Flashback Friday 02-15-2013

If it's Friday, then it must be time for Flashback Friday over at Seaside Simplicity.

My flashback photo this week is of my great, great grandparents - Joachim and Augusta Rohwedder.

They bought their home in Joliet, Illinois in 1892 and it stayed in the family continuously until 1961.   Their house is now on the Historic Register...

If you'd like to read more about this historic house and see some more pictures, please read my post about it here.

And don't forget to go join the fun at Seaside Simplicity.

Historic Rohwedder House

While we were geocaching in Joliet we stopped to visit a house on the Joliet Historic Landmark Register.  It's the Joachim Rohwedder House and it just happens to be my great, great grandparents house.  They were named Joachim and Augusta Rohwedder and the name is spelled incorrectly on the historic marker....

The house is located at 664 N. Hickory.  A couple of years ago my parents stopped by the house and rang the bell.  The woman who now lives there answered and invited them in to tour the house.  She explained how she had renovated the house a few years earlier and had gotten it placed on the Historic Register.

This is what the house looks like now....

My mom said they used to drive to Joilet about once a year to visit.  She says she specifically remembers an old cast iron bank on a dresser in the hallway and a red window in a stairwell when she was a kid.  The red window is still there....

This is the Rohwedder family - Joachim and his wife Augusta, taken on the side of the house.  They bought the house around 1892.  Members of the family lived in the house continuously until their last daughter, Augusta (or Gussie), died in 1961.....

This is the family standing on the front porch.  That's great great aunt Gussie, the last person to live there, top row, right.  Right below her is my great grandmother Anna Berner.  Augusta and Anna were sisters.  Augusta never married.  That's my mom, as a young girl standing in the front row....

This was taken on the south side of the house where all the flowers are now.  That's my mom in front again with some of her cousins....

Here's an early photo of great, great aunt Gussie.  I think it's such a pretty picture of her....

And here's a later photo of her.....

Back in 1898, my great grandparents wedding reception was held in that house...

My mom says they took me there once when I was really small, but I don't remember that at all.  It was interesting to walk around the house and touch parts of it that my ancestors touched 120 years ago, to stand on the stairs and in the yard where they all stood to have their pictures taken.  It was fun to think about my mom playing in the house and my grandparents sitting in the yard.  I like to let my mind wander 120 years into the past and imagine how different life was back then.  But most of all, it was just really cool to see some family history.

Gettin' Our Kicks on Route 66

When we were geocaching in Joliet we followed a line of caches along historic Route 66.

Route 66 was known as the Mother Road of America because it was a main artery that spanned 2448 miles and linked Chicago to Los Angeles.  Route 66 passed through numerous small towns, helping to increase traffic to these areas and spawning "mom and pop businesses" such as service stations, motels and restaurants.  It's no longer possible to ride the road completely from Chicago to LA, but much of the original route is still driveable.  In some cases the new interstates incorporated Rt. 66 into the new roadways, while other areas paralleled it.   Whenever I see a sign marking Historic Route 66, a wave of nostalgia sweeps over me.

Joliet has 6 replica gas pumps marking stops along Rt. 66....

The first one was located at the prison...

And we encountered 2 more along the way...

Our search for geocaches along the route took us to the library, where a statue of Louis Joliet graces the front courtyard.  Joliet was a Canadian explorer, famous for many North American discoveries, and the town of Joliet was named in his honor.

This bench was placed in memory of Union soldiers who served in the Civil War.

We found a geocache inside a newpaper dispenser nearby.....

Our travels took us to a park, where we found a cache near the remains of an old structure in the woods....

We also came across several roadside attractions.....

This one was across the street from the very first Dairy Queen in America....

Notice the Blues Brothers figures on top of the building....

I liked the old cars and I actually remember when Chicago cop cars only had one bubble light on top...

Another geocache was hidden near this statue....

One of the geocaches was hidden in the yard of a geocacher.  When we pulled up the cacher was out in front with his dogs.  We told him we were there to find the cache, so he invited us into the yard to search for it and he disappeared into the house.  What looks like a grill isn't always a grill, at least not when geocaching is involved!

It was an easy find and the cache was a TB hotel on top of it.  I dropped off 2 TB's that I picked up in Kentucky to move along.

By this time is was getting quite hot out and very close to lunch time.  We stopped and did one more geocache that was hidden on a sign in a parking lot....

And then we headed to White Fence Farm for lunch...

White Fence Farm is my favorite chicken place.  Their chicken is melt in your mouth, tender, juicy goodness.....

While eating lunch we decided we have to go back to Joliet another (cooler) day and finish up the geocaches that we didn't get to do.  I still have 3 more of those old fashioned gas pumps to find too.

I have one more post to do about Joliet and this one will involve a historic house that once belonged to my great, great grandparents.  Stay tuned!

If you enjoyed this post, please LIKE it on my FB page so I know what people want to read about.  Thanks!

Geocaching at Old Joliet Prison

One of the best aspects of geocaching is the historic places it takes us.  We recently made the drive to Joliet, Illinois to do a bunch of caches located at historic spots in that city.  I'll tell you more about some of the other caches in another post, but today I want to focus on Old Joliet Prison, because it was by far my favorite cache of the day and there is just so much to tell you about.

Joliet Prison was built utilizing convict labor, using limestone quarried at the site and was opened in 1858.  It housed prisoners of war during The Civil War, as well as infamous Illinois criminals John Wayne Gacy and Richard Speck.   The prison remained in operation until 2002.  Joliet Prison's main claim to fame though is the fact that it was used in the movie The Blues Brothers, as well as several others....

Today the prison is shuttered, run down and falling apart.  It stands at the intersection of Collins and Woodruff.  As you can see, the prison was large and imposing.  The limestone walls were beautiful.

The geocache was hidden in the parking lot and we quickly found it.  Can you spot it?

The parking lot of the prison has several information signs staggered about.  I tried to take pictures of them, but they were all a little too high for me to get clear shots of them all.  If you click on them to enlarge them you can read most of them....

Across the street are more prison buildings....

The signage also gives good information about some of the other historic things to see and do in Joliet, such as being along the famous Rt. 66 roadway, old gas pumps and the Rialto Theater...

So be sure to come back tomorrow to see what else we discovered on our geocaching trip to Joliet!

One more thing:  A BIG congrats to my buddy Kevin, aka Bloodhounded!  His CacheCrazy blog has been chosen as "Blog of the Week" at NEPA Blogs.  Check out the video about it here.

For more information on Joliet Prison, you can go here.
If you're not familiar with geocaching, you can read more here.
If you enjoyed this post, please LIKE it on my FB page so I know what people want to read about.  Thanks!