From AI-powered robotic mayor to aircraft fuselage, plans for $3 million Rosemont museum unveiled
Seventy years ago today, Donald E. Stephens and 83 other residents incorporated an area riddled with swamps, potholes and garbage dumps into a new Northwest suburban municipality.
Few know or remember Rosemont’s origin story and evolution into the entertainment and business mecca it is today. But recently uncovered archived materials mixed with the technology of today — and even a dose of artificial intelligence — will help tell the tale this year.
Village officials Tuesday unveiled the first renderings of what will be inside the 4,300-square-foot Donald E. Stephens Rosemont History Museum, which is now being built on the first floor of village hall at 9501 Technology Blvd. The $3 million project will feature displays and exhibits to take visitors on an interactive journey through the village’s past, present and future, officials said.
“We’ve got a great story here. I think at times we aren’t great about telling the story,” said Mayor Brad Stephens, who took helm of the tiny village — population 4,000 — after his father’s death in 2007. “It’s not about me and what we’ve accomplished. It’s about the forethought of the founding fathers and what they thought this could be.”
So why not allow Stephens the elder to tell the story in his own words?
The centerpiece of the exhibition will be a talking animatronic version of the late politician and power broker seated behind his old wooden desk.
“We are pretty far along with the face and the head of what it’s going to look like. It’s all in a sculpt right now before they actually start fabricating it,” said Brad Stephens, who plans to travel to the Jacksonville, Florida-based Sally Dark Rides design studio next month to check on the progress in person.
The robot will be motion activated — coming to life, so to speak, as visitors walk into the mayor’s office — and have a set of at least four prerecorded lines. The creators are now finalizing the script, and the younger Stephens signed an affidavit giving them permission to use AI to re-create his dad’s voice.
They’re modeling it off an hourlong speech the late mayor delivered at the City Club of Chicago and one of the last interviews he gave to investigative reporter Chuck Goudie.
“The voice is very spooky. It’s eerie. But it’s real close,” the current mayor said.
Another major piece of the museum will be a 1950s-era aircraft fuselage — complete with pilot and passenger seats — where you can take a simulated flight.
Village officials have long embraced O’Hare International Airport, tying Rosemont’s growth to the airport’s expansion.
Stephens said his dad and other original residents imagined how the 84-acre town of unpaved roads and frequent flooding — once described as a “mud hole that nobody wanted” — could be transformed.
“A lot of it was his thought and understanding that there was going to be an airport here, and our location in the center of Illinois,” he said.
Among other features being designed by Chicago Scenic Studios and Peter Hyde Design: multimedia experiences showing photos and videos; interactive learning hubs with trivia-style questions; memorabilia from village-owned venues like the Allstate Arena and Rosemont Theatre; and a 3D photo op that could put visitors on the ice at a Chicago Wolves game or on the stage as the main act, for example, according to the mayor.
A good number of the first mayor’s M.I. Hummel figurines collection — in storage since the closure of the village’s Hummel museum in 2024 — will find a place in the lobby next to the museum.
“It’s going to be something that’s pretty spectacular for our residents to enjoy, and for those that don’t know about Rosemont pre-Rosemont Horizon … to really dig in and have an educational moment,” Stephens said. “We’re still just a small community, with some big ideas.”
Opening date is tentatively scheduled for Father’s Day.