Neighborhood Watch

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When Scott Casey reflected on his time living out his formative years in his parents’ Tudor-style home on Forest View Lane in Ridgeport, Illinois, he shuddered as if a chill was running up his spine. As the rain pounded outside his apartment window, he thought long and hard about what he was going to say. At thirty-three, Scott lived about as far away as one could get from Ridgeport: in a one-bedroom apartment in Honolulu. But Ridgeport never moved away from Scott.

Nestled between Naperville and Aurora, Ridgeport was buried on any map. No one outside a ten-mile radius had ever heard of Ridgeport until it made headlines in 2004 for the town’s first murder in its 110-year history. After that, it captured America’s attention as a town to watch and study under a microscope.

Until that murder, the hearts of Ridgeport’s residents seemed to beat as one — synchronized to the same rhythm—and anyone who lived there could feel it. Like most kids growing up in a small town, Scott and his friends knew every shop, business, and street within a half-hour bike ride from one end of town to the other.

Despite its diminutive size, Ridgeport supplied residents with everything they needed. In fact, residents never needed to leave town to do business or be entertained. They never even had to leave the town’s borders. A local grocery store stood from the 1960s, and Ridgeporters ventured to that store for all their provisions. A barbershop occupied a lot downtown, along with a women’s boutique. Ridgeport Mall, a frequent spot for entertainment in the community, opened in the 1980s with shops, restaurants, and a movie theater on the first floor. The town’s parks were well maintained, and on any summer day, Ridgeport’s families enjoyed watching Little League baseball games during the day and adult softball games at night. Fuller Park hosted the annual Ridgeport Festival, which offered a carnival, food vendors, games, and over-the-hill bands. With about 15,000 residents, the town was home to two elementary schools, a private school for grades K-8, and a junior high. Ridgeporter teens attended either one of the area’s private schools or Hartville High in Naperville, a top-rated school in the nation.

Scott didn’t realize it when he was young, but he lived in a well-to-do area. Many people hired a lawn service, and most moms stayed home to take care of the children. Scott never wondered why the moms of his best friends Matt Norris and Riley Wrobel were always home; he just figured that’s how things were. If they really wanted to, kids could play in the streets at three o’clock in the morning, and their parents would have nothing to worry about. But worry, they did.

The mothers in Ridgeport advocated for a crime-free town, a place that was perfect for raising a family, a place like no other. So, when Sue Ellen Norris served as the president of the Ridgeport Historic District, she made it her business to create a Neighborhood Watch group which the entire neighborhood agreed to.

Yes, Ridgeporters loved growing up there. Yet outside of their ten-mile radius, no one had ever really heard of Ridgeport. And those in town wanted to keep it that way.

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There is a saying, “Once a Ridgeporter, always a Ridge-porter.” Many citizens settled there for life, while others found that the longer they stayed, the harder it was to leave. The town served as a security blanket to many, a place where everyone knew your name and nothing changed. The town Scott Casey grew up in remained the same as he reached adulthood, at least physically.

Ridgeport stood out as an anomaly in Illinois, where, after living with years of political corruption and high taxes, most residents could not wait to leave. When cars entered Ridgeport, the welcome sign read, “Ridgeport Welcomes You,” not “Welcome to Ridgeport.” It was as if Ridgeport itself was a living, breathing entity. Yet most people paid no attention to the sign as they hurried along to bypass the main two-mile stretch of Coleridge Ave. (named after the town’s first mayor) and on to wherever their busy lives were taking them.

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Mayor James Coleridge grew up in Chicago in the late 1800s and built quite a reputation working with the city’s philanthropic societies - namely Hull House and other centers where working-class people could further their educational and social opportunities. Coleridge was born into a wealthy family, and his charitable nature and personable character propelled him into the heart of the city’s mayoral race in 1896, a year that an economic panic swept the nation. Coleridge lost the election to incumbent mayor Wilson Harrison by only a thousand votes, enraging many Chicagoans. Under Harrison’s next four years of service, the city plunged further into recession and corruption.

During that time, Coleridge’s legion of followers had expanded, and many accompanied him throughout the city to protests for social justice reforms. Several of his followers landed in jail for their actions, but Coleridge often exerted his influence to release them within a day. When the 1900 election drew near, Coleridge’s constituents pressured him to run for mayor again, but he had other plans.

As an avid history buff, Coleridge had been poring over the books in his library during the past year, just months before the 1900 election. He was reminded that America was built on ideals, ideas, and freedoms and how immigrants from around the world had come here to practice those ideals. Coleridge asked himself if the once-great nation had turned as corrupt as the lands that those idealistic travelers left behind.

Even so, Coleridge envisioned a future - a future alongside his followers in a place where all the social justice reforms they hoped to achieve had come to fruition. In Coleridge’s view, some good remained in the country.

If such a utopia existed, Coleridge was convinced that it was not in Chicago. However, one could cheaply buy acres of land outside the city limits, and in 1900, Coleridge purchased a forty-acre plot of prairie about thirty-five miles southwest of the city in what would later become Ridgeport. Contractors built him a home there, and he soon began advertising his new utopia as a place to escape the city’s corruption. At first, several hundred of his followers jumped on board, many of whom were family members. However, two years later, only a hundred of them fled the Windy City for Coleridge’s dream community. Many people laughed him off, saying that he’d lost his mind and would die out there in the wilderness. Nevertheless, Coleridge’s contracting team built an entire neighborhood full of beautiful Colonial and Tudor-style homes. These, along with a few businesses, became Ridgeport’s historic district.

In the fall of 1908, residents elected Coleridge mayor of their new town and established the St. John’s Lutheran Church, which was also the site of their town hall meetings. A few months later, in the spring of 1909, Coleridge formally incorporated Ridgeport at one of the first town hall meetings. Residents decided on the name taken from the word ridge in Coleridge. The word port was taken from their roots in Chicago, which is the largest port in the Midwest.

By 1910, the new town conducted a formal census, counting 150 residents. Three businesses were established: a bank, a hardware store, and a grocer. At the time, plans were in the works to increase the town’s size to build a country club, which would attract even more residents and businesses. A police force had not yet been formally established, so a volunteer militia was formed, along with a volunteer fire department. All the workings were in place for a bright future.

And so, it was. A police and fire station began construction that year, and the country club was completed two years later. Thousands flocked to Ridgeport over the next seventy years until the population reached 15,186. The square mileage grew from .0625 square miles to 3.878 square miles. By contrast, in 2019, the surrounding cities of Naperville to the east encompassed 39.24 square miles (and had a population of 147,682), while Aurora to the west took up 45.95 square miles and had 200,000 residents. Even today, many passersby assume they are in one of the two mid-sized cities unless they see the “Ridgeport Welcomes You” sign, which was erected by Mayor Coleridge himself on May 7, 1909, the date of the town’s incorporation.

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Mayor Coleridge served from 1908 until he died in 1940. The town loved him, and he loved the town. He would begin every town hall meeting by saying, “Love thy neighbor” and “Love thy Ridgeport,” and the townspeople would ritualistically say it back. When George Stallworth took over as mayor, he continued the tradition in honor of the town’s founder. So, when the Great Depression hit, Stallworth created the Public Works Division and the Park District, allowing townspeople to take up jobs to beautify and keep the town running even under the toughest of times. Even as the town grew, residents remained as close-knit as they were when they first moved in. During World War II, several men left Ridgeport to fight overseas, while the women stayed at home to raise money for the home front or to take jobs in wartime manufacturing plants.

But all along, the town contained an unwritten set of values. For example, residents were expected to go to church in Ridgeport. Those who missed church or went to services outside of town were snubbed in public and stopped getting invited to neighborhood outings. So, out of peer pressure, no one missed church. Children were expected to go to school every day and dress appropriately. These were not just school rules; they were town rules. Ridgeporters took the “Love thy Ridgeport” motto seriously, even literally. Following World War II, the school board established a class on the history of Ridgeport. The public library kept records of the town’s achievements, and in 1969, to commemorate Ridgeport’s fiftieth anniversary, the board of trustees approved the construction of a town museum.

Social decorum was of the utmost importance. Neighbors spent their free time together. While the men hit the links at the Spring Meadows Country Club, their wives sipped afternoon tea or stopped in for brunch at the club’s restaurant. Men enjoyed poker nights, and women hosted book clubs. It was not only a bonding experience, but it was a problem for those who could not attend.

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Ridgeport served as a model community. By 1999, the police force boasted that the town had not seen a murder in its ninety-year history, and year after year, Ridgeport ranked as the safest town in America. When the town’s officials were asked why, they always said the same thing, “Love thy neighbor” and “Love thy Ridgeport.”

Yet, Scott Casey did remember some scary things from his thirty-three years there, like a few missing person cases. And it was one of those missing persons that led to the town’s first murder.