Our guest contributor this week is Pat Barch, the Hoffman Estates Historian. This column originally appeared in the May/June 2023 issue of the Hoffman Estates Citizen, the village’s newsletter. The column appears here, courtesy of the Village of Hoffman Estates.
The recent announcement on March 14, 2023 by the Cook County Forest Preserve of the establishment of Arthur L. Janura Preserve as a Land & Water Reserve, took me back to the failure of the Leisure World development in 1965 with the financial failure of the Rossmoor Corporation’s Leisure World .
Leisure World was successful in building their retirement communities across the country, in California, and on the east coast. They’re doing well and still draw people over 55 to their gated communities.
Failure isn’t always a failure for all the parties involved in a project. After Hoffman Estates annexed the 3,700 acres needed to build Leisure World, the failure of the planned retirement community of a projected population of 50,000 opened the door for the Cook County Forest Preserve to snatch up the land that would become the Arthur L. Janura Cook County Forest Preserve.
It was hoped that the Forest Preserve would compromise a bit by allowing the village to keep some of the land for commercial development. No compromise was reached, but it was a very positive outcome for the people of Hoffman Estates.
Photo credit to the Cook County Forest Preserve
The large Arthur L. Janura Preserve contains the Poplar Creek Preserve as well as miles of biking and walking tails. The newly named Poplar Creek Land and Water Reserve is bounded by the Canadian National Railway on the west, Shoe Factory Road on the north, Sutton Road (Rt. 59) on the east and Golf Road on the south, and contains 572.14 acres.
It is home to at least 27 plant and wildlife species that are in the greatest need of conservation. Poplar Creek is an extension of a rare gravel prairie. The remains of a melting glacial ice sheet appear as eskers which are long narrow ridges of gravel deposited by a stream flowing in an ice-walled valley or tunnel.
Photo credit to the Cook County Forest Preserve
This area is adjacent to the Shoe Factory Road Nature Preserve that is already being restored by volunteers who remove invasive species, collect seeds and plant native plants.
The entire Arthur L. Janura Preserve is a treasure of wild birds, animals, prairies and forests that give our village residents the peace and recreation needed for our busy lives.
The failure of a commercial and residential development back in 1965 has given us a wonderful opportunity to continue to protect our environment of the rare land and animals. That failure has become an unforeseen plus for Hoffman Estates.
A special thank you to Jenny Whidden, Climate Change and Environmental Writer for the Daily Herald, who kindly helped with this article.
Pat Barch, Hoffman Estates Village Historian Eagle2064@comcast.net
For the last thirty years of his life, John Henry Kuehn, pictured above, lived on the Redeker farm or, as we know it today–Spring Valley.
Henry, as he was known locally, was born in Germany on April 7, 1884. According to both Herman Redeker, in a July 26, 1974 article from the Daily Herald, and a note card in the Schaumburg Township Historical Society’s Yellow Card File, Henry’s father died when Henry was young. Per the article, “an uncle took on responsibility for his education… But the money could be spent only to train Kuhen [sic] for missionary work and Kuhen wanted to be a horticulturalist.”
Redeker also said that, because Henry did not want to do missionary work, “he deliberately flunked his mission courses.” And, when “the girl he wanted he couldn’t have and the girl he could have, he didn’t want,” he decided to leave for better opportunities.
Both sources say he immigrated in 1912, though this is incorrect as his obituary published in the June 9, 1960 Daily Herald stated that he arrived in November 1913. This latter date is confirmed in a passenger list entry in Ancestry.com for “Heinrich Kuhn” that states he left from Bremen, Germany on the George Washington and arrived in New York on November 24, 1913 with the intent of making his way to “Mimer, Illinois” where he would be residing with his sponsor, Mr. Kuhfuss.
The 1974 article and the Yellow Card File back this up, though spellings are incorrect in both. He eventually found his way to Minier, Illinois which is in Tazewell County near Bloomington. The paper says that he came to live with the “Kufess” family but, in a deeper dive on findagrave.com, it appears it was, in fact, the Kuhfuss family.
From an interview with Herman Redeker that was conducted by Sandy Meo, local resident and volunteer at the Heritage Farm, Henry later came to Arlington Heights where the Reverend Bierbaum got him a job “on the Fred Scharringhausen farm.” This was slightly incorrect as Reverend Bierbaum was pastor of St. Paul United Church of Christ in Palatine and, in a mention in the August 11, 1916 issue of the Cook County Herald, it states that Mrs. A.J. Bierbaum of Minier, Illinois was a visitor “at the St. Paul’s parsonage.” This is additional clarification of the Minier connection.
Eight years later, in 1920, the census found him living and working in Elk Grove Township. There, he is listed as a “fireman” for Martin and Melanie Goerger who owned a greenhouse. In digging into the Daily Herald, an article from September 11, 1970 sheds a bit of light on this family.
In 1914, the Goergers bought a wholesale florist business, complete with a “4500-acre-foot greenhouse.” That, and the home were on a “2 1/2-acre site at 501 W. Higgins Rd, Elk Grove Township” adjacent to the Ned Brown Forest Preserve. According to Dave Goerger, whose grandparents owned the business, the greenhouse and house were on opposite sides of Higgins Road, with the greenhouse on the north side and the house on the south. And as Alice Hacker, daughter of Martin Goerger said, “We started with roses, then went to lilies and the last 15 years sold chrysanthemums.”
As a “fireman” for the Goergers, Henry would have most likely fired the boilers that heated the greenhouse. They were, most likely, powered by coal and would have required close supervision since roses are very susceptible to the cold. In the Herman Redeker interview, he stated that Mr. Kuehn did not like the work. It is unknown how long he worked for the Goergers but the 1974 article states that he “eventually worked in greenhouses for Frank Busse in what is now Busse Woods Forest Preserve.”
There was, in fact, a Frank Busse listed in the 1920 census who was farming in Elk Grove Township but it does not state that he owned a greenhouse business. He was listed as a “general farmer” and, by the 1930 census, he had moved on. Mr. Redeker might have confused the Goergers and the Busses, or the Busse family did not make it clear in the census that they owned a greenhouse business.
In the interview with Herman, Sandy writes, “In his lifetime, he (Henry) held many odd jobs, including helping the Highway Department pave Higgins and Roselle Roads. He lived in a surplus army tent in Busse Woods summer and winter. He hunted rabbits… [and] also had a little vegetable garden. At the time, cutting of dead trees was permitted, so he had a great supply of wood for cooking and heating.”
Photo credit to Spring Valley & Heritage Farm
The 1974 Daily Herald article mentions that Ellsworth Meineke “sometimes hired Kuhen [sic] to help in his honey farm. He recalls that Kuhen bought only potatoes and lard for food, and knew more ways of cooking potatoes than most people could imagine. He filled out his diet by… picking berries and brewing tea from linden tree leaves.”
It is interesting to note that Mr. Meineke owned his first honey shop on Higgins Road in the heart of the Ned Brown Forest Preserve from 1946-1954. This would have been how Ellsworth and Henry came to know each other.
Continuing with the Sandy Meo interview with Mr. Redeker, it states, “When the creek was high–he took a bath. An independent man to say the least, he was well educated, but only worked about 2 days a week. His heart and soul were in nature.”
“He knew Busse Woods like no one before or since. When mushroom hunters came out of the woods, Henry would be walking down the road to the tavern with two large baskets full to exchange for drinks.”
In 1928 Henry was approached by Herman’s brother, John Redeker, to work on the peony farm he started on the Boeger/Redeker property. This had to have appealed to Henry’s gardening passion.
Peony field remnant at Spring Valley
In exchange for the work he provided, as Herman mentioned in his interview with Sandy Meo, “…from then on, he lived in the Boeger house. He was in the house during the storm of 1933 when the kitchen section was blown away. Not one to put up with that, he protected himself against any future catastrophes whereby the house might blow away again. He piled stones and bricks in the attic [to weigh down the house.]”
Henry continued his life in Schaumburg Township doing odd jobs in the area. To supplement his income, he received relief from the township as reported in the Schaumburg Township Supervisor’s Book of Records 1914 thru September 1962 and Relief Fund Account 1937 thru 1962.
In his oral history with the library, Ralph Engelking, who grew up on a farm off of Roselle Road, mentioned that “Pastor Henry” would come to their house to make sauerkraut for his mother. Ralph also said that he was quite the walker as that was his only mode of transportation.
On June 1, 1960 Henry was found in the Boeger house, dead of a heart attack. Herman Redeker and his friend, Richard Vician, took care of the funeral arrangements and buried him in Elm Lawn Memorial Park in Elmhurst on the same day.
The next time you’re walking around the farm at Spring Valley or the Ned Brown Forest Preserve, take a moment to think about Henry Kuehn. We have to imagine that he would truly appreciate the efforts that have been made in preserving the parcels of land he loved.
Jane Rozek Local History Librarian Schaumburg Township District Library jrozek@stdl.org
My thanks to volunteer Sandy Meo, and Monique Inglotand Dave Brooks of Spring Valley, for their assistance in creating this blog post. It could not have been done without their knowledge, files and photos.
Our guest contributor this week is Pat Barch, the Hoffman Estates Historian. This column originally appeared in the February 2020 issue of the Hoffman Estates Citizen, the village’s newsletter. The column appears here, courtesy of the Village of Hoffman Estates.
February can be one of the coldest and snowiest of the winter months. Most of us like to stay indoors where it’s cozy and warm. But winter can be fun if you know where to look and learn what’s available.
Hoffman Estates has more winter activities than most. The reason I say this is because our village is home to close to 4,000 acres of Cook County Forest Preserve land. That gives us 30 miles of paved and unpaved hiking, biking, cross country ski trails and a lake for ice fishing when the ice is thick enough.
More than 100 years ago, on November 30, 1914, the Forest Preserve District of Cook County was established. It is one of the oldest and largest districts in the nation. The first 500 acre preserve was Deer Grove at Quentin & Dundee Roads. (It is now more than one preserve with a total of 2,000 acres.) In 2020 the Forest Preserve District has approximately 70,000 acres. Much of the acreage in our village came from farm land and failed development projects such as Leisure World and the Howie-in-the-Hills development. Back in the late 60s and early 70s, the loss of this land to the Cook County Forest Preserve District was not a favorable one. The village needed land for commercial development but that didn’t work out with the Cook County Forest Preserve District unwilling to compromise with the Village.
With approximately 4,000 acres of forest preserves within our village, we have nature at our doorstep. If we have snowy and cold conditions this winter, you will have the opportunity to not only walk the more than 30 miles of trails but ski as well. Cross country skiing is allowed on all the trails when snow is on the ground.
The Paul Douglas Forest Preserve, north of Central Road and south of Algonquin Road, has 8.6 miles of paved trails that wind their way through the woods and prairies that surround us. A new bridge that safely takes the trail over Central Road at Roselle Road was dedicated this past December by both Mayor McLeod and Schaumburg’s Mayor Daley.
Poplar Creek Forest Preserve, south of Higgins Road and west of Barrington Road, has 20 .7 miles of both paved and unpaved trails. (Including the Lion Bridge, shown above, along Route 59.) You may see horseback riders on the unpaved trails and dogs are always welcome on the trails as long as they’re on a leash. If there’s no snow, get out the bikes and roller blades.
Just keep in mind that walking may be what you choose to do, but the rules of the forest preserve ask us to not pick any of the plants or feed the animals.
If you’d like to learn how to cross country ski, you can drive out to the Sagawau Nordic trails in the forest preserve in Lemont. Equipment and lessons are available at reasonable rates. You’ll be able to return to our trails and enjoy the winter season on our own wonderful trails.
If you like to ice fish, you can fish when conditions are right. Ice Fishing is available at South Bode Lake off of Bode Road east of Bartlett Road. North Bode Lake doesn’t have ice fishing because Poplar Creek runs through it. If it gets cold enough, give it a try, you may catch a big one. Have fun in the forest this year.
The Cook County Forest Preserve District has a great web site. Great maps, events and information can be found at www. fpdcc.com. There are no charges for parking and using the trails or picnic areas.
Pat Barch
Hoffman Estates Historian
eagle2064@comcast.net
The year is 1847 and you have traveled across the Atlantic Ocean and half of the continent to reach Schaumburg Township. You get your first view of the land that you have purchased from the government. Rich, dark soil? Check. A market for your products in nearby Chicago? Check. Enough trees to build your first house? Check. Enough trees to provide you with fuel for the next 20 years? No. And that’s a problem.
Considering that Illinois farmers of the 1800s largely heated their homes and cooked their meals with wood, it was absolutely necessary to have a steady, ready supply for anyone living on the frontier. In rural Schaumburg Township there were five nearby groves on the prairie that were available with timber that was ready to cut and cull.
Sarah’s Grove was in the middle of the township, just west of the intersection of Schaumburg and Roselle Roads. Wildcat Grove was in the northwest corner of the township where the Greve Cemetery is located today in Hoffman Estates. The other three options were just outside of township boundaries in today’s Paul Douglas Forest Preserve off of Central Road in Palatine Township, the Arthur L. Janura Forest Preserve on the west side of Barrington Road in Hanover Township and the Ned Brown Forest Preserve in Elk Grove Township that is best known as Busse Woods. (Portions of all of the groves still exist to this day.) The surveyor’s map below shows the large key-shaped section of Busse Woods to the left that is simply marked “Timber” in the middle.
To be able to take advantage of these groves, farmers purchased acreage that often ranged from two to ten acres. According to Larry Nerge’s report on the Johann Heinrich Boeger family who lived on today’s Spring Valley property, they had a wood lot of two to three acres in Busse Wood.
The following document from LaVonne Thies Presley’s book, Schaumburg Of My Ancestors, draws out a legal description of the nearly ten acre woodlot her great grandfather purchased from Henry and Maria Bochers on November 23, 1853 for $1250.
The entrance was off of Higgins Road in Busse Woods and required quite a trek from their farm on Meacham Road near today’s WGN transmitter. Multiple trips a year were necessary to keep the house stoves going for warmth and cooking purposes.
A trip to the woods began in the morning after the milking and chores were finished.Two men drove a wagon pulled by two large draft horses that carried their “two-man [cross cut] saw, wooden bow saw, sharpened axe, steel wedges, water and/or coffee, food for lunch, and possibly oats or hay for the horses.”
Presley’s relatives were no different from the brothers of Ralph Engelking who was one of our oral historians. His account can be viewed on the library’s Local History Digital Archive. In his history, Ralph, youngest of eleven, recalls that his brothers would bring a lunch of sausage sandwiches and coffee when they made their trip to Busse Woods.
It is not known how the owners determined exactly where their property began and ended but there had to have been some kind of posts or markings that established the corners of their acreage. (If any of the readers of this post have ever come across something like this in Busse Woods, please put in a comment or send me an email.)
Once there, they began accumulating the fallen logs and branches that were easy pickings. Next, they probably tackled any dying trees as these were quicker to take down and more easily chopped. Dead wood was also dryer wood and burned more cleanly in the stoves. If burned, newly cut, green wood created an accumulation of creosote that could cause chimney fires if the stove fires burned too hot.
According to Presley, trees “were cut into lengths (about 5-6 feet long) that could be lifted and put on the wagon. Lengths to fit the stove would be cut back at the farm. This cutting and splitting was time consuming and took time away from the farm work. Time was precious and could not be wasted on tasks that could be done more easily at the farmyard.”
Some lengths of wood were also used for fence posts in the farmyard. The harder the wood, the more durable the post. According to “Farm Woodlots In Illinois” from Transactions of the Illinois State Academy of Science, Vol. 16 published in 1923, the best types of wood were white oak, catalpa, cedar, black locust, mulberry and, osage orange or “hedge” which was the best possible choice. Of course, if they did not have a choice of wood, the farmers in this area were going to take any type that grew on their woodlot–and replace the fence post when necessary.
Wagons were loaded very carefully as they did not want any displacement to happen as the horses pulled the timber home. As the afternoon drew to a close, saws, axes, wedges and other items would be placed in the wagon and the slow, burdened wagon would be pulled home by the powerful draft horses.
Presley recounts a story in her book that, on a late fall day, her father and uncle were at their woodlot when an unexpected snowstorm broke out. They left the woods as quickly as possible but the snow was so blinding and heavy that they could not make out the road. It became obvious that the horses weren’t going to stop so the two young brothers loosened their hold on the reins and let the horses pull the load where they wanted. Through better vision, instinct or the feel of gravel on their hooves—or all three—the horses pulled the wagon safely to the barn on their farm.
Once home, the 5-6 foot lengths were arranged in a teepee form to allow for further drying before they were chopped for use in stoves or used as fence posts. Chopping happened when there was time in between chores or when a group of family and neighbors had time in the winter to tackle the pile.
The woodlots were kept by local farmers until other means of heat, like coal or kerosene, became available to the farmers. This was also close to the time that Cook County purchased Busse Woods for their newly formed Forest Preserve District, as can be seen in the letter to the Thies family in January 1918.
It was most likely a win/win situation for many of the farm families. There was an opportunity to easily sell their remote woodlot, adjust to life with a kerosene stove and, best of all, eliminate that portion of chores from their workload.
They did us all a favor, though, by being such careful conservators of their woodlots. As a result, we remain blessed to this day with the large forest preserves that surround Schaumburg Township.
Jane Rozek
Local History Librarian
Schaumburg Township District Library
jrozek@stdl.org
The Thies family documents and photo are all taken from the chapter of LaVonne Thies Presley’s book, Schaumburg of My Ancestors which gives us an amazing overview of farming in rural Schaumburg Township around the turn of the century. Copies of the book are available in the library’s Local History Collection or can be read on the Local History Digital Archive.
Our guest contributor this week is Pat Barch, the Hoffman Estates Historian. This column originally appeared in the July 2009 issue of the Hoffman Estates Citizen, the village’s newsletter. The column appears here, courtesy of the Village of Hoffman Estates.
Many of us enjoy the hot summer days of July. We enjoy going on picnics, fishing, biking along the many miles of bike trials or just taking a long walk in the cool forest preserves.
Hoffman Estates has close to 4,000 acres of forest preserve land within the village. It’s one of the great assets the residents of Hoffman Estates enjoy. It wasn’t always looked at as an asset by village government.
In 1967 and 1968 a tug of war was going on for what is now the forest preserve land west of Barrington Road. Rossmoor Corporation had purchase 3,700 acres of land that the village annexed in 1965. There were plans to develop “Leisure World”. The project would include residential housing for seniors along with a large shopping center. But in 1967 Rossmoor Corporation was having financial difficulties and delayed the start of the “Leisure World” project.
In June of 1967, the Cook County Board announced that they would like to purchase the land for a forest preserve. Learning that the land was available the Metropolitan Sanitary District also wanted to purchase the land. The Metropolitan Sanitary District wanted to use some of the land for a sludge farm. With so much development in the northwest suburbs they needed a facility like this. In Dec., 1967 they approved a resolution to purchase the property.
Hoffman Estates had plans for an industrial park and needed only 500 acres more from the 3,700 acre failed Rossmoor project.. The loss of such a large parcel of land left Hoffman Estates with no industrial development for a tax base. Working out a compromise with the forest preserve district and the Metropolitan Sanitary District went no where. The forest preserve district wanted the entire block of land bounded by I-90 on the north, Sutton Rd (Route 59) on the west, Bode Rd. on the south and Barrington Rd. on the east. They felt that it was important to acquire the land before it was lost to new develpoment.
In April of 1968 the forest preserve distrtict began condemnation proceedings. Neither the Metropolitan Sanitary District nor the Village of Hoffman Estates would win the battle for needed land.
What we gained was open land that will always provide recreation, fishing, biking and hiking for our residents. Forests, fields and meadows that we’ve come to enjoy with our families.
Pat Barch
Hoffman Estates Village Historian
Eagle2064@comcast.net
Our guest contributor this week is Pat Barch, the Hoffman Estates Historian. This column originally appeared in the January 2010 issue of the Hoffman Estates Citizen, the village’s newsletter. The column appears here, courtesy of the Village of Hoffman Estates!
As a young girl I enjoyed sledding and ice skating. My brother and I couldn’t wait for the snow and cold weather so we could get out the sled, wax up the runners and head for the sledding hill. I still enjoy winter, I know it seems strange to say that but I still have those pleasant memories of fun in the snow as a child.
The January weather usually keeps us in the house with little opportunity to get outdoors and since we can’t escape the snow and ice we may try to enjoy some of the winter sports.
Hoffman Estates is fortunate to have more that 3,000 acres of forest preserves within the village limits. Much of the land was acquired from surrounding farms in the late 60’s & early 70’s and the collapse of the planned “Leisure World” prompted the Cook County Forest Preserve District to take over that land preventing a development that would have brought 50,000 residents to the area just west of Rt. 59 and north of Rt. 58. At the time many farmers were sad to see their farming life come to an end. Many of the farmers did continue farming out west with the purchase of new farms.
Since that time, picnic groves, biking trails and lakes provide great summer recreation for our families. Many of you don’t know that winter recreation is also offered by the forest preserve district. Winter fun is just a mile or two away.
When the snow starts flying and measures 4 inches, you’ll be able to go snowmobiling in the Ned Brown Meadow on the south side of Golf Rd. and east of I-290. You’ll need to register your sled with the forest preserve district at http://www.fpdcc.com.
You can ice fish on Bode Lake South as long as the ice is 4 inches thick. Fishing hours are between 8 am and sunset. The parking area is off Bode Rd. 1 mile west of Barrington Rd. of course you’ll need your Illinois fishing license. All the biking trails in the Poplar Creek Forest Preserve are open for cross country skiing as well as winter hiking.
Our own Hoffman Estates Park District offers sledding at your neighborhood park and outdoor ice skating, when weather permits and the green flag is up at your local lake. With the right weather conditions the Pine Park parking lot is turned into and outdoor skating rink. Indoor ice skating is always offered year round at the Hoffman Estates Park District Community Center and Ice Arena at Higgins and Huntington Blvd. When the snow is deep enough, the sledding hill at the Poplar Creek Country Club & Golf Course opens for great outdoor fun. Get more info at http://www.heparks.org.
So get out those sleds, wax the runners (old candles or a bar of soap work well) and have the ice skates sharpened. It’s time to have some fun in the snow.
Pat Barch, Hoffman Estates Village Historian
Eagle2064@sbcglobal.net
History of Schaumburg Township 
