Picket fence farm now houses

Picket Fence Farm. It was located on Washington St. in Grayslake. It was a dairy farm. It was beautifully maintained and the fences were white. It is no longer there the owners sold property in the 70-80's.

All torn down. Now owned by Lake County Forest Preserve with walking trails.

This was my family's farm, The Tuckaway Farm in the late 1940s until the early 1960s. I was born here in 1956, my sisters in 1952 and 58. My dad, Russell Gwaltney and his brother Elza Gwaltney and his son Leroy farmed it with Dairy cattle, soy beans and corn. We rented it from Mr. Barry of Chicago. We moved to Rollins Rd. when the owners decided to make it a Black Angus farm and hired a manager to set up the farm about 1963. The farm was renamed "Picket Fence" at that time. The Angus won international breeding awards. The giant barn shown in the lower right housed our horses and cattle. It lost its roof in a tornado about a year after we moved on Palm Sunday 1963 or 64. There was an odd outbreak of tornadoes across the country that year. There was a large red wooden barn to the rear that served as my dad's machine shop where he repaired tractors and equipment. You cant see the home that well in the picture as it was hidden by a long line of trees that lined the driveway to Washington Street. It was a very old building, built in the early 1800s, I think it was 1812 but not positive of the date. It had an odd cellar that had chambers. I was told that it may have been a safe house in the underground railroad as our area was inhabited by early aboloitionists. It had beautiful Gothic and Italinate wood carvings and corbels. The county bought it, tore down the buildings and made it into a prairie. You can still see the outline of the house when the tulips come up in the spring. And my mom's blue Delphiniums arrive faithfully every summer among the weeds. Oddly this farm and our 2nd farm on Rollins Rd are today county forest preserves snd our third farm is now part of the College of Lake County campus.

That Palm Sunday tornado in 1965 swept through from Crystal Lake northeast to Third Lake, then Druce Lake, and ended in Lake Michigan near Waukegan. Grew up to the north of Picket Fence Farm (Helgren-Manager) in the 1960s.

Picket Fence Farm was run by Jerry Helgren, my father in law. My wife grew up on this farm in the 60's and 70's. In the late 80's, the Forest preserve purchased the property, and for a time the house was left standing. The business (Picket Fence Farm) moved to Lake Villa near corner of Fairfield Rd and Monaville Rd.