Day 128: The [Station] House that would not die.

     In 1925, a new station was opened up in Skokie to serve the Chicago Rapid Transit Company and the North Shore Railroad.  The station house was erected in a Prairie School style, and originally served as a baggage depot and a waiting area for the North Shore Line(of course, the station did feature other amenities as well, such as a lunch counter and a smoking lounge.)  The station officially opened its doors on March 28, 1925 in a ceremony that was attended by numerous dignitaries. At the conclusion of the speeches, a couple of special trains carried them to the new station, and there was even an air show to inaugurate the new facility.  While CRT Service commenced immediately after the opening, the North Shore Line didn't come through until June 5, 1926.

     However, the CRT never really took off, and the service to Skokie was suspended by the newly-formed Chicago Transit Authority on March 27, 1948.  The North Shore Line eventually followed suit and had completely vacated the station by January 1963.  However, this was not the end for the station, as the CTA made a return to the station in April 1964 as part of the Skokie Swift pilot program, which was intended to determine if commuter service could be used to link an urban area to a post-war suburb(such as Skokie).  The experiment worked flawlessly, and the Skokie Swift continues to this day as the CTA Yellow Line.

     When the trial period had begun, the 1925 station was not used, owing to the temporary nature of the project.  Eventually, the old station was converted into retail space, and would remain that same way for the next 30 years.  In 1994, a new permanent station was built for the Dempster-Skokie stop, and this threatened the existence of the original station.  Originally, the CTA evicted all the retail tenants from the old station building on September 30, 1992 to ready the demolition.  This spurred on activists, and the station was saved for the time being.  The structure was nominated for the National Register of Historic Places in 1995, and was granted such status in February of 1996.

     However, the station continued to languish for four more years, until the Village of Skokie once again voted for demolition in July 2000.  Eventually, the station was bought, moved, and renovated, and so a historic structure was saved.  Finally, the newly renovated station/retail space was rededicated on November 24, 2003, featuring much of the same pomp and circumstance seen in March of 1925.  To this day, the Dempster-Skokie station serves as both a valuable link to the Chicago Transit system and as an important link to the past.