The industrial Village of Pennock Illinois was founded by Homer Pennock in 1881 and was annexed by the City of Chicago in 1889. It was centered on Wrightwood Avenue (which was originally called Pennock Boulevard) and bounded by Diversey and St. Louis and Fullerton and Pulaski. The original name of the Healy Metra Station was Pennock Station.
The building of houses and businesses/ stores started and the establishment of the Osgood Manufacturing Company brought as many as 500 jobs to the area. These workers mostly lived in the industrial Village of Pennock. However, good times didn’t last long because a formerly profitable mine that Pennock owned in Colorado was no longer profitable and a fire destroyed the manufacturing plant in Chicago. Thus, the Village of Pennock could no longer survive and was annexed by the City of Chicago in 1889. It is now parts of the Avondale and Logan Square neighborhoods.
I took a walk through the former Village of Pennock last week along Wrightwood Avenue. In some locations it seemed time had stopped and I could see the outline of what it must have been like to stroll down Pennock Boulevard in the 1880s!
