Will old building yields clues to Lake County history?
With a delicate touch, an excavator operator this week stripped away the siding from the original section of the former archives building at Lakewood Forest Preserve near Wauconda to see how much history was hidden beneath.
Under layers of aluminum and white lap siding is the oldest stuff, wood darkened with age being exposed to daylight for the first time in perhaps 80 years.
Might the old clapboards be the remains of a house from the early 1900s? Or perhaps from an earlier era when settlers farmed in the area?
The Lake County Forest Preserve District hopes to learn more as what gradually had been expanded into a huge house is methodically demolished section by section.
"The whole thing got swallowed up by stuff, and then we came along and repurposed it. It's been a whole long time of changes," said Jeff Sloot, planning manager.
"We just don't know. We're finding out things as they move along."
Demolition began Monday. Thursday afternoon, the claw tore through the roof of the core structure known as Section H on a diagram of the building additions.
Timbers fastened with old-time cut nails were separated and will be examined for possible future repurposing. Weather vanes and the steel "L" letters embedded in three chimneys of the house also are being saved.
"I think it's important that when we have these resources, we go slowly to capture any of the significance to Lake County," said Becky Mathis, a landscape architect for the district, who watched the progress with Sloot.
By Friday afternoon, the entire structure was down. There is more to sift through, such as chimney bricks with the stamp of a company that operated until 1884. The cellar walls will be examined for clues to the past after debris is removed, she said.
The site is being cleared as part of a master plan for Lakewood, and there is a lot of history to consider en route to a rebirth of the largest forest preserve in Lake County.
In this case, there wasn't much to find because of many alterations and additions to the buildings over the years.
"The story is cool, but it's not something we need to keep part of the building to tell," Mathis said.
Several Lake County homesteaders had established farms within Lakewood's boundaries in the Wauconda area, including Michael and Mary Murray, according to an 1861 land atlas.
"They moved here in 1847 and we think they built a log cabin in this area, but not in this spot," Sloot said.
Michael Murray died in 1876 and his wife took over the farm. It stayed in the family until 1902 when it was sold to Catherine Bauer Dobner.
The beginning of what many Lakewood visitors came to know as the archives building started in 1938 when the 300-acre farm was sold to Malcom Boyle, a successful general contractor from Chicago who wanted a country retreat.
He acquired more property and transformed the land into "Lake County's most lavish farming establishment," known as Lakewood Farms.
Boyle enlarged and remodeled the main residence near and possibly on what had been the Murray homestead, according to records.
The configuration of the original 1½-story structure is unknown. If it was a house, it was no more than two small sleeping chambers and bath over a kitchen and parlor, according to information provided by the district.
The report said whatever was there was stripped to the studs in 1938 and few traces of the original structure remain.
Boyle developed a working farm and showcase with extensive orchards and gardens and prizewinning animals. The compound came to include 16 building and a rambling house.
Boyle died in 1959 and the property sold. It operated as a farm until it went into foreclosure. Lake County Forest Preserve District bought the 1,054-acre property for $1.4 million in 1968.
The site will be converted to a nature-based playground where kids will be encouraged to get dirty while learning about the environment.