In the early 1900s, Zion Lutheran School’s athletic field, known as Shurtleff Flats or Athletic Association Park, was where many local boys developed their baseball skills, including Carl “Lundy” Lundgren, who later became a winning pitcher for the Chicago Cubs. Lundgren pitched for the Cubs from 1902 to 1909, ranked fourth among National League pitchers in 1906, and finished with a lifetime ERA of 2.42. During his years with the team, the Cubs won the 1906 National League pennant and back-to-back World Series championships in 1907 and 1908. He later began a second successful career as a coach at Princeton University, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and his alma mater, the University of Illinois at the Urbana-Champaign campus, where Lundgren Hall is named in his honor. Carl died unexpectedly of a heart attack on August 21, 1934, at his childhood home in Marengo at 614 W. Grant Highway. His funeral service was held at the family home, and he was buried in the Marengo city cemetery. Traffic on West Grant Highway was rerouted for the funeral, and a public address system carried the messages from inside the home to the hundreds gathered on the spacious lawn. His eulogy concluded, “we loved Carl because he always played fair.”