When McHenry was a travel destination for vacationers, it offered many colorful locations for people to enjoy themselves. One of the most interesting places was the Polly Prim which was located where the Hickory Pit now sits today on Rte. 120 & Charles St. The Polly Prim was built in the spring of 1924, by… Continue reading The Polly Prim
On a Sunday morning, September 3, 1911, a couple of fishermen who were out on the Fox River and made a gruesome find. Floating in the river was the body of a man. Authorities were called and after the body was removed from the water, they could see it was wrapped in a rain cover… Continue reading The Mysterious Case of Frederick Wennerstrom
Going into the 1900s, McHenry had a lot going for itself. It was a summer tourist destination and had a great agricultural community. Businesses and factories were also starting to spring up throughout the village. One of those was the Gail Borden Condensing Plant. The Gail Borden Company had factories in many towns in the… Continue reading McHenry’s Borden Factory
In 1918, William Pries came to McHenry after purchasing the local market from Charles Frett. Frett had been in McHenry for 25 years when he sold the business. It was well respected and liked. People in town knew that Pries had big shoes to fill. William Pries, who was a successful businessman from Wauconda, got… Continue reading The Beginning of McHenry’s Pries Market
In August of 1919, a local resident named “Buff” Feltz stopped by the McHenry Plaindealer office with an old dance program he found in walls of a Crystal Lake house he helped raze. Plaindealer editor, F. G. Schreiner found the program interesting and posted the details of the dance thinking that some of the “old-timers”… Continue reading The Masquerade Ball of February 1878
The drive-in theater was one of the iconic crazes of the 1950s. While the first drive-in was actually in Camden, New Jersey in 1933, the popularity of the drive-in didn’t take off until the 1950s. Drive-ins offered some things that their indoor counterparts didn’t. Overall, the atmosphere befitted its casual summertime setting. At a drive-in,… Continue reading McHenry’s Skyline Drive-In Theater
In July 1938, the McHenry area had some of the worst floods in its history. A huge storm on June 30th brought torrential rains The storm saturated the area and caused area rivers and lakes to swell. Damage and destruction to local fields, crops and buildings were due to the rivers flooding their banks. However, probably the… Continue reading The Flood of 1938
