The history of Aurora, Illinois is one of diversity. This is the first book to trace the city's early days of its first white settlement through World War I and the early 1920s, as seen through the eyes of its diverse ethnic groups. Immigrants from northern, southern, and eastern Europe, southern Blacks, and Mexicans all came to provide their talents to the massive railroad industry and the dozens of factories in the city, which were producing various products to be used by the entire nation and as well as in the construction of the Panama Canal.