The Girl Scout Center

Locally, Sybaquay Council was formed in 1957 when Barrington, Cardinal, Elgin, Pokonokah and Woodstock Girl Scout councils and several lone troop communities were combined. At that time, the Girl Scout office was located on Ziegler Court, in downtown Elgin. In the 1980s, the council moved to a new office located in Udina, just west of Elgin. The building, originally a school built in the 1930s, was remodeled to include room for both office and program facilities. Several renovations have been made through the years, including the addition of a full-service Girl Scout shop. In August of 2002 Sybaquay added another shop, the Girl Scout Express, located in the Ice House Mall in Barrington. Housed in a train car, the Girl Scout Express is a quaint addition to the Girl Scout Center's Council Shop, in Elgin.

Our Name

Girl Scouts - Sybaquay Council was named after an Indian Princess. The following information about Sybaquay and her family was compiled by Mrs. Clifford Anderson of DeKalb and appeared in the February/March 1958 edition of the Sybaquay News. The facts were taken from Past and Present of DeKalb County, Illinois, Volume 1, and History of DeKalb County, Illinois, by Boies.

Chief Shabbona, the grandnephew of Chief Pontiac, was born a member of the Ottowa tribe. In about 1800, while on a hunting expedition at the lower end of Lake Michigan were Chicago is now, he visited the Pottowatomies. This visit resulted in his marriage to Pottowatomie Chief Spotka's daughter, Pokonokah, making Shabbona a chief of her tribe, too.

Two sons and five daughters were born to Pokonokah and Chief Shabbona. The boys were Smoke, who lived as a white man and was given a Christian burial in Iowa, and Wynonwy, who lived with the Native Americans. Although we do not know the names of all the daughters, there were two outstanding ones: Mary, who was Shabbona's favorite and Sybaquay, whose name means "The Beautiful."