On the way to the redication of the Old Courthouse in Woodstock, I drove on the old Business Route 14, the way I went to work when I was County Treasurer from 1966-70.
Reaching the new roundabout–a massive improvement on the former intersection–I remembered that the first woman on the McHenry County Board, Mary Yates, lived on its Northwest corner. The bank bought the property and tore it down.
Yates was perhaps McHenry County’s first participant reporter. She wrote for the Elgin Courier, jotting down notes for articles while the County Board meetings were being conducted.
She also covered the courts.
The story that sticks in my head was about Harry Schnell, the Republican Precinct Committeeman of Algonquin Township Precinct 7 (now merged with old Algonquin 19, but much smaller in area than when Schell was in office) and now called Algonquin 1.
The Illinois Legislative Crime Commission, with Charles Siragusa in charge, identified illegal betting activity in Crystal Lake and held hearings in the County Board room, part of which is now where the Woodstock City Council meets.
My mother and I attended them when I was home from Oberlin College.
Dave’s Sports(?) store, which sold magazines, on Williams Street, was one betting location.
Siragusa’s people had prepared a diagram showing how all the wires were connected with a second floor room at the Pinemoor Hotel located behind the Congregational Church.
It had a bar and provided the first pizza in Crystal Lake. His step-son uses the same recipie in his pizza shop in the Crystal Lake Plaza. That’s what we order when my Crystal Lake Community High School Class has its reunions.
Schell being the Pinemoor’s owner, was charged with being a keeper of a gaming house.
When Schnell testified, he claimed he didn’t know what was going on upstairs from his barr although he brought the bookies lunch every day.
There were intitial stories of the hearings, then, with no prosecution, the story faded away.
A good while later, sometime before 1966, Yates wrote a follow-up story about the arrest not having been prosecuted.
You can imagine that caused quite a stir at the Courthouse.
I have no idea how the case concluded, but the arrest is that inspired my father to run for GOP Committeeman against Schnell.
Precviously, in 1960, my father headed up the Volunteers for Nixon in Crystal Lake.
Around the circle I went to my Courthouse’s re-dedication.
The skin of the courthouse is the same, but the inside is totally different, as I showed in Sunday’s article.
On the way back to Crystal Lake, I took the first turn of the circle onto the street where we lived when my daughter was born.
Madsen and Pope, were both lawyers Cal??
They were not.
Bob Pope worked in a machine shop.