Tonight at 7:30 pm, the Woodstock City Band will hold its first summer concert of the 2019 season. It won’t be their first rodeo – the group has already performed for 134 seasons, making it one of the oldest surviving city bands in America. This year, alongside the City of Woodstock in an official proclamation, they celebrate the 175th anniversary of the urban plan that made it all possible.
The Woodstock Square was “founded” on June 10, 1844, eight years before the incorporation of the city itself. Alvin Judd, the town’s founder, knew from the start that Woodstock (or “Centerville,” as it was first named) was going to be a success – it was located at the center of the new McHenry County, making it the prime choice for the county seat. With the rare chance to create an entire town from scratch, the city planners made the most of it, portioning a uniquely large and well-centered area for the town square.
Luckily for future generations, Woodstock did most of its growing as a town in the mid-to-late 1800s, a period where even a small farming community could become renowned for architectural beauty. The Old McHenry County Courthouse was one brilliant addition to the square, designed by Chicago architect John Mills Van Osdel as a more modest version of his Chicago City Hall – a building that no longer exists, thanks to the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
A fire also ripped through the Woodstock Square on the same night as the one in Chicago, leading to the creation of the Woodstock Opera House. These buildings both became landmarks in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, a status that was conferred to the entire downtown area in 1982.
And certainly, since its creation 175 years ago, the square has seen much – it was around to see Texas change from a sovereign republic to the fourth U.S. state west of the Mississippi. It outlived the peace that had prevailed between North and South since the Revolutionary War. It witnessed technological and industrial transformation and its consequences, keeping the most dire enemy of the rail barons as its prisoner, and inspiring the creator of both of the most renowned American works in radio and film.
It saw men come home from the “War to End All Wars” in 1919, and then saw their sons march off to worse in 1942. Similarly, it was there when the “End of History” was proclaimed in 1989 after the fall of the Soviet Union. What new history, in its next 175 years, might the Woodstock Square possibly be around to see?
Willcockson Wordsmithing 