Palatine Historical Society

09/01/2026

Just two days away! Join us on Thursday at the Palatine Park District Community Center at 7pm!

Join us Thursday, September 3rd for our Fall Program featuring:

Paddy Lynn performing as Harriet Beecher Stowe
Palatine Park District Community Center
250 E. Wood Street, Room 1B at 7pm

08/28/2026

Joel Wood is widely recognized as the founder of Palatine. In 1846, Joel sold his farm in New York and moved his family by wagon to the western wilderness of Palatine Township. In February of 1847, he bought the 80 acres south of the current Palatine Road, between Hicks and Plum Grove Roads directly from the federal government for $1.25 per acre. In the 1850s and early 1860s, he bought an additional 200 acres. At one point he owned almost all of what became the early Village of Palatine. Joel was the one that convinced the Railroad to put a stop here and that’s what literally put Palatine on the map. He donated land for Hillside Cemetery, the school, the churches, and the railroad depot. He platted the Village of Palatine and subdivided his land into blocks for sale. Unfortunately, by the mid 1860s he had lost many of his family members here and they are buried in the cemetery that he donated. He then moved further west to Kansas first and then California. He was only in Palatine for about 20 years, but he put us on the map. He died in 1906 at the age of 95 having never returned to the village he founded since he left in the 1860s.

08/27/2026

Join us Thursday, September 3rd for our Fall Program featuring:

Paddy Lynn performing as Harriet Beecher Stowe
Palatine Park District Community Center
250 E. Wood Street, Room 1B at 7pm

08/21/2026

Ernst Prellberg emigrated from Germany to the United States with his wife and family in 1865 and settled in Palatine where he soon opened a tailor shop at what is now 15 E. Railroad Avenue (empty lot between the State Farm building and Plum Grove Road). The building was originally built by Elisha Pratt in 1855 for his general store when he predicted that the railroad stop at Palatine would soon be a thriving community. A house was later moved to the location and attached to the rear of the store. The Prellbergs maintained their residence in the house portion and the tailor shop in the front portion. Ernst’s son William learned the tailor trade from his father Ernst at the age of 16 and worked in many tailor shops in the Chicago area. He returned to Palatine when his father had reached an age that he couldn’t operate the shop by himself and took over the tailor shop when his father died in 1921 after running the shop for over 52 years. William continued to operate the shop with his brother Henry until 1940 when they both died. The building then served as a business and residence for many years until it was torn down in 1975 after 120 years of service.

08/17/2026

🎉 Exciting Events Are Coming Up! 🎉

Mark your calendars and get your tickets today! We have some great events on the horizon, and we’d love to see you there!

📍 33rd Annual Cemetery Walk
📅 Sunday, September 20
⏰ 1:00–4:00 PM
📍 Hillside Cemetery
https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/palatinehistoricalsociety/33rd-annual-cemetery-walk

👻 The Clayson House After Dark: The Ghosts of Palatine Past 👻

📅 Friday, October 23
⏰ 6:00 PM
📍 Clayson House
https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/the-clayson-house-after-dark-halloween-open-house-1208156428

08/11/2026

The Palatine Historical Society is deeply saddened by the loss of our dear friend and longtime member, Bev Keagle.

Bev was a longtime librarian for District 15 at Winston Park School and brought that same love of learning, history, and community to her work with the Palatine Historical Society. She served on our Board, where she was responsible for our library, and generously shared her time and knowledge helping to accession and preserve items in our collections.

Her passion for local history reached well beyond Palatine. Bev was instrumental in the formation of the Rolling Meadows Historical Society and played an important role in the acquisition of their museum, leaving a lasting mark on the preservation of history in both communities.

She will be deeply missed by the Palatine Historical Society and all who had the privilege of knowing her. ❤️

08/07/2026

Just over 164 years ago, on July 29, 1862, Palatine farmer Mason Sutherland was authorized to recruit and enroll a company of not less than 89 nor more than 101 able bodied men for the Civil War. This group would become Company E of the 113th Regiment of the Illinois Volunteers and Mason was appointed Captain of the Company in October of that year. This group consisted mostly of men from Palatine and Barrington Townships and were enrolled for 3 years. The 113th trained at Camp Douglas, Chicago and by November of 1862 they were on the move south, stopping in Memphis before heading into Mississippi and Arkansas where they saw their first combat on January 10, 1863 at the battle of Arkansas Post. Shortly after this battle, Capt. Southerland contracted typhoid fever and the 113th’s surgeon received authorization to have him removed to the hospital at Memphis. Unfortunately, he did not make it to the hospital at Memphis and died of his illness January 27, 1863 at Young’s Point, Louisiana. His body was then sent back to his wife and family in Palatine for burial in Hillside Cemetery.

07/31/2026

The “53 Drive-In” theatre opened in April of 1960 at the intersection of Rand Road (US Route 12) and Hicks Road (State Highway 53). At the time it was the Chicago area’s most modern drive-in theatre. It was all-electric with electric in-car heaters for chilly nights, electric heat in the restaurant, electric pizza ovens, an electric grill for burgers and had space for 1,500 cars. Not only were there movies at night, but for the first couple years there were Sunday morning drive-in church services sponsored by the Christ Lutheran Church all summer. In the 1970s, the 53 Drive-In ran into a bit of controversy when it started showing adult films. There were complaints about what could be seen “on a screen the size of an apartment building” when driving by on Rand Road. There were complaints about people on Rand Road hitting their brakes to slow down and get a view and even one report of a person making a U-turn to go back and get another look. After years of court battles, injunctions, and new ordinances, the adult films were gone by the late 1970s. The 1980s saw the decline of drive-in theatres. The climate is too cold in the winter, property values and taxes were too high, cars were much smaller, and the availability of home VCRs hit the industry hard. After the 53 Drive-In showed “Ruthless People” and closed for the season September 21, 1986, it never opened again. Over the winter, it was sold to build the large UPS facility that resides there now.

07/24/2026

It is not known exactly when the building at 47 W. Slade was built, but it was sometime before 1884 when it was Laursen’s Blacksmith Shop and later Torgler’s Blacksmith Shop. It was here that William Schering and his father Christ Schering worked after coming to Palatine in 1881. In 1897, William bought the Torgler shop and made it his own with an adjoining wagon shop that his father would run. Blacksmiths are of course known for making horseshoes, and the Schering shop averaged 56 shoes a day, but they would also make anything out of metal and sharpen tools. William retired from blacksmithing in 1919 and started a store next door at what is now 49 W. Slade, but returned to the trade in 1937 when he opened a shop in the old Hackbarth Blacksmith Shop building on Wood Street between where Emmett’s Tavern and the train depot are now. At the time of his death in 1955, he was said to be the oldest working blacksmith in the state of Illinois. Many businesses have occupied 47 W. Slade over the years since the Schering Blacksmith Shop and a brick veneer was added to the building sometime between 1925 and 1950, hiding the original wood frame. In 2013, you could still see the nails in the rafters that held the horseshoes. The rafters have since been covered with a dropped ceiling, but the nails are still there.

07/17/2026

Palatine received its first telephone system in 1898 which was a small switchboard located in a back room of Mosser’s drugstore on the southwest corner of Bothwell and Slade Streets. Calls were taken only during drug store business hours and then a messenger would go retrieve the desired recipient or deliver a message to them. A few years later in 1902, the system had expanded to 11 subscribers in Palatine. At that time, the switchboard was moved to the dining room of the Torgler house at 55 N. Plum Grove Road where Mrs. Henrietta Torgler would operate the switchboard when she was at home. By 1910, the Palatine phonebook lists 129 subscribers in Palatine, and the phone numbers had increased to 3 and 4 digits with an additional letter for party lines. Almost everybody except businesses had a party line which was a single line shared by 4 customers. You had to listen for your unique ring to know that the call was for you and not one of your neighbors. Subscribers in Palatine continued to grow rapidly. Phone numbers expanded to 4 and 5 digits and more switchboard operators were needed because there was no direct dial capability at that time. All calls were placed with the assistance of an operator, and our first regular operator was Mrs. Zelda Bennett. Direct dial capability came to Palatine in the late 1950s and greatly diminished the need for switchboard operators.