Arlington Heights: Bringing Back the Past

The latest edition of Bringing Back the Past. 

The Lutheran Home for the Aged was located in Arlington Heights from 1892 to 1953 on Walnut Street between Euclid and Hobart (which is now Northwest Highway).

Also known as Altenheim, which translates to 'old folks home' in German, the towering structure was three stories high and a place for the elderly to come and live together in a community. 

Mickey Horndasch, curator for the Arlington Heights Historical Society, said for the time period, the home was state-of-the-art, and had running water and heat not enjoyed by a majority of the residents in Arlington Heights at that time. 

The main floor included a dining room and smoking room for men, the first floor is where women lived, and the men lived on the second floor, Horndash said. The third floor housed the laundry facilities.

According to the book Prairieville, U.S.A., the Lutheran Home for the Aged also owned eleven acres of farmland north of Euclid facing the home. 

Residents were fed from the milk, eggs, vegetables, fruit and meat that were grown, raised or produced there. 

The farm was sold in 1922 to make way for the new high school district, according to the publication, and the home moved to 800 W. Oakton in the 1950's to accomodate additional needs for space, as elderly individuals began to seek the home as their residence from as far south as Kankakee and north to Wisconsin. 

Today, the Elms strip mall located along Northwest Highway inhabits the property where the elderly home once existed. 

To view similar articles on locales around town, check out previous Bringing Back the Past features.