After a long week at work, I decided to go up to Fort Sheridan to take some photos on my day off. I set out in the morning in a rush, skipping breakfast, and without bringing any water- feeling sure I could tough it out on a summer’s day. It would take me two hours tops to take photos and return home by noon. Or so I thought. One thing after another led to a truly serendipitous Friday afternoon.
Coincidence, or meant to be?
To reach Fort Sheridan, I decided to take the Edens Expressway northbound, which becomes Skokie Highway, to the exit on Old Elm Road in Lake Forest. The main entrance to the fort is just down the road. Then a mile away from my destination, a sign caught my attention that said, ‘estate sale’. It had been a while since I last attended a sale for pleasure and not for work. A quick stop sounded like fun.
Not much could be judged of the estate from the outside. The home was a single-story ranch house, with a well-manicured lawn, and a facade clean and without blemishes, all pointing towards a successful white-collar homeowner in a wealthy neighborhood.
Entering inside, I glanced about the living room: contemporary furniture, framed art hanging off the walls, and a bookcase, sparsely decorated with knick-knacks, books, and other decor. Nothing of interest caught my eye so I continued my hunt throughout the house, further disappointed. I returned to the entrance. There in the bookcase, as clear as day, sat a photo album with a black and white photo of Fort Sheridan on its cover. Flipping through the album’s pages I could not believe what I saw. Vintage photos of the very place I was about to visit!
From the composition, captions on the backs, and two clipped-out newspaper articles, I determined that the photos dated back to the late 1930s. It appeared that the soldier who took them served in the 61st Coastal Artillery Regiment, as well as having attended the fort’s West Point Preparatory School. How could I ever leave the album behind? The price was also too good to pass up.
Many servicemen formerly stationed at the fort, officially closed down in 1993, settled down in the area. There is also a lot of local historical interest in the former Army post. Still, finding the album came as a shock. Especially on the same day I chose to visit the fort. Now I had a new mission: recreate some of the images in the album.
A backpack to carry all my supplies in would have been helpful. Fortunately, I did not bring one, and had a chance encounter as a result.
An Army Air Corps Ford Trimotor aircraft on the landing strip at Fort Sheridan. Note the presence of Lake Michigan to the left behind the aircraft, as well as firing range targets to the right. Circa 1938. 
Looking out at Lake Michigan from the former landing strip at Fort Sheridan. 2022. 
Set up at the south-east corner of the Fort Sheridan parade ground is a .30 caliber M1917 water-cooled machine gun. Circa 1938. 
South-east corner of Fort Sheridan parade ground as it appears today. 2022.
A chance encounter with fellow history buffs
My photo taking began at the site of Fort Sheridan’s former airfield. Now a long field of low-cut grass, it is adjacent to the Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve parking lot. Completing my shoot there I next headed up a wooded path towards the Lake Michigan shoreline. Along the way I came across a Bofors 40 mm gun sheltered in a makeshift dugout display.
From 1920 to the Second World War, coastal defense units as well as an anti-aircraft artillery school operated at the fort. Soldiers would fire from gun batteries situated on the bluffs overlooking the lake at targets flown over the water. One of the guns used was the Bofors 40 mm.
Stopping to take photos of the display, I placed the album I was carrying on the grass. Taking shots from all angles, crouched down, standing up, or on top of an embankment, I forgot about my treasure.
Where is it? A small panic took over me.
Turning around I saw an older couple on the path approaching the album. Oh, it’s mine- I say. Explaining them its contents, they asked to see it. Before long we had a wonderful conversation there under the sun.
Both husband and wife have an invested interest in the history of the Second World War just like myself. The parents of the wife were true survivors, the mother a Polish-Jew who escaped Warsaw before the city’s devastation in 1939, and the father a Ukrainian-Catholic, a victim of Stalinist oppression in the 1930s who later fought against the Soviets. Ultimately the parents met in Morrocco where their daughter was born.
We exchanged contact information and vowed to remain in touch. They headed towards the lake and I to Fort Sheridan’s parade ground, site of my third shoot. My fourth and final shoot was to be at Fort Sheridan National Cemetery. Thinking my day could not get any better, it did.
Running into a cemetery tour
At the northern end of the Fort Sheridan property lies Fort Sheridan National Cemetery. The reason for my visit to the cemetery that day was to photograph its German prisoner-of-war (PoW) section for an upcoming article.
More than 400,000 German PoWs arrived to the United States during the Second World War. Faced with a critical manpower shortage, the US government employed the Germans on farms and in factories. Some would die while in American captivity, their deaths attributed to accident, suicide, illness, execution, and murder. A total of nine Germans ultimately became buried at Fort Sheridan. The fort was home to a large PoW enclosure which furnished men to smaller branch camps in the southern Wisconsin and northeast Illinois region.
While standing outside the cemetery’s gate and reading an information panel, a stranger approached me. He asked where he could register for the tour. What tour? I scan the cemetery and see a tent pitched up in one corner, and a group of visitors at the other side of the cemetery. Sure enough, a tour was going on.
Seeing the tour group slowly make their way towards the PoW section, making stops at historic graves along the way, I made my way to the site before they did. Immediately I began the task of taking photos but halted my work once the other visitors reached me.
After the tour ended, I approached the registration tent. It just so happened that the Fort Sheridan Historical Society was holding its annual one-day cemetery walk! Too bad I only caught the tail-end of the walk. I spoke with a representative of the society and showed him the photo album I had bought only a few hours before. Needless to say, he was very much interested in my images which I promised to share.
How was it possible that I could make all these connections on the same day? Was it sheer coincidence, or was it fate? I believe in the latter.
Just curious if there’s any pictures of the POW guards/MP’s During World War II. My father was stationed there as a guard. We toured the fort a year or two before it was closed. One of my best memories listening to my father Reminiscing about his service during the war
Hello Steve. I have not found any photos of the PoW guards/MPs assigned to Fort Sheridan, but I do have many photos of the 740th MP Battalion that was at Camp Skokie Valley in Glenview. There is a photo of the entrance to the Fort Sheridan PoW camp on the Illinois Digital Archives. Here is a link: http://www.idaillinois.org/digital/collection/zlakecou003/id/1389/rec/1
Feel free to email me for more information.
A couple of things interest me about Fort Sheridan. One is the early presence of a 1200 ft. pier that jutted out into the lake that was used to deliver supplies to the fort. It was positioned at the point where the large ravine joins the lake. I have various postcard pictures of it, You can approximately tell the year of the picture by the length of the pier. The other is a story a friend and Waukegan resident told me about the rifle range at the fort. He claimed the fort’s range was 1000 yards long, running from Sheridan Road to the lake shore. Being an Army veteran and having fired on a military range, I can attest that firing at anything over 300 yards, with open sights, is a waste of ammunition.
What’s interesting about the fort’s rifle range is that during WWII, it shared the same area as the landing strip. It might be that the strip was 1000 yards long and the range would have been a conventional 3-500 yards. I have to look into it more.