(Click on image to enlarge)
Image supplied by Cheryl Murdock.
The old place is looking a bit tired, but it must have plenty of electricity, to judge by that maze of wiring across the front. I don't know who that man on the porch is. I believe that in 1947 Herman Harms, Sr. was working at the mill, but the picture isn't clear enough to tell if by some chance that happened to be him.
The caption says that Earle's mill supplied the planks "to construct Lake st. in Chicago." The online Encyclopedia of Chicago, in an article on "Streets and Highways," says: "The first attempts by government to build hard-surfaced roads occurred in the 1840s when Chicago covered some of its streets with planks," but I haven't found any more detail than that. I suppose the planks were rafted across Lake Michigan.
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