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Travel West guide to unique destinations, sight-seeing, history and
culture, budget travel vacation ideas for the U.S., Canada and Caribbean.
Travel Bargain Destination in Illinois
MIDWAY VILLAGE MUSEUM – ROCKFORD
Victorian Era Heritage Town of Northern Illinois
The
heritage village has become a popular way to explore our common past,
a way to visit and explore days gone by. Walt Disney created one for
commerce in his amusement park in the 1960s and in the 1970s, as cities
were trying to recover from urban blight, the idea of restoring old
buildings, or even lifting them off their foundations and moving to
the piece of vacant land to create an old time town became the rage.
When settlers spread west from Chicago through Northern Illinois the
crossing of the Rock River formed the stopping point for many heading
to the plains and prairies. The Midway Village Museum is Rockford’s
heritage town, featuring a collection of 26 period buildings, gathered
together on 137 acres of tree grown campus in the form of a late 19th
Century town with artifacts of culture and daily life dating back to
the founding of Rockford in 1830.
Beginning
In 1968, the Swedish, Harlem and Rockford Historical Societies joined
together to create a heritage village on land donated by the Severin
Family for the purpose of collecting, preserving and interpreting the
history of the Rockford area. The campus began to take shape in 1972,
with buildings moved into place. The original Museum Center opened
in 1974 and additional galleries were added in 1988, including The
Old Doll’s House Museum and the Aviation Gallery.
At
the heart of the Midway Village Museum is the “Victorian Village” of
historic buildings, including a General Store, Police Station, Schoolhouse,
Doctors Office, Barber Shop, Blacksmith and Bank, among others, along
with beautiful 19th century gardens depicting life in Northern Illinois
from 1890 to 1910. In the park beyond the main street are a collection
of prairie Victorian era houses, spread around a “village green”,
landscaped with flowers around the well-trod wooden porches. Inside
are the artifacts and furnishing of a life before electricity, and
perhaps most distinctive in the design of the era was the Victorian
Parlor with a separate doorway entrance specifically built to allow
easy access for a coffin to be removed, as a hard life often brought
an early end, and possibility of death in a family was ever present.
While
the museum village is open year round, it is from May to August that
the old town comes alive with interpreters in period costume to populate
the buildings, and offer guided tours. The Museum Center at the village
highlights local history through a collection of exhibits offered to
explore the “Queen City of the Prairies” and “Rockford’s
Industrial Past”, with a special look at Rockford’s indigenous “Sock
Monkey” the doll created from left over sock weaving fabric from
a local mill.
Visiting the Midway Village Museum
Find the best travel and hotel deals in Illinois on Trip Advisor
These articles are copyrighted and the sole property of Bargain Travel West and WLEV, LLC. and may not be copied or reprinted without permission.
See these other articles on Bargain Travel West:
TINKER SWISS COTTAGE MUSEUM - ROCKFORD
DONLEYS
WILD WEST TOWN - UNION
ANDERSON JAPANESE GARDENS
FRANK
LLOYD WRIGHT LAURENT HOUSE
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