Wolf Road, the first grade-separated station east of the Garfield Park "L", as seen looking east from the eastbound platform in the mid 1950s. The station's two platforms are on the west side of Wolf Road. Each has a wooden windbreak and one of the CA&E’s ubiquitous flag stop semaphores.
Photo by Don Bruno
Wolf Road
Wolf Road near Electric Avenue, Village of Hillside
- Address: TBD
- Established: August 25, 1902
- Original Line: Aurora, Elgin & Chicago Ry
- Rebuilt: 1937
- Previous Names: N/A
- Flag stop
- (View location)
History:
Wolf Road was a local station on the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin’s main line at the crossing of Wolf Road in Hillside. The station opened on August 25, 1902, as one of the initial fifteen stops on the Aurora, Elgin and Chicago Railway.1 Wolf Road was typical of rural stops on the early AE&C and consisted of a pair of wooden, low level platforms. A wooden board at the end of the platforms identified the stop.
Prior to the end of 1920, the wooden platforms at Wolf Road had been replaced by cinder platforms approximately 60ft long and the eastbound platform was fitted with a flat roofed wooden frame building.
In 1937, the dual grade crossing of Wolf Road by the Chicago, Aurora and Elgin and the parallel Chicago Great Western was grade separated by digging underneath the railroads and constructing a pair of viaducts to carry the trains overhead. The Wolf Road station was situated west of the cut with both platforms each receiving a stairway down to Wolf Rd. A picket fence was erected between the tracks to prevent passengers from crossing from platform to platform at track level. The east-and-westbound platforms were given “H” shaped wooden passenger shelters with flat roofs.
After the CA&E ended service on July 3, 1937, the platforms, shelters, and stairways down from track level were all removed, leaving little indication that a station was ever there. The CA&E viaduct constructed as part of the grade separation, however, still remains.
