Becoming a Village; The Long Road to Incorporation

Our Village was founded around the Rock Island Pacific Railroad coming through the middle of what is now downtown Mokena. In 1852 those tracks came through the north end of the McGovney (Yunker) farm.  By the mid 1870's, Mokena had 8 saloons, more per capita than any other town in Will County.  One of the significant motivators to incorporate was for control of how many liquor licenses would be allowed and who those fees would be paid to.  Matt shares how many times they attempted to incorporate before it was finally approved by the voters in 1880.
There are still a few remnants and reminders around town of those first elected officials, including the Front Street home of our first mayor, Ozias McGovney and the location of the first official meeting place of the new board of trustees. Matt shares some great stories and interesting facts about the process and some of the first laws they passed.
We hope you enjoy this episode about an extremely important event in our Village history!
Here is a link to Matt's blog post that this is based on!

Chapters

• 0:00 Mokena History Collection and Incorporation
• 17:38 Early Ordinances and Incorporation Attempts
• 32:35 Mokena's Incorporation and Its Impact

Transcript

Israel: 0:00

Welcome to Mokena's Front Porch. A Mokena History podcast with Matt Dalek and me, Israel Smith. All right, Matt. Well, happy New Year. Happy New Year as well. We're back after a little break. And any New Year's resolutions for you? This year, Anything. You're making a big change on.

Matt: 0:19

Yeah, one of my resolutions is probably the biggest one is to work on organizing my Mokena history collection a little better.

Israel: 0:29

What is your collection look like right now?

Matt: 0:31

It's the best parts of it are in binders and in file cabinets and stuff like that. But I also have stuff that's just like all over the place on the computer and it's just like oftentimes I'll think of something and go try to find something and it's just like I can never find this. Like I know I have this thing, this bit of knowledge that I need to, you know, cite for something or refer to for something, and it's just like I can't find this. So hopefully on the computer I can make it as organized as the physical collection.

Israel: 1:07

So do you think your collection, how much of it is split between physical and digital?

Matt: 1:14

Good question, oh wow, I would say. If I just had to kind of estimate, I would say maybe like 70% of it is physical, because so much of what I've researched was done in a time when things like old newspapers and like census records and stuff like that weren't digitized and available online. So a lot of what I have is just the result of going to libraries and printing things from microfilm or Because you would print out all of those papers as you go and research them.

Israel: 1:58

You're printing out the articles and the things that you'd find interesting. Oh yeah.

Matt: 2:02

Absolutely. Wow, yeah, yeah. So things like digitization of good stuff, like this, especially newspapers, is a very, very recent thing. The things that I have available at my fingertips now, I never would have even fathomed, even five years ago. Wow, yeah, so yeah, a lot of stuff is just physical sheets of paper that's organized in the file cabinets, in binders and stuff like that accordion files. But then again there's also a lot of stuff that I have found on various databases and stuff like that, as things are becoming more digitized nowadays, and those are just screen captures of things that I've taken and thrown them into random files on the computer.

Israel: 2:52

Which can be sometimes probably harder to find than if you had a paper file somewhere. Yeah, yeah I got those two, you're just files everywhere, yeah.

Matt: 3:01

So it's coming together, but well, I'm kind of hoping that maybe this year can make some better sense of it. There you go.

Israel: 3:08

Yeah, so I think obviously the naturals you want to work out or do eat better in that oh yeah, yeah. But I think my goal, one of my big goals as we sit here today, is to that we grow this podcast a little bit more this year and get more people learned about Moquina and hear about what we're doing.

Matt: 3:31

So if you're listening, share it right now. Yeah, that's doable, I think that'll happen.

Israel: 3:35

Yeah.

Matt: 3:37

I think that popularity has been growing around town and elsewhere. Yeah.

Israel: 3:42

And we had a great first year. Yeah, been able to increase that. So I think that's the goals to keep increasing and keep growing this so we're sitting right now staring down a potential big snowstorm, first big snowstorm of the year. Yes, indeed, any good memories of Moquina snowstorms in the past?

Matt: 4:04

Oh, you better believe it. Any time there was a snowstorm growing up. Of course this anybody will say this that grew up and went to public school but always wanted a snow day. And one thing I will say getting snow days at Lincoln Way was pretty easy early on in my first year of high school, because my first year at Lincoln Way, let's see that, would have been 2000. Into 2001, Lincoln Way was had not been split apart yet. The Lincoln Ways at that time consisted only of Central and New Lennox and East and Frankfurt, which is where I went, and as it was back then, there were kids from Moquina, Frankfurt, New Lennox and Manhattan went to East for freshman sophomore and then the Central for the final two years. But anyway, back to what I'm saying, I feel like we got a lot of snow days in that freshman year because if the kids from Manhattan couldn't make it to Frankfurt, then okay, well, there you go snow day. And Manhattan was nowhere near as built up 20 plus years ago as it is now, Sure.

Israel: 5:18

So they were barely a blinking stoplight out there yeah.

Matt: 5:22

Yeah, yeah. So they they weren't able to make it in a lot, so we got a lot of snow days, which of course you know you have to make them up, but in the time you know the moment it's great.

Israel: 5:33

Well, now kids. They don't necessarily always realize the joy of a snow day. Yeah, my son had, you know, brought home his computer and yeah, they have these built in e learning days it's crazy. So where was, where was your best snow hill?

Matt: 5:51

You know I was. You read my mind. I was just going to say, in my opinion, the best place for sledding Just keep it in Moquina was McGovney Park on Schoolhouse Road. Yeah, because it's it's sort of a retention basin, that's back there, I guess, but there's a decent enough slope to get some, some moderate sledding in. Of course it's nothing too crazy, it's. It's it's nothing that's, you know, gonna scare anybody, but it's good enough for for being walkable distance from home and being able to get a little air out there.

Israel: 6:33

Still a favorite with kids. I know we saw the other night. We had the snow and drove by and the hill was full of kids out there Good. I'm glad. Do you ever take a sled down Midland, or? I feel like that would be a good road to slide down.

Matt: 6:47

Yeah, I never did that one.

Israel: 6:49

Okay, fortunately no, yeah, we'll, maybe, we'll try it.

Matt: 6:52

Yeah, yeah, we'll take a slide. Oh cool yeah why not?

Israel: 6:57

All right. Well, this episode we're going to talk about an important time for Moquina and it was our incorporation. Yeah, we went for a number of years being unincorporated, and that's right and not to be a spoiler, but as is kind of leads the way, in Moquina it was really the bars and being able to oh yeah, to have their establishments that that kind of brought it around.

Matt: 7:22

That's exactly what happened and yeah, no, it's just. It's a pretty interesting one and I guarantee you it's a story that no one really thinks about anymore.

Israel: 7:31

as to how this incorporation came to be yeah, and realize how important that is, you know, to a village and the things and change and we've touched on a little bit here and there, but really it's a really interesting story to hear what went through. And now the village. We say the official date 1852, right is when Moquina was founded, or yeah, that's right.

Matt: 7:52

Yeah, that's when. That's when the Rock Island was built and when the first plat of Moquina was completed and you know, you had things like houses and businesses starting to sprout up and stuff like that. Yeah.

Israel: 8:05

So I looked up a few things just to kind of get an idea of where the kind of the world in the country is at. Yeah, at the time. You know, to look back at 1852 is to long, a long time ago.

Matt: 8:17

It is yeah, so.

Israel: 8:18

Millard Fillmore from New York, is the president at the time. Oh yeah, I thought this is interesting, especially knowing Mr Quinn is a Studebaker guy, right? Oh, yes, he is. In 1852, the Studebaker wagon company is established. Oh, I didn't know that. How about that? Okay, that's cool connection. We weren't making cars yet, but not yet. But they're on their way. Later in the year, Franklin Pierce has elected the 14th president of the United States. We're kind of nearing the end of the California Gold Rush, which went from 1848 to 1855.

Israel: 8:51

Oh yeah, this is interesting Napoleon III is becomes emperor of France. Yeah sure, and Wells Fargo Bank is founded yeah. So some interesting kind of points, I thought, and gives us an idea of where the where the world's at. Yeah, let's, let's hear the story of the birth of a village, volkina's Road to Incorporation, which was just posted on Matt's blog on June 4 of this year of last year, 2023.

Matt: 9:20

A student graduates from high school, a couple gets married and a longtime worker goes into retirement. On the road of life, milestones are reached and when we hit them we make them official. It's just the same with our fair village. Moquina was born in 1852, with the momentous arrival of the Chicago, rock Island and Pacific Railroad, and after the steel rails were laid across the prairie by and by, commerce came to our little hamlet. She came to flourish and after 20 years of moving forward, she was ready for the next step becoming incorporated and having the right to call herself a village. It would be a process that took the better part of half a decade, complete with stumbling blocks thrown in the way.

Matt: 10:06

By the time all was said and done, the resilience and can do spirit of our forefathers had blazed a trail to prosperity. Fortune was favoring Moquina, a little town made up of young people born in or near the community, their parents, who were born anywhere from Ohio to Kentucky to New York, a smattering of Canadians and Englanders, and the rest a significantly high percentage of Germans. Respected for their agricultural acumen and straightforward hard work ethic, this was a folk who were also known to be especially thirsty. By the mid 1870s, moquina was home to five general stores, three hotels and two blacksmith shops, but also eight lager beer saloons more per capita than any other rural town in Will County. Proprietors such as Martin Heim, william Jacob and brothers Ferdinand and John Sheik kept the juice of the barley flowing to the farmers and railroad workers who called Moquina home, while also netting themselves a comfortable living to boot. By this time in the narrative, sundays in town were known to be a day where things generally got pretty out of hand. Decades later, one resident described them as being filled with street parades, picnics and a wild time generally being celebrated on the Sabbath.

Matt: 11:39

The local situation was such that the attention of county bigwigs was drawn to the happenings in our burg. As it was, they were the ones issuing dram shop licenses to the bar keeps in town, these being the bureaucratic red tape that allowed the saloonists to keep their doors open. At a meeting of the Will County Board of Supervisors in early 1875, it was decided that Moquina could make do with only three watering holes, and thus only so many licenses were dealt out. In these days, the board was controlled by what one bystander called a temperance element, referring to the 19th century social movement that faulted the consumption of arcan spirits. For all of society's woes, five local business owners were about to be thrown out of what was referred to as a lucrative business. The Joliet Republican noted that Moquinians were excited to an unwanted degree and wanted the county off their backs and the ability to rule themselves. So it was that a petition made the rounds in town to incorporate the community as a village, allowing it to make its own rules, which was filed at the office of the county clerk on March 14, 1875. Alas, not everyone in Moquino was on the same page. 70 male residents affixed their names to a rebuttal petition to which a county judge threw up his hands. The law gave him no legal right to call the shot and come down on one side or another, and therefore the matter would have to be settled by a referendum, which was ultimately slated for April 15 at the Hall of John Sutter. The balloting went off and, after an all-days sharp contest, those in favor of incorporation lost, and that with an overwhelming majority, with 25 votes being counted, 4 and 64 against. The media of the county seat had the final word, with the daily sun snidely commenting that Moquino will consequently remain in her present benighted condition.

Matt: 13:57

Another go at trying to incorporate the town appears to have been made three years later, in 1878, when a new petition made the rounds that ultimately garnered 34 favorable signatures. But how far this second endeavor went remains unclear after the ebb and flow of time. In any case, those with incorporation in their hearts weren't done yet. The hubbub never really died down. Previously recalcitrant souls were won over and once again, pen was put to paper. Yet another referendum was carried out, this time on Friday, may 21, 1880, at the scale house of John Cople and Martin Krop, moquino's premier hog shippers, nail citizens turned out in droves to cast their votes, and this time the tables had turned, with 50 votes coming in favor with 22 against. The results were certified by Judge Benjamin Olin three days later, he being the same Will County judge who was presented with the first petition half a decade earlier. So it was that our little railroad town of 522 souls was officially incorporated.

Matt: 15:08

One of the first orders of business was the election of officers, which took place June 14, 1880, just over three weeks after the first ballot casting. Eleven names of representative citizens were ponied up, and the sixth, with the largest amounts of votes by their townsmen, were the aforementioned John Cople, storekeeper and sometime attorney Azayas Magovni, harness maker and feed salesman, valentine's share railroad worker George Smith, shoemaker John Ulrich and saloonist John Zahn. The most popular of them was John Cople, who tallied 72 votes. The freshly elected trustees then did some voting themselves and picked Azayas Magovni as the president of the new board, an honor which earned him the venerated place in Mokena's history as our first mayor. 38-year-old John A Hatch, the son-in-law of Mayor Magovni, was then appointed as our first village clerk.

Matt: 16:13

Nowadays, eyebrows would be raised over such a close familial connection in government, but in this case there was nothing disreputable about it, it being only a reflection of the smallness of our town.

Matt: 16:27

Our first town government was an interesting cross-section of Mokena. Of the five new trustees, all but one of them were born in Germany, and of the entire board, all of them were fathers. Clerk Hatch and trustee Smith were veterans, having marched with the Union Army in the Civil War, with the latter having received four serious wounds in combat. The most senior of them was the mayor, who was 55 years old at the time he took his oath of office. While the others were by no means newcomers to Mokena, azayas Magovni had them all beat, having arrived as a lad on the wild, untamed prairie where Mokena would later stand with his family in the fall of 1831. A member of the first European-American family to take up residence in today's Frankfurt township, magovni was no stranger to holding office. First came a post as justice of the peace upon the formation of the township in 1850, then the position of township supervisor, before ultimately giving up both in 1870 and a subsequent nomination as postmaster of Mokena in 1875.

Israel: 17:38

All right, so real quick, I wanted to go back. So for one in 1878, we have a second attempt at incorporation, but we don't really know what happens there. They don't ever turn in the petition.

Matt: 17:54

Yeah, it's kind of a mystery to me. The only reason I even know about that 1878 attempt if we want to call it that even was because I found the original petition in some files at the village hall quite some time ago, many years ago. And yeah, it's a pretty official looking document with a legal description of the village, the incorporated limits that they wanted and the signatures all the different signatures of all the guys in town. Of course, since women couldn't vote at the time, it was all men who signed it and yeah, whatever came of it though I don't know whether they sent in their paperwork to the county, whether there was another referendum held. Yeah, it's just, it's totally been lost in time.

Israel: 18:49

And there was no opposing referendum to that one that you know of.

Matt: 18:52

Not that I know of, not that I know of. There is no mention in any news media from that time of any of this. So don't really know what was going on, other than the fact that that document exists, that mentions it. So a petition was at least circulated. But how far it went?

Israel: 19:14

Yeah, so then it was about two years later when they get the third, the third attempt and a fairly decisive victory. When you look at the first one, that failed was 25. Yes, yeah, 64. No.

Matt: 19:36

Now a couple years later it goes to 50. Yes, and 22.

Israel: 19:39

No Right. Yeah, that's interesting. I don't know, people's just minds changing. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, they got the right people to vote that year.

Matt: 19:45

Yeah, yeah, they must have. Maybe the saloon keepers might have been promising things to certain people. This is just a theory. I don't mean to besmirch anybody or anything, but maybe they might have been telling guys yeah, come down here and we'll get you something to drink and then you can go vote. You know something like this. Just a theory, who knows.

Israel: 20:11

But something happened where people's minds were changed big time in those few years there, and then you list the six that were first elected when we have the election, and so we have John Capel Capel.

Matt: 20:29

Yeah, his family always pronounced it.

Israel: 20:30

Cople, couple, couple. And then Uzzias McGovney, oh yeah. Valentin sheer. George Smith Good name yeah. John Holrich and John Zahn, yeah, so are any of those families still around Mokena? Oh, let's see.

Matt: 20:46

Um, there could very. I know of a descendant of John Cople's who lives in New Lennox, um, and you know there's got especially of his family, of the couple family. There's got to be some still around. I'm sure if, if I took some time to think about it and go through mentally my list of of Mokenians, we'd find some, because Mr Cople had quite a big family.

Israel: 21:13

He had somebody will call me out on this if I'm wrong but he had something like 10 kids or something like that Of that survived into adulthood, not counting the ones that he lost to the Black Dippitheria plague in the 1870s Um and Cople seems like a name of all of them that is more familiar in the area, like I feel like I've seen that family name as well, other than you know, smith, which yeah, yeah, um, yeah, so there were, there was quite, there was quite a big family of couples, and they had a million descendants, and it's very possible that one of Mr Cople's kin will listen to this.

Matt: 21:54

Um, but, yes, I know definitely of one in New Lennox. Um, I'm sure there are more, though, of the other guys. The last one of us excuse me of Azias McGovernies was Carol Norton, who just recently passed. Sure, um, yeah, I can't think of any of the others. They're, their families are out there somewhere, but I don't, I don't know of any that that are still in this area, so our most likely candidate would be the couple family.

Israel: 22:23

Yeah, okay, yeah, um, and, as you said, ozaias McGovernies uh appointed our first board president and becomes the first mayor of of Mokena. I think the picture you have is is uh is pretty cool, it's a great great uh, amish beard going on.

Matt: 22:40

Yeah, I love it. Um, yeah, he does.

Israel: 22:42

Yeah, very stern face.

Matt: 22:44

Yeah, he, yeah, he was a very um, from what you can tell by looking at pictures of him he did. He looked like a very kind of like a very stern sort of no nonsense kind of guy. Um, but luckily we are, uh, you know, you know you're not going to blessed to have photos of him, and that one I used in the piece on my blog is the oldest known image of him. That came out of an 1878 history of Will County. Oh, wow. But yeah, he generally had a pretty epic beard, at least in his middle age. By the time he got up into his 70s and his 80s he was clean shaven. But in his younger years, yeah, he had a pretty good beard going.

Israel: 23:26

Yeah, I'm assuming it's because of his previous elected experience in that, but why they chose MacGovney? Ozaias MacGovney is the first mayor.

Matt: 23:35

Yeah, I think, just because he was a pretty prominent guy in town, he and his family, as you mentioned. Yeah, he definitely had experience in holding office. He had been supervisor of Frankfurt Township. He was the Moquina Postmaster. The Moquina Post Office was in the hands of the MacGovney family for just decades and decades. And maybe most Most importantly this is my kind of guess on this, but was his office as Justice of the Peace, which he took when Frankfurt Township was first founded in 1850. He was the guy who people would come to to marry them. He was settling legal disputes sort of, or when somebody would get in trouble he would fix them with a fine or something like that. He was, you know he was.

Israel: 24:33

he had a little bit of power in Moquina and and in the days before Moquina existed, Sure, and the fact that his family had been around since forever since day one, you know didn't hurt him at all.

Matt: 24:45

So yeah, no, yes, he was a prominent guy who's also a prominent businessman. He, he had been an attorney, but by the time the incorporation came around doesn't look like he was really practicing too much anymore. But he and his, his son, zaius Jr, who everyone is called Irwin by his middle name, they had a pretty well known general store in town. So yeah, he just was a prominent man around Moquina and just about everybody knew and respected I I would imagine that at least from this point, all these years later, it looks like he was a very respected guy so and lived right here.

Israel: 25:24

Right yeah, front and Midland, that is correct.

Matt: 25:27

The front and Midland, right on the let's see that would be the northeast corner of front and Midland. That's the old McGoverni homestead right there.

Israel: 25:36

And rumored to be one of the oldest buildings, right when the original.

Matt: 25:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah, easily. One of the absolute oldest buildings in in Moquina, if not all of Eastern Will County. Wow, rumor has it that part of the house that's there now had been a long cabin. So I mean the house has been there for a very long time. As the newly incorporated village had no town hall to speak of, the board held their first meetings at Trustee's shares harness and feed shop on Front Street and got to work drafting the first village ordinances. Looking back upon these handwritten documents, they're a unique window to the 19th century as they represent pressing problems in town that the founding fathers wanted to fix. They were put to vote by the board and officially adopted on August 4th 1880.

Matt: 26:35

One of the freshly adopted ordinances decreed that foul were not to run loose. It's stating it shall be unlawful for any geese, turkeys, ducks and chickens or any domestic foul to run at large within the limits of the village of Moquina, specifically between the 1st of April until the 1st of October. Any violators could count on a fine of not less than $3 and no more than 25. In what was likely a reference to the aforementioned Wild Sundays of the time, another ordinance said that it shall not be lawful for any person or persons within the village of Moquina to disturb the peace of any street, lane, avenue, alley, neighborhood, family or persons by loud or unusual noises, or by blowing trumpets, horns or other instruments, or by beating of drums, tambourines, kettles, pans or other serenading vessels or implements, or by loud or boisterous language, bearing silent witness to the ever-present threat of fires. One ordinance mandated that no lighted candle or lamp shall be used in any stable, barn or building where hay, straw or other combustible material shall be kept, unless the same shall be well secured in a lantern, as so-called hobos often breezed into town over the railroad, intended to cause trouble. Another ordinance split hairs, defining what exactly constituted a vagrant, it being written that it was a person with no visible means of support, someone who lives idle or shall be found loitering or strolling about, frequenting places where liquor of any kind is sold, drank or kept, and could be found in houses of ill-fame or bad repute, ten-pin alleys, billiard rooms, sheds, stables, barns, hay or straw racks.

Matt: 28:40

Our founding fathers managed Mokena and by and by wore in the seats of their chairs. But the story didn't end in 1880. Flash forward 12 years to April 1892. It was then that a letter came to town from Secretary of State IW Pearson, which was taken in hand by then village clerk John Lease. In part it read a certificate of the organization of the village of Mokena was filed in this office May 22, 1890, which was paid for at that time. This certificate you retain in the files of your office as clear as day. This note states that Springfield didn't file our incorporation until ten years after our town folk voted on the issue and picked a governing board.

Matt: 29:31

Decades later, mayor and village luminary Richard Quinn remarked. Apparently, however, someone had neglected to inform the Secretary of State of the incorporation of the village until 1890. Thus begins one of the great mysteries of our town's narrative. What happened in those 10 years? Did the initial paperwork get lost in the mail? Did a local courier get distracted on the way to the state capital?

Matt: 29:56

This issue has hung fire for a good many years, with Quinn, the chairman of the committee that hosted Mokena's official Centennial observations in 1980, even suggesting to hold another celebration in 1990, which ultimately never panned out. All has been put to rest, however, by a recent communication between this author and the state's index department. Upon consultation of Springfield's records, officials on their side confirmed that their documents confirm our 1880 incorporation date. Thus, another mystery has been solved and consigned to the history books. The hard work of our founding fathers paid off and after 144 years, Mokena is still here. Ozias McGovney and his colleagues never could have envisioned the long way we've come, and this author for one likes to think that they would be proud of our progress, with all of our modern conveniences, comforts and prosperity that we enjoy in our village. Let us not forget the way that was paid for us.

Israel: 31:04

You know that last line. I mean how true, like we don't even realize. I mean that's why these pictures, I think, are really interesting. Because, you look back and you see like that's not the same front street of today. These aren't, you know, that's people, but it's not the same people Like you're living in a different time. Yeah, no, definitely I mean to think of them. You know, the early settlers of the area coming across, you know, it's just it's really incredible to think about and what they did for us to leave us this now.

Matt: 31:34

Yeah, it is. Yeah, it really makes you thankful and really makes you appreciate them and all the hard work they put in all those years ago in a different of different world, really to give us what we now have and enjoy and maybe sometimes take for granted. Yeah, absolutely.

Israel: 31:50

Yeah, well, and you know not the harp on it, but especially when we look at downtown, you know, downtown McKinna, you know one point was a center for the whole area.

Matt: 32:01

Yeah.

Israel: 32:02

And everybody, every villager, came to downtown to do their grocery shopping, and that yeah exactly, you know, and then obviously how that's changed now and society changes as well. And then I thought it was really interesting that you know the state of Illinois unshockingly seeing the mess up by missing 10 years of incorporation, but kind of typical Illinois right there?

Matt: 32:30

Yeah, it is. Yeah, yeah, that's the whole story. Yeah, yeah.

Israel: 32:35

So what would happen if we hadn't incorporated?

Matt: 32:37

Oh wow that's a really good question. You know, I just Shot out of the cannon. I think Mokena wouldn't quite have prospered in the way it did. Of course, as we know, towards the 1890s and into the early part of the 20th century. Mokena was in kind of an economic slump at the time anyway. But I just I can't see that Things really would have taken off for the town in the way that they ultimately did, and also Because, ultimately, the the whole thing with the saloons was about was about money in the local economy. So with the village being incorporated and the, they're not really being a cap anymore on saloons in town, which was bringing in a decent amount of money to the village in terms of the, the, a dram shop licenses, or liquor licenses we call them nowadays.

Israel: 33:43

Yeah, that, and so once those, because pre incorporation that money was all going to the county. That's right. And now this meant that the village would get those proceeds. Oh, yeah, so the county. So we talked about the different new laws and things they passed for one.

Matt: 34:04

Yeah.

Israel: 34:06

So it said it mentions houses of ill fame or bad repute. Yeah, yeah, was this an issue in Mokena? That's interesting. I mean, I'm thinking of brothels. Yeah, you know, obviously.

Matt: 34:17

Yeah, right, no, and that's what that is. That's what they're referring to there. Yeah, you know, it's very interesting that you bring that up because they're and I wish so much that I knew more about this. But right around the time of incorporation there was a so called house of ill repute that was broken up in Pokina. Yeah, wow, yeah, we know who was running it, and she did get in trouble for it. I can't quite remember what exactly her punishment was. I don't think she was sent to jail or anything about this. If I remember, I'll have to dig at home. I think she was just fine, but you know there's a story behind it yeah.

Matt: 35:14

How it got found out, who pressed the issue, you know, and but they, you know of, you know, stopping it, and but, yeah, the fact that that was in the ordinances, yeah, makes me think that, you know, they didn't just put that in there for nothing. Yeah right.

Israel: 35:29

Yeah, and then so again, all these you know new laws and the no pots and pans being banged on the street? Yeah, did. Did law enforcement change with incorporation?

Matt: 35:42

Yeah, a little bit there upon incorporation. There was a man who was hired to be the official town marshal. They called him. He's like a constable, like a police officer and, of course, as we know, we've talked about excuse me, in the case of Walter Fisher in the past when we've talked about him, an official Mokena police department was still 80 years into the future. But yeah, there was a man whose job it was to enforce the law in town and they built him a Calibus in about 1881 or 1882. That's for those who are unfamiliar with that antiquated word is a like a little one room shack that serves as a jail.

Israel: 36:31

Is that the Calibus, the one that's still in Lockport?

Matt: 36:35

That's the Calibus Yep and that's still the original one. You can go visit it in Lockport at the Heritage Village. Whole other interesting story behind that. But there were, there were constables in Mokena before then, but they, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, I believe they see now I can't remember if they were appointed by the township or the county, so there were guys you know before them. But I think, you know, with having ordinances to enforce and stuff like that, he probably this man whose name was Wesley Kennedy. He probably had a little more, little more power.

Israel: 37:12

I think, yeah, yeah. And are these documents, the original incorporation documents, available? Like, does the village still have them or have you seen them?

Matt: 37:22

Yeah, they should still have them. As far as I know, the village still, and it's been many years since I've actually seen them. But the village should still have all of the original incorporation let's just call it stuff. I'm very lucky in that. Excuse me again, I'm very lucky in that. A quite some time at years ago I was still in high school, mr Quinn Dick Quinn, who I mentioned in this piece, who was our former mayor and head of the Centennial Committee back in 1980, when he was running the original Mokena Historical Society, they took on a project of transcribing all that stuff. Wow. So at one point he he let me go through the copies they had made and then I went off and made my own copies. So I've got all the stuff at home and I referred to them from time to time.

Israel: 38:24

Oh, very cool, yeah, yeah it's pretty cool stuff. Well, great, you know, as we said, this is an. It was an extremely important moment for Mokena. Yeah, you don't allow us to have more, more bars. Yeah definitely as well as all the other benefits.

Matt: 38:40

but yeah, yeah, great story, oh, thanks, thanks for sharing it, man, absolutely Thanks for having me.

Israel: 38:47

Matt and I both really hope that you're enjoying the podcast and that you enjoyed this episode. We would really appreciate it if you would share our podcast with your friends or family, as well as leave us a review on Spotify or Apple music or wherever you hear our podcast. We'd love to hear your show ideas or your questions so you can send us an email at podcast, at Mokenasfrontporch. com, or on Facebook through messenger, or through our website, which is Mokenasfrontporch. com. You can send us a message there. We have a link in the show notes to Matt's blog post that this episode was based on. We have some great things coming up and we're really excited to share with you. So thanks for listening and we'll see you next time on Mokenasfront Porch.