Walking tour remembers Elgin as “city of churches”

Roughly a dozen community members braved a springtime chill Sunday for a walking tour of some Elgin’s historic places in honor of the First Congregational Church’s 175th anniversary.

Led by local historian Jerry Turnquist, the group started at the present day location of the city’s oldest church, and walked by some of the earliest places of worship that contributed to Elgin’s reputation as the city of churches.

Most of the stops on the one-hour tour recognized historic sites that once held churches, but don’t anymore.

“We look back in time, but we don’t look back to the beginning,” Turnquist said at the start of the tour.

A stop at the site of city founder James T. Gifford’s first house in Elgin, and the site of the earliest incarnation of the First Congregational Church, showed no building at all. The cabin is long gone, memorialized by a plaque mounted on a large rock in Davidson Park.

Turnquist said when Gifford, a devoutly religious man, founded the city, he offered free plots of land to churches. Though the congregational church came first, Universalist, Methodist and Baptist churches will follow soon with their own 175th anniversaries.

John Cooper and Laura McMinn both took part in the walk, marveling at the historic sites hidden in plain sight.

“It’s amazing what you can see on foot,” Cooper said.

McMinn, a longtime Elgin resident, was quick to agree.

“You drive by this stuff every day your whole life and you never see it,” McMinn said.

Turnquist led a walk of about 30 people in warmer weather on Thursday. He plans to host one more in June for those who planned to participate Sunday but opted out because of the cold. Anyone else interested in joining can check fcc-elgin.org or call the church office at (847) 741-4045.