La Buy Park is located at 35 Hilltop Drive, Lake in the Hills, IL.

Amenities include:

Park History

WALTER J. LA BUY was a prominent Chicago attorney who later became a Cook County Circuit Court Judge and then a Federal District Court Judge, serving 23 years of full and part-time duty on the federal bench. He had purchased property along a creek running from Crystal Lake to the Fox River for his hunting and fishing estate. The stone walls at Woodland Road mark the original entrance to that estate.

La Buy and friends had an earthen dam constructed, which created the lake prior to 1923. It was smaller than Woods Creek Lake is today (about 30 acres, as compared with its current 50+ acres), with a children’s beach located at Turtle Island. The five stucco homes on the south side of the lake on Indian Trail were built for La Buy family members. He is credited with planting many of the oak and pine trees which later attracted others to the area.

In 1946, the Lake in the Hills Development Corp. purchased La Buy’s 473 acres and 300 more. According to a Chicago Better Business Bureau report, the corporation was formed “for the purpose of selling the quarter million dollar property formerly known as the Estate of Judge La Buy.” Developers Raymond Platt, J. R. Ladd, and others opened the area to public sale in May 1947.