Thousands of kids have grown up playing at Ahlstrand Park in Hanover Park over the past half-century, most having no clue about the significance of its namesake.
To change that, Hanover Township is starting a heritage marker program, with the first commemorating former Police Chief Carl Ahlstrand, who was killed in the line of duty on Feb. 22, 1959.
“I knew the park was named for him because my dad was an auxiliary policeman and we were active in the village, but nobody else seemed to,” said Hanover Township Supervisor Brian McGuire. “That always really bothered me.”
The brass plaque will be unveiled during a brief dedication ceremony at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the park, 6900 Catalpa St. Mayor Rod Craig, Deputy Police Chief Mark Gatz and McGuire will speak.
Ahlstrand, who originally served as a Hanover Park village trustee, volunteered to become the young village’s second police chief after the first resigned.
According to village officials, on the day he died Ahlstrand had pulled over a speeding car in the area of Lake and Walnut. While Ahlstrand questioned the driver, a semitrailer truck driver lost control and ran off the road, killing the police chief and the car’s two occupants.
“If nobody knows why the park was named for him, is it really that big an honor?” McGuire said. “It’s a very important part of local history.”
While McGuire thought Ahlstrand Park, a Hanover Park Park District facility, was the most obvious choice for the program’s first heritage marker, more will come.
The township is looking at erecting plaques near the old Leatherman’s tavern in Bartlett, where residents in 1850 voted to form Hanover Township, as well as a Streamwood cemetery where McGuire believes three Civil War veterans, and possibly a War of 1812 veteran, are buried.
