When Rogers Park was annexed to Chicago, in 1893, Howard Street became the city’s boundary with Evanston. The little 80-acre neighborhood just north of Howard along the lake was known as Germania, after the German immigrants who had settled there. But Germania had a problem. It was cut off from the rest of Evanston by Calvary Catholic Cemetery to the north and later by the L tracks to the west. That made it impossible for the suburb to extend electrical or sewer lines to its southeasternmost district. “The territory received almost no services from Evanston,” the Tribune reported at the time. As a result, Germania picked up a new nickname: No Man’s Land.

The solution was for it to join the city to the south. “It was contended that it naturally was a part of Chicago,” said the Tribune. The councils of both cities approved the annexation, and on February 8, 1915, Mayor Carter Harrison Jr. signed a resolution officially making Germania’s 900 residents Chicagoans and pushing the city’s border in that stretch two blocks north, to just past Juneway Terrace.

“So overjoyed were the residents when they were made Chicagoans that they began to telephone friends,” reported the Tribune. But they were in for a surprise: “They found they were still paying toll ‘to Chicago.’ ”

Send your questions about the Chicago area to emcclelland@chicagomag.com.