James McKay of Waukegan

One of the most influential citizens in the development of early Waukegan was Scottish immigrant, James McKay, who lived there from 1841 to 1869. 

James McKay. City of Waukegan website.

McKay (1807-1887) constructed many of the town's first buildings and held office as Sheriff and Mayor of Waukegan.

James McKay, and his first wife Elizabeth Boyd, arrived in Little Fort (Waukegan) in May 1841. They had been living in Chicago from 1835 to 1841.

It can be difficult to piece together an individual's life and influence, especially when few records exist from this period. Fortunately for this research, James McKay was active in construction and politics, leaving a trail to follow.

In October 1841, the McKays built their dwelling house in the area of today's Jackson and Glen Rock Streets. The following spring, they purchased 160 acres of the heavily timbered land around their home. McKay subdivided much of his land into residential and business lots known as "McKay's Addition to Little Fort," and in 1844 "McKay's Second Addition to Little Fort."

In 1845, Elizabeth McKay contracted consumption (tuberculosis) and died at the Sauganash Hotel in Chicago. She was only 30 years old.

Sauganash Hotel, Chicago. History of Chicago, A.T. Andreas, 1884.

It is unclear why she was staying at the Sauganash, but the hotel was described by Chicago pioneer, Juliette Kinzie (1806-1870) as "a pretentious white two-story building, with bright blue wood shutters, the admiration of all the little circle at Wolf Point." Wolf Point is the location at the confluence of the North, South and Main Branches of the Chicago River, and is historically important in the development of early Chicago.

In 1847, McKay married Margaret Allison.

One of McKay's early projects was to build Little Fort's first hotel, the Exchange Hotel. In 1843, he built the McKay Tavern on Washington Street, and leased it to another party to manage. In the 1850s, he built and owned the Vollar House Hotel, later known as the Transit House, at the northwest corner of Sheridan Road and Water Street.

The McKay Bridge was also built in the 1850s. The bridge was either named for him because he had it built or because he had so much land in the vicinity. The bridge was constructed over the Waukegan River ravine at Washington and Glen Rock Streets. At the time, Washington Street did not extend west of the bridge, and Glen Rock extended diagonally to Libertyville.

McKay's Bridge, Washington Street, looking east. Image circa 1870. Dunn Museum 94.14.97

McKay's political career included serving as sheriff from 1842-1847, and mayor from 1863-1865. In 1845, he was elected as president of the Little Fort Reading Room and Library Associates. He was also a founding member of the Waukegan Horticultural Society (along with nurseryman Robert Douglas), which evolved into the Lake County Fair Association.

There are two letters in the museum's Horace Butler Collection related to McKay and politics. In 1844, McKay wrote a letter to Horace Butler (1814-1861) in Libertyville opposing the nomination of Daniel Dickinson to public office. Butler lived in Libertyville, was a lawyer, justice of the peace, and from 1844 to 1846 a member of the Illinois State Legislature.

James McKay's letter of April 1844 to Horace Butler of Libertyville. Dunn Museum 92.25.3

The letter reads:

Littlefort 25th April 1844

Friend Butler,

There is a hellish Plan on foot here, among the Clique, and Patterson [Arthur Patterson] is the fool to accomplish the object, he has this day put up the notices to take the assessment for Dickinson [Daniel O. Dickinson] commencing in the month of May in the Irish Precincts and goes on slowly to the tenth of July among the friends in Bristol & Mill Creek.

It was remarked to me and I saw you that Sheepard is to run for the Legislature. If Patterson can be bought on your part it will stop this draft.

Be sure to write Wentworth not to change our P.O. and if no one else will give Dickinson hell I will in the fall.

Yours in haste,

J. M.

Bristol and Mill Creek were two of ten voting precincts located in Antioch and Millburn respectively. The "Wentworth" mentioned in the letter is assuredly "Long" John Wentworth (1815–1888), the editor of the Chicago Democrat, two-term mayor of Chicago, and a six-term member of the United States House of Representatives.

In June 1844, Butler received a letter concerning James McKay from John O'Mealy, written on behalf of his Irish friends in Little Fort:

They are very much dissatisfied with the nomination of James McKay and they are fully determined to give every opposition to his election that they possibly can give... Neither time nor money will be spared to defeat McKay in his election.

The letter has a decided anti-McKay tone, but the crux of the upset was that the Irish immigrants felt their opinion was being ignored, since Benjamin Marks was their candidate of choice. However, O'Mealy writes in the last paragraph (of the two-page letter):

For my own part I never had reason to be dissatisfied with him [McKay] as a public officer nor as a private individual and would vote for him in preference to any other person that could be brought forward were it not for Mr. Marks being brought forward by so many of my Countrymen.

In 1854, there was much political upheaval over Stephen A. Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Act in which men of the new territory could vote on the slavery question for themselves. James McKay along with Dr. David Cory, Henry Blodgett and 500-600 of Waukegan's citizens consisting of Whigs, Democrats and Free Soilers, met on the public square and burned an effigy bearing the initials S.A.D., and calling Douglas a traitor.

"Forcing Slavery Down the Throat of a Freesoiler," by John L. Magee, 1854. 

This 1854 cartoon (above) depicts a giant Freesoiler being held down by James Buchanan and Lewis Cass standing on the Democratic platform. The Free Soil party opposed the expansion of slavery.

The Waukegan men's resolution printed in the Chicago Tribune read in part: "Resolved. That Stephen A. Douglas and his little band of hangers-on and selected bullies, will please understand that the people of Illinois have learned to estimate men by their intellectual and moral virtues, and that the day is past when those really small can be bloated into Giants solely by the aid of political machinery and bad Whisky."

These documents only begin to tell the story of James McKay in Lake County, but by all accounts, he was respected and admired. There was even a schooner built in Waukegan and named "The James McKay" in 1848. The schooner sailed Lake Michigan until November 4, 1856, when it foundered in a gale at Chicago's harbor.

In 1869, McKay sold his Waukegan land and retired to Chicago with Margaret. When he passed away in 1887, his estate was valued at $50,000.

Special thanks to Al Westerman for his research on McKay in the Lake County Recorder of Deeds office.

- Diana Dretske, Curator ddretske@lcfpd.org

Lake County's First Courthouse

Lake County, Illinois was created on March 1, 1839 by an Act of the Illinois Legislature.

In June 1839, surveyors appointed by the state selected Libertyville as the location for the new county seat. The site they chose for a permanent courthouse was at the northeast corner of today's Milwaukee Avenue and Route 176. This site was never used for a courthouse.

The first meeting of the County Commissioners' Court was held at the Burlington schoolhouse on August 18, 1839. Without funds to build a permanent courthouse, the commissioners temporarily held court at the schoolhouse. By December of that year, the circuit court was being held in a "room provided and furnished by Dr. Jesse Foster... for $9."

In January 1840, Burleigh Hunt of Little Fort (Waukegan) made a proposal to provide a court room, two jury rooms, and furnishings. The commissioners agreed, and Hunt constructed a frame building on the west side of Milwaukee Avenue between Church and Division Streets. Hunt milled the timbers at his mill in Little Fort and transported the materials by horsedrawn wagon to Libertyville.

The commissioners leased this building from Hunt. On March 30, 1840, Hunt sold the building to Henry Steele of Libertyville for $500, who in turn rented it for use by the county.

Even as early as 1839, there were rumblings to move the county seat to Little Fort. "The Little Fort Party" boosters made certain that a number of their supporters were elected to the Commissioners Court, including the very influential, Nelson Landon (1807-1884).

This group, no doubt, delayed any plans for a permanent courthouse in Libertyville. They worked to gather signatures on a petition for a special election to determine the location of the county seat between Libertyville and Little Fort.


On April 5, 1841, the special election was held with the majority of the 744 votes cast in favor of Little Fort. Eight days later, the county seat was formally re-located and permanently established at Little Fort. Vote tally abstract from the special election LCDM 92.25.51.

The main intent of the Little Fort Party was to make Little Fort a place of considerable trade. However, the economic boom was not instantaneous with the county seat's move. It took several years for the courthouse building to be completed, and for investors to arrive and build the piers that became the true economic engine for the town.


The first, permanent county courthouse was completed in 1844, by Benjamin P. Cahoon of Racine, Wisconsin. The building was Doric in style with its classical, columned architecture, and cost $4,000. The photograph above shows the recorder's office at left and first county courthouse at right on County Street, Waukegan, circa 1870.


This painting depicts Little Fort around 1845, showing the courthouse inland from the bluff and a burgeoning community. By Tom Smith, LCDM Collection.


The view above is from about 1870 and shows the corner of Genesee and Washington Streets looking west with the courthouse at far left. By 1849, the town had grown so much that it wanted to do away with the "little" and changed its name to Waukegan, supposedly an Algonquin word for trading place.

In 1875, roofers repairing the metal-plated tower on the courthouse sparked a fire that destroyed the building. However, no county records were lost since they were archived at the recorder's office next door.

(above) Stereoview of the county commissioners sitting on the steps of the first courthouse after the building was destroyed by fire, 1875. LCDM 94.14.49

In next week's blog, the county's other courthouse buildings will be discussed.

Waukegan's 150th

This year, Waukegan celebrates its 150-year charter as a city. This large letter postcard from the collections of the Curt Teich Postcard Archives exudes the vibrancy of 1950s Waukegan.

Waukegan's history goes back to at least 1695, when it is believed a trading post existed on the bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, in the area of today's Sheridan Road and Water Street. The post would have facilitated the fur and silver trade in northeastern Illinois. A map by surveyor Thomas Hutchins, published in 1778, records this location as "Riviere du Vieux Fort," and a year later the journal of ship's captain Samuel Robertson refers to the site as the "petit Fort."

The remains of a decaying structure were found by settlers in 1835, and the new settlement was named “Little Fort.”

Despite its key location on Lake Michigan, Little Fort remained quite small until 1841, when a countywide vote relocated the county seat here from Libertyville.

In 1849, the community reached a population of about 2,500, and it incorporated as a village and changed its name to Waukegan. The designation “little” was no longer satisfactory, and the Native American equivalent--Waukegan--was agreed upon, meaning “fort” or “trading place.” In 1859, this receipt (above) was issued from the town's treasurer. By then, the city had grown to 3,400 inhabitants. The Native American image on the receipt seems to represent the town's name, and the woman with goods and a ship behind her represents trade and commerce.

When this photo was taken on November 22, 1870, Waukegan was a hub of commerce. It was connected to Chicago by train, and its port was one of the busiest on the Great Lakes. The view is Genesee Street south of Madison Street.







The city's centennial was celebrated in grand sytle in 1959. Men were encouraged to grow beards, in remembrance of the city's founders.

Favorite son, Jack Benny, was brought back for his very own "Jack Benny Day." Here are two Chicago Tribune photographs by Ford Wilson of "Waukegan's Own" Jack Benny.

Note Jack Benny sitting on the backseat of the white convertible designated his "personal car." He's being driven on Genesee Street in downtown Waukegan. In the second photo, his car appears to be led by a police color guard.