Grayslake leaders pursue preservation of old water tower
After putting in the time, effort and money to preserve the historic Grayslake Gelatin Co. smokestack, village leaders are pursuing a plan to maintain another key structure on the town's skyline: the old water tower near the Grayslake Heritage Center and Grayslake Fire Protection District.
Village leaders decided this month to repaint and verify the structural integrity of the historic water tower in Grayslake's downtown. The cost of the project is estimated at $119,000, and it's included in the annual capital improvement budget for the 2022-23 fiscal year, Associate Village Manager Chris Sparkman said.
For those who are worried that the water tower's appearance will change, fear not - officials said the goal is to touch up the tower while preserving its present look.
Trustee Elizabeth Davies said the decision reflects village leaders 'desire to maintain Grayslake's status as a place with a history.
"We are a historic village, and to keep that we need to preserve that history," Davies said. "When visitors come to downtown they have the sense that Grayslake has history to it; it's not just another urban sprawl suburb."
Davies said the other option was to tear down the tower. That would have likely cost about $100,000, Sparkman said.
Charlotte Renehan, the longtime leader of the Grayslake Historical Society, said saving the water tower helps maintain the village's historic image. While the exact date of the tower's construction is unclear, it likely was about the same time as the establishment of the village water system in 1914, she said.
Over the years, the water tower has been the site of youthful antics. Renehan recalls one resident who would climb atop the tower in the morning and crow like a rooster. Another time someone painted "Peyton Place" on the tower, the name of a 1960s soap opera set in a small New England town with drama and scandal just under a surface of quaint charm.
The water tower is purely decorative at this point, having gone out of service in the early 1990s. Sparkman said it received a structural inspection in 1996 and there was a general review of its condition earlier this year to generate the cost estimate for the project.
Davies said the project will go to out to bid early in 2022 to get favorable estimates from contractors, whose schedules are more open early in the year. Once the bids come back, village leaders will decide early in the spring whether to give the project final approval.