What 1,628-acre entity that supports 48,000 people and has a golf course, a couple of bowling alleys, a movie theater and a library lies north of Chicago but is not a suburb or a city?
If you have ever driven Green Bay or Sheridan Roads between Lake Bluff and Waukegan, you undoubtedly know the answer is the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Here are some tidbits culled from a variety of Great Lakes sources:
– The Great Lakes Navy Band was formed in 1917 by “March King” Lt. John Philip Sousa (left), who volunteered to be band master for $1 a month. But because Sousa was over 60 and the commissioned officer age limit was 47, the age space was left blank on Sousa’s commission paper.
– Great Lakes used to field a football team. Indeed, the team (which included the late George “Papa Bear” Halas) went to the Rose Bowl in 1918, where it won 17-0 against the Mare Island Marines. And the 1943 team beat highly touted Notre Dame.
– The base fielded a winning baseball team during World War II, when it included Cleveland Indians star pitcher Bob Feller. The team, the Bluejackets, defeated the 1945 National League-pennant-winning Cubs.
– The Great Lakes Naval Station (decommissioned in 1991 when consolidated with the Great Lakes Naval Training Center) officially opened on July 1, 1911, but celebrated its 90th anniversary in 1995 to mark the Merchants Club of Chicago’s donation of 172 acres to the government for a naval base in May 1905.
– With Congress’ acceptance of the 1993 Commission for the Department of Defense recommendation to consolidate naval recruit training at Great Lakes and close training bases in Orlando and San Diego, Great Lakes became the only recruit training command, graduating about 55,000 recruits a year.