Daily Herald opinion: The history beneath us: Enthusiast’s finds help show origins of a community and our region

In the thousands of square miles encompassing the overall scope of the suburbs, the 153-acre Diamond Lake in Mundelein doesn’t exactly leap to mind as an archaeological microcosm of the entire region. But enthusiast John Hynds’ discoveries there are forming a picture that can excite the imagination about the history of any suburban community, wherever we live.

Hynds, a longtime resident of the nearby Sylvan Lake area and a retired Hoffman Estates firefighter, took up metal detecting in 2017. A few years later, he came across a historical publication from the Lake County Stormwater Management Commission called “Our Gem: A History and Stewardship Guide for Diamond Lake,” setting in motion a journey of discovery that eventually turned into an exhibit at the Mundelein Heritage Museum that is so popular regionally that its scheduled run has been extended through next year.

Hynds’ finds from just one stretch of the lake bottom and shoreline have included items dating back a century and a half and perhaps longer.

As our Mick Zawislak reported Monday, Hynds found a pocket watch that may have belonged to John Singer, who reportedly made a handsome return on a $500 investment in his brother Isaac’s Singer Sewing Machine Co. and built a resort in the 1890s on the east shore of Diamond Lake. But most of the discoveries have more mundane connections — arrow points, hand tools, belt buckles, coins, keys, jewelry and more — but they tell a lot about life and society, specifically in Lake County but by extension throughout the entire area that today we call “the suburbs.”

“I never know what I’m going to find,” Hynds told Zawislak. “That’s the fun part, and I learn about history that way. It’s like an archaeological dig to learn who was where and what they were doing.”

The project naturally suggests connections to a situation in Sylvan Lake, where — as Zawislak also reported last August — excitement and a special sense of community have grown around artifacts that turned up as a result of a lake drawdown related to a local dam project. There, too, residents — Hynds among them — have discovered a trove of historical memorabilia, including an empty safe, dentures, a Prohibition-era bottle of Canadian whiskey and much more.

Such historical discoveries say much about who we are today, and they can’t help but stir reflections on what archaeological hobbyists will dig out of our communities’ soil and lake beds 50 or 100 years from now. It is perhaps a bit unrealistic to encourage everyone with a historical bent to pick up a metal detector and rush about digging up any odd relic or trinket that can be found.

But we must surely say thank you to those like Hynds who do.