The West Chicago City Museum, originally the Turner Town Hall, is a museum in

West Chicago West Chicago is a city in DuPage County, Illinois, United States. The population was 25,614 at the 2020 census. It was formerly named Junction and later Turner Junction, after its founder, John Bice Turner, president of the Galena and Chicago Un ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

History

Turner Town Hall originally functioned as the first

Village Hall A village hall is a public building in a rural or suburban community which functions as a community centre without a religious affiliation. United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, a village hall is a building which is owned by a local gover ...

of West Chicago, providing police and fire control services to the community. West Chicago was originally known as Junction, as three railroads crossed through it. The

Galena and Chicago Union Railroad The Galena and Chicago Union Railroad (G&CU) was the first railroad constructed out of Chicago, intended to provide a shipping route between Chicago and the lead mines near Galena, Illinois. The railroad company was chartered on January 16, 183 ...

erected the first railway station in the town in 1849, and in five years' time, the town was an important railway maintenance stop. Working on steam engines and railway cars at the time induced a great fire hazard, but there was no city services to fight the blazes. All fire control was ineffectively provided by private companies. In 1883, the village, now known as Turner, approved the construction of a Town Hall. Aside from its town safety functions, the hall also provided a meeting place for citizens of the village and hosted a local museum. Fire protection was officially added in 1888. The town hall maintained its functions until 1976 when it was re-designated the West Chicago City Museum. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1991.Illinois Historic Preservation Agency
/ref>

Architecture

The two-story building is in the middle of a commercial block, though it was originally detached. It was built with a cream colored brick on a limestone foundation. The main facade faces northeast toward Main Street. This facade is asymmetrical due to its

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century It ...

tower. The tower, which projects slightly from the facade, has a secondary entrance and a single round top window. The tower originally had a metal pyramidal roof, but this has since been removed. The main entrance on the body of the building was replaced in 1942 when barn doors (used by the fire station) were replaced with a set of Federal Style doors and windows. Three round top windows are found on the second floor.

References

External links

* {{official website, http://westchicago.org/residents/history-architecture-art/west-chicago-city-museum/
Friends of the West Chicago City Museum
National Register of Historic Places in DuPage County, Illinois West Chicago, Illinois Museums in DuPage County, Illinois History museums in Illinois Government buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois