Plainfield Board OKs Relocation of Historic Beacon

Plainfield trustees voted unanimously Monday to allow the Plainfield Historical Society to relocate an Air Mail beacon to its property at Wood Farm Road and Lockport Street.

The 53-foot-tall beacon will be installed near the old EJ&E Depot.

The navigational beacon was among those erected by the United States Army Air Corps Division when it established air mail postal delivery in 1921. The United States Post Office Department took over the navigational beacon system in 1922 when it assumed the air mail delivery division.

Famed pilot Charles Lindbergh used the beacon system when he delivered mail for Robertson Aircraft Corporation along a route between St. Louis and Chicago, passing near Plainfield.

According to the historical society, the beacon was reportedly originally located on an airfield at the Day Brothers' farm on 127th Street east of Essington Road in Bolingbrook.

"According to oral tradition, the Day Brothers did not renew the lease for the airfield in 1929," the historical society said in a memo regarding the beacon. "Reportedly, the beacon was moved from the Day Brothers’ farm in early 1930.  According to oral tradition, the navigational beacon was moved to site of a new building being erected by the Universal Wireless Co., which had purchased the former Robins Farm on 127th Street between present-day Illinois Route 59 and Book Road."

The tower was reportedly acquired by Newell Boughton, whose farm was located to the northeast of the former Universal Wireless Property on Book Road, sometime between 1979 to 1986.

The farm property is now owned by the Forest Preserve District of Will County, which has since cleared the site of all structures, but worked with the historical society to salvage the beacon tower.

"It remains unclear if any other—or how many—of the 30 navigational towers still stand in Illinois. It is believed that this tower is one of the last—if not the last—navigational tower remaining in Illinois," the historical society said.

Historical society collections committee member Michael Lambert told the village board that the tower, once relocated to the depot property, will be secured to deter people from attempting to climb it. 

Security lighting will also be installed on the beacon.

Lambert said the beacon will be relocated and re-erected later this month.