Web Design in Barrington, IL

Barrington, Illinois

Barrington is in Cook County and Lake County.

About Barrington, Illinois

Landmarks and Places in Barrington

• The Village of Barrington Historic District was established in 2001 to protect historical areas and individual structures of historic, architectural or cultural significance, and the Historic Preservation Overlay District is noted for Victorian, Victorian Gothic, Queen Anne and other late 19th century forms. The Octagon House, also called the Hawley House, is an eight-sided two-story wood-framed and clapboard-covered residence on the National Register of Historic Places; its most notable features are intricately carved and jig-sawed brackets supporting the porch roof that encloses the house and similarly detailed screens hiding the foundation, with structural members fastened by hand-forged flat nails and glue rather than machined nails. Its interior is reported as quite conventional, the rooms divided so that no octagonal corner is visible from inside, with the leftover spaces used as coat nooks and a stair closet. At least two additions were made, one before 1920 replacing the rear porch with a kitchen, and a small bedroom extension added by the Hawley family after they bought the house in 1951. The Catlow Theater, a single-screen movie house downtown, was commissioned by businessman Wright Raymond Catlow, whose father Joseph Goodman Catlow had commissioned an auditorium on West Station Street in 1916. Betts and Holcomb were the architects and the interiors were designed by Prairie School sculptor and designer Alfonso Iannelli, largely the reason for the theater's National Register listing on August 21, 1989. Iannelli's work includes stenciling on the ceiling, walls and beams, sculpted gargoyle-like heads bordering each ceiling truss, and the Fountain Idyll sculpture in the inner lobby, with three coat-of-arms wall murals, iron wall sconces, detailed woodwork on both organ lofts and an original hand-painted stage curtain, all within a Tudor Revival scheme evoking a medieval English hall. Catlow's brother Chester played the theater organ; the house showed silent films with Sunday vaudeville that drew performers including Gene Autry and Sally Rand, and turned to movies only in 1934. The Ice House Mall northwest of the center was built in 1904 for the Bowman Dairy and served as an actual ice house for 68 years before renovations from the 1970s turned it into specialty shops. Barrington has been recognized by the Arbor Day Foundation as a Tree City USA every year since 1986, supported by a Tree Preservation and Management Ordinance, and the Barrington Park District administers Citizens Park, Langendorf Park, Miller Park and Ron Beese Park. Northeast of town lies Cuba Marsh Forest Preserve, a 782-acre wetlands preserve with 3 miles of crushed-gravel trail, named for Cuba Road along its northern boundary and administered by Lake County Forest Preserves.

The Barrington Economy

• In 1929 the Jewel Tea Company built an office, warehouse and coffee roasting facility northeast of the village center, creating hundreds of local jobs during the Great Depression; the company's former headquarters was razed in the early 21st century and redeveloped as Citizens Park. Alongside its downtown the village holds several shopping centers, including the Ice House Mall and The Foundry northwest of town. Barrington draws much of its sales tax revenue from about half a dozen car dealerships: state figures indicate that auto sales, gasoline sales and state-taxable auto repairs produced $2.1 million in sales taxes for the village in 2008, roughly 56 percent of its sales-tax income. The Gatorade Sports Science Institute stood just west of downtown, across from Barrington High School, until it closed in June 2022, and GE Healthcare IT was based in the village before relocating to Chicago in 2016.

Local reference: en.wikipedia.org, en.wikipedia.org, en.wikipedia.org