A two-car Garfield Park train of wood motor cars heads west, pulling into Home station on September 23, 1951. Home station had an unusual arrangement, with the platforms on different sides of Home Avenue: the outbound platform (seen in the foreground) was on the west side of the street, while the station house and inbound platform (visible in the distance) was on the east side of the street. The outbound platform had no fare controls, so any collection of fares had to be performed onboard trains by conductors. However, in practice, there was little outbound boarding at Home. The station is painted in hues of green and yellow/cream, reflecting the railcar livery of the 1920s. This was common in the Rapid Transit Co. era, to paint stations in the same scheme as the rolling stock, but the fact that the station still bears this paint scheme in the 1950s when the trains haven't for over a decade explains the station's shabby, well-worn appearance. For a larger view, click here. (Photo by Henry M. Stange, courtesy of the Krambles-Peterson Archive)

Home (1000W/900S)
Home Avenue and Harrison Street, Village of Oak Park

Service Notes:

Garfield Line

Quick Facts:

Address: TDB
Established: 1910¹
Original Line: Metropolitan West Side Elevated, Garfield Park branch
Previous Names: none

Skip-Stop Type:

Station

Rebuilt: n/a
Status: Demolished

History:

The Aurora Elgin & Chicago interurban began service from Aurora and Wheaton to a connection with the "L" at 52nd Avenue (Laramie) on August 25, 1902. However, a station at Home Avenue was not originally included on the AE&C's main line; the interurban instead had a station at Wisconsin Avenue, one block west of Home.

AE&C service to stations on this segment of their main line was short-lived, as the Metropolitan "L" assumed local service between 52nd Avenue and Desplaines Avenue on March 11, 1905, relieving the AE&C of this unwanted chore. The extension of Garfield Park service to Desplaines and the Met's servicing of the local stations between was part of the reciprocal trackage agreement that allowed the AE&C to extend to downtown Chicago and the Fifth Avenue Terminal over the Metropolitan Elevated.

The Met "L" continued to serve the existing stations at Wisconsin Avenue (with the station later referred to as Maple Avenue) following their 1905 assumption of local service. However, "L" service to the Maple Avenue station was short-lived. Maple station appears to have been closed in 1910,¹ replaced by new stations on either side of it -- to the west at Harlem Avenue, and to the east at Home Avenue.

The Home station consisted of a pair of high-level wooden side platforms split on different sides of the street--the outbound platform on the west side of Home Avenue, while the inbound platform was on the east side of the street. Eventually, a station house was located at the entry to the inbound platform from the street. The design was typical of other small wood frame ground-level Met station houses. The headhouse was positioned between the street and the boarding platform, requiring passage through the station house before reaching the platform. The exterior used clapboard siding and a peaked roof with eaves that extended out about a foot. The front featured one set of double doors, while the sides are broken up by double-hung sash windows. The rear opened out onto the inbound platform. The interior was most likely floor-to-ceiling tongue-in-groove paneling, wood floors and paneled ceilings with a small ticket booth near the entrance, benches along the walls, a boiler stove for heat and incandescent lights for illumination.

During the 1950s, the City of Chicago and Cook County undertook construction of the Congress Superhighway [Eisenhower Expressway] along the general alignment of the Garfield Park "L" line. Part of the project also included the new new Congress "L" Line to replace the Garfield Park. Home closed on September 20, 1953. Home was not yet in the way of the construction project but was closed due to its low patronage to speed up service on the Garfield Line, which had slowed due to a temporary grade-level trackage along Van Buren between Sacramento and Aberdeen with multiple street crossings.