Back in 1858, someone bothered to take a photography of the spanking-new McHenry County, Illinois, courthouse – and what a bother it must have been, considering the state of camera tech at the time. Then again, it wasn’t like the photographer had to tell the building to be still.
Here in 2026, point and shoot.
The design of John Mills Van Osdel (d. 1891), described by Wiki as the first Chicago architect. Is that so, I wondered? Whatever I’d read about him – and I did a fair amount of reading about Chicago history when I lived in the city for the first time – had long since evaporated. Biographical Sketches of the Leading Men in Chicago, Photographically Illustrated by John Carbutt (1868) tells the Van Osdel story, and quite a story it is.
The first mayor of Chicago, William Ogden, hired him to build structures in the infant metropolis, and soon Van Osdel was designing them, too. This was back in the days when someone could learn to build buildings from a builder father and later reinvent himself as an autodidact architect, with all sorts of 19th-century ups and downs along the way.
Next door, a smaller building, but also handsome.
Formerly where the McHenry County sheriff lived, with a jail in the basement. Now home to KellerHaus, a local brewery and restaurant.
County government moved out of the building more than 50 years ago, to someplace less aesthetic but not too bad. Later, Woodstock Square (my guess would be late 19th century) took its present form, a green crossed by sidewalks.
The park is home to a gazebo. And a bandstand. Or two gazebos or two bandstands. Authorities disagree about which is which, and entire academic careers have been staked on determining the difference. Or not, I made that up.
A memorial to the men in blue from McHenry County, erected in the “We’d better get moving on this” year of 1911.
Woodstock Square is ringed – squared – by some handsome commercial structures of pre-Great War vintage, mostly.
Including a fair amount of boutique-ification.
Which makes for some colorful spots.
Smaller, but adding just as much to the character of the square.
We had lunch on the square. At a diner along traditional lines, and tastier for it.
Afterward, the square told us the time.
Note that Bill Murray isn’t trapped in this clock face. Tying in with the movie is only going to go so far.
Thunderstorms rolled through much of the last day of August, but not consistently – the sun would be out for a while, then a new one would rumble through, with heavy downpours for a quarter hour and then gone – as if to remind us who live on the ground that it’s been an intermittently wet summer. Which is going away now. Summer is, that is. We’ll see about the wetness.
The Woodstock Opera House sent me down a peculiar rabbit hole today. Just who, I wondered, was Patti Rosa? But first, some views of the structure, completed in 1890 and a grand artifact from the period, designed by Elgin architect Smith Hoag, but built by local contractor Simon Brink.
“The year was 1888 and [Woodstock] Alderman WW. Cook made the motion to purchase a lot on the downtown square in Woodstock, which had remained vacant since a fire in 1871,” according to the modern City of Woodstock web site. “Having grown tired of holding council meetings in a local attic, the proposal was to build a City Hall worthy of the town and its citizens. However, when put to a vote the motion came to a tie and it rested on Mayor Merritt Joslyn to cast the deciding vote. Of course he voted in the affirmative…”
“…on September 4, 1890 the grand opening was held with the Patti Rosa Player’s performance of Margery Daw.
“Throughout the next few decades the building functioned as the center of activity for Woodstock and McHenry County. The City offices, library, police and fire department occupied the first floor of the building and the Opera House was contained in the second and third floors. With a capacity of almost 700 movable seats, the Opera House functioned as a public space for a variety of activities including, theatrical events, concerts, weddings, dances, wrestling matches, the annual strawberry festival and graduation commencements to name a few.”
In more recent years, the place has been a venue for live entertainment. I’ve seen a number of performances myself there over the years, such as Al Stewart in 2012.
I was glad to see a portrait of Mayor Joslyn in the lobby of the opera house. Without him, it might not exist at all, or in some other, less elegant form. (I removed the glare from the image below.)
The theater puts its greatest hits on a plaque.
But not Patti Rosa. Who would expect that? First is only first and that was probably by chance. Information about Patti Rosa is slender, at least to a not-rigorous amount of Googling. But there is some, such as a review of one of her shows in London.
Patti Rosa at the Jodrell Theatre, London, January 1889:
Patti Rosa, after much preliminary puffing, and accompanied by a newspaper called the Patti Rosa Illustrated News, of which copies were given away on the first night, has made her appearance at the hitherto unlucky Jodrell. Bob, the hotchpotch she appears in, is not a remarkable work of dramatic art; but it is a filling vehicle for the eccentricities, peculiarities, and whimsicalities of the fair and plump Patti, who sings, dances, coquettes, and banjoes her way into the good graces of a few easily-pleased Americans. In her line of business she is, however, what is called ”clever.”’
Some images. All public domain, nicked from various places online.
This one, a faded relic in the most literal sense.
I’ll give it a little revival.
Another fuzzy image of yore.
Looks like a minor hallucination in making this, but I doubt that Patti would have minded.
Patti Rosa’s heyday, and she did seem to have a heyday around the time of Benjamin Harrison’s administration, didn’t last, not even into the 20th century.
‘NEW YORK, Aug 6. Patti Rosa, a well known soubrette, died at St. Francis hospital from the affects [sic] of an operation performed for appendicitis. She was the wife of [the actor manager] John W. Dunne.’ (The Trenton Times, 6 August 1894, p. 8b)
Well, that’s too bad. Otherwise she might have lived long enough to be an equally forgotten silent screen comedienne.
At this point, there are a number of rabbit sub-holes, or maybe informational tunnels, to wander. I decided not to.
Such as what a soubrette is, or was, and how that particular stock character, or in this case, a kind of shtick, faded from common awareness. Or did it morph into something like the manic pixie dream girl? I’m couldn’t say.
Or the play Margery Daw, which was probably a high-jinks version of an equally obscure short story by one Thomas Bailey Aldrich.
Or whether there is a copy of Patti Rosa Illustrated News anywhere in the world, or whether it’s a lost as Genghis Khan’s tomb, except that no one cares.
Or what was it that made the Jodrell Theatre “unlucky”?
Or the song “Shootin’ Craps.” There’s a revival for that song in the right musical hands.
Or the play Mizpah, or its author, one Con. T. Murphy, Esq. Forgotten, and probably with reason.
In downtown Park Ridge, Illinois, the Chicagoland grid, which isn’t quite uniform even in the city, breaks down just a little. A cluster of streets, and the commuter rail line, meet at the partial junction of Touhy, the Northwest Highway, Summit and South Prospect Avenues.
The downtown, which is about 15 miles northwest of the Loop, draws a fair number of visitors on a summer Saturday. Parking was tight, but I managed to shoehorn my car into a space at the library. The library building was dedicated in 1957, back when these kinds of rhetorical flourishes still made their way onto bronze plaques.
Close to the immortal words of Emil Faber, “Knowledge is Good.”
South Prospect has a row of handsome small buildings.
But none to compare with the Pickwick Theatre.
“Designed by the firm of Zook & McCaughey, the 1,500-seat, Pickwick Theatre opened November 26, 1928 with Colleen Moore in Lilac Time plus vaudeville acts on the stage,” Cinema Treasures notes. “It was equipped with a Virtuoso organ which was opened by organist Walter Flandorf.”
In as much as they are known any more, Zook & McCaughey are known for the deco Pickwick. The architects’ rendering, in the public domain, is borrowed from the blog Corridors, which looks to be a real treasure trove of the built environment.
I had somewhere else to be, namely lunch at the Harp & Fiddle across the tracks, or I might have taken in a movie in the historic auditorium, which now seats 1,000, because I never have. But I did have time later to play with one of my images of the Pickwick (the first one, above).
Prompt: Art deco illustration style.
Prompt: 1920s commercial art style.
I like that second one especially. There’s no doubt that it’s AI, but it hews to my goal of not being slop. The cars — a little stilted, but that’s AI for you — are from the 1920s, but the movies are still from the 2020s.
Toward the western end of Army Trail Road here in the suburbs – where the territory is almost exurban – a handsome church caught my attention not long ago. Traffic was sparse, so pulling off the road and then taking a look on foot was a reasonable option.
Little Home Church by the Wayside, a United Church of Christ congregation. Closed, unfortunately.
Without realizing it, I’d arrived in Wayne, Illinois. I drive Army Trail Road a lot, but mainly its eastern reaches, an arterial thick with retail in suburbs like Bloomington, Glendale Heights, and Carol Stream. I had a social event to go to late last month, and since it was Saturday, I allowed myself a little extra time to do a spontaneous drive, such as follow Army Trail as far west as it goes, to see what I could see. Such as Wayne, a place I barely knew as a spot on maps.
Army Trail passes right through “downtown” Wayne. It isn’t very large, but it has a few good-looking buildings besides the church.
A bicentennial stone.
A nonfunctioning, yet well restored, train station. Nonfunctioning in the sense that trains don’t stop there anymore, but apparently events are held at the building. If I were going to throw a hootenanny or a shindig or a hoedown, I might consider renting it.
Provided local codes allow such noisy festivities.
Wayne, I later discovered, is a low-density suburb: a sizable 5.8 square miles with a population of not quite 2,300. As such, I imagine there are a fair number of rules to enforce the quiet and semi-rural character. Zoning keeps lots large, four acres or more, which functions to make the town the province of those who can afford it, but there’s also a lot of open land. Such as the Dunham Forest Preserve.
Open to all, but the day I visited, near it was north of 90 degrees F. and, true to the prairie nature of parts of Illinois, little shade was to be seen. Taking pictures around downtown and the former station was sweaty enough.
We’ve heard of one-horse towns, though the metaphor long ago became fossilized. Wayne, it turns out, is a many-horse town, the legacy of a major horse-breeding operation in the 19th century.
“By 1865, Mark W. Dunham… had begun breeding and selling prize Percheron horses which he originally imported from France,” the Village of Wayne says. “By 1883 he had over 1,300 mares and stallions grazing on 1,700 acres of land known as Oaklawn Farm. His residence, Oaklawn, now popularly known as ‘Dunham Castle,’ was also constructed as part of the farm, and the red brick building which had been the Dunham home (now the Dunham Woods Riding Club) was converted into offices for the farm and guest rooms for visiting horse buyers.
In 1893, Oaklawn Farm was accorded the honor of serving as one of the agricultural displays for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and visitors traveled Wayne Road from Wayne Station out to the Broad expanse. The old railroad station still exists and has been returned to its original site in the Village Center. By 1905, Oaklawn Farm produced more Percheron horses for American and European buyers than the next eight establishments combined.”
The market for Percheron work horses isn’t what it used to be, but Wayne’s open spaces and many trails – pretty much invisible when you’re driving through – accommodate a good many horses even now, according to the village: “[Wayne] is one of the few communities in northeastern Illinois that provides and encourages equestrian uses and facilities.”
US 20, according to the Federal Highway Administration, is the longest road in the country. That wasn’t the case in 1925 when the US highway system was created; it was number two at that time. Various adjustments afterward (told in highway-nerd detail on the FHA’s Highway History page) made it so by 1963.
“US 20 is 3,365 miles long, according to the 1989 log,” the site notes. “The route begins in Boston at a junction with Massachusetts Route 2 and ends in Newport, Oregon, at a junction with US 101. Because U.S. numbered highways are not designated with[in] National Parks, US 20 is divided into an East Section ending at the eastern entrance to Yellowstone National Park and a West Section beginning at the west entrance to the park.”
In Illinois, the highway is also the General Ulysses S. Grant Memorial Highway.
When time isn’t an issue, US 20 is my preferred route westward toward Rockford and, for an ambitious intrastate drive, Galena. Last month, it was our preferred route most of the way to Union, Illinois, to visit the Illinois RR Museum. On the way back, we stopped briefly in Marengo, which is one of the many towns along those 3,365 miles.
A modest downtown, but at pop. 7,500 or so, it doesn’t need to be anything else.
A run of buildings from the late 19th century, along Main St. Such as the current home to the Marengo Emporium, closed that late Saturday afternoon, in spite of what a red neon OPEN sign said.
The Marengo Union Chamber of Commerce notes that the building, dating from 1875, housed the first bank in McHenry County in its early years. “In the later years, Swonguer Furniture & Undertakers, Marengo Farm Store, Vidiots, Wholly Smokes and State Street Pub occupied the building but perhaps [it’s] best known for housing the Marie Ann Dress Shop,” the C of C says.
Swonguer Furniture & Undertakers. Not as odd as it might sound and, apparently, a known combination in a number of places more than a century ago. After all, how different is making pine boxes from making pine tables and chairs, at least for a skilled wood worker? Also, it explains this trace of the former furniture and undertaker establishment, in the form of abandoned commercial mosaic text.
Other buildings on the street.
There’s been a fair amount of re-bricking and other construction over the years on that last one. The building looks like it was assembled Frankenstein-style, though I’m sure it wasn’t. The corrugated metal awnings look a little out of place, but I suppose it was an economical addition. To one side, an unusual ghost sign.
First Presbyterian, a block from Main.
An 1898 rebuilding of a previous church. Naturally McHenry County says: “The architects, Tumbull and Jones of Elgin borrowed elements from various Romantic styles when they designed this church. Foremost is the Moorish-style square bell tower.”
I’ll say. How often does one encounter Moorish-style square bell towers here in the heart of North America? Maybe more often than I know, but I figure no one’s done a census.
Not far from downtown is East St., which takes you to the City of Marengo Cemetery. Cubs pitcher Lundy Lundgren (d. 1934) is buried there; I saw his marker across the street during a previous visit to Marengo. This time, I took a look at the older section of the cemetery.
I suspect there are more burials than stones, but in any case, the stones are worn.
In some cases, propped up by metal structures.
As usual for any cemetery, there are stones that hint at sad stories of extinguished youth.
Six years, three months and 24 days. Whatever else you can say about being old — and I’m at that point — you can be sure you aren’t going to die young.
I don’t know about anyone else, but when I see something like this, I’m intrigued. The Geneva Grotto, you say?
Barring an obvious hazard – and there weren’t any, unless you count the possibility of mosquitoes carrying some disease yet unknown to science – that’s the kind of thing that bears further investigation. So toward the end of our most recent visit to Geneva, Illinois, we followed the sign, which is next to a parking lot in the Gunnar Anderson Forest Preserve on the Fox River, behind the Kane County Government Center.
The tracks lead to a smaller trail into the forest, along a small, rocky creek that feeds into the Fox.
So small it isn’t acknowledged on Google Maps. The place felt a little remote, but of course it isn’t. At various points along the way, houses just outside the forest preserve are visible. Also, it doesn’t take long to get to the promised destination: less than five minutes. Bold exploration, this was not. More like seeking out the obscure, which I have a certain knack for.
When we arrived, the grotto stood in the forest, and under a tarp.
Restoration is under way. Wanker vandals damaged the place in recent decades, I understand, so a camera now watches.
When I see that kind of setup, I’m reminded I’m reminded of the opening lines of “Soldier of Plenty” by Jackson Browne (1986).
God is great, God is good He guards your neighborhood Though it’s generally understood Not quite the way you would
So while the grotto might be obscure, it isn’t unknown. In fact, it has its own web site. Or rather, the volunteers overseeing the restoration do.
“Built in the 1930s when the property was owned by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart [MSC], the outdoor chapel is an imposing stone structure,” the site says. “A German priest [Bro. Driesch] built the shrine, using rocks and colored glass from the local river beds to create the small chapel-like structure.”
We got as close as we could without stepping on the stone floor of the grotto, since a sign further warned us that that would hinder the restoration. Close enough that some of the interior mosaics were visible.
The land ultimately proved so valuable that the MSCs sold it in the early ’70s and moved on. But the grotto, with the help of restoration, endures.
In the near quarter-century I’ve lived on my street, this was the first orange warning sign ever posted directly in front of my house.
Indicating a flagman ahead, of course, but if you squint, the figure is holding a book to read, with a flagpole and flag attached to his back. It could be done; some kind of harness and a light-weight aluminum pole or the like.
***
How big does a building need to be hulking? No doubt context is important. I’d say that in the context of Third Street in Geneva, Illinois, the Kane County Courthouse is a hulking presence, though its hulk is softened by being set back from the street, and by grounds marked by large trees.
To get a full appreciation of the massed brickwork, head around the building for a more open view.
The area didn’t used to be open. The county jail — back when jails were jails and not correctional facilities – used to be there, built at the same time as the courthouse, in 1892. It didn’t last to the present.
“The Kane County Board commissioned Chicago architects W. J. Edbrooke and Franklin P. Burnham to create the impressive courthouse and accompanying jail — a testament to the county’s commitment to functionality and architectural excellence,” notes Kane County Connects.
“At the time, the jail was described as ‘the best building, most complete and convenient jail building and sheriff’s residence in the state of Illinois,’ according to an article in The Republican. The same article optimistically noted that any prisoners locked in the new jail would remain there as needed.
“However, just six weeks later, three prisoners escaped. That week’s Republican article began, ‘It is rather a bad start for Kane County’s new jail to have an escape in the first month of its occupancy.’
“By the 1970s, the 1892 facility was deemed ‘totally inadequate’ and in ‘deplorable condition’… The building was ultimately demolished in 1975.”
Be that as it may, there’s no doubt about where you are these days if you find yourself near the courthouse.
I went through the minor rigmarole (empty pockets, put everything in tray, walk through metal detector) for a look at the vaulting interior, designed in the days before air conditioning. Also, back when county budgets allowed for fine ironwork.
Not long ago, I was reminded that I need to acquire at least one pink flamingo for the deck, since the previous one — a dollar-store purchase when $1 was still the usual price — had fallen to pieces after repeated summers and winters. I was reminded because I saw some out in the wild.
We’d parked on Hamilton St. in Geneva, Illinois, a street distinctive for its plantings on the odd land shapes created by the various angled meetings of streets, parking lots and sidewalks.
Other examples, among a number on the street.
Nice. I suspect volunteer planting and maintenance, but that’s only a hunch. A nice scattering of greenery in a hard-surface context regardless.
Or they might represent a city-sponsored activity, since greenery is an important aspect of the grounds around the 1913-vintage Geneva City Hall.
Going for that prairie look, and not the kind attributed to FLW, but actual grass prairie.
A little more municipal whimsy.
Not far from City Hall is a handsome brick building with “Sjodin Est 1961” on a lunette on top and a smaller stone plaque over the door that says “L. Warber 1928.” Sjodin must be an early version of Shodeen, the residential developer that occupies the building.
On the same street is Creative Sewing & Quilting, a sizable shop devoted to the sewing arts. Yuriko was keen to spend a while there, and as I prepared to continue my stroll, I noticed the shop’s collection of antique sewing machines.
Everyone knows Singer, but there were also other brands.
All news to me, since it’s an industry I know little about. But I know this: without sewing machines, in the days of hand-stitched clothes, I’d probably only have one set of workday clothes and one of Sunday clothes, which would be the case for most people.
Even modest buildings have a history. Or point to a history.
Just not much visible history in this case. Yet under this building in downtown Glen Ellyn, Illinois – in the Glen Ellyn Downtown North Historic District – is the main creek that used to pass through the village. Indian Creek, flowing for about 100 years now through an underground manmade channel. Civil engineers were busy in the 1920s.
An article published in 2023, “The Creeks of Old Glen Ellyn, Part 1” by Robert Elliot, offers a bit of detail: “Though we do not know exactly when, the creeks which flowed through old Glen Ellyn were slowly moved underground. Indian Creek appears to have remained above ground for a long time, although it too eventually fell victim to development. Although the exact year remains unknown, it appears that Indian Creek was mostly moved underground in 1922, when a dry goods store was constructed where it used to flow under Main Street. Today, Oak & Steel occupies the same location.”
Glen Ellyn was once marked by open creeks and small ravines and other irregularities, much like the rest of Du Page County. Like in much of the rest of the county, or the nation for that matter, that wasn’t consistent with modern suburbia, so the terrain was modified – in the same spirit as controlling the Mississippi or digging the Panama Canal, if not the gargantuan scale.
The 1920s also saw brisk commercial development near the Glen Ellyn interurban station, and it is these buildings that make up much of the historic district today. Such as a bank building, a sturdy-looking edifice built to re-assure in the days before the FDIC. Sturdy and elegant, I have to add.
The Glen Art Theatre. A spot to take in a motion picture, now as then.
“The Glen Theatre, formerly a single screen theatre, opened in February 1927,” says Cinema Treasures. “It was designed in the Tudor Revival style, along with the storefronts on either side of the three-story building. The architect was William B. Betts of Park Ridge, IL, who also designed a number of other movie theaters in the Chicago suburbs. Originally, the Glen Theatre not only featured motion pictures, but live stage acts, as well, and contained a Barton organ.”
Other historic district structures.
The site of the interurban line station. These days, it includes 2 Toots, a restaurant that delivers your burger and fries by model train.
I didn’t confine my peregrinations to the historic district, mainly because I didn’t know about it until later.
Just outside the district, a couple of churches.
More apartments up/retail down structures.
The Village Office, looking a little New Englandish.
The interurban line that once came through Glen Ellyn, the Chicago, Aurora and Elgin Electric (CA&E), is long gone, as they all are. But it left a legacy, namely the Main Stem of the Illinois Prairie Path.
Worth a short walk or a long one. Traversing Du Page County is possible on its 61-mile network. During my recent visits, I walked maybe 1 percent of that distance, but I’m considering other segments.
Just before noon yesterday, the clouds opened up and dumped rain and small bits of hail on my part of the world. One of those short, sudden downpours of summer. By this morning, the deck had dried out enough for me to do what I often do there, have breakfast and engage in some loafing.
Another summer note: in the evenings, crickets have received their chirping orders. For a few nights, only one or two bothered, on and off as the cicadas faded for the day. Now strong cricket choruses sound off by night. An excellent sound to fall asleep to.
Doesn’t this sound grand: a few weeks ago I attended a social event on the North Shore. But it wasn’t grand, not in the sense of a palatial setting. But it was at one of the many pleasant middle-class neighborhoods of the area whose real estate valuations lifted stratospherically in recent decades.
Driving all the way to the shore of Lake Michigan means passing through some thick traffic, so to my way of thinking, that also means you should go a few hours early for a look around parts of the North Shore, that narrow but long strip from Evanston to some point in Lake County to the north.
Drive up that way and you might find yourself at Lake Forest Cemetery. At the entrance gate.
Who’s waiting there, as part of the iron gate? St. Peter. Usually he has keys, but I suppose he’s holding the book he consults at the Pearly Gates.
Among the grand old rural cemeteries of metro Chicago, Lake Forest is one of the smaller ones, at 15 acres. Due to its lush landscaping, however, it seems bigger.
It too has a rural cemetery pedigree, selected as a cemetery site in 1857, coinciding with the founding of the town of Lake Forest.
“The site… selected contained the characteristics appropriate for a design in the naturalistic style,” according to a detailed history of the property at the National Registry of Historic Places. “It had topography with gently rolling changes in grade, ravines that added a rugged dimension, and a vista toward the lake.”
But some decades passed before its roads and landscaping were in place. William Le Baron Jenney (d. 1907), who designed the first fully metal-framed building – the Home Insurance Building in Chicago, the first skyscraper – did the roads and some other features in 1882 (not long before Home Insurance).
“In 1900, Ossian Cole Simonds [d. 1931] was selected to develop the site further and is responsible for its design in the Prairie Style. He perfected its beautiful graded surface, its broad open spaces, and its simple groups of trees, often with branches sweeping to the ground…
“Whereas the site had previously been open like a park, he enclosed the property with plantings, providing a feeling of privacy for the bereaved. The location of the cemetery on the bluff above the lake and surrounded by ravines provided a natural setting for quiet meditation that he emphasized through plantings. Unlike other cemetery sites that have been overtaken by urbanization, Lake Forest Cemetery still retains the character that Simonds emphasized through his plantings.”
I’ve happened across some of Simonds’ other work — Lincoln Park, but also Library Park in Kenosha.
Like any good cemetery, there’s a mix of memorials. Considering the decades of affluence on the North Shore, no shortage of sizable mausoleums.
More modest stones, but certainly weighty. Physically, but also emotionally for the bereaved.
More artful stones.
Not much Egyptian Revival that I saw, but there was a little.
The aforementioned sun dial memorial.
I liked this small section: unkempt on purpose, I think.
Lake Forest’s landscaping is meticulous otherwise, so that seems more reasonable that an omission by the groundskeepers.
