Round Lake Park, IL

For the most part not many people have heard of Round Lake Park, IL and that is true around the Chicago area too.  What is so important about it that I felt the need to write about it?  Round Lake Park was where Tim and I bought our first home back in 1985 when we were stationed at NAS Glenview.  It is a village in Lake County, IL  Population, 6038 with a median income of $45,000 and a median age of 42.  Round Lake Park is a small town that is connected with Round Lake and Round Lake Beach.  All three villages got it's name from the lake in the area, Round lake.  The Round Lake area became a farming community after the Black Hawk War of 1832.  In the 1890s officials of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St Paul Railroad extended a branch from the Milwaukee-Chicago main line at Libertyville junction to Janesville, WI for the farmers of Lake County to have easy access to Chicago.  A landowner, Amarias M White, saw the growth potential that could start in Round Lake and offered the railroad free land to put a station in Round Lake.  The railroad did bring growth to Round Lake.  In 1901 Armour decided to harvest ice from Round lake for their refrigerator car operation and built a huge building for holding over 100,000 tons of ice to be used for shipping during the spring and summer.  In 1909 Round Lake became incorporated and White became the first village president.  A fire in 1917 destroyed the Armour Ice House but by this time Round Lake became a popular vacation spot so Armour remodeled their dormitory, used for the ice cutters to live in, into a resort.  The Round Lake area continued to grow slowly but after World War II moving to the suburbs became a popular trend and in 1947 Round Lake Park was developed with small quaint cottage homes with lots of open spaces surrounding the homes.  Today, the Round Lake area is a commuter town for Chicago and Milwaukee. 
Our house had not changed much.  The extra lot when we owned the home has been sold off and another home was built there.  Our house had new windows and a new garage door but otherwise looked exactly the same.  I felt like I could almost pull into the driveway and walk right in the front door.  The town of Round Lake Park had not changed much either.  Even the corner market I use to shop at is still on there and looks the same.  It was good to see our first house again.  After we got back from our little excursion we took Shadow for a walk along Lake Michigan.  He played around in the water but he wouldn't  go swimming...I guess he didn't like the waves.