The Crystal Lake park where city’s history is buried and planted

A quiet, unassuming and small park in Crystal Lake off Route 14 holds a rich history of the city, where it all began.

McCormick Memorial Park, 427 W. Virginia St., was created in 1836, and since then, multiple monuments have been installed, including two time capsules – one buried in 1936 for the 100-year anniversary of the founding of Crystal Lake and another for the celebration of the nation’s bicentennial in 1976.

“This is the oldest identifiable public ground in McHenry County,” Historic Preservation Commissioner Robert Kosin said.

The park was officially landmarked by the Historic Preservation Commission in 2023, and the plaque to mark the designation was recently installed at the park. The commission is hosting a celebration and monument recognition walk at 1:30 p.m. Sunday, June 29. Attendees will gather at Pierson Street and view the various landmarks while learning of their – and the city’s – history, Kosin said.

Kosin likes to take the special plot of land back to the Ice Age about 14,000 years ago, when a glacier covered the area, which after receding eventually created the nearby body of water called Crystal Lake.

Early settlers in the 1830s were drawn to the area because of the permeable ground that provided access to water only a couple dozen feet below the surface. Plus, what began as a trail used by Native Americans, which is now Route 14, extended from Chicago to Madison, Wisconsin, and provided accessibility.

The first settlers of European descent – Beman and Polly Crandall, along with their six children – built their cabin in the vicinity of today’s intersection between Virginia and Van Buren streets in 1836, according to the Crystal Lake Historical Society. The town was first known as Crystal Ville, but sometime before 1840, it was changed to Crystal Lake, according to the historical society.

The city really started to grow after the first train depot was established in 1856. The Crystal Lake station shipped ice to Chicago on a flat car.

“The real story of this is ice, water and steam,” Kosin said.

In the late 1800s, the land now known as McCormick Memorial Park became the city’s town square and business district. The plaza is divided into four equal parts with diagonal walkways converging at a center point. It was a bustling place where people frequently gathered for events and picnics, Historic Preservation Commissioner Robert Wyman said.

Kosin considers the park’s first monuments to be the 100-year-old American Linden trees planted by the Crystal Lake Garden Club in 1924.

“It was a testament to the far and distant future,” he said.

Over the years, the park became a location for monuments, memorials and the pump house for a public well, which remain today. The park also is home to the Blazier Center, which was once the city’s first governmental building. Memorials include dedications to the Armed Forces, Crystal Lake firefighters and Crystal Lake police.

Both of the time capsules are meant to be opened 100 years from when they were buried – one in 2036, and the other in 2076. The 1936 capsule – sealed in a lead tube and encased in cement under the monument – was created to memorialize early settlers but also includes things such as a city vehicle sticker for the car of the mayor.

The 1976 capsule was intended as a monetary gift to future residents of a federal bond with a 100-year compound interest valuation. The bond was created from local contributions in the amount of $750, and a copy is sealed under the 2.5-ton granite rock.

“What faith do you have to have that Crystal Lake is a great place to live?” Kosin said.

The park was named in 1956 after the Rev. Edwin McCormick of the St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church. McCormick was born and lived in New York before moving at age 27 to Illinois, where he was later named the pastor for the Crystal Lake church in 1914 and stayed in the position for more than 40 years until his death in 1955.

In the future, Wyman hopes to install QR codes by monuments so anyone passing through the park can learn about the history. Kosin considers the plaques and 100-year-old trees as the first QR codes.

“This is just a place to pause,” he said. “These are the early QR codes.”