McHenry County Rural Structures Survey
- Preservation Planning
- Civic
- Cultural Resources
- Urban Planning
McGuire Igleski undertook an intensive Rural Structure Survey for the unincorporated areas of the townships of Grafton, Algonquin, Nunda, and McHenry, updating an original survey completed nearly three decades earlier. Since the first survey of these townships in 1998, new archival information has become available to close significant gaps in the survey, including incomplete property information, inconsistencies in the survey information gathered, and a lack of recommendations for preservation. Additionally, over the last 25 years, several properties have been restored or demolished, and the survey report provided an update on the resources inventory and evaluation to support the County’s goal of having a complete set of data on its rural resources. The accompanying report documents individual properties, as well as the cultural heritage and architectural legacy of the selected townships as evidenced by the existing architectural styles, building typologies, and construction methods from the earliest settlement date through the present day. The survey also includes a narrative on the historical and cultural significance of those who have shaped and developed each township, from its first indigenous communities to the area’s earliest pioneers who settled and continued to cultivate the prairie landscape.
McHenry County, Illinois
McHenry County
4 townships, 185 sites
European and American settlement of present-day McHenry County began after the end of the Black Hawk War of 1832, with pioneers arriving from New England, New York, and West Virginia to settle on the rolling, fertile prairies and large oak groves of northeastern Illinois. The county’s early, economically successful settlement centers, such as Crystal Lake, Marengo, and Richmond, were established along former Native American trails that radiated northwest from Chicago. The first railroad arrived in the County in 1851, and those communities built in partnership with each rail line quickly prospered economically. Farmers located on the peripheries of these towns could now ship their fresh produce and finished products to markets in Chicago. The county’s primary industries quickly evolved to include agriculture, dairying, and livestock, with new industrial complexes emerging along the railroad to support a thriving agrarian society. With the construction of the county’s extensive rail network, the advent of cold storage rail cars, and the mechanization of farming, McHenry County’s early railroad communities and the neighboring farmlands became flourishing centers of settlement and society, supporting the prosperity of the county.