Health & Fitness
Once We Were a Railroad Town
The physical structures of a place tell us who and what we once were. The reminders of the past are disappearing in Chicago Heights.
I was out of town for a couple of weeks in May and then, on Saturday May 26th headed downstate for the Memorial Day Weekend. I decided to leave via East End Avenue. As I crossed the UP/CSX (formerly C&EI) tracks at Main Street I glanced to the South and something didn’t look right. Then as I crossed over the CN tracks (formerly the EJ&E), I realized there was an empty space at the “Double Diamond” where the UP/CSX crosses the the CN.
The “JAY” Tower was gone! It was there when I left town earlier in the
month. But now after 102 years – it was gone!
As a young man I worked three summers on “The Section” for the C&EI (Chicago and Eastern Illinois) and CHTT (Chicago Heighs Terminal Transfer) Railroads, back then you could have called Chicago Heights a railroad town.
Probably a couple of hundred men worked for the C&EI/CHTT. The CHTT had its offices at 17th Street and about 5th Avenue (gone). The C&EI, a Class 1railroad, had its corporate offices on Chicago Road just north of the Bloompractice fields – this building is now occupied by AT&T.
I worked out of a section house (gone) at 24th street and East End on the C&EI main and out of the CHTT Section House (gone) at State Street where the CHTT interchange yards crossed State Street. This complex also had an Engine House (gone) and a Sanding Tower (gone).
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By this time the C&EI Passenger Depot at Depot Court (where the Police Department is now) had already been demolished but I can still remember going in there with my Dad to buy comic books. The JAY (EJ&E) had a Freight House on Chicago Road (across from the Presbyterian Cemetery) – gone.
The JAY Tower “guarded” the interchange of the C&EI and EJ&E main
lines. In the “old days” a tower attendant would manually “throw” the switches; by the 60’s (when I was around) the switches were thrown electronically. In the modern era, they are computer controlled and thrown from afar – hence no longer a need for a “Switch” tower. The JAY Tower was one of the last “manned” towers in the Chicago Area, but it probably hadn’t been for ten years or so.
So now all that remains of this railroad town is a a modern office building on Chicago Road and the tracks themselves. There is what used to be a yard office on the South Heights side of 26th street, but nothing in the Heights.
The Jay Tower is gone. Another piece of our history has vanished.
