About Lustron homes
Lustron homes were manufactured from 1949-1950, and were made almost entirely of steel. Steel was used for the frame of the house, for the interior walls, ceilings, and cabinets. Porcelain enameled steel panels were used for the exterior of the house, and even for the roof. The houses were advertised as "maintenance free", and by all the accounts that I've found, that's nearly true. Most or all of the homes have the original roof, which has lasted almost 60 years with little sign of wear. Unfortunately, the Lustron Corporation was never able to come close to promised production levels. Even though the company was heavily financed by the government, it had to file bankruptcy in 1950, with only about 2500 homes built. There was a lot of criticism over the government backed loans, and there was suspicion that the traditional housing industry conspired to ruin Lustron. Lots of information on Lustron homes can be found here.
About this cache
Carol and I went on a caching trip to the St. Louis area recently, and we came across a multi stage cache that took us to some Lustron homes. I became pretty fascinated by these little homes as we read about them and drove past them. When we got back here to Oswego, I was surprised to find out that seven of these homes were built in Aurora. I was even more surprised to find out where two of them are. If you're a long time resident of Aurora, you've probably driven past these homes dozens of times.
This little tour will take you past five of the Aurora Lustrons. They're all pretty close to each other, so you can walk the tour if you want to. The final is a small camouflaged tube containing the log for you to sign after you complete the tour. It's about a five minute drive from the tour area. There's a sixth Lustron near the tour area, so see if you can spot it on your own.
To locate the final, you'll have to get the addresses of all five of the Lustron homes on the tour. You won't have any trouble identifying the Lustrons, since they're very distinctive. Start at the posted coordinates, and jot down the address of the Lustron home there. Then go to N 41 45.788 W 88 21.479, and continue south from there until you find the other four addresses. Double the address that's posted on a lamp post, and not on the actual house. Hint: Three of the addresses have 2 digits, one has 3 digits, and one has 4 digits.
To find the final stage, simply add all of the individual digits of the addresses together. For example, if the addresses were 12, 18, 88 (44x2), 207, and 1479, the total of the individual digits would be 58. Now add the 2 digit number that you came up with to each of these coordinates:
N 41 46.077 W 88 19.878
That's where you'll find the final.
I hope you find this tour interesting and fun!