St. Charles Heritage Center

              Times have changed 
By Tony Zehnder 
Interested in a 1911 vacuum 
cleaner? How about a shingle machine 
from 1844, or a ten cent paper bill or 
a brick signed by Colonel Baker? 
If your interests lie elsewhere, there 
is always the first water main in St. 
Charles, old keys to the City and a 
picture of the 1917 Belgium-American 
football team. 
The St. Charles Historical Society 
Museum in the north end of the City 
Municipal Building, has a little bit of 
everything relating to older times in 
St. Charles. The collections of artifacts 
and mementos have outgrown the 
room they are stored in, but if you 
scrounge around, or ask Rev. David J. 
Ekstrom, the curator, you can 
probably find things you never knew 
existed before. 
The museum, which attracts over 
100 visitors a week on the average, has 
been in the Municipal Building since it 
was constructed. 
According to Rev. Ekstrom, most of 
the items are donated or loaned to the 
museum. Nothing is bought or loaned 
out. 
Pictures are a strong point of the 
collections, with over 500 scenes and 
events of the City stored in old 
albums. 
There are pictures of most of the 
older buildings which have long ago 
been replaced, and pictures of once 
famous houses such as the mansion of 
L.C. Ward which stood on the hill in 
Pottawatomie Park. 
Everything in the museum has some 
kind of story behind it, even the name 
of the City. According to Rev. 
Ekstrom, after Shelby and Franklin 
first settled here in 1833 the Germans 
came in 1839 and the Swedes followed 
about ten years later. 
The city was called Charleston at 
first, but it was discovered that 
another Charleston already existed in 
Illinois. The name Ethica was 
proposed, but the Germans voted it 
down. Finally a committee arrived at 
the name St. Charles. 
Rev. Ekstrom also described a one 
day war with Sycamore in the 1840's. 
Apparently, the first medical school in 
the area was located where the 
Borman Hardware store was (the west 
wall is the original) on First Avenue. 
As the story goes, a medical student 
had taken a cadaver from Sycamore to 
use in his studies, but the outraged 
citizens of Sycamore stormed over to 
St. Charles for a battle that lasted one 
day and resulted in the student and 
one doctor being killed. 
The first issue of the first newspaper 
in St. Charles, called "The	Charles 
Patriot and Fox River Advocate", 
February 5, 1842, is on display. The 
stories in the paper tell much about 
the times as evidenced by one notice 
offering a six cent reward for 
information about a 12 year-old girl 
who ran away from home. 
The museum also holds a unique 
collection of dioramas, scale model 
scenes of the city, created by Alice 
Davis. 
For those with an interest in the 
past, when horses wore mud shoes and 
people used foot warmers, the 
museum is the place to go. 
The visitation hours are from 
1-5 p.m. on Tuesday, Thursday and 
Friday, and from 9 a.m. to noon on 
Saturday. Other hours by 
appointment, call 584-0143.