

Let's go back in time....

Further...

A bit more...

So you see, before the baseball, the ballpark is actually on the southern end of the family farm of P. Roemer.  It seems that the family's home was across Glenview Road (today's Old Glenview Rd.)   Today that would be I am guessing on the property of Westmorland Country Club.

According to the United States Historic American Buildings Survey, the Roemer family owned that land from 1865 to 1987.

You can see 13 amazing photos of the Roemer family's home here.    That 1950's ranch home you see to the left in the photo is still there today.  It is on the SE corner of Old Glenview Road and Westmorland Drive.

Next post...Let's talk about the farm just east of the Roemer's  - The Rangel Family Farm.