The Mill Race Inn site is a brownfield, but no one wants to talk about it. Jabberwocky rules Geneva by stuff and nonsense.
Dear Neighbors:
Attendees of the City of Geneva Historic Preservation Commission meeting on Wednesday evening, January 18, 2023, were enlightened about a limited set of the controversies surrounding the ca1846 old rubblestone core of the Mill Race Inn, also known as the Alexander-Rystrom Blacksmith Shop.
The meeting started at 7 pm playing to a full house. The agenda had four items, with the public hearing over the Mill Race stone ruins at the top. Chairman Zellner, a dedicated volunteer to the cause of preservation, dutifully, if not eloquently, read the proforma ground rules. This recital took thirty minutes off the clock. Then we were told the hearing would end at 8:30. The “ground rule” that caused me to sigh (inaudibly, I hope) was Code, Section 10-6-10.A9: “the merit of any proposed replacement construction or improvement shall not be a standard of review for a demolition request.” The assembly gathered to weigh the destruction of a formally landmarked historical structure against an unknown. This felt akin to having the sheriff show up at my door to inform me that I had to decide whether to move out of my house by Tuesday next. However, any thought of where I would end up if I chose to leave is strictly prohibited and must not enter my mind.
Then, the congregation was informed that the HPC had already determined the question of landmarking based on historical significance affirmatively. So, tonight was not the night to drag history into the discussion. Here, verbatim, is the agenda item as it appears on the City’s website: “Demolition of a Historic Landmark and De- De-designation of the Property.” My first reaction when I read this was, “huh?” Was this a move to re-designate the entire site as a landmark (which should happen, IMHO)? Or was this a Freudian typo? First, demolish and then de-designate? Then I remembered my Alice:
‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first—verdict afterwards.’
‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said Alice loudly. ‘The idea of having the sentence first!’
‘Hold your tongue!’ said the Queen, turning purple.
‘I won’t!’ said Alice.
Off with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved.
‘Who cares for you?’ said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) ‘You’re nothing but a pack of cards!’
Mr. Patzelt, the Shodeen representative, spent most of the remaining allotted time shredding the Geneva professional staff’s work into confetti. (OK, I admit it, this brought a smile, if not a grin, to my face.) In summary, the meeting was somewhere between a hog-calling contest and a Masonic ritual.
Based on the complete lack of information about the development plan, I had planned to speak in favor of preserving the ruins. After all, the Sandborn Map of 1891 “designated” the structure with only the word “ruins.” Yet the “ruins” became Geneva’s most identifying structure for most of the following century. Anyone who ever dined in the Stone Room knows of what I speak. January 2011 was our last meal there. The Grecian chicken was superb (matched in Geneva only by Munchie P’s.) The first time I ate in the Stone Room was in 1953.
Plus, one of the contexts that determine historical significance is what happened at the site. In this case, the ruins mark the spot where a small gap between Big Woods and Little Woods coincides with an island refuge in the river and a natural limestone ford at the head of the island. Our national mammal, the American Bison, discovered that ford as early as 400,000 years ago, give or take. 15 Facts About Our National Mammal: The American Bison | U.S. Department of the Interior (doi.gov) The ford was the river crossing of an interstate highway, a buffalo trace, that took the buffalo “over the river and through the woods” on their way from the tall grass prairies of Illinois to the salt licks of Kentucky and back. As the American Bison went, so did America’s indigenous peoples.
Daniel Shaw Haight knew the Geneva site in Sandusky Precinct was valuable for precisely the same reasons that the Alexander brothers did. Haight sold out to Herrington because he found nearby an even more promising river and ford with hydropower. He founded Rockford. He and his legendary oxen built the first structures both here and there.
The MRI saga will air another episode on about the Ides of March. Stay tuned; maybe the band from Berwyn will play then.
Contention on the waterfront is nothing new in Geneva, but we are moving backward without governmental cooperation or leadership.
Geneva in 1872 superimposed on today’s Geneva. Note how the RR Bridge of 1854 was half dam and half-bridge, cutting the tail off Herrington’s Island and leaving the east side with the stench. The original U.S. Survey in 1841 (begun in 1839) showed the east side channel was the same width as the west side. Please see: Back to When the River Made Pearls, not Stenches – Rod’s Ramblings and Ruminations (genevanotes.com)
The old stone structure at the eastern foot of the State Street bridge that was the core of the Mill Race Inn restaurant had many uses going back to the 1840s.
The present-day rubble stone ruins of the Mill Race Inn have a legacy that includes carriage painting on its roof, which has left lead pollution of unknown quantity and persistence. The site is a brownfield: a former industrial or commercial site where future use is affected by real or perceived environmental contamination. Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brownfield. Accessed 9 Jan. 2023.”
Unfortunately, “micro-brownfields” exist scattered throughout most municipalities. For example, small rubbish “pits” were prevalent in Geneva. Industrial areas often disposed of coal bottom ash and cinders on-site and used it for fill.
Geneva Republican June 21, 1929, p.1.
The MRI ruins have some historical significance, but the surrounding context now is far different than 180 years ago. Last spring, the City Council severed the ruins from the rest of the historic site once known as Thompson’s Woods, a place immortalized in the poem of that name by Forrest Crissey. This was a lethal wound. Without context, the structure’s future value became permanently impaired. The first blow to the ruin’s historical context was struck in 1854!
The 1854-1883-1920-1961-2022 Geneva railroad “bridge” was (and is), in reality, half-bridge and half-dam. Bridgehunter.com | UP – Fox River Bridge (Geneva) (1920) The eastern Fox River channel was dammed in 1854 by the east bank bridge buttress, which cut off the lower third of the original Herrington’s Island. The eastern channel of the river below the RR bridge to the south was thus turned into a backwater slough, which was landfilled for about 100 years as a dump (mostly with mercury-rich coal bottom ash and cinders). Well into the 1950s, the municipal waste stream was binary: rubbish and garbage, the former being dry waste not readily decomposable. Garbage dumping was not permitted in the City of Geneva dump-in-the-slough. Geneva was heated and lit with coal, making coal bottom ash and cinders a large percentage of its “rubbish.” Later the slough was used as a shooting range, adding lead to the mercury contamination. The eastern channel was diverted back into the Fox River above the east bank buttress, but it has silted in, which changed the course of the river by erosion of the west bank.
Rubbish was cheap fill, hence the above in the Geneva Republican Dec 13, 1904, p4.
An attempt in the early 1960s was made to “re-balance” the two channels around the remaining portion of Herrington’s Island by re-opening the old mill race (which had been filled mostly with coal bottom ash and cinders) using a large pipe and a ditch that ran from above the Geneva dam to just below the State Street Bridge and into the east channel. This worked to keep the east channel from becoming a stagnant water source of foul odor. But the State of Illinois ordered the ditch closed in 1964, and the odors returned – the river is much cleaner now than it was in the last century. Geneva Attorney (and folk hero to many) Roy Lasswell, (1924-1987), retained by the east side homeowners disgusted by the stench, blocked the bulldozer with his Volvo station wagon in 1964 to prevent the destruction of the balancing bypass of the dam. He was arrested.* See the Geneva Republican February 27, 1964, p1. https://box2.nmtvault.com/Geneva/jsp/RcWebImageViewer.jsp?doc_id=9351816b-0b6a-40e9-9d50-bf1f22f4eedf/gn000000/20221210/00000217
Often, coal ash wound up in the street. Geneva Republican November 3, 1893, p3.
Earlier and gradually, the width of State Street was increased, and the grade was altered by cutting into the east side hill and raising the grade leading up to the bridge. As a result, the rubblestone ruins site lost much visibility and historical context. Its vernacular industrial architecture was often altered since its original construction. And the building was often vacant for extended periods. Structural integrity was cut to shreds by added fenestrations. The 1872 Kane County Atlas map of Geneva depicts that modern Crissey Avenue was then named Batavia St., and Bennett Street/Route 25 did not exist. The ruins were on the northwest edge of Thompson’s Woods, with George Thompson’s apiary the most well-known enterprise, and his honey much sought after.
Geneva has become obsessed with preserving the ruins, while the 1.8-acre riverfront site itself is the prize that should be coveted. Geneva is ignoring the brownfield status of the entire site. What is urgently needed is an environmental survey like that done at Shodeen’s proposed 1 Washington Place in Batavia. (After five years of planning and two failed TIF Districts, Shodeen pulled out of that project precipitously a year ago.) The City of Batavia owned the property and spent more than $500K on environmental remediation, including lead and mercury.
The uses on or near the MRI brownfield site were, just like in Batavia, sources of both mercury and lead plus petrochemicals and asbestos. One must not forget that the massive Bennett Mill mysteriously burned to the ground in 1971 (3129) GHM Minute: Bennett Mill: Geneva, IL – YouTube. The structure was brick, but lead paint was used widely on the interior and exterior. A “lead ash halo” was created, and the post-fire ash and rubble were simply plowed into the foundation, and never excavated. Arson is a dark recurring thread in Geneva’s historical fabric. The Howell Foundry on the west bank moved to St. Charles after a fire believed to have been set by an arsonist. A former Geneva village president’s barn suffered the same fate.
Other brownfield uses included lead paint spraying, a cinderblock factory (cinders=coal bottom ash rich = mercury), an automotive dealership with a garage (asbestos and lead), an auto radiator repair shop (lead), two gasoline stations (lead and petrochemicals), and, of course, fill was used that was often coal fly ash (mercury). The Bennett Mill ran on coal/steam much longer than on hydropower.
Fly ash (airborne) and bottom ash (falls to the bottom of the boiler) are considered environmental hazards worldwide since they generally contain organic pollutants, and probable toxic metals like Se, As, B, V, Al, Pb, Hg, Cr, and radionuclides Uranium, Thorium.
Unfortunately, many of these uses were “grandfathered” out of modern environmental requirements such as Leaking Underground Storage Tank regulations (pre-1974 uses are exempt). Environmental lead has a dissipation half-life of about 600 years. Under Illinois’s TACO, leaking storage tank rules, problem sites are often “papered over” and not remediated. Both East and West State Street are riddled with old gas stations that have not been mitigated. No one knows how many underground tanks remain. Don’s Gas-For-Less at State and East Side Drive Aldi is an exception that cost the city several 100K$ in TIF funds. Airborne lead now is the major route for childhood ingestion in the U.S.
Ironically, Geneva went from coal (mercury) to leaded gas (lead) to diesel (sub-2.5-micron particles) along Route 38 (State). Route 38 is a State designated truck route! Geneva put a Dunkin’ at the top of the hill on a LUST (leaking tanks)/TACO (Tiered Approach to Corrective Objectives) site where residential uses are prohibited by IEPA, as recorded on the deed! But minimum wage kids can work 12-hour shifts on the site. Geneva’s aldermen approved a drive-thru at the top of the hill (the vote was 5-5, with Mayor Burns breaking the tie with his yes vote creating the “Burns Dunkin'”) that will stop the diesel trucks coming up the hill. A stopped 40,000-pound load needs a lot of diesel fuel to get back up to 30 mph, especially up a hill. This is after Geneva received $1 mil in Federal CMAQ (congestion mitigation/air quality) grants to improve diesel efficiency and air quality along East State Street!
Another consideration, albeit a bit tangential, is that the Geneva dam will likely be removed in the not-far-distant future. Please see Back to When the River Made Pearls, not Stenches – Rod’s Ramblings and Ruminations (genevanotes.com). The advantages and disadvantages of dam removal are discussed by the “Friends of the Fox” here: Frequently Asked Dam Questions | Friends of the Fox River. Removing the dams will make the Fox River friendlier to canoeists, kayakers, and fishermen. “Clamming” (and pearls) might even come back. The City of Geneva and the Geneva Park District should seriously consider how the increasing demand for access to the river will be met. If the river becomes a rafting, canoeing, kayaking “highway,” an enter/exit/rest-stop in the heart of downtown Geneva could also be an economic/tourist booster.
I do not oppose the redevelopment of the old MRI site. However, I am for doing it right. Lead, mercury, asbestos, petrochemicals, etc., pose a potential risk to current and future residents. Disturbing the site, a brownfield based on its prior uses could put contaminated dust in the air for current Geneva children to inhale. This is not covered by the current permitting process, which does not mandate heavy metal testing, For example. examine how Batavia handled a nearly identical scenario on its old industrial site on the east bank of the Fox. As the property owner, the City did a thorough independent environmental assessment beyond what was “covered” by the permitting process. Batavia found contaminants (including lead and mercury) and mitigated the site with IEPA guidance.
Notice that even though the developer (Shodeen) walked away at the very last moment, the Batavia site is now green and neat and kept that way. Unfortunately, Batavia lost a historic church but did not leave the foundation as a gaping, water-filled hole. Geneva’s similar site is a disgrace and an embarrassment to its citizens. See, for example, Kane County Chronicle, 2019/02/25: “Batavia aldermen ok lead cleanup plan: While aldermen have been sharply divided on the redevelopment project itself, they closed ranks to approve the cleanup plan, saying they essentially had no choice.”
The Geneva aldermen refuse to remove their blinders lest they catch a glimpse of the potentially serious problems they have repeatedly and irresponsibly chosen to ignore.
The Mill Race Inn River Room just prior to the start of the Great Recession in 2007. New owners took over the MRI in 2004. They never recovered from the flood of 2007, when they lost $35,000 worth of food and liquor. Their former restaurant, Horwath’s on Harlem Ave., also had some misfortunes, such as when a bomb went off inside on May 4, 1982, with only the owner inside. Photo gallery: A history of Elmwood Park — Chicago TribuneThe old Geneva dam in 1939 versus the 1961 dam as it appeared in 2014. The problems in the early 60’s with stench were caused by the loss of the mill race.
* Attorney Roy Selleck Lasswell, an east sider, lived at 860 N Bennett Street near Division in Geneva just south of the St. Charles line. He was a graduate of the Northwestern School of Law and served in the U.S. Navy as an LTJG in WW II. I had the privilege of knowing his wife, Carol, a court reporter. Roy’s father, Tull C. Lasswell, was also an attorney. In 1962-3 Mr. Lasswell was the Geneva City Attorney. He expressed pride in the Geneva Plan Commission. In the mid-70’s the Lasswell’s moved to Batavia.
Roy Lasswell’s home is near the east bank of the Fox River next to Riverside Park on the Fox River Trail.
Plate from ‘Pompa Funebris … Alberti Pii’, after Jacques Francquart, illustrating the funeral procession of Albert the Pious (1559–1621), Archduke of Austria, son of Emperor Maximilian II. Albert VII (German: Albrecht VII; 13 November 1559 – 13 July 1621) was the ruling Archduke of Austria for a few months in 1619 and, jointly with his wife, Isabella Clara Eugenia, sovereign of the Habsburg Netherlands between 1598 and 1621. Prior to this, he had been a cardinal, archbishop of Toledo, viceroy of Portugal and Governor General of the Habsburg Netherlands. He succeeded his brother Matthias as reigning archduke of Lower and Upper Austria, but abdicated in favor of Ferdinand II the same year, making it the shortest (and often ignored) reign in Austrian history.
Many sins can be forgiven, but not the Unrepented.
Geneva’s East State Street Corridor has fared dreadfully during the long reign of an overly incumbent mayor. The wrecking ball has been his favorite tool, and deceit remains his favorite political tactic. His posse has been his hand-picked inbred administrative staff. The City Council, stricken with chronic Stockholm Syndrome, have been his minions. The result has been the “Geneva Way” of deception, concealment, prevarication, secret meeting tape destruction, and fraud. Somewhere between Archduke Albert, the Pious, and Boss Kevin Burns, the Perpetual, was a sweet spot in duration for reigns. But that moment was long ago.
To the City Council of Geneva,
“As we act, let us not become the evil we deplore.” Nathan D. Baxter
My family continues to be subjected to daily nuisances, health threats, and financial exploitation from the unauthorized demolitions and unlawful constructions at 314 and 316 E State Street, Geneva.
First, valid applications for demolition permits, special uses, variances, and site plans for 314 E. State Street were never submitted to the City of Geneva. A proper public hearing was never convened. Unauthorized demolition of the historic building at 314 E. State Street occurred. Route 38Properties, L.L.C. owns this 314 E State parcel. This owner was never identified at any time in any required notice, during any public hearing, or any City Council proceedings. The property rights of this unidentified L.L.C. far exceed those of any Geneva citizen (the politically well-connected habitually excepted). Think Emma’s Landing with its fistful of shady interlocking (to the extent of actual marital bonds in one glaring case) developer/builder/ownership L.L.C.s.
Second, the parcel at 316 East State was first unlawfully used as a parking lot twenty years ago after the unauthorized demolition of another historic structure (a small early settlement period Greek Revival-styled home). The parking lot was unlawfully constructed under a “remodel” building permit in 2002. In 2022 the 316 E. State configuration was altered, and the asphalt surface was replaced with concrete. All this without any site plan or building permit that depicts or authorizes this construction.
For many months, the City of Geneva has gas-lighted and ghosted citizens by consistently failing to respond to questions about the unlawful activities described above. The City has chosen to ignore Illinois Law and specific and general City of Geneva Ordinances. The City has conspired with private beneficiaries (Malone and Route 38 Properties, L.L.C.) to create off-the-books “wink and nod” unlawful “exceptions, deviations, reliefs, and conditions.” Examples include public R.O.W. encroachments, absent setbacks, paved parkways, code-violating parking isles, islands that are too few and smaller than the required 148 square feet, obstructions in A.D.A. stalls, and others. The City went to the unprecedented extent of officially granting permission to violate special use standards.
I understand that a conspiracy is, in a broad legal sense, an agreement to commit an unlawful act. In British and some American courts, lawful acts that finish in an unlawful manner are also included (In British parlance, a ‘conspiracy to injure’; in American, a ‘true conspiracy’). Some states require an overt act. (Common law rule does not.) A common understanding among the citizenry is that “you can’t fight city hall.” A corollary is that citizens’ rights depend on the integrity of their rulers.
For example, where is the Geneva Ordinance 2021-13 mandated fence along the western boundary? Under whose authority and why was noise-amplifying, light-reflecting cement substituted for the noise-abating, light-absorbing asphalt required in the site plan codified into law by Geneva Ordinance 2021-13? Who authorized the Geneva administrative staff to gas-light and ghost citizens injured by officially sanctioned conspiratorial misconduct?
The Malone Funeral Home has been a slow-walking infamy for two decades. The expansion in 2001-2002 onto an adjacent lot (purchased in 2000) with only a “remodel” building permit was illegal. A Special Use Ordinance passed after a valid Public Hearing was required but “over-looked” under the current mayor-for-life administration. In 2012 the 324 E. State property was found to have failed 8 of 9 Special Use standards, so the Special Use was denied. (Failure to meet just one standard causes the application to fail.) That same parcel was found to meet all nine standards in 2021 when nothing had changed in the intervening years.
The 2021 special use process was flawed from the start. The applicant was unlawfully “coached” by City Staff in secret for months, as demonstrated by the FOIA/OMA Public Action Council’s binding opinion. The initial public meeting notice was fraudulent and untimely (the hearing followed the notice by many months – months lead time for applicants, days for opponents). Where is a retroactive Special Use authorized in Illinois’ Constitution or Statutes? After an illegal expansion, when does “pre-existing non-conforming” become “illegal non-conforming” in Geneva? Immediately, if the law were followed. Never, if you “know” the mayor. The City of Geneva granted the first retroactive special use ever bestowed in Illinois, but with deceit as its only authority.
I hope the City of Geneva has enough remaining decency to disband its Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Task Force. The City must walk that walk itself before disingenuously inviting others to talk that talk under the auspices of its false flag.
Once again, I ask that the use of the above-cited unlawful parking lot be immediately and indefinitely halted.
Rodney B. Nelson, M.D., F.A.C.P., former Major U.S.A.F. 23 Kane Street Geneva Illinois
Audio tape from April 12, 2012, Geneva Plan Commission meeting discussing the staff “error” made in 1999-2002 when the Malone Funeral Home was expanded without the required Special Use Permit. The only building permit was classified as a “Remodel Commercial.” The First voice is the current Geneva Director of Development. The second voice is the 2012 Geneva Director of Development, Richard Untch. Mr. Untch does NOT MENTION the construction of the parking lot at 316 E State, which was re-constructed in 2021 without a Special Use Permit or Building Permit.
Above: Parking lot and building addition at 316, and 324 E State Street, Geneva, under construction in 2002. Below: Geneva Building Permit 20081 approved in 1999 and occupancy permit 2002.
Rod's Ramblings and Ruminations 
