While Glen and Grace Mullican eased into retirement and the Stavers built a new house on the 74-acre property, a man named Harry Espenscheid began amassing a large chunk of land in Rock Run Township. His acquisitions began in the 1960s, after he had owned Northwest Construction (Rockford, Illinois) for a number of years. Born in Danville, Illinois in 1912, Harry graduated from Dartmouth University and spent most of 1935 and 1936 traveling through Europe on a bicycle. When he returned, his love of horses brought him to a Wyoming ranch, where he met his wife, Dorothy Sharp. After serving as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he and Dorothy moved to Rockford and bought Northwest Construction.
The Espenscheid's fortunes changed in the 1960s, when they owned and lived on a 350-acre farm south of Rockford on Perryville Road. The Commonwealth Edison electric utility wanted to acquire about 2/3s of this property, and obtained it for a handsome price. In a mini-biography written by the Rock Run Historical Society, Harry discussed this farm and its sale. To avoid capital gains taxes, the Espenscheids reinvested in land around Rockford, as well as Rock Run Township. The attraction to Rock Run Township surely had to be its horse-friendly terrain and reasonable proximity to Rockford.
Once he began buying land in the 1960s, Harry Espenscheid didn't stop until he had amassed over 1,500 acres in Rock Run Township. The most impressive part of this land accumulation is that all of the land was contiguous. Plat book records suggest that it took Harry about 15 years to accumulate his land, and no single purchase was more than about 200 acres. Most of the land was centered around Rock Run Creek, and he owned land on both sides of the creek for a stretch of nearly 4 miles.
In his mini-biography, Harry mentioned that after the sale of his farm to Commonwealth Edison, he developed an illness called "land fever". This affliction led him to buy land in several states, as well as increasing his holdings in Rock Run Township. Sometime in the 1960s, he and many of his Rock Run neighbors were approached by the Boise Cascade company to sell their land for a private lake development. Rock Run Creek would have been the water source for the lake. Their offer for the Espensheid land was about twice its market value. Harry was tempted to accept their offer, but one landowner, Capitola Jonas, would not sell. After a year and a half of trying, Boise Cascade finally gave up and developed what is now Lake Summerset, two miles north of Davis. Harry may still have had lake dreams, as Illinois governor Richard Ogilvie signed a bill in 1971 to develop a feasibility study for a lake in proximity to our home. It's unclear what became of this study, but a lake was not to be. The Espensheids continued to acquire more land around Rock Run Creek throughout the 1970s. With many of their neighbors already geared up to sell to Boise Cascade, the Espenscheids were able to negotiate purchases which extended their land holdings up and down Rock Run Creek.
Regardless of Harry's plans, farm real estate ownership can span generations, and in many parts of the world, what he did would have taken a couple of lifetimes. But based on what we know about him, Harry was probably the kind of guy who could make things happen. Leaving behind a Dartmouth degree to travel abroad on a bicycle during the Great Depression obviously required an adventuresome spirit. His accounts of his travels through Europe and the Middle East in the 1930s were documented with a diary he kept during his travels, as well as letters to his hometown newspaper, the Danville Commercial-News. Later in life, after his business pursuits evolved, he donated land for parks and forest preserves in Danville, Rockford, and Rock Run Township.
The Espenscheid years were a period in which our house was rented, or maybe even vacant at times. What we've seen in the basement, attics and walls would suggest a host of critters lived well inside the house for long periods - well enough that we wonder if nobody lived here for awhile after the Stavers sold the property.
