Neither Wilmette’s police department nor the village’s history museum needed sunshine to make their annual dual open house celebrations successful on May 1, organizers said Monday.
The joint open houses, a Wilmette tradition for many years, gave dozens of visitors the opportunity to tour both the police headquarters at 710 Ridge Road and the museum at 609 Ridge Road.
Unseasonably cold weather did force the cancellation of a concert by the Wilmette Community Band, which had been scheduled to take place on the lawn of the Wilmette Historical Museum, museum spokeswoman Laura Winston said Monday.
“But everybody who came had a wonderful time, and we had at least 150 people who visited us,” she said
Visitors enjoyed 1960s-era music that played inside the museum as accompaniment to its “The Sixties” exhibit, Winston said. Many visitors, especially youngsters, also got the chance to learn some 1960s dances like the Twist and the Locomotion during the tour, she said.
The museum also held its first annual “pickle roll,” during which participants tried to move cucumbers across the front lawn, as part of a theme to honor Wilmette’s first mayor, John G. Westerfield. Westerfield’s family grew cucumbers and produced pickles, according to museum director Kathy Hussey-Arntson. As part of this year’s open house, residents could also take cucumber seeds home to grow themselves, Winston said.
Visitors also had fun at the police department, Chief Brian King said Monday. He said tours of the department’s jail cells and a display about its squad cars were very popular this year, especially with children.
“I don’t even think the bad weather really cut our numbers,” King said. “I think they were substantially similar to the previous year.”
King thanked members of the Wilmette Optimist Club for the work they did during the open house, serving hot dogs and other snacks for hungry visitors, and volunteering for numerous open house duties.
“I really want to highlight the club’s role, since it provided volunteers, and funds for the food that got served. We couldn’t do this without their help,” he said.
Twitter @pioneer_kathy
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