Wauconda ( or ) is a village in Lake County, Illinois, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 14,084. It is the site of the Wauconda Bog Nature Preserve, a National Natural Landmark. Wauconda Community Unit School District 118 serves students from Pre-K through 12th grade who live in Wauconda and surrounding communities (Island Lake, Lakemoor, Volo, and unincorporated sections of McHenry County). Fremont School District 79 also serves students from communities from northern part of Wauconda. Government Wauconda's local government consists of a Mayor, Clerk, and six-member Board of Trustees who are elected to four-year overlapping terms of office. Village Board meetings are held on the first and third Tuesday of the month. Committee of the Whole meetings are held the second, fourth and sometimes fifth Tuesday of the month. The Village Administrator oversees all village departments and serves as a liaison between the village residents and the Board. The Administrator supervises the daily operations of the village with the assistance of staff, including the Chief of Police and the directors of Public Works, Finance, Human Resources/Risk Management, Information Technology, Environmental Quality, Building and Zoning, and Economic Development. Fire/Rescue is provided by the Wauconda Fire Protection District, an independent taxing body covering all of the Village of Wauconda and all or parts of 8 other communities and unincorporated parts of Lake and McHenry Counties. There is a library on Main Street, called Wauconda Area Library, which serves the village. History According to local legend, Wauconda was named after an indigenous chief whose name translated as "spirit water". “Waconda,” it says in the Otoe language, Great Mystery, meaning that vital thing or phenomenon in life that cannot ever be entirely comprehensible to us. What is understood though, through the spoken word, is that silence is also Waconda, as is the universe and everything that exists, tangible and intangible, because none of these things are separate from that life force. It is all Waconda. . . .” [Anna Lee Walters, Talking Indian: Reflections on Survival and Writing (Ithaca, N.Y.: Firebrand Books, 1992), 19–20.] Many early settlers of Wauconda came from New England and New York by covered wagon or through the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes. Elihu Hubbard built the first log cabin on the bank of Bangs Lake in 1836. Justus Bangs, the first settler in Wauconda, built a house next to the lake in 1848 and