The Kraclek kids are seen here on the swimming pool slide. This slide was by the Lions Club when Commissioner Kurt Berliner took the initiative to re-open the Forest Park Amusement Park Pool in 1927. The Des Plaines River was too polluted, and there were no other “swimming holes” to cool off in. Click link below to Natorium to see more.
This 60 year old building was known as Mrs. Kraclek’s Candy Store, and was sold to District 91 about a decade before this photo was taken. It was demolished to make way for parking and later the land was used to build the Forest Park Middle School.
900 block of Beloit after eight hours of demolition and two days of clean up there was only this gaping hole that was left. The hole would be filled and leveled for parking.
In 1978 Forest Park said its final goodbye to Mrs. Kraclek’s Candy Store. The two story building at 909 Beloit Ave. had been purchased by District 91 a decade earlier and finally met its wrecking ball fate to make way for teacher parking next to Field Stevenson School.
For more than 50 years it was known as Mrs. Kraclek’s Candy Store. A widow at a young age, Mrs. Kraclek raised her four children, Henry, Francis, Henrietta and John, above the candy store. This popular penny candy shop supplied cups of peanuts, jelly green leaves, candy dots and pixie sticks to many Forest Park kids for generations.
To read more about the pool where the Kraclek kids are posing on the slide in the third photo, click here to read and see photos of the Forest Park Amusement Park Natorium.
