McHenry County Blog

Crystal Lake Jaycees post sign warning of Sunday morning race across from West Beach in Lakewood.

People who drive south of Crystal Lake will have traffic problems from 6:30-8:30 on Sunday morning.

People on foot will be using this route.

Traffic will probably be especially heavy near the Dole Mansion.

It’s the 3rd annual Run and Roll for the Dole.

Running and cycling.

The cycling route.

The race ends at Fall Fest with live music, seasonal beer and food and NFL game watching under heated tents.

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum will be in the parking lot at the Dole Mansion across from Crystal Lake’s Main Beach.

It will be there all day today and Sunday morning in conjunction with Saturday night’s Lincoln 200th Birthday Dinner.

The mobile exhibit tells the story of Lincoln’s life and accomplishments. The only exhibit of its type in the country, the mobile museum uses an engaging mixture of interactive elements, graphics, facsimile documents and artifacts showcased inside a 53-foot long, double expandable trailer to commemorate the Lincoln Bicentennial.

The title of the exhibit is “Abraham Lincoln: Self-Made in America.”

The highlight for many is a visual recreation of Lincoln’s 1861 Farewell Address from a train car in Springfield as he left for the White House, plus the award-winning “The Civil War in Four Minutes” video presentation.

It’s free and you can take pictures.

= = = = =
You can see the Dole Mansion on top. The log cabin reconstruction with a youngish Lincoln sitting in front is at the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum in Springfield.

I would strongly encourage you to visit it, although my son would recommend the natural history part of the free admission Illinois State Museum.

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum will be in the parking lot at the Dole Mansion across from Crystal Lake’s Main Beach.

It will be there all day today and Sunday morning in conjunction with Saturday night’s Lincoln 200th Birthday Dinner.

The mobile exhibit tells the story of Lincoln’s life and accomplishments. The only exhibit of its type in the country, the mobile museum uses an engaging mixture of interactive elements, graphics, facsimile documents and artifacts showcased inside a 53-foot long, double expandable trailer to commemorate the Lincoln Bicentennial.

The title of the exhibit is “Abraham Lincoln: Self-Made in America.”

The highlight for many is a visual recreation of Lincoln’s 1861 Farewell Address from a train car in Springfield as he left for the White House, plus the award-winning “The Civil War in Four Minutes” video presentation.

It’s free and you can take pictures.

= = = = =
You can see the Dole Mansion on top. The log cabin reconstruction with a youngish Lincoln sitting in front is at the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum in Springfield.

I would strongly encourage you to visit it, although my son would recommend the natural history part of the free admission Illinois State Museum.

The residential alcoholic recovery organization called Last Chance House Last Chance House Holding 2nd Pig Roast is holding its second pig roast on Sunday. (Click to enlarge the announcement.)

After what happened last year when Italian sausage, stuffed in the Fred Pig’s belly, ignited resulting in a mid- morning response by Crystal Lake Fire Department, I’m a bit amazed at the group’s courage to try again. (If you haven’t read the story about last year’s event, let me tell you that it was one of the stories that was most fun to write.)

But, practice makes perfect.

The event will be held at the Dole Mansion Sunday, September 14th, from noon to 5 PM. The Dole Mansion is located across from (southeast of) the Crystal Lake Park District’s Main Beach.

The price is $10. 12 and under are free.

Classic rock will be played by Second Time Around. This is the same band that played last year.

I enjoyed their music.

With all the talk about putting lipstick on pigs, I would imagine this pig will not need any to taste really good.

You will notice, if you click on the poster to enlarge it, that this pig roast may not have a whole pig as was the intention last year.

The residential alcoholic recovery organization called Last Chance House Last Chance House Holding 2nd Pig Roast is holding its second pig roast on Sunday. (Click to enlarge the announcement.)

After what happened last year when Italian sausage, stuffed in the Fred Pig’s belly, ignited resulting in a mid- morning response by Crystal Lake Fire Department, I’m a bit amazed at the group’s courage to try again. (If you haven’t read the story about last year’s event, let me tell you that it was one of the stories that was most fun to write.)

But, practice makes perfect.

The event will be held at the Dole Mansion Sunday, September 14th, from noon to 5 PM. The Dole Mansion is located across from (southeast of) the Crystal Lake Park District’s Main Beach.

The price is $10. 12 and under are free.

Classic rock will be played by Second Time Around. This is the same band that played last year.

I enjoyed their music.

With all the talk about putting lipstick on pigs, I would imagine this pig will not need any to taste really good.

You will notice, if you click on the poster to enlarge it, that this pig roast may not have a whole pig as was the intention last year.

All the old mansion attention in Crystal Lake has been paid to the Charles S. Dole Mansion overlooking Crystal Lake.

Alright. It’s big. It has this great story about a railroad track being laid up Dole Avenue to bring guests to his daughter’s 1883 wedding.

But Dole was just a grain elevator robber baron, wasn’t he?

And he moved out of Illinois.

Almost next door, a legendary Republican Party crook built a summer “cottage.”

Well, it’s more like a mansion.

It’s the white house at the corner of Lake Avenue and Country Club Drive. It’s built out of the same small concrete blocks with which the home my family rented at 800 Broadway was constructed.

So, who was this Republican crook?

Never heard of him?

You’re in good company.

He was the last senator elected by a vote of Illinois General Assembly.

And, in true Illinois fashion, he got to Washington through bribery.

And, in true John Kass Illinois “combine” fashion, Democrats took the bribes from a Republican businessman.

Former State Representative turned academic Jim Nowlan (R-Toulon) and Richard B. Ogilvie’s Lt. Governor candidate wrote this in a letter to the Chicago Tribune on Feb. 9, 2006:

Lumberman Edward Hines bribed 40 Democratic members of the Illinois General Assembly in 1909 with $100,000 to elect Chicago Republican “Blonde Boss” William Lorimer to the U.S. Senate. A new Model T Ford cost $875 in 1909.

The scandal about how Lorimer got to Washington brought on the Progressive Era’s direct election of United States Senators–the 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1913–so no one can deny the importance of his “public service.”

Here’s his biography from the United State Congress:

• LORIMER, William, a Representative and a Senator from Illinois;
• born in Manchester, England, April 27, 1861;
• immigrated to the United States in 1866 with his parents, who settled in Michigan; moved to Chicago, Ill., in 1870;
• self-educated; apprenticed to the trade of sign painter at the age of ten;
• worked in the packing houses and for a street railroad company;
• ward boss and constable 1886;
• engaged in the real estate business and later as a builder and brick manufacturer;
• elected as a Republican to the Fifty-fourth, Fifty-fifth, and Fifty-sixth Congresses (March 4, 1895-March 3, 1901);
• unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1900 to the Fifty-seventh Congress;
• elected to the Fifty-eighth and to the three succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1903, until his resignation, effective June 17, 1909, having been elected Senator;
• chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Navy (Sixty-first Congress), Committee on Mines and Mining (Sixty-second Congress), Committee on Pacific Islands and Puerto Rico (Sixty-second Congress);
• presented credentials as a Senator-elect to the United States Senate for the term that had commenced March 4, 1909, and served from June 18, 1909, until July 13, 1912, when, after a Senate investigation and acrimonious debate, the Senate adopted a resolution declaring “that corrupt methods and practices were employed in his election, and that the election, therefore, was invalid”;
• resumed his former pursuits and was president of La Salle Street Trust & Savings Bank 1910-1915;
• subsequently engaged in the lumber business;
• died in Chicago, Ill., September 13, 1934; interment in Calvary Cemetery [at the Evanston-Chicago border].

Now, I’m not suggesting any public entity buy the Lorimer mansion.

But, how about a historical marker that could be read from the sidewalk between the Main Beach and the Dole Mansion?

= = = = =
On top, you can see snow on Easter (March 23, 2008) at the Dole Mansion in Crystal Lake. Below is the summer “cottage” of William Lorimer, the last Illinois United States Senate elected by the Illinois General Assembly. The historic marker could go on the lawn where the man is mowing the lawn.

All the old mansion attention in Crystal Lake has been paid to the Charles S. Dole Mansion overlooking Crystal Lake.

Alright. It’s big. It has this great story about a railroad track being laid up Dole Avenue to bring guests to his daughter’s 1883 wedding.

But Dole was just a grain elevator robber baron, wasn’t he?

And he moved out of Illinois.

Almost next door, a legendary Republican Party crook built a summer “cottage.”

Well, it’s more like a mansion.

It’s the white house at the corner of Lake Avenue and Country Club Drive. It’s built out of the same small concrete blocks with which the home my family rented at 800 Broadway was constructed.

So, who was this Republican crook?

Never heard of him?

You’re in good company.

He was the last senator elected by a vote of Illinois General Assembly.

And, in true Illinois fashion, he got to Washington through bribery.

And, in true John Kass Illinois “combine” fashion, Democrats took the bribes from a Republican businessman.

Former State Representative turned academic Jim Nowlan (R-Toulon) and Richard B. Ogilvie’s Lt. Governor candidate wrote this in a letter to the Chicago Tribune on Feb. 9, 2006:

Lumberman Edward Hines bribed 40 Democratic members of the Illinois General Assembly in 1909 with $100,000 to elect Chicago Republican “Blonde Boss” William Lorimer to the U.S. Senate. A new Model T Ford cost $875 in 1909.

The scandal about how Lorimer got to Washington brought on the Progressive Era’s direct election of United States Senators–the 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1913–so no one can deny the importance of his “public service.”

Here’s his biography from the United State Congress:

• LORIMER, William, a Representative and a Senator from Illinois;
• born in Manchester, England, April 27, 1861;
• immigrated to the United States in 1866 with his parents, who settled in Michigan; moved to Chicago, Ill., in 1870;
• self-educated; apprenticed to the trade of sign painter at the age of ten;
• worked in the packing houses and for a street railroad company;
• ward boss and constable 1886;
• engaged in the real estate business and later as a builder and brick manufacturer;
• elected as a Republican to the Fifty-fourth, Fifty-fifth, and Fifty-sixth Congresses (March 4, 1895-March 3, 1901);
• unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1900 to the Fifty-seventh Congress;
• elected to the Fifty-eighth and to the three succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1903, until his resignation, effective June 17, 1909, having been elected Senator;
• chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Navy (Sixty-first Congress), Committee on Mines and Mining (Sixty-second Congress), Committee on Pacific Islands and Puerto Rico (Sixty-second Congress);
• presented credentials as a Senator-elect to the United States Senate for the term that had commenced March 4, 1909, and served from June 18, 1909, until July 13, 1912, when, after a Senate investigation and acrimonious debate, the Senate adopted a resolution declaring “that corrupt methods and practices were employed in his election, and that the election, therefore, was invalid”;
• resumed his former pursuits and was president of La Salle Street Trust & Savings Bank 1910-1915;
• subsequently engaged in the lumber business;
• died in Chicago, Ill., September 13, 1934; interment in Calvary Cemetery [at the Evanston-Chicago border].

Now, I’m not suggesting any public entity buy the Lorimer mansion.

But, how about a historical marker that could be read from the sidewalk between the Main Beach and the Dole Mansion?

= = = = =
On top, you can see snow on Easter (March 23, 2008) at the Dole Mansion in Crystal Lake. Below is the summer “cottage” of William Lorimer, the last Illinois United States Senate elected by the Illinois General Assembly. The historic marker could go on the lawn where the man is mowing the lawn.

This one was swinging in a blizzard-like wind across the street from the northeast corner of the Dole Mansion, also known as Lakeside Center when I picked up my son from his Mad Scientist rocket building class this afternoon at 4:40.

The wind was so hard that the tire was swinging back and forth, back and forth…seemingly all by itself.

Like a pendulum in a grandfather clock.

Enlarge the photos by clicking on them and you can see the angle of the rope.

This one was swinging in a blizzard-like wind across the street from the northeast corner of the Dole Mansion, also known as Lakeside Center when I picked up my son from his Mad Scientist rocket building class this afternoon at 4:40.

The wind was so hard that the tire was swinging back and forth, back and forth…seemingly all by itself.

Like a pendulum in a grandfather clock.

Enlarge the photos by clicking on them and you can see the angle of the rope.

It doesn’t look like it, but this was a slough when I was taking the bus from Gate 6 in Lakewood to Crystal Lake Community High School.

I used to love to look at the red winged blackbirds that nested there.

I never saw and egrets or herons in the late 1950’s, but I did see a kingfisher diving for food in the West End while fishing early one morning in the summer of 1958. I have seen this past summer and fall at Crystal Lake’s outlet.

This picture pf the old slough missed the mud where you can see the dirt in what is used for a parking lot for the Dole Mansion’s Gala and the Lakeside Festival, but you can see where the ponding was.

The Crystal Lake Country Club has a subdivision map of Country Club Additions which shows the slough.