It is seldom that Lake County Forest Preserves District commissioners give up properties in their land bank. They did last month for a cause close to most veterans’ hearts — More burial space for those who served their nation.
Foresters voted Aug. 13 to convey nearly five acres of land to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to expand the Fort Sheridan National Cemetery. The sale price is $610,000.
The sale package has since been submitted to the VA, and if the proposed agreement, expected to be approved at the federal level, eventually goes through, closing is planned by Sept. 30. The land, currently part of Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve in Lake Forest, will be used to install a columbaria, a structure built to house vaults for the urns of the cremated remains of veterans and their spouses.
The sale includes two parcels, one east and one west of the existing cemetery off Sheridan Road. Last month’s vote culminates years spent negotiating terms for the proposed expansion.
Without the property, the VA said the cemetery would reach capacity by 2040. The land transfer is estimated to add more than 50 years of burial space.
The deal is a rare one, indeed, for the Forest Preserves District, the second-largest in Illinois. Perhaps one reason preserves commissioners hold so tight to properties owned by Lake County taxpayers is that they may heed the words of Crazy Horse, the notable Lakota Sioux chief: “One does not sell the land the people walk on.”
He was talking about the vast Western prairies Native Americans used before they were wrested by an expanding America. That stand by Crazy Horse didn’t work out so well for Native tribes back in the 1870s, but it seems we’ve learned a lot about keeping land available for public use. Indeed, the Forest Preserves District acknowledges Native people as the original caretakers of the land, which once were the traditional homelands of the Ojibwe, Odawa (Ottawa in English) and Potawatomi nations.
The county’s preserves maintain a bit of that wilderness here when Lake County was hunting grounds for Native Americans. Our expanding suburban surroundings need those uncultivated wilds.
For that we can thank those who worked to found the Forest Preserves District, beginning back in 1957, with its inception a year later via referendum. Over the years, some have wanted to turn holdings into parklands. While some forest preserves have swings, slides and some park-like recreation areas for youngsters, those things are more the purview of city and village park entities.
Passive recreation is what the county’s forest preserve network does so well and residents use to the maximum daily on the trail systems, dog parks and picnic shelters. The loss of a mere 4.7 acres to the VA is a small plot considering the district is comprised of more than 31,400 acres.
Fort Sheridan Cemetery was begun in 1889, two years after the post, named for Civil War cavalry Gen. Philip Sheridan, was established. The cemetery borders the 250-acre Fort Sheridan Forest Preserve, which was transferred to the county after the post was declared excess land in 1989. Fort Sheridan officially closed in 1993, although an Army Reserve center remains on the southern portion of the property.
There are taxpayer savings once the VA takes control of the property. An estimated $35,000 yearly upkeep done by the Forest Preserve District, which had been charged with doing that in perpetuity, soon will switch to the VA.
In addition, the $610,000 sale proceeds will be deposited in the Preservation Foundation, the Forest Preserves’ charitable partner, to support long-term land management at Fort Sheridan. The funds will be added to the Every Acre Strong endowment, which provides a permanent source of funding to care for the preserves, officials have said.
As of last week, 2,354 veterans served during the Civil War to recent retired military personnel are buried at the cemetery, which is administered by the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood in Will County. Nine German prisoners of war, most captured during the campaign in North Africa during World War II, are interred at the cemetery, according to the VA. They died either at Fort Sheridan or Camp Grant in Rockford, which was operational during World War II.
Free burial in a VA national cemetery with a tombstone is available to members of the armed forces who meet minimum active duty service requirements and were discharged with honorable conditions. A veteran’s spouse, widow or widower, and minor dependent children also may be eligible for burial.
Those interments may happen sooner for county veterans with the land sale and planned cemetery expansion.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.
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