Once the Orland Park History Museum program in the old village hall is fully under way, Curator Diane Grah envisions a commemoration of the area’s railroad roots to be among the interactive exhibits.
“We’ll have a display for the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway,” which brought workers to the village in 1879 and carried passenger and freight trains to and from Orland Park, Grah said.
“A conductor will take visitors on a tour and give them tickets to keep,” she added.
Grah said the museum, which flanks a public works department building maintenance garage, would depict cultural, agricultural and economic development accompanying pioneer settlement, as well as the village’s rise as a Chicagoland retailing powerhouse.
Grah said pioneers initially arrived in the wake of the Black Hawk War in 1832, but the main migration occurred in the 1850s.
Grah also credited a local resident’s donation of Fox, Sauk and Potawatomi tribe artifacts with making it possible for the museum to commemorate the area’s early history.
Diane Chin, one of the seven volunteer history museum board members, said donations of time, talent and money are essential to the success of the program.
“Home Depot refurbished the inside at no cost to us,” Chin said.
Grah and Chin were commenting Tuesday evening after the village plan commission’s endorsement of three planning and zoning requests for the museum site southwest of the intersection of LaGrange Road and 143rd Street.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Village Planner Mike Mazza told plan commissioners the property in the 14400 block of South Beacon Avenue requires special use designation and rezoning because it is in the Old Orland Historic District.
The third request, for a plat of subdivision, combines five lots on Beacon Avenue and Ravinia Court to give the museum a campus approximately the size of a baseball field, Mazza said.
Plan Commissioner Judith Jacobs said converting the 56-year-old building is “an excellent use of the property that’s not doing very much except setting there.”
The village board, which established the museum in February, must approve the three requests.
Mayor Dan McLaughlin announced Grah’s appointment on March 8. An eight-year resident, she was executive director of the Historical Society of Forest Park for the past two of her 15 years of professional experience.
Grah acknowledged visiting museums in Joliet, Oak Lawn and Worth “to get some ideas” prior to her apartment but pledged the local effort would be distinctively local.
“I’d like to make it unique to Orland Park,” Grah said.
Told of a downstate museum displaying a large hairball, Grah said she might be open to displaying “quirky” donations for short periods among rotating exhibits.
Grah also said the museum exhibit hall is available for group rentals, noting a local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution has already booked time.
More Top Picks Msi Titan 18 Hx Ai Review
The museum has scheduled an open house from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 30.