By Mike Danahey
mdanahey@stmedianetwork.com
@DanaheyECN
April 7, 2014 5:50PM
Article Extras
Updated: April 7, 2014 7:57PM
McHENRY CO. — While old campgrounds are the stuff of ghost stories and horror movies, Camp Algonquin recently found itself recognized as being endangered and having historical, architectural significance.
That’s to say the site along the Fox River between Cary and Algonquin off Cary-Algonquin Road recently was named to Landmark Illinois’ 19th annual list of the 10 most endangered places in the state.
The nonprofit has been working to protect historical places throughout Illinois for more than 40 years. According to a press release for the organization since the list’s inception in 1995, a third of the properties mentioned have been saved, less than a quarter have been demolished, and the rest are in various stages “between being continually threatened and rehabilitation.”
On past lists, the group has included Elgin spaces such as the two vacant buildings at the Elgin Mental Health Center designed by noted modernist architect Bertrand Goldberg (of Marina Towers fame) and completed between 1966 and 1967; the classical revivalist-style David C. Cook Publishing Co. Building that went up in 1901; and the Prairie School-styled Fox River Country Day School, which has been the subject of controversy recently as a group has been working to rent some of the now-Elgin owned buildings on the campus to start a charter school.
As for Camp Algonquin, the 116-acre site closed in 2011 and is overseen by the McHenry County Conservation District.
According to information provided by the district, the grounds are only one of four camps built in the United States during the “Fresh Air in the Country” movement during the late-1800s, a movement fueled by the belief that spending some time in a rural environment would alleviate problems caused by inner-city poverty.
“In 1907, a fresh air camp was established on 20 acres along the Fox River. The camp was supported by the Chicago Bureau of Charities, Chicago Board of Trade, Chicago Tribune, Oak Park churches and numerous private donors,” the material states. The district’s communications manager, Wendy Kummerer, noted that buildings at Camp Algonquin wound up sporting the names of such sponsors.
The camp stands within a wooded, hilly landscape that once belonged to the Gillian family, the first white settlers of McHenry County, the material states.
“In 1910, the noted landscape architect Jens Jensen — whose work includes parts of Lincoln Park in Chicago — was hired to produce a plan for the original 20 acres of the camp. A detailed site plan from February 1911 depicts 16 buildings … as well as a swimming pool, council ring and extensive native landscaping, vegetable gardens and trails,” the material states.
It adds, “During the Chicago Relief and Aid Society’s years of operation, ill and underprivileged Chicago mothers and their children were brought to the camp and educated on proper nutrition and physical health.”
Chicago-based Metropolitan Family Services at one time ran the facility, but by 2004 sold it to the McHenry County Conservation District. The YMCA of McHenry County operated the facility on behalf of the district until it filed for bankruptcy in 2011 and the camp closed.
Kummerer noted that the district has performed maintenance on the site’s 47 buildings but that quite a few are in disrepair. Last year, the district decided to sell furniture and other items and that most of the structures would be torn down.
Kummerer said the district is working on a master plan that includes reviewing the camp and surrounding land, with the hopes of saving some of the structures. However, it has been estimated it would take millions of dollars to do so, Kummerer said, and currently there are no identified funding sources for this work.
While the buildings would be an added plus, Kummerer noted that the local flora and fauna make the land along the river invaluable for the region, with the district committed to keeping it as natural open space.
Speak Your Mind