About That Octagonal Barn in Spring Grove-- Part 3: Save That Old Barn

One wall of the barn is open, but the roof, reinforced in 1986, looks solid.  There is also a beautiful 1957 rainbow truss barn on the property.  Destroyed by fire January 31, 1957, local farmers gathered and raised the current barn in two months.

The Kattners will continue to farm the property through this year.  Pease expects it will take about a year before work begns on the residential lots and at that time the barn will come down unless someone wishes to move it.

He is willing to give it away in order to preserve the octagonal barn.

"I'd love nothing better than to drive five miles away and say, 'Hey, they reconstructed the barn over here'," Pease said.  "We would, at a minimum, sell the timbers so that they would end up in someone's recreation room."

Let's hope the barn is saved and moved.  Perhaps to Horse Fair Park or the Spring Grove Fish Hatchery.

I've talked to local farmers who believe the barn's roof is in way too bad of a shape to save.

--CootBarn

About That Octagonal Barn in Spring Grove-- Part 2

"We want to take the 28 acres south of Main Street where the barn and farm house are located and subdivide it into four 5-acre home sites,"  Pease said.  "None of those buildings there [now] would really be in tune with me leaving one building where homes would go.  I paid too much for the property."

Pease would like to annex the property to the village of Spring Grove, although village Building and Zoning Officer Bob Walczak confirmed that no paperwork has been submitted to date for the property.

Gene Kattner said his family has lived on the property at 801 Main Street since 1921, originally part of a 230-acre farm that focused on raising corn, dairy cows and some beef cattle.  Fifteen years ago, the family sold 115 acres along the Nippersink Creek to the McHenry County Conservation District.

The 1876 octagon barn, which once housed horses on its lower level, purportedly has beams repurposed from Bliven's Mill.  Spring Grove used to be known as Bliven's Mill.

--Cooter

About the Octagonal Barn in Spring Grove That Is Endangered at the Former Fred Hatch Farm

 From the October 1, 2022, Northwest Herald (McHenry County, Illinois) "Only you can ensure local history will be 'barn' again" by Kurt Begalka.

The exterior of the 1876 octagonal horse barn in Spring Grove, Illinois, is not much to look at (despite being octagonal).  However, go inside and look up.  Well, that's a whole different story.  That ceiling appears almost cathedral-like.  

And, it might well be the only remaining octagonal barn in McHenry County.

Jack Pease, president of McHenry-based Super Aggregates Inc., recently bought the remainder of the Fred Hatch Farm (site of the now-demolished first silo in the United States that was designed by Fred Hatch).  This farm was most recently owned by the Kattner family.

I knew one of the Kattners, Ed.

Pease said he intends to mine the estimated 100 acres on the north side of Main Street and develop the current Kattner farmstead to the south (where the barn is located).  That means tear it down, subdivide it into lots.

This land is on Spring Grove's Main Street a short distance east of Wilmot Road.

--Cooter

A Chicago Christmas-- Part 5: Hot, Cold and Snow

This entry is very appropriate for today.  This morning, December 23, 2022, it was -8 degrees outside here in Spring Grove, Illinois.  By 1 pm, it had "Warmed Up" to -2 degrees.  It is -5 degrees right now.

Christmas 1982 saw Chicago reach 64 degrees, setting a record for highest temperature on the holiday.

Just one year later in 1983, the coldest-ever temperature for the holiday was recorded at O'Hare at bone-chilling negative 17 degrees.

As for a very white Christmas Day, it happened in 1950 when Chicago received a whopping 5.1 inches of snow, setting a city snowfall record for that day.  Yesterday and this morning we got maybe two-tenths of an inch of the white stuff.

--CootHotColdSnow

Spring Grove Fish Hatchery-- Part 2: Winter Time Ice Skating and a Real Nice Park

Winter time was a favorite of the children of Spring Grove as they would bundle up and go out to the fish hatchery ponds for a day of ice skating.  Thomas McCaferty  was known to leave the door to the hatchery building open so the children could come inside and warm up, something much appreciated on those chill days.

While the fish hatchery was an important part of the growth of Spring Grove for nearly a century, it closed in 2005.  (We moved to Spring Grove in 1992.)

The property was acquired by the Village of Spring Grove in 2007 (I understand for the princely sum of $1) with the goal of turning  the old hatchery into a community park with a historical display to commemorate and explain what it was and how the hatchery did it.

With a number of volunteers, some money, the area was transferred into a beautiful park.  The ponds needed reconstruction and walking paths were built around the pools along with fishing piers.

Fishing is allowed, but no live bait and it is catch and release.

The park was completed and opened to the public in 2012.  There is a small charge if you are not a resident of the village.

Every year in the spring they have a major fundraiser at Spring Grove's Horse Fair Park with a Door County-style fish boil put on by Fitzgerald's in nearby Genoa City.

It is one really pretty place.

--CootFish

A Short History of Spring Grove, Illinois-- Part 3: Growth, Then Decline Caused By the Automobile

Walter Carey introduced electricity to the village in 1918, using a waterfall n the Fox River to generate the power.

The business community continued to grow until the 1920s, when the use of automobiles owned by residents made travel to other communities easier.  Many of the businesses in Spring Grove closed.

Completion of US-Highway 12, which goes right through the village, a few blocks south of the old downtown, increased traffic, many on their way to Lake Geneva, about twenty miles away in Wisconsin.

One business that has been a bar/restaurant is located in the old downtown and has been there since the 1890s is now called The Grove and a popular spot for food, watching sports and entertainment.

Of course, we knew we had made it as a village when we got a Jewel grocery store, Walgreens and a McDonald's several years ago.  Plus, there is a growing strip of businesses along US-12.

--Cooter

Spring Grove Fish Hatchery-- Part 1: A Perfect Location

From the March 21, 2018, Hi-Liter "Former Fish Hatchery" reborn" by Sandra Landen Machaj.

Spring Grove was the home of the very first State of Illinois Fish hatchery in 1914.  A group of 16 men and Thomas McCaferty built eight concrete ponds in the swampy land near Nippersink Creek to be used as a fish hatchery.

This was a perfect site because of the great source of water from a spring located there (which I believe to be the spring that gives Spring Grove its name).

The ponds and associated buildings constructed there became known as the Spring Grove Fish Hatchery and eggs were incubated in the building.  Once hatched, they were moved to one of the ponds to continue growing until they were big enough to survive in the open waterways.

Each fall, the little fish, known as fingerlings, were released into Illinois waterways including rivers, lakes and even Lake Michigan.  By 1967, more than 500,000 fish were produced annually, making it the largest fish hatchery in Illinois.

--Cooter

A Short History of Spring Grove, Illinois-- Part 2: Growth of the Village 1840 to 1900

The presence of Nippersink Creek, which zig-zags its way through the community made it a perfect place for a mill, so important to early settlers.  By 1841, Spring Grove had two mills:  a grist mill owned by Joseph Bliven and a sawmill owned by Lewis Hatch.  The area became known as Blivin's Mill.

Lewis Hatch became a big landowner and farmer as well and is the father of Fred Hatch (inventor of the silo).

In 1847, the Blivin's Mills Post Office was established and the first store was built.

In 1883,the name became Spring Grove because of the large spring and the beautiful grove of trees around it.   This would be where the Spring Grove Fish Hatchery is located.

In the next years, Spring Grove became both an agricultural and business center.

Improvements came along as well, including telephone service in 1897 when Walter Carey ran a phone line from his store in Wilmot (Wisconsin, just over the state line) to his farm in English Prairie.

By the early 1900s, concrete sidewalks replaced wooden walkways in the downtown area (which is not very big even to today).

--CooterBlivinHatch

A Short History of the Village of Spring Grove, Illinois-- Part 1: Early English Settlers, Fish and Fred

From the March 21, 2018, Hi-Liter newspaper by Sandra Landen Machaq.   She has written a lot of articles about local history for the paper, as well as has a book out about our neighboring village of Johnsburg.

Illinois was celebrating its 200th anniversary as a state in 2018, and our little village of Spring Grove has made its contributions to the state's growth, most notably with this fish hatchery and the first silo in the country, developed by local farmer Fred Hatch.

Spring Grove was not incorporated until 1902, some 84 years after Illinois became a state.  But the village's beginnings can be traced back 60 years before that.

Jonathan Imeson became the first settler here in 1830, when he made his home in a shanty for a year before he was joined by other English families with names like Wrays, Lawsons, Richardsons, Hoffmans, Fowles, Manns, Rices and Blivens.  Many of their descendants still live in the area.

The 1830s was when the last Indians were removed from the area.

They were soon followed by John Sanborn and Alfred and Merrells Stevens.  Alfred Stevens was the father of Burton Stevens, for whom Burton Township, where we live, is named.

We still have a road in the village named English Prairie after these early residents.  Spring Grove was also called  Bliven's Mill at first and we still have a Blivens Road.  The Richardsons are a huge agribusiness with what is reputed to be the biggest corn maze in the country and quite a fall celebration.

--CooterLocal

Spring Grove Fish Hatchery: So That's Where the Springs Are

I have often wondered whatever happened to the spring from whence the name of our village, Spring Grove, comes from.  I've even asked several people in the village where the springs were and they didn't know.  One of them was friend Ed whose family has owned the old Hatch farm since in early 1900s.  And, even he didn't know.

Then, I came across an article about the Spring Grove Fish Hatchery that I had put aside back in 2018 and went on this blog and looked up Spring Grove Fish Hatchery just to be sure I hadn't already written the article in this blog, and I hadn't.

But, I did read that the reason the fish hatchery was located where it is was because of the hard-flowing spring there.  The fish hatchery is located very near what there is of a "downtown" in the old part of the village.

So, this must be where the springs that lent their name to our village are located.

You Can Fool Some of the Folks Some of the Time, But This Blogger Most of the Time.  --Cootfish

Korean War Veteran Chuck Class, 89-- Part 1: The Sweater

I interviewed Mr. Class on Wednesday, December 12 at the American Legion Post 703 in Fox Lake, Illinois.

He has been with the post for 42 years in a multitude of jobs, including past commander.  Right now, until the end of December 2018, he is the Adjutant and Financial Officer and lives in nearby Spring Grove.

In the Korean War, he was in the Army in the First Cavalry, supposedly moved by vehicles, but he recalls more often by a lot of marching.  He arrived on scene in 1951-1952, when most of the "nasty stuff" was over and fighting was mostly around the 38th Parallel.  The early part of the war involved battle lines going all the way to the northern part of the peninsula and to the southern part.

Mr. Class  was with the engineers and involved in a lot of bridge and road building as well as explosives (especially disarming mine fields).

The weather in Korea is much like it is here in the Midwest, cold in the winter and hot in the summer.  He arrived over there in June and by December it was pretty cold.  He remembers being very thankful for a sweater he received.  But one time he took the sweater off on a warmer winter day while his unit was working in a mine field.  A shell came in, exploded, and perforated that sweater.  "Thank goodness I wasn't wearing it."

--Cooter

World War I Impact On Germans in Chicagoland and McHenry County, Illinois

I used to belong to an organization that had roots dating back to the 1880s and was German.  Germans could join and with membership came support as well as funds to help them in case of major medical expenses and burial.

I can't remember the name, as part of it was still in German, but think it it had something to do with Understubing, but part of the name was changed from German words to "Welcome Park" because of anti-German sentiment during World War I.

We live in Spring Grove, Illinois, and the town to the south of us is Johnsburg.  Both towns were settled largely by Germans.  I know of no histories written for either town about World War I, but suspect they also encountered anti-German sentiment.

--Cooter

Looking Back to 1941: Something Fishy in DeKalb County

From the November 2, 2016, MidWeek, (DeKalb County, Illinois) "Looking Back."

1941, 75 Years Ago.

"About 58,000 small fish, including bass, crappies, blue gills, and perch were placed in the Kishwaukee (River) in the northern section of the county."

No doubt, these fish were hatched and raised at the Spring Grove, Illinois Fish Hatchery which supplied fish for the northern part of Illinois for many years.  It has been turned into a park by my town now.

--Cooter

Fred Hatch's Farm Silo: Brother Bob's Missile Silos

Spring Grove, Illinois' claim to fame other than a huge fish hatchery. The Tribune article had a video about Fred Hatch's innovation. The Hatch farm is still there on Main Street just east of Spring Grove's downtown. There is an eight-sided barn and silo, but not the original one. His grave is on Wilmot Road (going from US-12 to Wilmot, in Wisconsin and founded by the Hatch family in the 1830s) in a small cemetery. //// There is also a plaque to him in a small park by the Nippersink Creek near downtown. //// When we first moved to Illinois back in the early 1960s, my brother Bob had heard about missiles in the Chicago area and thought the silos out on the farms were missiles. //// Easy Mistake to Make. -- DaCoot

Chicago Innovations That Changed the World-- Part 8: Fred Hatch's Farm Silo

11. THE FARM SILO (1873). I'll go into detail on this one as I live in Spring Grove and the name. Until 1973, grain was stored for the winter in pits instead of a tower as you see all over the place today. //// Fred Hatch, of Spring Grove, Illinois, had just graduated from the Illinois Industrial University which eventually became the University of Illinois. With his knowledge, he and his father, Lewis Hatch, built the very first tower silo (but not one you'd recognize today). //// Back at the school, Fred Hatch found agricultural textbooks to be scarce and some had to be translated from French and German by Professor Willard H. Bliss. According to the European books, silage storage meant burying the entire corn plant in pits. He took the idea and expanded on it by extending the hole upward above the ground. //// The Hatches lined a 6-foot-deep pit in their barn with rocks and mortar and over the years kept building higher. Eventually their new silo reached the height of 16 feet inside their barn. They built a floor in their pit of double ply floorboard lined with tar paper. //// This new design (and inside a barn) reduced rain spoilage and made it faster to fill, pack and empty than the pits. //// Eventually, they moved it outside and put a roof on it and you had today's silos. //// Thanks, Fred. --Cooter

How to Celebrate a 4th of July Weekend

THURSDAY, JULY 4TH:

Spring Grove, Illinois, parade, house party in Johnsburg, Mr. Myers performing at Horse Fair Park in Spring Grove and Spring Grove Fireworks display from the house.

FRIDAY, JULY 5TH:

Fish Fry at Rusty Nail in Ringwood. First Friday concert at Glacial Park in McHenry County. Potts and Pans steel drum combo from NIU. Then to Tommy's.

SATURDAY, JULY 6TH:

Twin Lakes 4th of July parade. Bloody Mary at Main Street. Fish Fry at Donovan's Reef. OD (On Deck) and gazebo.

SUNDAY, JULY 7TH:

Bob Stroud's Summer of '73 radio show. Rick's on the Channel. Bloody Mary at Dirty Rooster on bluff overlooking Grasslake. The band Deja Vu at Captain's.

MONDAY, JULY 8TH:

Humongo burger at Village Squire in McHenry. Two movies at the theater. Green Street Classic Car Show in McHenry. Elvis Impersonator.

Like I Said. Good Times in the Area. --RoadDog

Spring Grover Fish Hatchery

From the McHenry County (Illinois) Historical Society and Museum.

The Spring Grove Fish Hatchery, located in our village of Spring Grove, was opened in 1914 and was the first fish hatchery in Illinois.  The site was chosen because of the natural cold water spring located there that produced 300 gallons of fresh water a minute.

At the height of operations, the hatchery produced as much as 35 million fingerlings a year.  These were used to stock the majority of the rivers and lakes in northern Illinois.

It was closed and a few years ago, sold to the Village of Spring Grove for a dollar.  Since then, a lot of money has been put into it preserving the holding ponds and building.  The whole site is being turned into a park.

Just this last Friday, June 14th, we  went to the annual Door County fish boil to raise money for the hatchery.

Mighty Good Eating for a Great Cause.  --DaCoot

Spring Grove Saves One-Room Schoolhouse

Not only is my present hometown, Spring Grove, Illinois, in the process of turning the old Fish Hatchery into a park, but last week, a brick one-room schoolhouse was moved in order to save it. The 188 ton, 33-foot wide structure was jacked up, put on a flat bed and moved a quarter of a mile down English prairie Road to the famous Richardson Farm, home of the largest corn maze in the US.

It had been closed for 49 years and was McHenry's last operating one-roomer. Local residents remember attending classes there including all eleven of the Cooper family as well as George and Robert, owners of the Richardson Farm.

A school had been on the original site since 1846, with the brick one being built in 1929. It closed in 1962.

The original site is owned by the Thelen Corporation who operate a large local gravel and stone pit. They sold it to the Richardsons for $1. It will be put into a new park the Richardsons are planning.

Way to Go New Hometown!! --DaCoot