Pratt’s Castle, Elgin: The Return

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On Saturday we were among the first members of the general public to see the inside of Pratt’s Tower in Elgin, at least according to one of the docents, and no doubt he was right. But first we had to wait outside on the unpaved driveway. Even that vantage is usually off limits, but not this time.

The castle is a towering structure between the Fox River Trail and the river itself.

This time of the year, its 50-foot height is complemented by greenery, including a draping of ivy.

Not long ago I learned that Pratt’s Castle was part of the Historic Elgin House Tour, an annual event organized by the Gifford Park Association in Elgin. The tour operators thoughtfully provided a shuttle bus down the slope to the castle (and back up again), which can also be reached by the trail, still flush with green just ahead of fall.

A few months ago, I learned that the BTST posting of January 5, 2021 is the second result of Google search for “Pratt’s Castle,” after Historic Elgin’s page on the subject. How that happened, I can’t say, since the ways of the Google algorithm are as a mysterious as the Sibylline Books. Still, I’m glad that I’ve been able to inform the few people who click through to my nattering about the castle, which I’m sure isn’t much known the further you go from Elgin.

Pratt’s Castle, Elgin

The entrance. Complete with a drawbridge and a portcullis. A docent told us that the drawbridge, a replacement for one that crumbled long ago, was completed just in time for the event.

The only level accessible to tour-goers was the first floor. There are five levels all together, connected by winding stairs that have a handrail on the wall but, unfortunately, no balustrade. We were informed that the other floors were similar in design, and that the very top of the tower, a turret, is reached by a wooden ladder. No doubt there’s a terrific view of the Fox River Valley from that perch, but I can see why we couldn’t go up there.

A nod to the long-gone collection of medieval artifacts that tower builder Harold Pratt used to keep in the tower.

A detail about Pratt’s construction methods. Clever.

The back entrance, where we exited.

Word is there are other inhabitable spaces in the crenulated structure behind the main tower, but it wasn’t open. The docent posited that the space, and maybe the tower, would make a terrific short-term rental property, with certain modifications. I’ll bet it could.

A small house of more conventional design is behind the castle, also part of the property. Just behind, the Fox River.

The property’s current owner, a nonagenarian named Paul Sommer, was reportedly on hand during our visit, but we didn’t see him. I’d have asked him a few questions, such as what do you know now about owning a medieval-style tower that didn’t you expect before you bought it in 1998?

The booklet the association created for the tour is a font of information. Sommer is the third owner, though with a structure like this, steward would be a better way to think of it. As he apparently does, putting much time and money into the structure’s continued existence. Good for him.

Though it evokes castle towers of Europe, England and France specifically, Pratt’s Castle is American in the sense that it’s the eccentric legacy of a single individual doing what he wanted to do with the fruits of his success: namely, Harold Pratt (d. 1979), an electrical engineer by vocation who had a serious jones for medieval times. Thinking of the structures he’d seen in those countries, Pratt set about building the tower in the 1930s. One opinion, according to the guide booklet, is that professional builders started the structure and Pratt finished it. In any case, it was largely complete by 1937, joining the ranks of individual-created North American structures, in the same spirit if not exact history as better-known works, like the Coral Castle or Watts Towers (East and West coast examples, those).

Unlike a stone European castle tower, Pratt’s is brick, but otherwise the structure sports a collection of features very much like a European tower, such as a crenellated parapet, with crenels and merlons. (A binary system: crenels, 0; merlons, 1.) A turret is atop the tower – the place reached by a wooden ladder – and some gargoyles are thrown in for good measure. Lancet windows, those narrow openings that come to a point, provide light and air and, in some other reality, the opportunity to shoot arrows from a relatively safe position. Here’s a term I’d never heard, and the castle has those too, near the top: arbalestina windows, ones particularly suited (I assume) for shooting your arbalest, a species of souped-up crossbow.

All very cool, if you asked me. Though built in a particular style, its history and placement make it one of a kind, making the world just a little more interesting.

Brutalism in Elgin

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We visited Elgin, Illinois, today and at one point during our visit, we took a stroll near the former site of the Sherman Hospital. At the corner of Cooper and Spring Streets (where I didn’t take a picture), we saw this view, except that it was overcast today.

Had we been at the same corner in 2012, according to Google, we would have seen this.

Never mind the shifting address. Google did that willy-nilly, since there is no there, there, to have an address. The vanished brick building was part of the old Sherman Hospital, closed in the 2000s. The new hospital is to the west and close to I-90. The old hospital was square in a neighborhood, where a lot of the houses belonged to doctors and other hospital employees, once upon a time.

At the edge of the enormous vacant lot, a structure remains, an obvious mid-century addition to the long-gone early 20th century brick structure.

It looked vacant, though perhaps the hospital still uses it for labs or storage or the like. I also read that during the worst days of the pandemic, when hospital space was in short supply, this building was used – or at least ready to be used – for overflow patients.

Mostly I was struck by how brutalist it is. Some other views:

Apparently there used to be a memorial sign honoring the hospital in this now-lush spot, which is fenced in for no obvious reason. The sign disappeared like the hospital, also for no obvious reason.

Former Sherman Hospital

Even in the shadow of brualism —

— life goes on.

M.D. Trains, Blue Lotus &c.

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Labor Day weekend is nigh, and even in a semi-retired state, I look forward to these three-day weekends, especially if the weather is still warm. Actually temps have been pretty high these last few days, which means that sitting on the deck well into the evening is comfortable, once the mosquitoes have calmed down.

Think I’ll take a stretch off just because. Back to posting on September 13.

The other day while out on the deck before sunset, listening to the loud cicadas, I made up a 19th-century religious movement, in outline. As one does. A farmer in early 19th-century Ohio proclaimed that the late summer cicadas are actually trying to communicate with mankind, but that the last people who could understand them were the ancient Israelites (using the Hebrew term for “locust”). Some Israelites were able to interpret their song as revelations from the Lord, which formed the basis for the lost Book of Locusts. After the destruction of the First Temple, the locusts spoke no more.

Who is suddenly able to understand the cicadas in the (19th century) present? The farmer, of course (Robert, let’s call him). He listens closely, and it turns out the Lord is laying down some new rules ahead of the Second Coming, via cicada song. Including how to organize a new church with Bob as its head, and an exact time for the Second Coming, like the Seven-Day Adventists. Bob gathers a few hundred followers. One of their main rituals is the “Summer Listening,” as they gather outside in the late afternoon and Bob, in a trance, interprets. Some of his grown sons soon have the ability too. Locust Listeners, their neighbors derisively call them, but soon they themselves are using the term.

The day for the Second Coming comes and goes, and Bob has a new revelation for his disappointed flock: they should be listening to crickets as well, to complement cicadas. That will reduce the chance of misunderstanding, as clearly happened with the date of the Second Coming. Groups of Listeners start staying up all night to listen to crickets, but others are dismayed, sparking a schism.

I could go on, naturally – how a few dozen Church of Listeners congregations still exist in the Midwest (and California, of course), how one of the great entomologists of the early 20th century grew up as a Listener, how a descendant of Bob erected a historic landmark in Ohio – a bronze cicada – in 1979…

* * *

On the historic square in Woodstock last Saturday, something intriguing. This setup graced a shop window, though I took the image once I’d entered the building.

We’d found a model train store: M.D. Trains.

Those kinds of shops are few and far between, but not impossible to find. M.D. Trains was empty when we entered, except for an older man I took to be the proprietor and a younger fellow I took for an employee, both sitting near the front, chatting.

“You want to buy everything, don’t you?” the older gentleman said to us. Later I heard him say it to other people entering the shop. “Everything” meant a lot of stuff in a glorious clutter.

“If only,” I answered. I didn’t really mean it, since I’m not in the market for a room full of model train cars, tracks, accessories, sets and model trucks, and ephemera. Still, I enjoyed looking around the store.

There’s more than just merchandise. Square in the middle of the store is an intricate model train layout, much more elaborate than the one in the window.

But I did buy a small toy engine for $5. You can’t go in a place like that and not support it.

* * *

I’m glad to report that Blue Lotus, a Buddhist temple housed in a former Congregationalist church, is still active in Woodstock.

In fact, I believe they’ve added some depictions of the Buddha lately.

One of these days, Blue Lotus is going to be open when I happen by. I’d like to see how the temple interprets the space.

Woodstock: Dick Tracy

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This evening, Ann said she was going to see Coyote vs. Acme. I will ask her about it later. Good idea — and I understand its inspiration is the hilarious Ian Frazier piece — but it could be awful in execution. Happens a lot.

Could Road Runner cartoons be a Buddhist parable? The Coyote seeks satisfaction in the world, in pursuing goals, but is rewarded with constant frustration, since in a world of impermanence, simple peace of mind is impossible, much less nirvana. Acme, that is to say society, provides the Coyote tools for pursuing his goals that he inevitably believes will work, but which inevitably do not. He learns nothing from the experience.

* * *

You could say that Dick Tracy considers Groundhog Day an upstart when it comes to Woodstock. The comic strip detective has a distinct place in Woodstock history, since DT creator Chester Gould drew all of them from 1931 to 1977 at his home in the town, where he also stayed until his death in 1985.

Previously, there was a small museum devoted to Dick Tracy in Woodstock. On September 26, 2005, I wrote: “It’s a handsomely restored 19th-century brick building, now housing an art gallery, a restaurant (in the former jail) and the Chester Gould-Dick Tracy Museum. Only $2 to get in that museum, but the family was waiting in the car during my inspection of the inside of the former courthouse, so I merely looked in. Even when I was a kid, Dick Tracy seemed like a comic in amber, so I didn’t feel a great urge to go in. Someday I’ll go, maybe, just for curiosity’s sake.”

That day never arrived, and I believe the demise of the museum was around the time of the economic disruptions of 2008 and ’09. On the other hand, the day did arrive for a visit, sort of, when we went into the old McHenry County courthouse on Saturday. Dick Tracy is even more of a bug in amber than ever, though it is still being published, with a small exhibit on the first floor given over to the comic and the former museum.

Including posters that detail character introductions through the run of the Gould strip from 1931 to 1977. I have to say that my knowledge of Dick Tracy characters is meager.

A detail.

Tracy also gets his Woodstock due on the same wall as the Groundhog Day mural.

Hey, there was a Dick Tracy movie too! Of course I remember it. Saw it on a transcontinental bus ride in ’91. A long-distance bus that had video. A novelty. That was in Australia. Madonna turned out to be the villain? The movie didn’t make much of an impression.

Woodstock Square

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Back in 1858, someone bothered to take a photography of the spanking-new McHenry County, Illinois, courthouse – and what a bother it must have been, considering the state of camera tech at the time. Then again, it wasn’t like the photographer had to tell the building to be still.

Here in 2026, point and shoot.

The design of John Mills Van Osdel (d. 1891), described by Wiki as the first Chicago architect. Is that so, I wondered? Whatever I’d read about him – and I did a fair amount of reading about Chicago history when I lived in the city for the first time – had long since evaporated. Biographical Sketches of the Leading Men in Chicago, Photographically Illustrated by John Carbutt (1868) tells the Van Osdel story, and quite a story it is.

The first mayor of Chicago, William Ogden, hired him to build structures in the infant metropolis, and soon Van Osdel was designing them, too. This was back in the days when someone could learn to build buildings from a builder father and later reinvent himself as an autodidact architect, with all sorts of 19th-century ups and downs along the way.

Next door, a smaller building, but also handsome.

Formerly where the McHenry County sheriff lived, with a jail in the basement. Now home to KellerHaus, a local brewery and restaurant.

County government moved out of the building more than 50 years ago, to someplace less aesthetic but not too bad. Later, Woodstock Square (my guess would be late 19th century) took its present form, a green crossed by sidewalks.

The park is home to a gazebo. And a bandstand. Or two gazebos or two bandstands. Authorities disagree about which is which, and entire academic careers have been staked on determining the difference. Or not, I made that up.

Woodstock Square, Illinois

A memorial to the men in blue from McHenry County, erected in the “We’d better get moving on this” year of 1911.

Woodstock Square is ringed – squared – by some handsome commercial structures of pre-Great War vintage, mostly.

Including a fair amount of boutique-ification.

Which makes for some colorful spots.

Smaller, but adding just as much to the character of the square.

We had lunch on the square. At a diner along traditional lines, and tastier for it.

Afterward, the square told us the time.

Note that Bill Murray isn’t trapped in this clock face. Tying in with the movie is only going to go so far.

Woodstock Opera House 2026

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Thunderstorms rolled through much of the last day of August, but not consistently – the sun would be out for a while, then a new one would rumble through, with heavy downpours for a quarter hour and then gone – as if to remind us who live on the ground that it’s been an intermittently wet summer. Which is going away now. Summer is, that is. We’ll see about the wetness.

The Woodstock Opera House sent me down a peculiar rabbit hole today. Just who, I wondered, was Patti Rosa? But first, some views of the structure, completed in 1890 and a grand artifact from the period, designed by Elgin architect Smith Hoag, but built by local contractor Simon Brink.

“The year was 1888 and [Woodstock] Alderman WW. Cook made the motion to purchase a lot on the downtown square in Woodstock, which had remained vacant since a fire in 1871,” according to the modern City of Woodstock web site. “Having grown tired of holding council meetings in a local attic, the proposal was to build a City Hall worthy of the town and its citizens. However, when put to a vote the motion came to a tie and it rested on Mayor Merritt Joslyn to cast the deciding vote. Of course he voted in the affirmative…”

“…on September 4, 1890 the grand opening was held with the Patti Rosa Player’s performance of Margery Daw.

“Throughout the next few decades the building functioned as the center of activity for Woodstock and McHenry County. The City offices, library, police and fire department occupied the first floor of the building and the Opera House was contained in the second and third floors. With a capacity of almost 700 movable seats, the Opera House functioned as a public space for a variety of activities including, theatrical events, concerts, weddings, dances, wrestling matches, the annual strawberry festival and graduation commencements to name a few.”

In more recent years, the place has been a venue for live entertainment. I’ve seen a number of performances myself there over the years, such as Al Stewart in 2012.

I was glad to see a portrait of Mayor Joslyn in the lobby of the opera house. Without him, it might not exist at all, or in some other, less elegant form. (I removed the glare from the image below.)

The theater puts its greatest hits on a plaque.

But not Patti Rosa. Who would expect that? First is only first and that was probably by chance. Information about Patti Rosa is slender, at least to a not-rigorous amount of Googling. But there is some, such as a review of one of her shows in London.

Patti Rosa at the Jodrell Theatre, London, January 1889:

Patti Rosa, after much preliminary puffing, and accompanied by a newspaper called the Patti Rosa Illustrated News, of which copies were given away on the first night, has made her appearance at the hitherto unlucky Jodrell. Bob, the hotchpotch she appears in, is not a remarkable work of dramatic art; but it is a filling vehicle for the eccentricities, peculiarities, and whimsicalities of the fair and plump Patti, who sings, dances, coquettes, and banjoes her way into the good graces of a few easily-pleased Americans. In her line of business she is, however, what is called ”clever.”’

— The Man of the World, London, Saturday, 12 January 1889)

Some images. All public domain, nicked from various places online.

This one, a faded relic in the most literal sense.

I’ll give it a little revival.

Another fuzzy image of yore.

Looks like a minor hallucination in making this, but I doubt that Patti would have minded.

Patti Rosa’s heyday, and she did seem to have a heyday around the time of Benjamin Harrison’s administration, didn’t last, not even into the 20th century.

Posted at Footlight Notes:

‘NEW YORK, Aug 6. Patti Rosa, a well known soubrette, died at St. Francis hospital from the affects [sic] of an operation performed for appendicitis. She was the wife of [the actor manager] John W. Dunne.’ (The Trenton Times, 6 August 1894, p. 8b)

Well, that’s too bad. Otherwise she might have lived long enough to be an equally forgotten silent screen comedienne.

At this point, there are a number of rabbit sub-holes, or maybe informational tunnels, to wander. I decided not to.

Such as what a soubrette is, or was, and how that particular stock character, or in this case, a kind of shtick, faded from common awareness. Or did it morph into something like the manic pixie dream girl? I’m couldn’t say.

Or the play Margery Daw, which was probably a high-jinks version of an equally obscure short story by one Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

Or whether there is a copy of Patti Rosa Illustrated News anywhere in the world, or whether it’s a lost as Genghis Khan’s tomb, except that no one cares.

Or what was it that made the Jodrell Theatre “unlucky”?

Or the song “Shootin’ Craps.” There’s a revival for that song in the right musical hands.

Or the play Mizpah, or its author, one Con. T. Murphy, Esq. Forgotten, and probably with reason.

Woodstock Willie

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As mentioned before, Punxsutanwney, Pennsylvania, has gone a long way to let the world know about its groundhog and its celebration of things groundhoggish. Of course, that town isn’t the only place to do so, just the best known. I’ll bet few people south of the U.S.-Canada line know about Wiarton Willie. I didn’t know myself until I passed through Wiarton, Ontario, a couple of years ago, because travel is broadening, you know.

Back in the U.S., there is an up-and-coming town for celebrating groundhogs, and it’s less than an hour’s drive from where I live: Woodstock, Illinois. Yuriko and I made that drive on Saturday and spent a few hours in Woodstock’s pleasant downtown. The town has no history of imported northern European folk customs associated with rodents, but of course director Harold Ramis’ decision to film the many Groundhog Day exteriors in Woodstock did the trick.

Since I was there last, a new acknowledgment of the movie has been added in Woodstock Square, which is the hub of the historic downtown.

Very new, as in added earlier this month. In fact, on August 2 – six months ahead or behind February 2.

The square passes for Gobbler’s Knob in the movie. It looks little like the actual Gobbler’s Knob, but in the world of movies, that’s a big so what. Local artist Erik Blome did this latest iteration of Woodstock Willie. I’d seen a work of his before: Jack Benny and his violin (and alligators) in Waukegan.

There is a newer plaque, and an older one, near the latest Woodstock Willie statue.

Not far from the square, behind the town movie theater, is an older Willie.

Woodstock has its own groundhog fest, and this is the place from which Willie emerges. I assume that it – cage isn’t the word, maybe temporary pen – is moved to Woodstock Square for the February 2 event, though it’s unlikely I will be at that event to see for myself.

Other local plaques refer to the movie. This one has been in place for quite a while.

Others look newer.

Even the grand Woodstock Opera House wants its role in the movie acknowledged.

Also near the local movie theater is a Groundhog Day mural, evoking the movie’s promotional materials, and adding Woodstock Willie retroactively.

A good mural, but how is it Ned Ryerson (Stephen Tobolowsky) rates a spot? It is a funny bit and all, but I’d much rather see Rita Hanson (Andie MacDowell) there.

Idle Hands and AI

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Most places I go, I take a fair number of photos, because in our time – over the last two decades or so – high-quality photography has become cheap and easy. I took a digital camera on a trip for the first time in 2005 and have ever since, each one making sharper images than the one before, besides an exponential increase in memory. I’d never have the patience to set apertures or figure out film speeds, but point a phone that I use for nothing else? Easy.

Now, suddenly, digital graphic design has became cheap and easy. Is it any good? A lot of AI images look like AI images, the kind of stilted cartoons we all now recognize (well, a lot of us do). But do they have to be?

Earlier this summer, we visited Fabyan Forest Preserve in Geneva, Illinois. Later, I cooked up a series of “postcards” – named for the aspect ratio, since they aren’t real cards – using images I took there. There are a number of advantages to this, the main one being I own the copyright to the images, and so derivative works aren’t an issue. The prompts in this case are “WPA style” or something to that effect. Add some text and there you go.

Promotion-type images for other places I’ve been, recently or not. Again, all the underlying images are mine.

Images for details along the way in Illinois, using a variety of other prompts, exact location not so important.

One more.

Think of it as the first in a fire hydrant series: Van Gogh Fire Hydrant.

Forest Hill Cemetery, Glen Ellyn

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Clear evidence that space aliens visited my back yard: a lawn circle.

Note also that the grass is unusually green for August. Clear evidence that it has been raining a lot around here, or at least it was until early last week.

Vibrant green was also in display recently at Forest Hill Cemetery in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, when I stopped by.

Forest Hill has no hills that I could tell, but there are enough trees and bushes to make a small forest.

The dead have been buried there since 1848, according to a sign on site, or 1833, according to the cemetery web site.

Either way, it’s been quite a while. Long enough to sport a nice collection of weather-worn stones.

Including a scattering for those who fought for the Union.

And who died in later wars.

As an active cemetery, there are more recent stones, some of which lushly adorned.

I don’t think Scamper and Jasper are here, except as fond memories.

The only memorial I’ve ever seen featuring swans.

Find-a-Grave lists two “famous” permanent residents of Forest Hill, whose stones I didn’t happen to see, but which memorialize a father and son who both died in similar accidents. Namely, race car accidents.

From Find-a-Grave:

Don Vogler (d. 1981): He was killed in a one car accident during warm ups for a United States Auto Club midget car race at the Indianapolis Speedrome. He was pronounced dead at Community Hospital following the accident. Some witnesses said that they saw Vogler clutch his chest before the mishap. His car went out of control and flipped over the track’s outside wall.

Rich Vogler (d. 1990): In the last race of his life, July 21, 1990, during an ESPN Saturday Night Thunder national broadcast, he was killed while leading a sprint car race at the Salem (Indiana) Speedway with a little over a lap remaining. He was posthumously declared the winner. “White Lightning” was reconstructed and has been driven by Steve Butler, Robbie Stanley (who also lost his life in this car) and Johnny Parsons. The car is still racing today.

Naturally, a short video about the deaths in “White Lightning” has been posted on YouTube.

South Prospect Avenue, Park Ridge

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In downtown Park Ridge, Illinois, the Chicagoland grid, which isn’t quite uniform even in the city, breaks down just a little. A cluster of streets, and the commuter rail line, meet at the partial junction of Touhy, the Northwest Highway, Summit and South Prospect Avenues.

The downtown, which is about 15 miles northwest of the Loop, draws a fair number of visitors on a summer Saturday. Parking was tight, but I managed to shoehorn my car into a space at the library. The library building was dedicated in 1957, back when these kinds of rhetorical flourishes still made their way onto bronze plaques.

Close to the immortal words of Emil Faber, “Knowledge is Good.”

South Prospect has a row of handsome small buildings.

But none to compare with the Pickwick Theatre.

“Designed by the firm of Zook & McCaughey, the 1,500-seat, Pickwick Theatre opened November 26, 1928 with Colleen Moore in Lilac Time plus vaudeville acts on the stage,” Cinema Treasures notes. “It was equipped with a Virtuoso organ which was opened by organist Walter Flandorf.”

In as much as they are known any more, Zook & McCaughey are known for the deco Pickwick. The architects’ rendering, in the public domain, is borrowed from the blog Corridors, which looks to be a real treasure trove of the built environment.

My Architecture & Design Photography: R. HAROLD ZOOK AND WILLIAM F. MCCAUGHEY, The Pickwick Theatre Building, 1928, 3-11 South Prospect Avenue/6-12 South Northwest Highway, Park Ridge, Illinois. (10 Photos & Illustrations).

I had somewhere else to be, namely lunch at the Harp & Fiddle across the tracks, or I might have taken in a movie in the historic auditorium, which now seats 1,000, because I never have. But I did have time later to play with one of my images of the Pickwick (the first one, above).

Prompt: Art deco illustration style.

Prompt: 1920s commercial art style.

I like that second one especially. There’s no doubt that it’s AI, but it hews to my goal of not being slop. The cars — a little stilted, but that’s AI for you — are from the 1920s, but the movies are still from the 2020s.