Make this a column about a column. Actually it's also a column about a columnist, our own Roger Matile, who this month is marking 40 years of writing his popular "Reflections" column. On behalf of the staff here at the Ledger and Shaw Media, I want to congratulate and thank Roger for his four decades of entertaining and informative columns on local history. We all look forward to publishing many more right here and on our website at KendallCountyNow.com.

I believe the timing for the run of Roger’s Reflections column could not have been better given the phenomenal growth that has taken place in our community over the past four decades. So much has changed about Oswego, Montgomery and Kendall County, old-timers have left the scene and thousands of new residents have moved into all those new homes that have sprung up in what were once farm fields. Through it all Roger has continued to write about our local past, providing some much-needed historical context to all the change that has been happening here.

I know that in reading Roger’s columns I have developed an appreciation for all the local history that is around me every day. Thanks to Roger, when I walk along Main Street in Oswego’s downtown business district I often look at the many old buildings and I recall his columns about the generations of merchants that made the area a vital business district. I can point out the buildings that once housed Denney’s and Bohn’s grocery stores, where Alva Shuler’s first drug store stood and where Burkhart’s garage once operated. I know a funeral home once held wakes in the lower level of the Masonic Hall and the late, lamented Red Brick School once stood where the post office building is now located.

When I visit Montgomery and spot Gray’s Mill (now home of South Moon BBQ), thanks to Roger, I often visualize it as it once was during the time of Lincoln: a fully functioning grist mill, constructed by the village’s founder, Daniel Gray. Just two blocks east I look at the massive Lyon Metal plant that still hugs the railroad tracks and can recall that during World War II workers there manufactured parts for Navy Corsair planes, while at a plant several blocks south more workers were busy manufacturing flares for the war effort.

As I drive through the winding streets of Boulder Hill I think of the former Bereman Stock Farm that once occupied that area and think of how the subdivision developed rapidly from the mid-1950s to mid-1970s in the wake of the opening of the nearby Caterpillar and Western Electric plants.

Yes, every place has a history if someone cares to take the time to do the research. Fortunately, Roger has done just that for these many years and thanks to his efforts I’m certain that many of our readers – myself included – have gained a much fuller understanding of how this community came to be. Thank you, Roger, and write on!

• John Etheredge is the editor of Record Newspapers.