Hidden Gem - Algonquin/LITH: Historic building houses history
By JENN WIANT – jwiant@nwherald.com
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| Johanna Copel files through old newspaper clippings as Jeff Jolitz, Chairman of the Algonqion Historical Commission, flips through old photos at Algonquin's Historic Village Hall. The Historical Commission has been working for 12 years collecting everything and anything related to Algonquin. (Lauren M. Anderson – landerson@nwherald.com) |
ALGONQUIN – It sits on one of the busiest corners in McHenry County, but not many people know much about what’s inside Algonquin’s Historic Village Hall.
The two-story, 101-year-old building on the southwest corner of Routes 31 and 62 is historically significant on its own, but the photos, letters, maps and other memorabilia that fill file drawers and closet shelves on the building’s second floor represent firsthand evidence of more than a century of Algonquin’s history.
“We’ve got a lot of untapped jewels,” said Jeff Jolitz, president of the Algonquin Historic Commission, which collects, organizes and maintains the historic items.
“We have more on Algonquin State Bank history than the bank has.”
Historic Village Hall, as suggested by its name, was Algonquin’s Village Hall for almost 90 years. When the village offices moved in 1996 to Village Hall’s current location at 2200 Harnish Drive, Historic Village Hall remained a public space. Besides being a site for everything from community meetings and weddings to dance classes, the building is home to a vast collection of Algonquin’s history.
The second floor, which used to be the village library and staff offices, now is the home of the Algonquin Historic Commission. Two Saturdays a month, commission members and volunteers gather for a few hours to collect and sort newspaper clippings, organize obituaries, refurbish old maps, catalog donated photos and memorabilia, and interview longtime Algonquin residents.
On one recent Saturday, volunteers Johanna Copel and Connie Jacobsen were filing newspaper clippings and obituaries, Jim Compton was patching up an old map using archival tape, Commissioner Don Purn was demonstrating how to search for people and other topics in the commission’s online database, and Commissioner Louise Nee was going through a box of items donated by a local woman. Nee pulled out each item – a World War II Red Cross uniform, a scrapbook, dance cards, and a program from a 1928 graduation – and wrote descriptions of them in a book cataloging all items in the commission’s possession.
Sometimes residents, tourists or school groups come to the workshops to look up information about their ancestors. They can look up their grandparents’ grades in old school records, search old phone books to find out where a relative lived, or browse through a book that tells them the history of their own house in Algonquin’s old town area.
The Historic Commission started 12 years ago as an ad hoc committee appointed to write a history of the village for Algonquin’s comprehensive plan, Jolitz said.
“There was so much interest in what we were doing ... that the village realized the need for an ongoing historic group,” he said.
The seven-person commission takes groups on walking tours of downtown Algonquin, talks to school classes and local organizations about particular aspects of the town’s history, helps Scouts earn local history merit badges, and puts on community events including an annual cemetery walk.
“For a small group, we’ve got a full plate,” Jolitz said.
For all the history it contains, Historic Village Hall itself also is historically important. Constructed in 1907, the building is an example of the Midwestern Prairie architecture introduced by architect Frank Lloyd Wright, according to Historic Commission documents. Architect W.W. Abell designed and constructed the building for $6,848.
Since its construction, the building has served as the home of village offices, a police station and jail, a public library, an elementary school, and a fire station. The three windows on the first floor that face Main Street used to be three garage doors for firetrucks. Today, young girls practice ballet where the firetrucks formerly parked.
The building and its photos, letters, phone books, school records, audio recordings and memorabilia together make up Algonquin’s history. Part of the Historic Commission’s goal is to make residents more aware of that history, Purn said.
“So when people go by this place, they’ll think of it as more than just an old building,” he said.
