Latest metal theft a sign of the times in Elgin

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The sign for the Illinois Watch Case Co./Simpson Electric site is missing. | submitted

Updated: March 24, 2012 9:03AM

ELGIN — A historical marker, identifying the site of the famous Illinois Watch Case Co./Simpson Electric building that was torn down last year, has gone missing.

Whoever pulled the sign from the site — likely believing the cast-aluminum sign was made of more-valuable bronze or copper — was probably disappointed if trying to sell it as scrap metal.

While replacing the sign will cost an estimated $2,000 for the city of Elgin and its insurers, the salvage value of the sign is likely only about $20, officials said.

Bill Briska, chairman of the Elgin Heritage Commission that worked on getting the sign erected in 2007, said this week that he noticed two weeks ago that the sign was gone from 853 Dundee Ave.

“We drove around, looked in the immediate area for it,” Briska said. “At that time, there was a very clear set of tire marks up on the parkway — a very clear set of tracks.”

Briska called Elizabeth Marston, director of the Elgin Area Historical Society, to see if she knew what had happened to the sign — for example, if it had been taken down as part of the building’s demolition last year.

The Simpson Electric/Watch Case Factory sat for 121 years on the block between Dundee Avenue, Slade Avenue, Liberty Street and Chester Avenue. For many of those years, it was the Watch City’s second-biggest employer, outdone only by the Elgin National Watch Co.

Then Briska called planner Sarosh Saher at city hall to see if a public works crew had picked up the sign for some reason. It was a “no” there too, he said.

Police then began investigating the disappearance, said Lt. Glenn Theriault.

“Nobody has seen it for awhile, but they are not sure when it was stolen,” Theriault said.

City workers said the sign clearly had been removed from its post, which is still there. “In this era of cashing in on metal, it was (probably) cashed in for scrap metal somewhere,” Theriault said.

Police checked with every scrap-metal recycler in Elgin and the immediate area, but none reported accepting the 25-pound sign, he said.

“I would like to have a one-on-one conversation with the person that lifted it and what they had in mind,” Briska said.

While the Elgin Heritage Commission worked with the Illinois State Historical Society to get the sign approved and cast, having it done was the idea of longtime Elgin resident and Watch Case employee Arthur Richoz. He died in May 2008 at age 85, just a year after the sign was erected.

Elgin officials already have spoken with the state historical society and the city’s insurer about having the sign replaced, Saher said.

If the sign shows up in good condition before a new one is cast, it could be remounted on its pole, Saher said.

The missing sign reads:

“For more than 70 years, this site was occupied by the Illinois Watch Case Company. The firm was a leader in the domestic watch industry and by the 1920s had produced more than 30 million watch cases.

“A subsidiary produced jewelry goods, lockets, cigarette lighters and the famed ‘Elgin American’ ladies compacts. During World War II, the company won an Army-Navy Excellence Award for its production of mortar shells and war-related materials.

“Foreign competition and a changing market eventually led to an end of production in the early 1960s.”