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About the Society

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Our Mission

We engage and educate current and future generations by preserving and sharing McHenry County history.


Our Vision

The McHenry County Historical Society & Museum endeavors to be a hub for collection, preservation and educational outreach reflecting McHenry County’s history.


Our Values
        IntegritY
              InnOvation
             InclUsion
                   Relevancy

             OutreacH
            LeadershIp
                       SuStainability
                          STewardship
                        KnOwledge
                CollaboRation
           AccessibilitY

 


View the 2022-25 Strategic Plan (PDF)


Since 1963 the McHenry County Historical Society has strived to engage and educate current and future generations about the history of their county. Please join us in celebrating 60 years! Besides operating the museum, the Society plaques historic sites and structures, hosts workshops and classes, makes available satellite exhibits and arranges a wide variety of school and other group programs. Funding for the Society comes from membership dues, admission fees, donations and a trust fund. For many years, we have published a comprehensive quarterly magazine, The Tracer. To receive this valuable resource, join our organization. For more information, visit The Museum. We very much appreciate your interest and invite you to participate.

How does the existence of an active historical society make a positive impact on McHenry County? This organization has an enviable 60-year track record of educational, entertainment, resource and preservation contributions. Each year countywide school systems bus their students to the Society’s museum in Union.

Educational programs at the museum foster the type of thinking that can see the realities of today as being part of a continuing historical process. Computers, for example, didn’t just arrive on the scene. Generations previous to this had their versions of modern technology, which they both questioned and ultimately trusted to make their lives and their children’s lives easier. If people logically understand that progress is part of a historical process, change may be easier to deal with.

The award-winning McHenry County Historical Society continues to collect and hold among its collection the three-dimensional teaching artifacts of human progress. The Historical Society museum makes this educational contribution without any use of tax dollars.

The museum also provides a family-oriented entertainment and educational destination spot. It uniquely and interactively helps tell the story of this county and its people. No other public facility can make that claim. Museums, like theaters, opera houses, parks, libraries, and golf courses, speak to the quality of life issues that ultimately raise our standard of living.

As a resource for local information the McHenry County Historical Society fields an average 15 to 20 requests each week on property, building and site preservation, family history, business history and object conservation. The Society’s local history research library contains photographs, picture postcards, maps, journals, standard local history books, biographical files, scrapbooks, newspapers; business, club, school and governmental records, and other documentary materials such as old phone directories and high school yearbooks.

In addition, technical books and pamphlets on everything from quilt repair to building restoration plus staff training in conservation, restoration and preservation, provide an invaluable one-stop resource for businesses, public groups and individuals.

In 1995 the Society co-produced a 1,200-plus-page history titled McHenry County in the Twentieth Century. In 2004 the Society co-published the book Historic Country Schools of McHenry County, Illinois by Society member Robert Frenz. These are all public contributions of the McHenry County Historical Society.

In the field of preservation, it is this organization’s philosophy that older historic neighborhoods provide a necessary variety of housing stock in addition to providing a visible tangible accounting of architectural history. Historic downtown districts maintain a building scale that encourages the kind of socialization not found in outlying retail malls that rely on the automobile for access.

Downtown revitalization opens possibilities for residential as well as creative commercial use that capitalizes on a municipality’s physical uniqueness. One doesn’t look at commercial strips to "see" Crystal Lake or Algonquin, or McHenry because those stripbusinesses are likely to be uniform in style and content.

This Society spearheaded the efforts to develop a McHenry County Historic Preservation Ordinance in 1990. Most larger municipalities have followed that lead and established similar ordinances. The society also restored the 1843 Gannon log cabin, the 1867 Pringle School, 1886 Seneca Town Hall, the 1895 West Harmony School and a 1950 Modern Tourist Cabin.

In 2009 the Society acquired the 1898 Riley Methodist Church – one of six structures it owns and cares for. They include a former town hall, a log cabin and two one-room schoolhouses. Part of the Society’s museum at Union consists of the 1870 native limestone Union School. Many of these structures remain on their original sites –standing as footprints of earlier times. They provide visible evidence of our history.

Preserving one’s community provides its citizenry with a visual collective memory. Ultimately the goal of educational and service organizations like the McHenry County Historical Society is to encourage the appreciation of all aspects of our environment. Individuals who are sensitive to their environment make better citizens. Better citizens vote, they participate in community life and they teach their children by example. Historical societies have a role to play in that process.

Download the 2022-23 Annual Report (PDF)