McKinlock Post 264 American Legion Veterans Memorial

George McKinlock Jr. — who typically went by his middle name, Alexander — was the son of the founder of an electrical supply company whose family estate was located off of Waukegan Road about a mile north of the site of this memorial. George Sr. is the namesake of McKinlock Hall, a dormitory at Harvard University, and the McKinlock Gate on Northwestern's downtown Chicago campus. Alexander McKinlock graduated from Harvard in 1917, and that year he joined the war effort and was commissioned a second lieutenant of cavalry. He went to France and in 1918 was part of a machine gun battalion. he died on July 21, 1918, when he was shot by a sniper outside of the French town of Berzy-le-Sec. According various accounts of McKinlock's life, his comrades, who had taken cover during the engagement, were later unable to find his body. After the war, his mother traveled to France in a search for his grave, and she eventually found it, according to one account, beneath a grave marked "McKinlow." His body was repatriated and he is now buried at Lake Forest Cemetery. He is believed to be the namesake of McKinlock Court, an open-air section of the Art Institute of Chicago. This photograph is preserved as part of a Chicago History Museum collection of photos of Chicago-area men who died in World War I.