‘He was a visionary’: State leaders name tollway bridge for Rosemont’s founding mayor

Donald E. Stephens’ name graces the front of the Rosemont convention center, the museum of Hummel figurines he collected, and the park at the entrance to the gated community where residents will light the community Christmas tree this weekend.

But the political power broker’s primary legacy was as a developer, transforming the Northwest suburban village from swamps and garbage dumps into a 2.5-square-mile economic mecca.

Rosemont Mayor Brad Stephens said the dedication of the Balmoral Avenue bridge in honor of his dad Donald is an important recognition because of what the exit ramp has done for transportation and economic development in the area.
– Karie Angell Luc for the Daily Herald

On Monday, the late mayor’s name was affixed to the Balmoral Avenue bridge over the Tri-State Tollway, where Stephens helped bring an off-ramp to serve a planned casino and entertainment district.

That casino eventually was built just to the north in Des Plaines, while the Rosemont casino site became the entertainment district, and the entertainment district site became an indoor mall.

Cars and trucks pass under the newly dedicated Donald E. Stephens Memorial Bridge on Interstate 294 in Rosemont Monday.
– Karie Angell Luc for the Daily Herald

“Don Stephens was a builder, and there’s no better way to honor him than with a bridge,” said Senate President Don Harmon, an Oak Park Democrat, who was one of the politicos from both sides of the aisle there Monday to honor the former Rosemont Republican.

Before his death in 2007, Stephens worked with then-Democratic House Speaker Mike Madigan to secure funds for the ramp, believing that the Balmoral exit — and an eventual extension to O’Hare International Airport over Mannheim Road — was important for economic development.

Mayor Donald Stephens poses by a Rosemont population sign in 1962. The population had grown from an initial 84 residents in 1956.
– Courtesy of Village of Rosemont

“He would always joke, ‘I got all these … highways here and I can’t get on or off any of them,'” said his son Brad, the mayor since 2007 and a Republican state representative for the area since 2019.

Under both Stephenses, Rosemont has long embraced O’Hare — unlike other border towns that have battled Chicago over expansion and noise. It goes back to Rosemont’s early days, when two years after the village’s 1956 incorporation, Don Stephens struck a deal with Mayor Richard J. Daley to get Lake Michigan water in exchange for a 162-foot-wide strip of Foster Avenue the city needed to connect to the airport.

“This (bridge naming) is important because, again, O’Hare is important to us,” the younger Stephens said Monday. “People coming from the South suburbs and South Side to be able to get off here and not have to go up and down all those loop de loops and all that convoluted spaghetti mess to get into the airport — that was big.”

The bridge dedication — all of two minutes long, when two Illinois Tollway workers in a crane unfurled the temporary sign covering — was followed by a luncheon at Carmine’s restaurant. It’s where Democrats — Harmon, state Rep. Marty Moylan and state Sen. Laura Murphy of Des Plaines — broke bread with Republicans.

Rosemont Mayor Donald E. Stephens led the town from its 1956 founding until his death in 2007.
– Daily Herald File Photo, 2002

Before becoming Des Plaines’ mayor and an alderman, Moylan was a union electrician doing construction in Rosemont when he met the elder Stephens.

“The mayor was able to cross party lines, work with Democrats and Republicans, to get something good done for the community,” said Moylan, who shepherded the bridge naming through his House Transportation: Regulations, Roads & Bridges Committee last spring. “He was a visionary and could see things other people couldn’t see at that time. And now look what the result is. It’s a great draw to the whole Midwest.”