Batavia Depot Museum marks 50 years since opening in restored train station
A man traveled along Wilson Street through downtown Batavia on Oct. 10, 1973, atop the city’s train depot building as it slowly trudged toward its new home on Houston Street.
It was a sight to see for the many who lined up along Wilson Street that warm autumn day to witness the building with its foundation set on a heavy-duty tow truck.
A couple years later, on April 12, 1975, the Batavia Park District opened a refurbished and renovated train depot building with a celebration to introduce the Batavia Depot Museum to the city.
The museum’s exhibit through July 20, “The Museum a Community Built,” tells the story of the depot’s move from Van Buren and Webster streets nine blocks west to its current spot amid the city’s Mill Pond and the Fox River. Since then, the pond became Depot Pond and the entire area was enhanced with the Riverwalk.
The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad built the depot in 1854 and Batavians used it on the east side of town (behind Berkley’s grocery store) until the mid 1960s.
For the longest time, I figured Batavia had a rail line for street cars along the Fox River, and the Batavia Depot was always at that location. For a guy who didn’t start working in the Tri-Cities area until 1977, the new exhibit fully explained what happened a few years before that.
“In Batavia, we have had a lot of railroad lines go through town at some point,” said Jessica Meis, Batavia Depot Museum curator. “In 1969, there was no longer use of the building and the historical society in Aurora wanted to use the building for a museum.
“Batavia residents said the depot had been part of our community for a long time, and they commuted to work from it into Chicago for years, so they said let’s keep it here,” Meis added.
Because of that desire to keep the depot in Batavia, a community project was developed between the city’s park district and historical society to save the building from demolition or moving to Aurora.
“After feedback from the community about a great place to move it in the center of town, the depot was brought over here — and it helped spark redevelopment of the Riverwalk area and bring people downtown,” Meis said.
The exhibit highlights fundraising efforts spearheaded by Phillip Becker and Phillip Carlson for the depot’s move, as well as the labor and sweat that went into making the move, including painting the building and fixing its wood floor and roof.
“We in Batavia have so many local stories that are connected to larger national stories, trends and changes,” said museum director Kate Garrett. “The historical society and museum itself hold this really great space where we get to highlight the local story of the development of our museum, but it’s connected to the bicentennial movement around that time and the industrial, rail and transportation history.
“We like the way a local lens still covers those big national or global movements as well,” Garrett added. “Every exhibit Jessica designs has this sort of multilevel approach to it.”
The current exhibit has sparked plenty of interest in its first weeks, drawing more than 900 visitors, including Batavia students coming as part of class projects.
For this exhibit, the basement of the museum has been turned into “a 1970s Grandma’s den” with various mid-1970s artifacts and a video of the depot building’s move through Batavia created through the camera work of Walter Kauth.
“The room has been so much fun for visitors and it is really amazing to see a guy on the roof as that building was moving through town,” Garrett said of the man clearly seen on the video, but not on all of the photographs of the move. “People were lining up along the street; and you can tell the kids were out of school to watch it.”
Garrett and Meis view the 50th anniversary of Batavia Depot Museum as proof positive that the park district and historical society never stopped improving the site.
“We added the basement space in the 1990s, along with other display space, and we opened the new history garden exhibit outside,” Garrett noted. “We started 50 years ago, but it’s been a 50-year project.”
The spirit of the project will be there for all to see when the park district celebrates “Depot Day” on June 21 in what will be a birthday party for the museum and all of the local history it has captured and shared in 50 years.
“Really, the main impetus for the exhibit is the 50th anniversary,” Meis said, while showing various tools in a display case used to restore the depot. “In the 1970s, those doing all of this work didn’t realize they were creating history, but we still have the tools and documents that made the museum possible.”
An upgrade for Bulldogs
Batavia High School sports fans will have a new scoreboard at Bulldog Stadium — with the completion target being just before the fall sports season begins.
The new scoreboard equipment and installation comes from a Batavia Athletic Boosters donation.
Based on the success of the football team, fans can expect that the new scoreboard will often display good news for the Bulldogs next season. The boys and girls soccer teams and track teams aren’t too shabby either.
But the success of the Batavia teams is not a determining factor in what an upgraded scoreboard means to the community.
It shows the boosters value the school athletic programs as an important part of community life — and the new scoreboard is something that volunteers can do for local kids in addition to creating a source of pride for the school.
Helping Garfield Farm
Garfield Farm Museum in Campton Township has some important partners who make the pioneer farm setting possible.
When supporters get together on Friday, May 9, for the museum’s 34th awards ceremony at the Dunham Woods Riding Club, those partners will get well-deserved recognition.
The 2025 awards will go to Thomas Bihun, the Campton Township Open Space Foundation and the LaFox Civic Association.
A historic preservation award goes to Bihun for his work related to the restoration of the George F. Norton family mausoleum landmark in Campton Township. He organized a volunteer effort to provide a fresh coat of paint, a resealed roof and a cleanup of the grounds.
The environmental presentation award recognizes the fundraising efforts of the Campton Township Open Space Foundation in supporting open space properties since 2017.
The LaFox Civic Association is getting an environmental and historic preservation award for its work in giving LaFox residents a say and a plan of action in dealing with significant development and potential changes in the village.
Help with recycling
My wife and I are consistent about our recycling efforts in that we always think about what could go in the recycling bin and what needs to go to a collection site. During that process, sometimes we are just guessing.
Geneva may have helped us with our recycling questions through its new partnership with Recycle Coach, a portal on the city’s website that provides a free platform that includes a “What Goes Where” search tool.
Information about the city’s program, local drop-off sites and collection schedules for weekly pickups are included.
The calendar highlights monthly brush pickup and fall leaf collections, allowing reminders on mobile devices that download the Recycle Coach app.
A “Discovery Zone” explains misunderstood materials, while also providing educational articles and children’s activities.
This is a scholar
Students who earn a National Merit Scholarship are among the brightest in the nation.
When one earns the award for being prolific in math, it is quite impressive to a fellow like me who struggled with that subject from day one.
Vitaly Starkov, a student at Geneva High School, doesn’t have that problem. He was among the 830 finalists named National Merit Scholars from a pool of 16,000 students nationwide.
Starkov plans to study applied mathematics in college.
For anyone who falls in line with me on mathematical weaknesses, “applied mathematics” means this successful Geneva student will enter a world in which he will apply mathematics and its various models to any number of fields from medicine, biology or finance to computer science and various business or industrial ventures.
Thanks to medical staff
My wife had a recent medical emergency that landed her in Delnor Hospital for four days.
On her last day, we made sure to tell the nurses and other staff they were a tremendous help.
I told them to keep that in mind the next time someone is giving them a hard time or just being ornery and unpleasant — two understandable traits when you are sick.
While some continue to try to make the precautions taken during the COVID outbreak sound like they were a major annoyance and the caregivers and health experts were somehow to blame, the truth is these people were heroes during the pandemic.
And they remain passionate about their work, which is good news for all of us.
• dheun@sbcglobal.net