Answer Man: What happened to Columbia Heights?
By Jason Freeman jfreeman@southtownstar.com February 9, 2012 9:58PM
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Updated: March 11, 2012 8:32AM
A long time ago, there was a Southland village known as Columbia Heights, so named in honor of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893.
What happened to it?
Well, it’s still there, but folks these days call it by a different name: Steger.
According to www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org, the name change was the brainchild of John Valentine Steger, who opened a piano factory in Columbia Heights in 1893.
When the village incorporated in 1896, John Steger decided to pay $400 toward election costs if the village agreed to one condition — that the town be renamed Steger.
Thus, with a few dollar bills, Columbia Heights went the way of disco, and the village of Steger was born.
John Steger didn’t just lend his name to the town. He also served two terms as mayor, planned a residential subdivision, encouraged home ownership and commercial development and oversaw creation of a volunteer fire department.
Not a bad deal for $400.
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