A Brief record of Richmond, Illinois

Richmond, Illinois, is a incredibly little and quaint town on the border of Illinois and Wisconsin. Its inhabitants is now about 1,500 but new housing developments will quadrouple the variety of homes inside of the next 10 a long time. It is called “The Village of Yesteryear” because it boasts a lot of Victorian model homes and an exciting array of antique stores.

William A. McConnell is credited with the founding of the village of Richmond.

Also recognized as “The Squire,” McConnell was a 27 calendar year aged 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 ended up but two neighbors in the region. He staked out a declare for 480 acres of land and acquired it when it came to marketplace in 1840 underneath the Blackhawk Treaty. Relatives lore suggests that McConnell spent his very first night time beneath an oak sapling throughout the road from what is now Richmond Grade College. That incredibly mature tree even now stands. Bo McConnell, a wonderful grandson, phone calls it “the tiny oak.” At that time the Richmond place was primarily prairie with patches of oak trees and even now portion of Lake County, Illinois.

In 1838 McConnell and his new spouse, Elizabeth, built a 16′ x 18′ log cabin in which his family lived for 15 years. It was situated just west of what is now Grace Lutheran Church and it was the initially home developed in Richmond Township.
A mill was designed on the Nippersink circa 1840 and that space is now occupied by Doyle’s cafe.

In 1852 McConnell developed a dwelling in the Greek Revival fashion across the street from the log cabin. He and his spouse and children lived in this household for 20 a long time raising three sons. In 1872 he deeded the dwelling to his son, John.

About time, McConnell acquired about 1,400 acres from the govt. The city boundaries have been laid out in 1844 and Richmond was supplied its identify in a contest to the man who climbed the best when the new mill was raised. That guy was Isaac Reed who selected the identify from a village he remembered from his childhood in Vermont.

McConnell had his fingers in numerous nearby things to do. He was on the railroad commission, a legislator in Springfield, elected a commissioner of McHenry County, Richmond’s very first Justice of the Peace, its initial Postmaster and an Affiliate Judge for 16 many years. He belonged to the to start with temperance group in McHenry County.
McConnell opened the to start with cheese factory about a person-fifty percent mile west of the city. The Outdated Bank developing on Broadway was owned by McConnell’s son, George. “That’s Uncle George’s bank. That’s what we might call it,” remembered Bo McConnell, a great-terrific-grandson of William A. McConnell.

How Richmond was named

Theodore Purdy acquired the log home of Charles A. Noyes in 1937. Purdy platted the village in 1844 with Charles Cotting who settled in Richmond in 1844. Alongside one another they crafted a grist mill at Primary & Mill Streets.

A contest was arranged that the person who climbed the maximum on the new mill could name the village. Isaac Reed gained the contest and named the village after Richmond, Vermont, where by he lived as a boy or girl.

Richmond grows up

By the middle 1840’s Richmond resembled a smaller town with a resort, a sawmill, a wagon maker, a medical professional and a lawyer. McConnell constructed a cheese manufacturing unit (quite possibly the initial in McHenry County) west of the town.
Formally integrated 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 renowned.
Railroads made their visual appeal in the 1850’s. McConnell was a one particular of the railroad administrators. The to start with coach crossed the Nippersink in 1855.
Memorial Hall

Charles DeWitt McConnell donated $10,000 to the village “to be made use of for the intent of erecting a village or city hall, the exact to be referred to as Memorial Corridor, to be utilised when expected by church societies and faculty functions free of charge of demand, and not to be made use of for immoral exhibitions or immoral reveals…” Village President, E.C. Covell, purchased the land in which Memorial Corridor now stands from Charles Kruse who owned the hardware retail store on the corner in the center of city at Broadway and Rt. 12. The components tale afterwards turned the Emporium antique keep and the “Kruse” identify can be viewed etched at the leading of the front wall today.

Memorial Hall was created in the early 1900’s. It contained an auditorium with a balcony and a stage the place the J.B. Rotnour Gamers performed for quite a few yrs.

The Richmond Law enforcement Department occupied component of the basement along with two jail cells.

Village board conferences were held in Memorial Hall until the new village corridor was developed in 1993. This constructing is now shared with the law enforcement office. This left the corridor vacant until Chris Gallagher secured a grant from the Illinois Arts Councle in 1992 to make the Nippersink Resourceful Arts Center. Founding member involve Christina Gallagher, Yvonne Cryns, Carolyn Janus, Donna Karolus and Nancy Richardson. Lots of nearby teams donated funds to the business. The Artistic Arts Middle pushed to make Memorial Corridor the historic landmarked developing it is right now.

The public library made use of the hall starting off in the 1930’s. In the 1940’s the library moved to a element of the drug store building on Broadway and Principal. But on July 7, 1972 the library moved back into Memorial Corridor before going to its own developing in 1990.
In addition to village govt do the job, the Memorial Hall hosted college performs and graduations. Basketball online games had been performed there setting up in 1908.

Other basement activities included meetings held by Boy and Lady Scouts, American Legion, and a senior citizen group acknowledged as the Pioneers. This is wherever the area polling area resided.

Richmond Hearth Division

Started in 1926, the Richmond Volunteer Fireplace Department’s to start with meeting was held at Memorial Hall and it was headed by Mayor J.G. “Curly” Stevens.

Richmond Put up Place of work

The submit office has been in assistance for about 150 years. Appointed in 1940, William A. McConnell served as the to start with postmaster for 6 many years. In the early many years, settlers in the area identified terrific comfort and ease from the write-up place of work which introduced information of activities from their first home towns. As late as the 1960’s the Chicago Tribune was sent by the put up office. Farmers wanted honey bees which had been also sent by the publish business and they mailed out eggs to the massive city.

Right until 1946 trains brought mail to Richmond. Considering the fact that 1946 mail is shipped by trucks. The present postmaster is William L. Schaeppi due to the fact 1988.

The new mayor of Richmond, Illinois, is Laurie Olson. Olson’s family members has a lengthy record in Richmond. Olson was a homemaker and volunteer member of the fireplace section in advance of she was elected mayor in 2004.