Pat Kerin's Crystal Lake History

Picture it. Drive through McHenry County. Tour Crystal Lake and picture the 1830's when the land was heavily forested and the Indians traveled up and down what is now Highway 14. Beman and Polly Crandall came here, saw the lake, and, like many of us who live here today, couldn't resist its beauty. On February 18, 1836, Polly and her husband built a log cabin, moved their 6 children in and stayed to have four more kids, and a simple, happy life. Their homesite was at the intersection of Van Buren and Virginia.

Two years earlier, Sam and Margaret Gillilan built a cabin in Algonquin, and became the first settlers in McHenry County. One year after Polly and Beman came here, William McCullom pitched a tent on the west shore of a pretty lake in McHenry. He and his wife Catherine homesteaded there, and the lake became McCullom's Lake. There were Europeans here as early as 1817, but these folks came to stay, and McHenry County, now 612 square miles, was born. By the mid 1800's it was a booming county of about 3,000 residents.

Crystal Lake was the county's first town, and 1300 acres south of Crystal Lake Avenue was incorporated as a village in 1874, a year before Chicago received its city charter. The first business district was about where the Dole Mansion now stands. It consisted of a general store, a wagon shop, a shoe store, a blacksmith shop, and a stage coach stop tavern on Virgina Avenue. The north side of town was another small village known as Nunda (pronounced "Nun-Day"). Later, in 1914, the two towns merged, and Crystal Lake, then a city, extended from the lake to the Fox River.

Early industries here included a saw mill on the lake, a flour mill, the largest pickle factory in the United States (Crystal Lake Pickling and Canning Company). There was also a carding mill, a butter factory and a cheese factory. While early settlers had attempted to make a living by farming wheat, they later decided the market place and the soil would support dairy farming more lucratively. One other main industry was ice cutting on the lake to supply Chicago residents with refrigeration. And so a city's economy was developed, and grew and thrived.

Most of the original migrant families came from Sweden, Germany, and New England. In fact, the northwest corner of town...north of Woodstock Street, was called Swedenberg until the 1930's. Crystal Lake grew and developed because of the railroad connecting it to the Chicago route. Other county communities, like Barreville failed because they were not aligned with the railroad.

Our fair city became, in the early part of this century, a resort area for well-to-do families. Cottages and summer estates grew up all over town until the post World War II housing boom brought large numbers of permanent residents here.

Some Firsts

In 1825, Ziba Beardsley, relative of Hannah Beardsley (the city's first teacher, and the first woman to get married in McHenry County) observed that the lake was as "clear as a crystal" and so it was named.

The first church was built in 1843 by the Baptists, but the entire county has always had a proliferation of religious groups.

The first school was on the site of Crystal Lake Central High School, and was built in 1838.

The first private school was Crystal Lake Academy, 1850.

The first railroad was the Fox River Valley Railroad. Our city's diagonal streets were laid out to accommodate this railroad's configuration.

In 1884, the first sidewalks were installed after much debate about materials. They were wooden, as were the storm sewers on North Williams Street. (these wooden pipes were discovered less than ten years ago when Williams Street was reconstructed from the bottom up.)

Posted speed limits began with 8 mph in 1910, and motorists had to give way for horses, if their autos frightened the animals.

The first telephone exchange was installed in 1899. It had 11 users. Currently, Ameritech, Northern Illinois Gas and Commonwealth Edison supply utilities to some 200,000 users in McHenry County.

And one more interesting fact. The bones of a woolly mammoth, or prehistoric mastadon were dug up on the Fichen farm, on Hillside Avenue, in 1953. The event was reported in all the area press, and in Earth Science Magazine.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the Crystal Lake Public Library's Genealogy section. Their collection of local pamphlets, documents and news articles were used to put this brief history together.

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