What is The Skokie or The Skokie Marsh?
Before the 1930s, the area west of Glencoe was known as The Skokie. It was a marsh, a peat bog, where radishes grew. According to poet John W. Dickson, who moved to Glencoe in 1922, “The Skokie Marsh was a wonderful place – meadowlarks and redwinged blackbirds; herons and bittern and pheasant. Once, a few of us spent a weekend on Dog’s Head Island, a little two-by-four clump of trees you’d have to wade in up to your waist to reach. We survived on a few redwinged blackbirds and an owl.” In the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps. was deployed to The Skokie to drain the marsh and Winnetka and create the Skokie Lagoons. The work created jobs for Depression era young men – and it can’t be a coincidence that one of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s most trusted advisers was Winnetkan Harold Ickes who created the project in the first place.
Related Questions
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