Known as Riverside Drive in Gurnee, Milwaukee Avenue has evolved from a winding stretch of exploration down stagecoach roads into a diverse four-lane thoroughfare.
Commerce is intermittent with dense forest preserves along the Des Plaines River Trail and Greenway, which boasts 3,000 acres of protected trails and wetlands that border Milwaukee Avenue in Lake County.
The road extends south from its northernmost tip at Skokie Highway and the Lake Carina Forest Preserve, between Washington Street and Belvidere Avenue. Nature is nose-to-nose with bustling traffic at the quiet retreat on Illinois Route 21.
The 23-acre former gravel pit has become a go-to place for fishing enthusiasts. Cross-country skiers, hikers and observers can explore the local flora and fauna year-round at the 500-foot trail.
But even at the tranquil preserve, visitors cannot miss a glimpse of Six Flags Great America, where screams are a tell-tail sign that this park is doing its job well.
With its staff entrance resting on Milwaukee Avenue, Six Flags Great America stands aloft with winding and twisting roller coasters creating a skyline of amusement and commerce in a land once populated by Buffalo and surrounded by cornfields.
According to Jennifer Dugan-Savage, director of communications at Six Flags Great America, roughly 3,200 seasonal employees and 200 full-time staffers turn off Milwaukee Avenue into Great America’s private lanes to clock-in at the 49-year-old amusement park.
While Six Flags hit hard times in recent years, resulting in filing bankruptcy at the Gurnee location and a closure at the Kentucky Kingdom, Dugan-Savage said, the leaders at the Gurnee location are pursuing aggressive endeavors to draw more visitors this year.
“The restructuring of our debt has no impact on our day-to-day operations,” Dugan-Savage said. “We’re moving forward and we’re already working on 2011 and our 50-year anniversary. We plan to emerge very soon.”
New to the park this year is the Glow in the Park parade with than 60 performers who will march through the park every night after Memorial Day, Dugan-Savage said. The season pass has been lowered in price to $65-the cheapest price Six Flags has offered in 18 years, said Dugan-Savage. In preserving local history, Six Flags purchased The Little Dipper wooden coaster from Kiddieland Amusement Park in Melrose Park, which closed in September last year.
Nearby business leaders along Milwaukee Avenue are banking on an upward tick in visitor numbers at Six Flags as well.
“When they’re profiting, then other shop venues like Gurnee Mills and Key Lime Cove do well. It’s a trickle down effect,” said B. Dwight Houchins, president of the Lake County Chamber of Commerce in Gurnee. “The money goes here, into our restaurants, our gas tanks, even comes into the chamber’s pocket,” Houchins said. “It winds up to be an ever-widening bulls eye-not just here, but in all of Lake County.”
Houchins has worked in several capacities in developing the land along Milwaukee Avenue since the 1980s, from selling incentive real estate programs to developers and in working with local chambers and the Village of Gurnee to help to designate a Tax Incremental Financing district in the area.
“I have literally sat in my office and watched the buildings go up,” Houchins said. “The stores, now, for the most part, are filled.”
From Six Flags and Lake Carina, Milwaukee Avenue glides over Interstate 94 and crosses through subdivisions of homes and strip malls into the north suburbs, where TribLocal reporters continuing coverage of the series.
By Amy Alderman, Triblocal.com reporter |
