Lake Zurich, Illinois, United States

🇺🇸 Lake Zurich is a village in Lake County, Illinois, United States, a north-west suburb of Chicago. The village is named after a body of water named "Lake Zurich", which is completely located inside the village.

Geography Lake Zurich is located at an elevation of 850 feet (260 m) above sea level. According to the 2010 census, Lake Zurich has a total area of 7.187 square miles (18.61 km²), of which 6.77 square miles (17.53 km²) (or 94.2%) are land and 0.417 square miles (1.08 km²) (or 5.8%) are water.

History The area of Lake Zurich was first settled by European descendants in the 1830s. Three early pioneers were George Ela, after whom the Ela township is named, Seth Paine, who established a number of commercial ventures in the town, and Nathan Kowitt, who accompanied them on their voyage. New England farmers moved to the area in the 1830s and 1840s, and German immigrants began to move to the area later in the middle of the 19th century. The lake now known as Lake Zurich was named Cedar Lake at the time. The village of Lake Zurich was incorporated on September 29, 1896. It remained primarily a farming community; although the village was connected to the railroad in 1910, the line was closed ten years later. However, the arrival of the highway system with Rand Road (U.S. Route 12) in 1922 and Half Day Road (Illinois Route 22) in 1927 established Lake Zurich as a convenient summer resort. The now-defunct Palatine, Lake Zurich, and Wauconda Railroad also served the community. Housing development began in the 1950s, with the population increasing throughout the latter part of the 20th century.

The town of Lake Zurich puts on an annual festival each summer, called the Alpine Fest. The Lake Zurich Lion's Club hosted the first Alpine Fest as a way to celebrate their victories from World War II. The first-ever Alpine Fest took place in 1942 and has been a popular summer activity for families and adults of all ages.

In 1988, a historic, landmark legal case in Illinois took place settling a dispute on Lake Zurich, thereby clarifying throughout Illinois property owners' rights on private lakes. In 1988, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in Beacham v. Lake Zurich Property Owners Association (123 Ill. 2d 227; 526 N.E.2d 154; 1988 Ill. LEXIS 91; 122 Ill. Dec 14, filed June 20, 1988) that each individual owner of the private (aka non-public) lake's bottom has the legal right to recreate over the surface waters of the entire private lake. The High Court ruled that by ownership of a lake bottom land, each partial-lake-bottom owner of a private lake can not be prohibited from recreating on the surface waters that may be located above other owners' lake bottom properties. Riparian land rights were defined in Illinois.

Eminent domain controversy The village government has used eminent domain to obtain properties in an attempt to increase downtown revenue via new businesses. As of 2004 Lake Zurich had acquired all the property intended to fulfill its downtown redevelopment project. While many protests occurred regularly throughout 2005 near the promenade, the protests failed to garner much attention and ended up failing. A 2007 court defeat brought the issue back into the public eye, as a village-owned rental parcel was denied eminent domain. The renters were granted the ability to stay through the end of their lease due to clerical errors made by the village's legal and administrative employees regarding this parcel in particular.

Village government The village of Lake Zurich is headed by Village President Thomas Poynton, who was reelected in 2017, and originally won a seat on the village board as Trustee in 2007. The village has a six-member Board of Trustees. Mary Beth Euker was elected village trustee in 2017 to a 4-year term; Jim Beaudoin was re-elected in 2017 to 4-year terms; Jon Sprawka, Marc Spacone were elected in 2015 to 4-year terms and re-elected in 2019. Greg Weider was appointed in 2016 and elected in 2017 to a 4-year term. Janice Gannon was elected to a 4 year term in 2019. Kathleen Johnson was re-elected Village Clerk in 2017.

Education Public schools are managed by the Lake Zurich Lake Zurich Community Unit School District 95. A small section of east Lake Zurich is served by Kildeer Countryside Community Consolidated School District 96 and Consolidated High School District 125.

Elementary schools (K-5): • Isaac Fox • Sarah Adams • Seth Paine • Spencer Loomis • May Whitney (also Pre-K).

Until 2009, Charles Quentin Elementary School was also a school in the district, located in nearby Kildeer, that served students in Kildeer, parts of Deer Park and a small part of Lake Zurich, but it closed due to the small total number of students attending it. The district was remapped and students attending Charles Quentin were assigned to various other schools. The site of the former Charles Quentin school became a large part of the retail shopping centre known as Kildeer Village Square.

Middle schools (6-8): • Lake Zurich Middle School South (takes students from Fox and Adams and took students from the former Quentin School, also takes Whitney students) • Lake Zurich Middle School North (takes students from Paine, Loomis and Whitney); High school (9-12): • Lake Zurich High School; Non-Lake Zurich schools: • Willow Grove Kindergarten Center (K) (in Buffalo Grove) • Kildeer Countryside Elementary School (1-5) (in Long Grove) • Woodlawn Middle School (6-8) (in Long Grove) • Adlai E. Stevenson High School (9-12) (in Lincolnshire); Private schools • St. Francis de Sales (Catholic) (Preschool-8) • St. Matthew (Lutheran) (K-8) • Quentin Road Christian School (Baptist) (K-12).

Library Ela Area Public Library