Lake Forest-Lake Bluff History Museum

Lake Forest Garage and Filling Station, c. 1932. From left, Karl Knauz, Ed Wolf, Herb Peters, Siegfried Becker, and Bob Becker.

Karl Knauz's son Billy Knauz sitting on the rear bumper of a car at the Lake Forest Filling Station, c. 1932.

Ferdinand Schneider, Wallace ""Wallie"" Boutin, Karl Knauz, and Paul Becker, c. 1940.

Lake Forest Garage and Service Station, c. 1935 - 778 N. Western Avenue.

Boutin & Knauz under construction at Laurel and Western, c. 1946.

c. 1948.

Bill Knauz, c. 1953.

The Knauz Motors float and caravan of cars and trucks in the 1957 Lake Forest Day parade. Emmy Knauz is driving the pace car and her grandchildren are in the backseat.

Knauz Continental under construction, late 1950s.

Architectural rendering of the Continental Building.

Knauz Continental, c. 1962. In the 1990s the building was converted into a restaurant - for a long time it was the Grille on Laurel, and later MLG.

In 1930, Karl Knauz – German immigrant and Lake Forest chauffeur – bet his life savings on reviving a failed gas station at Woodland Road and Western Avenue. With a mechanical background and connections among the Lake Forest service industry, he reopened the Lake Forest Garage and Filling Station.

There, Lake Foresters could buy gas at 10 cents a gallon. It was pumped by Knauz or one of his employees, many of them family members, who also checked water and motor oil and washed the windshield. The filling station housed an automobile repair service as well as the office of Lake Forest Yellow Cab, run by brother-in-law Siegried Becker.

In 1934, the landlord raised the rent too high for profitability, especially in the midst of the Depression. Not deterred, Karl Knauz approached Wally Boutin, whose competing filling station had just gone under, to propose a partnership. They bought out Hank Wickman’s garage at 778 N. Western Avenue and Boutin & Knauz was born.Soon, they diversified to sales as well, becoming a Desoto-Plymouth dealership. By the 1940s they sold International Harvester trucks and Chrysler.

In 1946, Boutin & Knauz moved north to the corner of Western and Laurel avenues, and pivoted away from filling gas tanks and more toward auto sales and service with a new showroom and expanded garage.

Boutin was bought out in 1949, and as Karl’s son Bill Knauz – a car aficionado – entered the business, they added foreign makes like Volvo (1957), Mercedes-Benz (1959 – making them one of the first U.S. dealers), and BMW (1971).

To house these expanded offerings, another new showroom facility, known as the “Continental” building, was erected in 1961, designed by midcentury architect Balfour Ames Lanza.

In the late 1980s, Knauz took an opportunity to expand their footprint with a move to Rte. 41 in Lake Bluff, where the autopark now sits on a campus of 30 acres and employs over 300 people. In 2000, Bill Knauz’s son-in-law William Madden took over as president.

Bill Knauz discusses his family's history and the foundations of the family business.

Knauz Autopark