Corrections
Substantive changes from earlier versions. I'd rather log these openly than pretend they weren't there.
2007: William Gray's departure
Earlier versions of this site implied William Gray's departure from the area was unexplained or potentially connected to something unusual about the land. Looking more carefully at the historical record, the Grayslake Historical Society and Village history both describe him leaving for Waukegan and continuing his life there. His departure is documented; it isn't mysterious. I've removed that framing.
2007: Railroad dates
An earlier version of this site placed the Wisconsin Central construction and the Connell removal in 1879-1880, which conflicted with the 1886 station opening date from the Grayslake Historical Society. I went back through the sources and revised the journal dates to 1884, which fits a construction timeline consistent with the documented 1886 station opening. All dependent dates in the journal entries and the incident record have been updated.
2008: EMF and compass connection
I originally presented the compass deviation in the journal and my EMF readings at the corridor as measuring the same thing and therefore confirming each other. They aren't measuring the same thing -- a surveying compass measures magnetic field direction; a gaussmeter measures electromagnetic field strength. Whether they're detecting the same underlying condition is a different question. I'd overstated the connection and I've revised the description of what the readings show.
2008: Celtic calendar theory
Between 2004 and 2006 I spent a lot of time looking at whether the dates of incidents on this corridor corresponded to the Celtic seasonal calendar. I found some matches. When I applied the same honest standard to all the dates, I realized I was finding what I was looking for. With a small sample and four potential target dates covering eight days of the year, coincidental matches are expected. I've removed that analysis.
2008: Incident count and the 1893 crossing
An earlier version cited a specific crossing accident in 1893 as a corridor incident. A reader who described himself as a retired railroad engineer wrote in 2007 to point out that the milepost in the accident report was ambiguous -- it might place the incident at a different crossing entirely. He was right. I removed it from the corridor-specific count and can't reconfirm its location.
2008: Chicago Historical Society name
I visited the Chicago Historical Society in spring 2002. The institution changed its name to the Chicago History Museum in 2006. Earlier versions of this site used the current name in the 2002 context, which was anachronistic. The 2002 visit was to the Chicago Historical Society.
2008: Site history
I launched a basic version of this site in 2003. The 2006 experience at the Washington Street station is what led me to expand and redesign it. I want to be clear that the research notes describe a development over years, not a single event that immediately prompted the site.