aid, fire-fighting, demolition, marksmanship, and bomb disposal. Air raid wardens for every block enforced blackouts and manned battle stations during drills. On Sunday, May 23, 1943, a mock air raid on the village dropped hundreds of paper-bag “bombs” of brightly colored streamers, to test local readiness. Eighty-three service members from Wilmette lost their lives during the war. The Wilmette Coast Guard Station was given an increased workload during World War II, placing a heavy burden on the station's staff of 40 men. The voluntary civilian Wilmette Coast Guard Auxiliary was formed to assist the station's guardsmen during the war. Many of the Auxiliary's 64 members came from the Sheridan Shore Yacht Club and used their personal vessels to assist in operations. In 1942, after a long legal battle, Wilmette annexed No Man's Land. In August 1943 a ship named the USS Wilmette was given the honor of transporting President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Admiral William D. Leahy, James F. Byrnes and Harry Hopkins on a 10-day cruise to McGregor and Whitefish Bay to plan strategies for World War II. The USS Wilmette was a naval ship that had been commissioned in 1918 and was constructed by retrofitting the former SS Eastland, a passenger ship which in July 1915 rolled over in the Chicago River resulting in 884 deaths (the largest loss of life from a single shipwreck in Great Lakes history). Postwar growth The postwar need for housing, combined with government-guaranteed loans and the availability of former farmland west of Ridge Road, led to a housing boom in the 1950s that utterly transformed the area west of Ridge Road from farmland to residential subdivisions. Tracts of ranch-style and bi-level houses, distinctive street layouts, and new schools, places of worship, and shopping centers quickly characterized much of west Wilmette, particularly west of Hunter Road. Builders reflected the country's optimistic postwar mood with upbeat names for their housing styles, like “Young Modern” and “Skylark” and idyllic-sounding subdivision names like "Hollywood in Wilmette" and "Sprucewood Village." As a direct result of this housing boom, Wilmette's population grew from 18,162 in 1950 to 28, 268 a decade later. Construction began on the Edens Expressway in the late 1940s, and it opened in 1951. Carson Pirie Scott opened Edens Plaza shopping center next to the new expressway in 1956. Wilmette saw a growth in youth sports during this period. The boy's youth Wilmette Baseball Association was