Welfare and welfare reforms are not new. Charitable impulses, practical necessities and changing political sentiments have constantly been at odds in people and reflected in their government institutions.
Lake County bought land near Libertyville 150 years ago for use as a county poor farm. The price paid for the 190-acre parcel was $2,025. County officials were vigorously criticized, according to historical accounts, for both the purchase and for the subsequent management of the facility.
As so often happens today, operating expenses and other costs required to maintain the 19th Century welfare program ran higher than expected, bolstering arguments by opponents.
In 1851, Lake County citizens voted to revert to a previous method of caring for the poor: making each township responsible. All but 40 acres of the former county poor farm were sold.
Some years later, however, the public once more changed its collective mind, and the county poor farm system was again adopted. More land was acquired by the county for the facility, and additional buildings were constructed.
Soon after the poor farm was reinstituted, an infirmary for a group called the “insane poor” was built. As government, population and tax revenues grew, other welfare programs took over.
Now in the 1990s, the facility is known as Winchester House, a county nursing home.
