Was there an anti-aircraft artillery site in Skokie?

During the 1950s, due to a need to defend the United States from enemy aircraft, the Anti-Aircraft Artillery program was established. Devonshire Park Housing and Gun site was one of approximately 20 installations in the Chicagoland area.  Active from approximately 1953 to 1956, the site included hardstands for the artillery, barracks, a mess hall, a supply and administration building, a vehicle storage building, a magazine and latrines.

The site was equipped with 90 mm guns, which weighed 16 tons and fired 25 lbs. projectiles at a rate of 25 per minute.

The land was leased to the U. S. Department of Defense by owner, William Taylor, who sold the land in April 1956. The next owner, Thomas Mason, sold the property a month later to the Skokie Park District and by 1958 the Department of Defense vacated the property. No remnants of the gun site remain. The current baseball field at Devonshire Park was the site for the guns, while the tennis courts were the barracks. 

Images here are from Chuck Schloss, veteran of D Battery, 49th AAA Battalion, Skokie, Illinois.

"Summer 1953, 67 years ago, Skokie, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago, Illinois, dirt, never-melting snow, ice and mud then more ice. That damned ice! And the wind! It's cold in tents in a Chicago winter. It was in what is now lovely Devonshire Park (swimming pool, tennis courts, baseball field, picnic area, trees, green grass, gazebo, etc.), It was then Site 68, D (Dog) Battery, 49th Batallion, 90mm Gun, AntiAircraft Artillery...The 49th was previously the 279th Batallion, Alabama National Guard which had been federalized and called to active duty. Headquarters Battery of the 49th was located at the north west end of the site, where the tennis courts are now. The 49th was one of the many batallions of 90mm and 120mm antiaircraft guns in the Chicago AAA defense. Now, at Devonshire Park - 'Beating swords into plowshares' - has been done."
-Chuck Schloss, veteran of D Battery, 49th AAA Battalion, Skokie, Illinois.