Lambert: Old School Site Tied to Village History

The Inquiry

Plainfield Patch reader Brian asked about the history of the soon-to-be-demolished building on 127th Street between Route 59 and Naperville-Plainfield Road, just east of the Walmart plaza. Construction begins Tuesday on a .

Brian wondered if the doomed building had been built as a local high school at one time.

In fact, the site of the structure is tied to three pioneering events that not only shaped the local rural neighborhood, but played a role in the development of national advances in technology. In the first of a two-part series, we set the stage.

The Facts

The first settlement of Wheatland Township occurred nearly a decade after the pioneer settlement at . Two factors thwarted early growth in Wheatland Township. 

First, most of the township land lay outside of the and, therefore, was not allowed to be settled by white pioneers. Although squatters began to occupy their claims earlier, the land was not officially available to be sold until 1841.

Secondly, less than three acres of woodlands existed in the township. Wood was essential for building and for heating and cooking fuel for the first pioneers.

The Early Settlement of Wheatland Township

The first settlers entered the southeastern corner of Wheatland Township in 1837. Occupying land east of the DuPage River, the earliest pioneers were Isaac Foster in 1837; and his son-in-law, Lester Colegrove, in 1839; Joseph B. Wightman in 1840; David Cheney and Simeon B. Tyler in 1841; and Anthony Freeland in 1842.

During the following year, 1843, 12 more families arrived: Warren W. Boughton; George Brown; Asa Canfield; William and Augustus B. Cotton; Edward T. Durant; John P. Haviland; William Kinley; William and John McMicken; John Martin; Julius Piedlau; Fitz James, James and John Robins; and Joseph B. Waite.

These families purchased land from the south end to the north end of the township, straddling the east and west banks of the DuPage River. 

Once settled, pioneer neighbors Augustus B. Cotton and Georgianna Robins were married, thereby joining the two pioneer Wheatland families through marriage.

Beginning in 1844, the extended Robins family eventually assembled 200 acres, including the entirety of the southwest quarter of Section 27 and a 40-acre parcel in Section 28 of Wheatland Township.

Born on Oct. 2, 1826, Fitz James Robins emigrated from Southampton, England, in 1843 and came directly to Chicago. There, he worked his trade as a carpenter and wagon-maker for nearly two years. 

In early 1845, he settled on the prairie of Wheatland Township, where he erected a 1-1/2 story wood-framed house. Over the next several decades, Robins transformed the wild prairie into one of the best cultivated farms in the township.

On Oct. 2, 1851, Robins married Elizabeth Kinley. The couple raised a family of 12 children and enlarged and remodeled the original homestead in 1871.   Mr. Robins died in 1898 and Mrs. Robins died in 1908, leaving their farm to their adult children.

The Robins descendants sold the Wheatland Township farm to Jesse and Deborah Thompson in 1910. When Jesse Thompson died six years later, his widow—and three of their seven children—continued to live on and work the farm.

During the next few years, the Thompson family discovered the family farm was strategically located along an experimental government route. The route, if realized, would yield long-term rental income for the Thompson family.

Air Mail Service Inaugurated

As World War I drew to a close, the U.S. Army and the U.S. Postal Service worked cooperatively in an effort to establish air mail service. The first route, between New York and Washington, D.C., was established in May 1918. An air route between New York and Chicago was established soon thereafter. 

One of the inaugural air mail pilots was Eddie Gardner, who was born in . During the experimental path-finding flights, Gardner flew from Cleveland to Chicago in three hours and 50 minutes. 

In May 1920, the air route from Chicago to Omaha, Neb., was established. Familiar with the Plainfield-Chicago area, Eddie Gardner likely had a hand in laying out the Chicago-Omaha route as well as the other routes originating from Chicago.

Transcontinental air mail was established in September 1920, when the air route from Omaha to San Francisco was inaugurated. 

All of the earliest flights were completed during daylight hours. Then, on February 1921, the first daring night flight was completed successfully between Cheyenne, Wyo., and Chicago. Night flights continued but did not follow a regular schedule and did not utilize any sort of ground guidance system.

During the spring and summer of 1923, a plan to light the airway route between Chicago and Cheyenne was rapidly developing. The singular goal of the efforts was to establish a well-marked cross-country pathway to guide regularly scheduled night flights.

If successful, transcontinental air mail service would be established on a regular—uninterrupted—schedule between New York and San Francisco.

Between July 1923 and June 1924, the airway route planning and technology came together. Between Chicago and Cheyenne, a first-of-its-kind system of guiding light beacons was established. The navigational system included 289 gas-powered, flashing, electric light beacons; 34 emergency landing field sites, equipped with rotating electric beacons, boundary markers and telephones; five terminal landing fields, equipped with beacons, floodlights and boundary markers; and 17 planes with luminous instruments, navigation lights, landing lights and parachute flares.  

Among the navigational sites selected were two in Wheatland Township. A beacon tower and generating plant were erected on the Robins-Thompson farm. An emergency landing field was constructed at the Frank Day farm, nearly two miles east of the beacon site.

Guiding aircraft in the air above Wheatland Township, the ground-breaking airway beacon system—although primitive by contemporary standards—laid the ground work for the modern, federal airway system.

Next Week: Air Mail, Radios and Square Dancing: The Legacy of a Threatened Site, Part Two

Have a question about Plainfield’s history?  Send your inquiries to Michael Lambert via Plainfield Patch.