Historic House Museums in Illinois

Bryant Cottage was built in 1856 as the home of Francis E. Bryant, a local businessman and friend of Stephen A. Douglas. According to Bryant family tradition, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas met in the parlor of Bryant Cottage to plan their famous series of 1858 debates. The cottage is maintained with original and period furnishings, providing a glimps of small-town life in the mid-1800s.

Bishop Hill was the site of a utopian religious community founded in 1846 by Swedish pietist Eric Janson (1808-1850) and his followers. Many consider the Jansonist emigration as the beginning of Swedish America. A number of historically significant buildings have survived and are scattered throughout the village, four of which are owned by the state and managed as part of the Bishop Hill State Historic Site. The Colony Church (1848) is a two-story frame building. The basement and first floor each contain ten rooms, once used as single-room apartments by Colony residents. The second floor contains the Jansonists’ sanctuary, complete with original pews. The three-story stuccoed-brick Colony Hotel (1852-ca. 1860) served commercial travelers and provided a link to the outside world. The “Boys Dormitory” (ca. 1850) is a small two-story frame structure believed to have provided housing for boys making the transition to working adulthood. A Colony barn (mid-1850s) was relocated behind the Hotel to the site of the original Hotel stable.

On a flat stretch of Illinois prairie—where Yankee pioneers forged their frontier fortunes and Route 66 later carved a path across the rural landscape—stands an elegant Victorian mansion and garden, completed in 1872 for David Davis and his wife, Sarah. The beautifully restored, nineteenth-century estate tells the story of Judge David Davis, whose influence on Abraham Lincoln's legal and political career was crucial to President Lincoln's success.

The Cahokia Courthouse was built as a residence around 1740, when present-day Illinois was a colony of France. In 1793 the structure was purchased by the Common Pleas Court of the United States Northwest Territory and subsequently became a center of territorial political and legal activity. The building is historically significant as the oldest courthouse in Illinois and the only one remaining from the state’s territorial period (1787-1818). It is architecturally significant as an example of the French Colonial vertical log poteaux-sur-solle (“post-on-sill”) construction technique.

Charles A. Galigher was a prominent citizen of Cairo and a milling merchant, who accumulated a fortune by selling flour to the government during the Civil War. Through business transactions, he became a friend of General Ulysses S. Grant, who made his headquarters in Cairo during his siege of the South.

The 1814 Robinson-Stewart House was donated to the society in 1966 by its last owner, Miss Mary Jane Stewart, granddaughter of a U.S. Senator from Carmi. All of the home's furnishings, many of which date to the 1830s, were also given to the society, including a desk originally used in the Ratcliff at which Lincoln might have worked during his stay at the Inn, and a silver drinking cup which Lincoln used as he accompanied little Patty Webb of Carmi to Mt. Carmel on the stage coach trip north.

Built in 1836 for Henry B. Clarke, the Clarke House Museum is Chicago’s oldest house. The house shows what life was like for a middle-class family in Chicago during the city’s formative years before the Civil War. Its fascinating history began at a time when family members could see the campfires of Native Americans in the distance.

Construction was started on the C. H. Moore Homestead by John and Minerva Moore Bishop. Mr. Bishop was a prosperous grain and lumber dealer in Clinton. Work on the C. H. Moore Homestead was completed in 1867 after the Civil War had ended and life took on a more normal pattern. Soon after this, the Bishops lost their only child. After Minerva Bishop's death in the early 1880's, Mr. Bishop sold the house to his brother-in-law, Clifton H. Moore.

Built in 1855, the house has been restored and furnished in the Victorian style. Abraham Lincoln made a speech from the balcony while campaigning for the U.S. Senate in 1858. He also stayed in one of the bedrooms while visiting friends.

Governor Oglesby had the Mansion built around 1874. The highlight of the Mansion's history is a visit by former Civil War General and United States President Ulysses S. Grant in 1880. From one of the Mansion's verandas Grant spoke to a crowd of people during an encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic, a Civil War veterans' association.

The story of the Ellwood House reflects the central role of Isaac Ellwood in the development of the barbed wire industry in America. The magnificent estate is also a testimony to three generations of the Ellwood family whose tastes shaped the evolution of the house and grounds.

Reagan's family moved to this home when he was 9 years old.

Housed in a restored Federal style residence built in 1836, the museum contains period furnishings, displays of Indian and pioneer artifacts, and changing exhibits of quilts and costumes.

The two-story ca. 1815 home is an unusually fine example of French Creole-style architecture, built into gently sloping land at the bottom of a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. Among the notable features are a steep double-hipped roof and a galerie, or porch, that wraps the building’s front façade and gable ends. The ground level contains a small museum and an audiovisual room. The second, or principal, floor represents living spaces used by the Menard family.

The Dawes House was built in 1894-5 on a two-acre lakeshore site. Designed in the style of French chateaux by Henry Edwards-Ficken of New York, the massive three-and-a- half story structure has twenty-five rooms, six bedrooms, seven bathrooms and eleven fireplaces. The Evanston History Center, located in the historic Charles Gates Dawes House, strives to capture and teach Evanston’s rich history.

The Stephenson County Historical Society's collection is housed in the former home of Oscar and Malvina Snow Taylor. The Taylors were one of Freeport's prominent early families. Descendents of their only son, Oscar Jr., donated the home to the Historical Society in 1944. The home is decorated as it would have been when the Taylors lived there during the Victorian era. The museum's exhibits and collections provide insight into the history of many eminent Stephenson County families and businesses.

Built in 1857 by J. Russell Jones, a steamboat owner and ambassador to Belgium. The 22 room Italianate mansion contains decorative arts and period furnishings.

The Fabyan Villa was home to Colonel George and Nelle Fabyan from 1905-1939. Riverbank, the name they bestowed upon their property, was initially their summer escape from Chicago. They hired Frank Lloyd Wright in 1907 to enlarge and re-model the existing farmhouse and shortly thereafter, took up permanent residence at the Villa, as they called their home. They acquired 300+ acres, creating a country estate which soon became a lavish showplace complete with fountains, gardens, a Roman-style swimming pool, a Dutch-style windmill, a private zoo, a working lighthouse, a boathouse, tennis courts, and more. The Fabyans pursued their varied interests on their estate, including horticulture, animal husbandry, and scientific research.

In 1836, John Deere, a blacksmith recently transplanted from Vermont, set up shop in the small Rock River town of Grand Detour, Illinois. The John Deere Historic Site features the home John Deere built, a gift shop, and an archaeological exhibit that shows the site of John Deere's original blacksmith shop.

Oldfields, an estate of the American Country Place era, is a rare surviving example in the Midwest of an important period in American landscape history. Its house, gardens and grounds were laid out in the 1910s and 1920s at a time when wealthy families were leaving the city to build expansive country estates. The house, built by Hugh McKennon Landon between 1912 and 1914, overlooks the White River valley and currently houses the museum's decorative arts collection.

The 1882 Victorian Cottage Museum has four period rooms and two exhibit rooms on display. Its collection reflects middle-class, midwestern, Victorian era material culture.

The 13 acre museum village has 25 historic buildings and costumed docents to explain them all.

The Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio (1889/1898) served as Wright's private residence and workplace from 1889 to 1909—the first 20 years of his career. Wright used his home as an architectural laboratory, experimenting with design concepts that contain the seeds of his architectural philosophy. Here he raised six children with his first wife, Catherine Tobin.

Boyhood residence of the poet. Living room restored to 1870-1875 period. Rest of house is museum of family history

The Farnsworth House, built by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1951 and located near Plano, Illinois, is one of the most famous examples of modernist domestic architecture and was considered unprecedented in its day.

The home is headquarters for the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County.

The Davenport House is historically important for several reasons. First, it reflects the growth in the prosperity of one man, George Davenport. Davenport was a settler, provider, homesteader, businessman and counselor. His history equals the Quad City's history shaping its growth and development. On a much larger scale, it reflects the settling of the West. When George Davenport arrived with the U.S. Army in 1816, their mission was to establish fortification in the wilderness for the U.S. Government. The protection afforded by this fort attracted settlers to this wild, rich land.

The museum campus consists of a Victorian village with 26 historical buildings filled with artifacts of the era as well as several beautiful 19th century gardens that depict life in northern Illinois from 1890 to 1910. Interpreters in authentic period dress are available seasonally for guided tours. The main museum building holds large group meeting rooms and exhibit space with a number of permanent exhibits reflecting Rockford's history and culture that include The Girls of Summer: Rockford Peaches of the AAGPBL, Queen City of the Prairies: Rockford's First 20 Years and The Missing Link: Socks, Monkeys and Rockford's Industrial Past.

The Dana-Thomas House (DTH) was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1902 for Susan Lawrence Dana, a forward-thinking socialite living in Springfield, Illinois. The home, the 72nd building designed by Wright, contains the largest collection of site-specific, original Wright art glass and furniture. Wright’s first “blank check” commission, the home has 35 rooms in the 12,000 square feet of living space which includes 3 main levels and 16 varying levels in all.

This 1857 home contains the original furnishings and accessories of P.W. Dillon. The carriage house displays local history exhibits. A vintage locomotive and caboose are displayed on the grounds.

Josephine Burtschi, local artist and historian, was born in this house.In 1956 she purchased the house and started restoring it to its original appearance. Over the years, the Little Brick House has been renovated and furnished with period pieces, antiques, and early Vandalia artifacts. Contained within the six rooms are furniture, china, engravings and books acquired from descendants of state officers, legislators and the Ferdinand Ernst Colony who lived in Vandalia when it served as capital. The library, called the Berry-Hall room, pays tribute to James William Berry, the first talented artist of Illinois, and to Judge James Hall who established Vandalia as the first literary center west of Cincinnati.

Construction on the Cuneo Mansion and Gardens began in 1908 and stopped during World War I. It was completed in 1918 as the home of Samuel Insull, an original founder of the General Electric Company, and designed by Chicago architect Benjamin Marshall in the Italianate style. Its gardens and landscaping were designed by world-renowned landscape architect Jens Jensen. In 1937, John Cuneo Sr. bought the home. He and his wife, Julia, had two children, John Jr. and Consuela, whom they raised on the estate. John Sr. owned and operated Hawthorn Mellody Farms Dairy, the National Tea Company, and the Cuneo Press. The mansion, which opened to the public as the Cuneo Museum and Gardens in 1991, houses the Cuneo family collection of fine antiques, paintings by world-famous artists, tapestries, sculptures, silver, and porcelain.

The Museum is an historic house museum that depicts the country home of a family that made the Chicago Tribune the “World’s Greatest Newspaper.” Built in 1896 for Joseph Medill, the house and grounds, known as Red Oak Farm, first passed to Joseph’s daughter Katherine and then to her youngest son, Robert Rutherford. Robert and his first wife Amy used the house first as a summer home and later as their permanent residence. They renamed the estate “Cantigny” to honor the French village where Robert served with the First Division in World War I.