Written by Cassidy Stephenson
The history of Concordia University Chicago (CUC) dates back to its founding in 1864 under the name of Addison Teacher Seminary. CUC was at a different location back then in Addison, Illinois. Our current president was J.C.W Lindemann and the tuition was only $20 a year. While this is all well known information that can be found on our historic timeline, what else has happened at CUC in the 155 years since our establishment that not many people know or don’t have a lot of information about?
It is hard to think that in 1871, baseball was considered a forbidden sport by faculty and therefore banned, but now CUC has a highly decorated team. This period in time was 30 years before the first airplane flight. Fast forward a few years, in 1913, Addison Teacher Seminary (ATC) moved to our current location in River Forest and eventually sold the property in Addison to the Lutheran Children’s Welfare Society to develop the buildings in to an orphanage. The original buildings of Addison Teacher Seminary are since demolished, but there is a monument there for its memory.
After only a couple months of being at the new location tragedy strikes at 5:30pm on February 28, 1914 after President Kohn started to smell smoke. A fire that had been caused by faulty electrical wiring destroyed the administration building and all of the documents in it. That is why it is impossible to find any CUC documents before 1914. It had first started off as a minor fire, but from the winds of a blizzard, the flames had become catastrophic. The firefighters put out the flames at 9pm and stayed on duty until 3am. The firefighters admitted to being surprised that buildings had no firefighting equipment inside of them. There were no casualties from the fire itself; however, a student came down with pneumonia after standing out in the cold.
History repeats itself and Addison Hall is aflame yet again in 1971. It was discovered by two young boys and two students actually tried putting it out before the fire department could arrive. Ron Scherch, one of the students that discovered the fire, states, “I attempted to use a fire extinguisher, but it was useless so I alerted switchboard to call the fire department.”
If one is interested in finding out more events that have happened in the history of CUC, you can check out a book from the Klinck Library called “College with a Cause; A History of Concordia Teachers College,” which is a detailed history of CUC from 1864 to 1964. Some quick facts that are in this book are the following:
– There was once an infirmary on campus and even outbreaks of smallpox
– There was once strict rules regarding dating and lights out. (The president at the time would even do rounds to make sure people were asleep)
– A thief was caught on campus in 1925 by President Kohn. Kohn yelled “Drop the hammer” at the criminal who was well known for thefts in the area and was eventually caught in pursuit by CUC’s baker.
