News and Events
Wheels on the ground, and in their heads, keep spinning
Of the more than 4,000 carousels built in U.S. during their heyday in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it is estimated that fewer than 150 survive.
One of them is at the Volo Auto Museum, located along Route 120 just east of the McHenry County line. The eclectic way-stop for seemingly all things on wheels added something else this winter that spins round and round: a 1920s Allan Herschell Co. carousel.
Museum Director Brian Grams acknowledged the addition represents yet another departure from the museum’s classic car roots.
2019 Annual Meeting
President Woodrow Wilson managed to tolerate the women who pestered him for support in their quest for voting rights ... up to a point.
"When they started holding up 'Kaiser Wilson' signs, that's when things went over the edge," said Kay Shelton Kozak, an anthropology instructor at Kishwaukee College and the featured speaker at Aug. 19 annual meeting of the McHenry County Historical Society & Museum.
Surprised, saddened by Barnes & Noble news
Like many of you, I was surprised – and a little saddened – to learn that the Crystal Lake Barnes & Noble will vacate its estimated 19,000-square-foot location in August.
Crystal Lake Community Development Director Michelle Rentzsch said the building’s owner, Inland Real Estate Corp. of Oakbrook, is not renewing its lease with Barnes & Noble, and it instead will rent the space to Binny’s Beverage Depot.
Efforts to reach an Inland representative for the Bohl Farm Marketplace retail center were unsuccessful.
History Advocates in Cary get "taken to school"
The demolition of a historic, one-room schoolhouse in Cary has left Cary-Grove Historical Society President Pam Losey feeling like she’s just been broadsided.
“They sneakily did away with the schoolhouse. … No one called,” she said. “Some lady crashed her car into the mortuary, so they decided to take both that building and [the] original 1861 school down.”
Hop on the bus, Gus
Woodstock’s Ken Ehrenhofer is driven to save our wheeled history.
He and his brother, Ron, grew up around classic cars. Their father was a foreign car mechanic. Their stepfather owned a 1927 Peerless. It’s no wonder they’ve probably restored close to 20 antique vehicles over the years – including a 1929 Model AA Ford fire engine paired with equipment supplied by the Boyer Fire Apparatus Co. of Logansport, Ind. It boasts its original Marengo Fire Department paint job.
2019 Heritage Fair Pie Baking Contest
Woodstock's Jim Ratway has been a staple on Heritage Fair pie baking plaque. He was named the grand champion in 2008, 2012, 2015 and now in 2019. The good news for his rivals is that next year he will be ineligible to win (although we all hope he enters pies!) and instead will serve as a judge.
Play it cool, plant trees
The report, like most reports of this ilk, has a long title – “Chicago Wilderness Region Urban Forest Vulnerability Assessment and Synthesis.”
This effort is not another admonishment of how we’re on the road to an even hotter Hades in our greenhouse gas-emitting Navigators. No, this collaboration of multiple agencies under the Urban Forestry Climate Response Framework umbrella, attempts to educate the public on how to best cope with increasingly difficult conditions.
Re-making history with 3D technology
Students at Northern Illinois University’s Maker Space have made history, or rather, re-made history.
Using 3D printing, Mechanical Engineering students Matt McCoy of Downers Grove, Todd Durham of Genoa, and graduate Thomas Corbett of Genoa, partnered with the McHenry County Historical Society to design and print missing parts from artifacts in the historical society museum’s collection.
Heritage Fair Car Show
Thanks to all who participated in the annual Heritage Fair Car Show, sponsored by Intren and TCF Bank of Huntley. The Best of Show winner was Bob Thomson of Woodstock, recognized for his 1969 Pontiac Firebird. The People's Choice winner was Dennis Doerge of Huntley. He was recognized for his mint 1949 Buick Super Convertible.
Thomson said he has been building hot rods out of the garage since he was 15 years old. His attention turned to high-performance boats and motorcycles for awhile, before returning to cars.
Let's be civil when it comes to the Civil War
It was never a problem when Civil War Days began in the 1990s, but apparently safety moved front and center this year with officials predicting dire conditions should the Union blue and Confederate gray square off on the verdant fields of Lakewood Forest Preserve.
Color me skeptical.
The Lake County Forest Preserve Board announced last week that it is canceling the popular event, which draws in excess of 3,000 people, slated for July 13 and 14.
Sweet history something to savor
Cutline:
“I’ve been working here at least 25 years,” Katie Anderson-Tedder said. “You don’t ever sit down. We change the light bulbs and mop the floors, too. … I look at my daughter, Georgia, who is 10 months old, and wonder if she will be a part of this. Will her kids be a part of this?”
Anderson’s Candy Shop always has been a family affair – even before Arthur and Gertrude Anderson relocated their business from Chicago to Richmond in 1926.
Perkins Players transported visitors back a century
About 50 people returned to 1919 on June 5 and and join GOP powerbroker Vince Lumley, then McHenry County State’s Attorney, as he took the community’s pulse … and tried to decipher why it was racing!
WOODSTOCK – The domestic turmoil gripping McHenry County and the rest of the country in 1919 were eerily similar to what we are experiencing today.
After failing to win what it considered a “just peace,” the U.S. embraced isolationism, a policy incoming President Warren Harding dubbed “normalcy.”
Trains brought “our boys” home, could be on track to take you places
Cutline: The parade on June 10, 1919, in honor of Company G troops returning from the Great War, drew a crowd of more than 15,000 to the Woodstock Square.
The Midwest High Speed Rail Association is advocating for a “fast-track initiative” that would create a network of reliable passenger trains branching out from Chicago. It estimates that $233 million will be needed to extend service through Elgin and Huntley to Rockford by rebuilding the Union Pacific tracks and connecting it with the Metra Milwaukee West tracks at the Big Timber Road station.
Citizens court a courthouse for posterity
Perhaps there’s just something about courthouses in this county.
Woodstock, with the help of McHenry City Administrator Derik Morefield, saved the 1857 McHenry County Courthouse and adjacent 1887 sheriff’s house in 2011 – pulling this iconic structure off the scrapheap and preserving it for future generations.
And now the county’s first courthouse, once located on another square in yet another town, could be endangered. And, ironically, Morefield could play a pivotal role in saving that building, as well.
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