Richmond, Illinois, is a extremely smaller and quaint town on the border of Illinois and Wisconsin. Its populace is now about 1,500 but new housing developments will quadrouple the selection of households in just the next 10 a long time. It is known as “The Village of Yesteryear” since it offers lots of Victorian style households and an appealing array of antique retailers.
William A. McConnell is credited with the founding of the village of Richmond.
Also regarded as “The Squire,” McConnell was a 27 12 months old carpenter and farmer who lived in Pennsylvania. He dreamed of independence and trekked to the Richmond area on horseback in 1837. In his biography, McConnell mentioned that there had been but two neighbors in the space. He staked out a declare for 480 acres of land and bought it when it arrived to current market in 1840 below the Blackhawk Treaty. Family members lore states that McConnell expended his very first night time underneath an oak sapling throughout the street from what is now Richmond Grade School. That incredibly mature tree nonetheless stands. Bo McConnell, a fantastic grandson, calls it “the minimal oak.” At that time the Richmond region was generally prairie with patches of oak trees and still section of Lake County, Illinois.
In 1838 McConnell and his new spouse, Elizabeth, built a 16′ x 18′ log cabin in which his family members lived for 15 years. It was located just west of what is now Grace Lutheran Church and it was the first home constructed in Richmond Township.
A mill was designed on the Nippersink circa 1840 and that place is now occupied by Doyle’s restaurant.
In 1852 McConnell built a property in the Greek Revival type throughout the road from the log cabin. He and his family lived in this house for 20 many years elevating three sons. In 1872 he deeded the residence to his son, John.
More than time, McConnell bought somewhere around 1,400 acres from the federal government. The city boundaries ended up laid out in 1844 and Richmond was supplied its title in a contest to the person who climbed the highest when the new mill was raised. That gentleman was Isaac Reed who chose the identify from a village he remembered from his childhood in Vermont.
McConnell experienced his hands in many local routines. He was on the railroad fee, a legislator in Springfield, elected a commissioner of McHenry County, Richmond’s initially Justice of the Peace, its first Postmaster and an Associate Choose for 16 yrs. He belonged to the initial temperance team in McHenry County.
McConnell opened the initial cheese factory about one particular-fifty percent mile west of the city. The Previous Lender creating on Broadway was owned by McConnell’s son, George. “That’s Uncle George’s financial institution. That is what we’d get in touch with it,” remembered Bo McConnell, a great-great-grandson of William A. McConnell.
How Richmond was named
Theodore Purdy purchased the log household of Charles A. Noyes in 1937. Purdy platted the village in 1844 with Charles Cotting who settled in Richmond in 1844. With each other they created a grist mill at Major & Mill Streets.
A contest was organized that the man or woman who climbed the optimum on the new mill could name the village. Isaac Reed received the contest and named the village immediately after Richmond, Vermont, in which he lived as a little one.
Richmond grows up
By the center 1840’s Richmond resembled a modest town with a lodge, a sawmill, a wagon maker, a health care provider and a attorney. McConnell created a cheese manufacturing facility (quite possibly the 1st in McHenry County) west of the town.
Officially incorporated on September 2, 1872, Dr. Fillmore Bennett was elected the 1st president of the village. The initial principal of the grad faculty, Fillmore wrote poems and religious hymns. “In the Sweet Bye and Bye” was the most well-known.
Railroads created their visual appeal in the 1850’s. McConnell was a a person of the railroad administrators. The first teach crossed the Nippersink in 1855.
Memorial Corridor
Charles DeWitt McConnell donated $10,000 to the village “to be utilized for the function of erecting a village or town corridor, the exact same to be named Memorial Corridor, to be employed when needed by church societies and university capabilities no cost of charge, and not to be used for immoral exhibitions or immoral shows…” Village President, E.C. Covell, acquired the land wherever Memorial Corridor now stands from Charles Kruse who owned the hardware retail outlet on the corner in the center of city at Broadway and Rt. 12. The components tale afterwards grew to become the Emporium antique store and the “Kruse” identify can be viewed etched at the major of the front wall currently.
Memorial Corridor was manufactured in the early 1900’s. It contained an auditorium with a balcony and a stage where by the J.B. Rotnour Gamers carried out for a lot of several years.
The Richmond Police Division occupied aspect of the basement together with two jail cells.
Village board meetings were held in Memorial Hall until the new village hall was designed in 1993. This constructing is now shared with the law enforcement section. This left the hall vacant till Chris Gallagher secured a grant from the Illinois Arts Councle in 1992 to make the Nippersink Artistic Arts Center. Founding member involve Christina Gallagher, Yvonne Cryns, Carolyn Janus, Donna Karolus and Nancy Richardson. Several neighborhood groups donated income to the group. The Creative Arts Middle pushed to make Memorial Hall the historic landmarked setting up it is these days.
The public library used the hall starting in the 1930’s. In the 1940’s the library moved to a section of the drug keep setting up on Broadway and Principal. But on July 7, 1972 the library moved back again into Memorial Hall right before moving to its very own developing in 1990.
In addition to village federal government do the job, the Memorial Hall hosted college plays and graduations. Basketball game titles ended up played there starting in 1908.
Other basement activities bundled meetings held by Boy and Girl Scouts, American Legion, and a senior citizen group recognized as the Pioneers. This is in which the area polling area resided.
Richmond Fire Division
Founded in 1926, the Richmond Volunteer Fireplace Department’s 1st assembly was held at Memorial Hall and it was headed by Mayor J.G. “Curly” Stevens.
Richmond Put up Place of work
The write-up place of work has been in company for about 150 many years. Appointed in 1940, William A. McConnell served as the to start with postmaster for six many years. In the early yrs, settlers in the spot found good consolation from the article office which brought news of functions from their unique property cities. As late as the 1960’s the Chicago Tribune was shipped by the submit office environment. Farmers necessary honey bees which have been also shipped by the submit workplace and they mailed out eggs to the large city.
Till 1946 trains brought mail to Richmond. Considering the fact that 1946 mail is delivered by trucks. The existing postmaster is William L. Schaeppi considering that 1988.
The new mayor of Richmond, Illinois, is Laurie Olson. Olson’s loved ones has a extensive history in Richmond. Olson was a homemaker and volunteer member of the fireplace section just before she was elected mayor in 2004.