------------------------------*All Limited Edition Geocoins Have Been Awarded*------------------------------
This cache is placed as part of the
Crystal Lake 100-Years Geocoin Challenge created to celebrate Crystal Lake's centennial anniversary of incorporation (1914-2014). The Challenge will take you throughout the city where you will discover twelve (12) hidden caches and explore some Crystal Lake history along the way. Be one of the first 250 geocachers* to complete the Challenge and receive a limited edition trackable CL100Years Geocoin.
The Crystal Lake 100-Years Geocoin Challenge Passport contains instructions, a list of the geocaches, and designated areas for recording the code words you discover in each cache. You can print your Passport
HERE or pick one up in the specially marked box located just outside the front entrance to Crystal Lake City Hall at 100 W. Woodstock St., Crystal Lake, IL 60014.
Here are the 12 caches:
GC4XNGQ,
GC4Y2WH,
GC4XM0N,
GC4Y96C,
GC4XKNN,
GC4XK2V,
GC4ZFZM,
GC4XTYZ,
GC4XPNZ,
GC4ZAKQ,
GC4XPM5,
GC4XQQY
*limit one per registered geocaching account/household please
------------------------------code words are located on inside cover of logbooks------------------------------
Photo courtesy of Raue Center/IL Digital Archives
The Spanish Mission style El Tovar was built as a vaudeville theatre and movie house. During its 4-night grand opening held July 25-28, 1929, approximately 8,000 people from all over northern Illinois attended.
According to the Raue Center’s webpage, “the name ‘El Tovar’ was simply a title picked up by one of the theatre’s founders on a trip out west. It was a glamorous name in keeping with that era’s fascination with all things exotic, and did not translate into a Spanish phrase or idiom”.
The theatre had a Mighty Wurlitzer, a pipe organ designed as a one-man orchestra providing film music and sound effects to silent films. With the arrival of sound movies, or “talkies”, theatre organs were used to provide live music between features. El Tovar featured the latest in sound reproduction – Vitaphone – whereby a film’s soundtrack was issued separately on phonograph records that would be played on a turntable physically coupled to the projector motor while the film was being projected.
Over the years, the theater changed names first to The Lake in the 1950s, then later to the Showplace. As time passed and audiences dwindled and the building fell on hard times. In 1994, Lucile Raue died and left behind a generous gift that provided funding to purchase and renovate the old El Tovar. In August 2001, the new Raue Center for the Arts opened to the public.
Important Information:
The cache is located at the back of a private business parking lot. Behind the stage curtain the log awaits! Use TLC when 'raising the curtain' for the next showing.