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Kline Creek celebrates an 1890s Independence Day

There was one of those time-warp things going on Thursday at Kline Creek Farm near West Chicago.

First, folks at the living-history farm operated by the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County were celebrating the Fourth of July on the 29th of June.

Second, the party gave participants a look at what an Independence Day celebration may have looked like in the early 1890s - back when the music of John Philip Sousa would have topped all the Billboard charts if only Billboard charts had been invented.

It was a little like Stephen King and H.G. Wells had planned the whole thing: time travel with unexpected twists.

You could check out a baseball game in which the players used rules from 1887 - and hardly anybody complained that their pitchers weren't doing enough to hold base runners close.

You could enjoy a reading of the Declaration of Independence and an ice cream social. You could make patriotic crafts or take a wagon wide. You could try your hand at croquet or watch model hot air balloons take flight.

And when it was all over, you could enjoy looking back at how we celebrated Independence Day in the 1890s secure in the knowledge the holiday weekend is just beginning and there's a lot more to come.

  Colton Eskridge of Wheaton, left, fires a croquet shot under the feet of Nicholas Peeters of Carol Stream during an old-fashioned Independence Day celebration at Kline Creek Farm in West Chicago. Daniel White/dwhite@dailyherald.com
  Volunteer Linda Frey talks about characteristics of the Kline Creek Farmhouse constructed in 1889. Daniel White/dwhite@dailyherald.com
  Dennis Buck, a heritage interpreter at Kline Creek Farm, throws a pitch Thursday during a baseball game played with 1887 rules. Daniel White/dwhite@dailyherald.com
  Visitors to Kline Creek Farm's Independence Day celebration on Thursday got a chance to see how baseball was played in the late 1800s. Daniel White/dwhite@dailyherald.com
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