Letter: A long and historic land use issue

A recent article in the Northwest Herald, “Gravel Pit Possibility,” focused on the conflict between homeowners and gravel miners. Both sides should consider that this is a land use issue tracing back to McHenry County’s formation in 1836.

Native people like the Potawatomi faced similar issues when land formerly used for hunting and fishing, with little impact on the land itself, became valued for crops, settlement and the concept of private property.

So, why should knowing this be important now? It’s significant that all sides in issues such as gravel pits versus subdivisions have already changed what was previously a different use of the land.

The farm land in question originally belonged to Louis Hatch, a transplanted 23-year-old New Yorker. Traveling by stage, canal and foot, he arrived in Illinois in April 1837. Between operating a sawmill and splitting rails, Hatch raised enough money to buy land to farm in the Spring Grove area. Among his many accomplishments, Hatch donated land for the old Burton Township Hall (still standing) and participated in America’s nationwide travel adventure to the California gold fields between 1850 and 1854.

One of Hatch’s sons, Fred, achieved even more. As one of the University of Illinois’s first agriculture graduates in 1873, Fred returned with new progressive ideas to increase crop and animal production. He is credited with introducing alfalfa, which returned nitrogen to the soil, as well as how to make a new feed called silage. He is credited with building the first upright silo, thus ensuring domestic livestock sufficient amounts of nutrition throughout the long winters. The foundation remnants of the silo remain on the property but are not at the center of the current land use dispute. Also, there is the county’s only eight-sided farm to be made with timbers from Blivin’s Mills (Spring Grove’s founding name).

So, that’s a lot of local and national history at stake. Either way it goes, both sides have a hand in its loss.

Nancy Fike

McHenry