Celebrating Illinois' 200-year history at Naper Settlement

Scouts got a lesson in Illinois' 200-year history Saturday while touring Naper Settlement as part of the living-history museum's Spring Fling Bicentennial Day.

The boys and girls visited five historic buildings on the museum's 12-acre grounds in downtown Naperville as part of a program designed to give them a greater appreciation of where we are, and where we came from, as a state.

Kids visiting the schoolhouse, for example, learned how a territory becomes a state and the meaning behind the Illinois state flag, Tricia Runzel, the museum's learning experiences coordinator, said. They also got a chance to view a U.S. flag from 1819 - the year a star was added to mark Illinois' claim to statehood from a year earlier.

Scouts also visited the print shop, where they learned about the four presidents from Illinois - Lincoln, Grant, Reagan and Obama - and got to vote for their favorite. At the blacksmith shop they learned about the role agriculture played, and still plays, in the state.