Maple (1100W/800S)
Between Wisconsin and Maple avenues, and Harrison Street, Village of Oak Park

Service Notes:

Metropolitan West Side Elevated, Garfield Park branch

Quick Facts:

Address: TDB

Established:	Late summer/fall 1902 (AE&C interurban service inaugurated)
	March 11, 1905 ("L" service inaugurated)

Original Line:	Aurora, Elgin & Chicago Railway (interurban service)
	Metropolitan West Side Elevated, Garfield Park branch ("L" service)

Previous Names: Wisconsin Avenue
Skip-Stop Type: none
Rebuilt: n/a
Status: Demolished

History:

The Aurora Elgin & Chicago (AE&C) interurban began service from Aurora and Wheaton to a connection with the "L" at 52nd Avenue (Laramie) on August 25, 1902. On opening day, not every station was ready; in the Maywood and Oak Park areas, the stations in service on the first day were Maywood (5th Avenue), Harlem (referring to the Village of Harlem, not the Avenue, so this was Desplaines Avenue), Oak Park (Avenue), Austin Avenue, and 52nd Avenue. However, early photos and records indicate that other stations were soon added.¹ A map in an October 1902 Street Railway Journal article lists all the stations planned on this section of line, suggesting that the remaining stations, including one at Wisconsin Avenue one block east of Harlem Avenue, opened between August and October 1902.

As with many smaller, local AE&C stops, the Wisconsin Avenue station appears to have consisted of little more than a pair of ground-level side platforms consisting of a graded area covered in gravel and/or cinders, framed by wooden boards to delineate and contain its edges, with a walkway leading between the street and the boarding areas.

The Chicago Terminal Transfer Railroad, which ran parallel along the south side of the AE&C tracks here, also had a station at this location. Consisting of a wooden depot and single platform along the south side of their tracks, the CTT's South Oak Park station was closer to Maple Avenue, a 1/2-block west of Wisconsin.

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 served the existing Wisconsin Avenue station, as they did with the other AE&C stations between 52nd and Desplaines, following their 1905 assumption of local service. By 1907, newspaper articles referred to the station as "Maple Avenue" rather than Wisconsin Avenue;² it is not clear if this change was effective with the Met's 1905 inauguration of service or occurred sometime between 1905 and 1907, but the use of the Maple Avenue name for the station thereafter appears to have been consistent.

Indeed, a 1908 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of the area shows that by that date the station platforms stretched between the two streets, which were located a half-block apart, with walkways to both streets. The map also indicates that by this time the platform was a "plank walk", indicating it had been upgraded to a wooden deck rather than just cinders on the ground, and the inbound side had a small wooden waiting shelter in roughly the middle of the platform.

"L" service to the Maple Avenue station was short-lived. The station appears to have been closed in 1910,³ replaced by new stations on either side of it -- to the west at Harlem Avenue, and to the east at Home Avenue.

Notes:

1. Plachno, Larry. Sunset Lines: The Story of the Chicago Aurora and Elgin Railroad - 2: History. Transportation Trails, 1990.
2. ""L" TRAINS CRASH ON THE SURFACE." Chicago Daily Tribune, January 23, 1907.
3. Explicit documentation of the exact date, or even the year, of the closure of the Maple station and opening of the Harlem and Home stations is as yet unlocated. However, several pieces of evidence point to sometime in 1910. A map titled "Birds-Eye View of the Elevated Railroads, Parks and Boulevards of Chicago," published by the McComber Directory Company and dated 1910, still shows a Maple Ave station on the Garfield Park branch (and no Harlem or Home), but a "Map of Chicago Elevated Railroad" published by Rand McNally & Co. and dated 1911, does show Harlem and Home stations instead of Maple. In addition, the first annual ridership numbers recorded for Harlem and Home are for 1910. While this is also the first year for any ridership stats for individual stations between Laramie and Desplaines (for 1905-09, ridership for stations in that zone was counted under the collective "Conductors" category, suggesting there were no station houses with agents and all fares were collected onboard until 1910), and thus does not itself make this data conclusive for a year for the switch from Maple to Harlem and Home, that a map published in 1910 shows Maple station but ridership figures first appear for Harlem and Home that same year strongly suggest that the switch between those stations occurred at some date during 1910.