Geneva prepares for city hall’s centennial

Geneva is getting ready to celebrate the centennial of its city hall with a party May 19.

In advance of that, the city’s preservation planner, Karla Kaulfuss, compiled a timeline of how the building at First and James streets came to be.

It didn’t have such a great beginning. April 10, 1912, city hall (built in 1844 as the Kane County Courthouse) burned down.

The next day the city council decided to ask voters if they wanted to rebuild city hall, and include a public hall in the new building.

And, with speed that government never moves at today, they scheduled the vote for April 16 — less than one week after the fire.

In May, a citizens’ committee began work on the plans, in June the architect was picked, in August the design was approved, in September construction bids were opened, and in November the foundation was poured. The cornerstone was laid Dec. 9, and the new building, at a cost of $20,000 including furniture, was finished June 5.

You can learn more about the building from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, May 19. There will be refreshments from Graham’s 318 and Hahn’s Bakery, officials will open the 1912 time capsule and you can be in a community photo,

For more information, visit genevadowntown.org.

Pass the hollandaise: One of the neat things about living in Kane County is access to literally farm-fresh produce.

And you don’t always have to wait for a farmers market to get it.

For example, on Saturdays Sugar Grove-area people are munching on asparagus from Norway Farms.

The farmer sets up a stand from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays at Route 47 and Cross Street, and promises to be there until he moves over to the French Market, which starts June 2.

This news comes courtesy of Pat Graceffa’s Community Newsletter, which she sends out via email whenever there is something worth shouting about in Sugar Grove. Could be once a week, sometimes it’s twice a day.

Garden boo-boo: I debated whether to tell anybody this, figuring if nobody saw me do something dumb, it’s like it never happened, right?

But evidence may sprout that would give me away, so I’ll ’fess up: My Geneva Community Gardens plot adventure got off to an ignominious start.

I spent about 40 minutes April 21 hoeing, making furrows, planting seeds and onion sets and putting down straw mulch, in three rows. While getting ready to leave, I surveyed all the plots, marveling that there were 124 of them in this space.

And realized, in horror, that I had done all that planting in the wrong plot.

There’s no good explanation for my mistake.

I scooped up as many of the onions and pea seeds as I could find. But the broccoli seeds are teeny-teeny-tiny.

So Plot 49, you may have an unexpected crop popping up this year.

Ÿ Susan Sarkauskas covers Geneva, Batavia, Sugar Grove, Elburn and North Aurora. Email her at ssarkauskas@dailyherald.com.