With an assist from AI, Donald E. Stephens comes back to life in new Rosemont museum

A decade ago, Rosemont dedicated an 8-foot, 1,500-pound bronze-cast statue to memorialize a figure who, by all accounts, was larger than life.

Now, with the help of artificial intelligence, he’s been brought back to life.

Inside the new $3.5 million, 4,300-square-foot Donald E. Stephens Rosemont History Museum is a talking animatronic version of the late political power broker — red hair, wrinkles and all — who is still synonymous with the Northwest suburban town nearly two decades after his death.

The robotic mayor — seated at what was his real wooden desk kept in storage all these years — tells the story of the area’s transformation from septic fields and pungent odors before its 1956 incorporation, into an economic engine with a convention center and sports arena that grew alongside O’Hare International Airport.

“They called me a dreamer, and to a degree, I am a dreamer,” says the android, speaking from a 4-minute prerecorded script, but with all the right inflection, cadence and tone. “You have to be, to do what I do. And if it’s better than when I got here, then I did what I needed to do. From the boy mayor to the old man, I’m glad I got to grow with Rosemont.”

The mechanical likeness — made to look like a “late 80s/early 90s” version of the mayor, its designers say — is every bit as gregarious and defiant as the man was during a 2005 address to the City Club of Chicago that served as the primary model for the AI software.

In death as in life, he defends his record and fights off accusations of mob ties that hovered over him almost since the beginning of his political career.

Rumors of a link to organized crime started with Stephens’ purchase of the Thunderbolt hotel — on the site of what is now the Rosemont Theatre — from a relative of Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana in 1962.

“The publicity flagged me and the village as mobbed up, saying I was working for them,” says the robot, its lips moving, eyes blinking and head turning. “I bought a piece of real estate to rid Rosemont of the seedy illegal activity.”

Stephens was indicted twice in the 1980s on charges of tax fraud and bribery, but he was found not guilty both times. He held up the acquittals as a point of pride.

“For eight years they didn’t find anything wrong. As long as Rosemont continues to be as bountiful as it is, I don’t care what anybody thinks of me,” the animatronic Stephens declares.

The robotic mayor and the museum — a repository of artifacts, displays and interactive exhibits on the first floor of village hall that formally opens to the public next week — doesn’t gloss over that chapter of Rosemont history. But it doesn’t talk much about the village’s failed bid for a casino amid accusations that investors in the project had mob ties.

The exhibition space has its share of black-and-white photos and relics from Rosemont’s past, many of them kept by the village or donated by longtime residents of the town of less than 4,000: a fire chief’s helmet; an A & W root beer drive-in sign; a program from the first 1980 Rosemont Horizon concert, featuring Kenny Rogers and George Burns; autographed DePaul basketball and Chicago Wolves championship rings, among other memorabilia.

Most plentiful of the tchotchkes are in the lobby on the other side of the massive Stephens statue at the entrance to the museum: his famous M.I. Hummel figurines. About a third of the collection is on display; he had so many, the rest are in storage.

But most of the gallery space, designed by Peter Hyde Design and Chicago Scenic Studios, is new school, with an eye toward attracting schoolchildren from Rosemont Elementary. Some of them were informal advisers during development of the exhibitions, including an airplane fuselage where visitors can role play as pilots and passengers, take a flight, and learn that as O’Hare expanded, so too did Rosemont.

“This is something that they’ll be proud of,” said Mayor Brad Stephens, who has run the business and entertainment hub since his dad’s death in 2007. “This is really a tremendous story. But it never was fully told and put into visual concept.”

The youngest consultant on the project was the current mayor’s youngest son, 13-year-old Joseph, who suggested the robot as the centerpiece of the museum following a family trip to the Hall of Presidents at Walt Disney World in Florida.

At first his dad thought the idea was too crazy and too expensive. But then it became doable and all too real.

Minutes after signing paperwork with Jacksonville, Florida-based Sally Dark Rides studio, designers sent back an audio file of an AI-generated voice of Donald E. Stephens.

“The hair on my neck stood up,” said the current mayor.

The robot costs less than $200,000, and Stephens vows he’s not done with fundraising to offset its cost — lest the public should think “we’re spending government money to prop my dad up,” he said.

Many of the business leaders in town who would likely contribute to the cause will get to see the elder Stephens again at a special event Thursday night. An open house for Rosemont residents is on Sunday, followed by the public grand opening Tuesday.

Joseph Stephens — who aspires to be mayor one day — never got to meet his grandfather, but has studied old TV interviews and learned about him from family and friends.

“I wish that I would have been able to experience what his leadership was like. But it certainly has left a mark,” the eighth grader said. “I feel like the way that we’ve created this show perfectly replicates the stories that I have been told.”