[jonascord]

One of my cousins claims to remember her at Main East. Park Ridge is the kind of 'burb that would raise a Hitlery.

I might also point out that, in the Chicago area, a slang term for an empty lot in a neighborhood was 'prairie'.

Hitlery is correct in saying that, back in the '60s, when we were both growing up, Illinois highway 53, west of the city, was the end of civilization. After Hwy 53, it was all soybean and corn fields. Now it's just another jammed up suburban main drag.

It wasn't all that long ago when I-88 literally ended in a corn field out in Sterling. Now, it's just the end of the East-West Tollway. (It's been long enough, tho, that they've named the road after some Democrat thief.)

[pieceofthepuzzle]

“After Hwy 53, it was all soybean and corn fields.”

Yep, Lisle, Naperville, Wheaton, all farm towns.. On another note, most of those farms were, as you say, corn and soybeans - and were farmed with machinery. There were likely a fair amount of truck farms that might have used migrant workers, but I don't think that kind of farming was the mainstay of Illinois farming, even during that period.

[sharkhawk]

It wasn't all that long ago when I-88 literally ended in a corn field out in Sterling. Now, it's just the end of the East-West Tollway. (It's been long enough, tho, that they've named the road after some Democrat thief.)

I've never heard Reagan called a democrat thief before.