Grub School Drainage District

20142 W IL Route 173

Antioch, IL 60002

Grub School Drainage District (GSDD) was formed in 1924 by a group of Landowners in Lake Villa/Antioch Townships. They formed this Drainage District to enable them to install tile lines and drain their fields and land to Hastings Creek in order to eliminate flooding issues and make their land more productive.

After dredging Hasting’s creek, they were able to install the tiles West from Hastings Creek, across the farm lands of Miller and Hughes. They continued under Savage Road and over to Grasslake Road where they went under the road and into another Hughes owned farmland which today is known as Hendrick Lake. The GSDD owns over two miles of Drainage tile in the district.

After accomplishing this huge project, the district was inactive during the 1970’s and was then reactivated in 1984 when Tom & Lynn Doolittle bought the Hughes farm on the corner of Savage and Miller roads. The main tile lines run through the middle of this property and they realized that the tile lines had fallen into disrepair and were causing water-flooding issues on the farm and on the surrounding properties, which are within the district boundaries.

Since the reactivation of the district, we have replaced many broken tiles, repaired complete tile lines that were filled with tree roots, dredged soil, trees and rocks from Hastings Creek that had fallen in and slowed the creek down. We have replaced culverts across the creek that were rusting away, with concrete culverts. We assisted the Township when they replaced the culvert across Miller Road by consulting with them regarding depth and width specifications. We are constantly monitoring the tree growth along the creek and keeping invasive species of trees off the banks in order to maintain a nice grass cover on the banks to hold the soil in place.

Our biggest project from 2001 to 2019 was to negotiate a 20-yearagreement with Neumann Homes to install a 30” storm drain from their new development’s detention ponds to Hastings Creek. We annexed some of the Club Lands properties into our district. We hired an engineering firm to engineer and negotiate the placement of the drain with the township and obtained easements from three property owners along Miller Road. The project stalled when Neumann Homes went bankrupt but then resumed when the new owner was obligated by the original 20-year agreement to complete this project. The installation was completed in 2019 and has saved the property owners along Savage and Miller Roads from being flooded out by the new developments.

We have three commissioners who own land within the district who are responsible for overseeing this district. We maintain the 30” Storm Drain, the tile lines we own and we maintain Hastings Creek within our district boundaries as well as the filter strips on each side of the creek. We pay for this work by levying a small assessment on property owners within our district, which is collected by the County Treasurers office from the property tax bills. The County Treasurer’s office pays our vendors out of our account at the Treasurer’s office. After our annual meeting in November each year, we file an annual report with the Lake County Circuit Court detailing all of our income and expenses of the district for the year.

We are dedicated to keeping Hastings Creek flowing free of nuisance trees and debris in order to maintain a very important drainage waterway for the areas of Antioch Township, Lake Villa Township and the Lindenhurst Sewer District.