Laflin (1500W/400S)
Laflin Street and Van Buren Street, Near West Side

Service Notes:

Garfield Line/Douglas Line

Quick Facts:

Address: TDB
Established: May 6, 1895
Original Line: Metropolitan West Side Elevated
Previous Names: none
Skip-Stop Type: n/a
Rebuilt: n/a
Status: Demolished

History:

The Laflin station was opened in 1895 when the Metropolitan "L" first opened. It was located on the four-track Metropolitan main line, on which all three branches of the Met -- the Northwest branch, Garfield Park branch, and Douglas Park branch -- entered downtown Chicago.

Laflin station consisted of a station house at street level and three platforms at track level -- one island platform between Tracks #2 and #3 and two side platforms outside Tracks #1 and #4.

In 1905, a casket elevator was installed at Laflin, as well as Hoyne on the Douglas Park branch, to handle the funeral train operations that the Met, in conjunction with the Aurora Elgin & Chicago Railroad, started running that year. Additional elevators were planned for other parts of the system, but those plans were abandoned when it was discovered that pallbearers were able to carry to caskets up the "L" station stairs with relatively little trouble. Funeral trains, which proved popular in a time when roads were often unpassable during poor weather, were run to Concordia, Waldheim, Oak Ridge and Mount Carmel Cemeteries until 1934, when paved roads and motorized hearses made the service obsolete.

In 1951, trains to and from Logan Square (later extended to Jefferson Park in 1970, then to O'Hare in 1984) were rerouted from their Milwaukee-Paulina alignment to Marshfield into the Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway, which continued under Milwaukee, under Lake Street, then under Dearborn, later connecting to the Congress-Douglas trains under Congress Street upon that alignment's completion in 1958. Garfield Park and Douglas Park trains to and from the Loop, however, continued to operate over the old Met main line and through Laflin for the time being. However, Laflin station closed later that year, on December 9, as part of the Garfield-Douglas service revision that introduced A/B skip stop service and closed several lightly-used stations.

A replacement station entrance -- the Loomis entrance to Racine, one block east of Laflin Street -- was opened on the Congress Line.