Elmer Gleich had no success getting the Village of Palatine to approve his plan for apartments called Darien Fields at the northwest corner of Hicks Road and Baldwin Road. Offices and apartments that replaced the Pebble Creek Golf Course were developed by Gleich’s successors.

The Illinois State Highway Dept. was eager to build the Rand-Golf Expressway to ease burgeoning congestion in the northwest suburbs. It was supposed to lie parallel to and a little north of those two roads, but so many thousands of homes would need to have been demolished that planners finally decided it was an idea whose time had went.

Four Seasons Nursing Centers of America received approval to build a facility at the northeast corner of Quentin Road and Illinois Avenue. But neighborhood opposition eventually brought a stop to this project. Later the Palatine Township Town Hall was built on that property.

The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission decided it wanted to build an atom smasher. It needed a couple of thousand acres for the underground accelerator rings. It searched all over the country for suitable sites and narrowed their search from 85 sites down to two: today’s Fermilab site in DuPage County and Barrington Township. A world-class wildlife refuge would have been destroyed but Barrington neighbors eventually succeeded in stopping the project. School District No. 15 in Palatine also had designs on the area. Officials wanted to build an outdoor education center on the property. The Cook County Forest Preserve finally bought the property and created Crabtree Forest Preserve.

In 1986 a private group wanted to build a living history museum in the woods to the south. It would have featured an Algonquin Indian camp circa 1700, a pioneer settler’s cabin, an 1850 homestead, a turn-of-the-century farm and a farm of the future. Cook County Forest Preserve nixed the idea and created the Spring Creek Valley Forest Preserve instead.

The Fireman’s Memorial at Brockway Street and Slade Street was formerly occupied by the massive three story Battermann’s Brick Block. One of the little stores in the Brick Block was a market run by C. S. Steere. He sold meats, poultry, etc. In the old days merchants often allowed their customers to purchase goods on credit. In 1906 Mr. Steere sent a note to all his customers who owed him money. He was very disappointed in the what the mailman brought him. Only ten percent of his customers paid up on their accounts. He then abruptly closed up his shop and moved the business back to his old home in Downers Grove.

Just south of the old State Bank of Palatine building at the southwest corner of Slade Street and Bothwell Street lies a parking lot…the former site of the Palatine Theatre. It was formerly known as Seip’s Auditorium. The front consists of a facade in front of another facade!

Homer Galpin

Mary Jane Galpin

Mary Jane was born in Oneida County, New York, daughter of Ezekiel & Adaline Cady. The family came to Deer Grove in 1837 where they owned a farm. In 1856, she married Homer Galpin. He was born in Massachusetts. He apprenticed as a blacksmith and came to Illinois in 1849, to Palatine in 1854 where he farmed and was appointed constable. He later was deputy sheriff of Cook County and bailiff of the County Court. The Galpins had four daughters but only one, Nellie, survived childhood. Mary Jane died in 1864 at age 30. She is buried on her father’s land at Cady Cemetery. Homer later remarried and had two sons. He died in Chicago in 1900.

Bertha Wittenberg & Mary Meissner Wittenberg

Mary Meissner was the daughter of William and Mary Meissner who had a farm at Quentin & Baldwin Roads. She married Henry Wittenberg whose family had a farm at Quentin near Palatine Road. After their marriage they lived on the Meissner farm where Henry worked. He later purchased the farm from his father-in-law. They had five children, one of whom was Bertha. Bertha grew up on the farm and married Fred Neitz in 1910. He was also a farmer.

Thomas Falls Wilson

Thomas Falls Wilson was born in Ireland in 1810, the son of Andrew Wilson and Jane Falls. The Wilson family came to the U. S. by 1820 and settled in Schenectady, New York. They had twelve children. Thomas came to Cook County in 1839; he worked on the Asa Dunton farm and then in 1840 settled on government land in the vicinity of Baldwin and Roselle Roads. He had married Mary Angeline Norton in 1832; she died in 1850. He would marry three more times. Mr. Wilson was licensed to preach in 1849 by the Rock River Conference of the Methodist Churh. For about five years he rode a circuit in Lake County. He served the Methodist Church here as a local preacher, a class leader, steward, and trustee of the church. In his later years he lived at 200 N. Bothwell St. in a house his children built for him. It is said that he was a character and was often called Uncle Tommy by people who knew him. He died in 1886 and is buried in Hillside Cemetery.

Henry Wolff in 1919

Henry Wolff owned the Clayson House from 1905 to 1945.

Libbie Whitman

Heinrich Thies

Minnie Thies

Heinrich Thies descendants enjoyed a huge reunion on the old homestead in Plum Grove in 1923. Minnie Thies and her husband had eleven children. They lived in Plum Grove. She died in 1896.

Joseph Slade

Joseph Slade was born in Vermont in 1825. His parents, John & Betsy Slade, came to Plum Grove in 1838 with their four childen. Mr. Slade had a set of carpenter’s tools and $10 when he reached Chicago. He took up a government claim and rented a log house from Ben Lincoln. He traded with the Indians for some corn which he planted the following spring. When Joseph grew up he married a girl named Laura (surname not known). They had two daughters, Bessie and Emily. Joseph ran a grain and lumber business with two partners, George Andermann and Henry Batterman. After Laura’s death in 1879, Joseph married again in 1880. His second wife, Martha Manthis, was born in Germany in 1859. The couple had one son, John Joseph. Joseph died in 1886. She remarried in 1913 and lived until 1954.