Believed to be the first Lake Forester killed in action during World War I, George Alexander McKinlock Jr. (1893-1918) is the namesake of Lake Forest’s American Legion Post. His parents, George A. McKinlock Sr. and Marion Rappleye McKinlock, built their Lake Forest estate “Brown Gables” in 1901, located near Deerpath and Waukegan roads. George Sr. started a utility company, Central Electric, that eventually became part of General Electric.

McKinlock Jr., called Alexander, attended St. Mark’s School and then Harvard (class of 1916), where he played on the football team. In the summer of 1917, Alexander McKinlock entered the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps at Fort Sheridan. He completed his training in August, was commissioned a Second Lieutenant of Cavalry, and departed for France and the Western Front in September. After attending training schools, he ultimately was appointed to a position as an intelligence officer on the staff of General Beaumont Buck. He survived the battle of Cantigny in May 1918, but on July 21, after a four-day battle that ended with the Allies taking the French village of Berzy-le-Sec, McKinlock was gunned down by a German sniper while on a mission to determine the position of the front-line trenches. 

Alexander McKinlock, who received the Distinguished Service Cross, was only 25 years old. After his death, the military was not able to provide his mother Marion with the location of his grave. She searched grave sites in France for months before finally finding a grave in a small garden in the town mismarked “McKinlow." The helmet hanging on a little cross at the head of the grave, however, was labeled with his correct name inside.