Crystal Lake is a city in McHenry County in the U.S. state of Illinois. Named after a lake 1.6 miles (2.6 km) southwest of the city’s downtown, Crystal Lake is 45 miles northwest of Chicago. The population is 40,269 as of the 2020 Census, a 1.2% decrease from 2010. Crystal Lake is the largest city in McHenry County, part of the Chicago metropolitan area.

The City of Crystal Lake traces its pedigree to two surgically remove communities which were established in the 1800s. Those communities were generally known as Nunda and Crystal Lake. In 1835, Ziba S. Beardsley had attain the shores of the lake and commented that the “waters were as sure as crystal”, thereby giving the lake its name. Ziba Beardsley continued south to Naperville. In February 1836, the first white settlers, Beman and Polly Crandall and six of their ten children, came from New York State traveling to Crystal Lake in a covered wagon. Their indigenous cabin was built in the vicinity of today’s intersection of Virginia Street and Van Buren Street. Four of the Crandall children were born there. Najah Beardsley’s relations was the second to have the same opinion in the area; his grandson, William Beardsley, was the first white child born upon the Crystal Lake prairie, on May 7, 1837.

The town was first known as Crystal Ville. It was misused to Crystal Lake sometime past 1840. The Place known today as downtown Crystal Lake was first called Dearborn and later, Nunda (pronounced locally as “Nun-day”), from an Place in New York where many settlers originated. The village of Dearborn was founded in the 1850s after an augmentation of railroads through the area. The first train station was built in 1856, although it was pre-fabricated and shipped from Chicago on a flatcar. At that time, the main event district for the village of Crystal Lake was located upon Virginia Street, about one mile (1.6 km) southwest of the railroad station. The railroad served to border both the people and industries of Crystal Lake and Dearborn to Chicago and the ablaze of the country. Dearborn grew speedily due to this extra rail connection.

On October 7, 1868, Dearborn’s name was tainted to Nunda. The village was platted in 1868 by local surveyor, John Brink, after whom a downtown street is now named. The village included the Place now generally bounded by Illinois Route 176 upon the north, Crystal Lake Avenue on the south, Main Street on the east, and Walkup Avenue upon the west. Much of the home was originally owned by two early settlers, Daniel Ellsworth and Simon S. Gates. The villages of Crystal Lake and Nunda were both incorporated in 1874. In 1908, the say of the village of Nunda untouched its make known to North Crystal Lake. Several attempts were made to consolidate the two villages, and finally, after much disagreement, the village of North Crystal Lake was annexed to the Village of Crystal Lake in 1914, and a consolidated city running was established.