Spend the (early) night at the museum when four Elgin institutions welcome visitors for a rare, after-hours open house.
The first-ever Elgin Museum Crawl will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. Aug. 26, giving the public the opportunity to visit Elgin Fire Barn No. 5 Museum, Elgin History Museum, Elgin Public Museum, and School District U-46 Planetarium.
Admission is free. At each location, visitors will learn about catastrophes in Elgin’s history.
“We’re going to talk about the 1920 tornado that flattened the downtown,” said Elizabeth Marston, museum director at Elgin History Museum.
A new exhibit on the Fox River will also be open at the history museum.
“We’ll talk a little bit about Fox River flooding and bridge collapses,” Marston said. “So lots of catastrophes to talk about.”
At the fire barn museum, visitors will learn about the Rialto Theater fire and “other raging Elgin infernos.” Built in 1903, the fire barn now houses a firefighting museum and is listed on the National Register of Historic Buildings.
“They have the brand new Iron Mike fire statue out in front that is just gorgeous,” Marston said. “And people are going to want to see that too.”
Elgin Public House will talk about earthquakes, extinctions and “the mystery of the murderer’s birds.” And at the Planetarium, visitors will learn about the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs and supernovas.
“I will have the upstairs open also, which is always a draw. That is where the telescope is,” said Peggy Hernandez, planetarium teacher in District U-46. “The observatory houses the telescope, but the planetarium is where people come for shows.”
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While people will be able to look at the telescope, it will not be used for viewings.
“It hasn’t been used to measure time in like 75 years,” Hernandez said. “It was originally built by Elgin National Watch Company. So it’s like a historical piece that’s up there. I have a few other items from back in the 1910s and ’20s and ’30s when it was an active observatory.”
The U-46 Planetarium was built in 1963 as an addition to the Elgin National Watch Company Observatory, which was built in 1910 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Since the planetarium opened, more than a million students have come through its doors for programs. Because it is a classroom, it is only open to the public a few times a year.
“The idea is to encourage people to go to all four institutions that are on the crawl,” Marston said.
As visitors travel to each location — the museums are within short driving distance from each other — they can receive a stamp on a passport. Completed passports can entered into a gift basket raffle.
“We’ll have extra volunteers on hand to answer questions and help with activities,” Marston said.
During the museum crawl, admission to all four locations is free.
“We’re not charging any fees, we’re accepting donations,” Marston said. “All the donations that are given will be split between the four institutions, no matter where you donate it. All the different museums will benefit from the donations.”
While admission is free, those interested in attending are asked to register in advance, if possible, at elginhistory.org/event/6pm-9pm-elgin-museums-catastrophic-crawl/ so organizers have an idea of how many people to expect.
Taking inspiration from Open Elgin, an annual self-guided building tour that’s been on hold since the pandemic, the four museums were looking for ideas to bring people in. Sharry Blazier, education and public relations coordinator at Elgin Public Museum, proposed the idea of a museum crawl, Marston and Hernandez said.
“We’ve been sort of brewing up this idea for a while figuring out a way to compliment each other and do something fun and get some traffic through,” Hernandez said. “And I think this might work.”
“We’re kind of doing this after our normal open hours. We were going to do it more in the evening, but then the fireworks were rescheduled to this date,” Marston said. “So then we decided to do it 4-7 p.m. as sort of a pre-fireworks activity.”
The city’s End of Summer Bash, held at Festival Park, 132 S. Grove St., includes food vendors, live music and fireworks.
“We’re hoping that people have time after work to stop on by, take the kids or just come on a date and learn about catastrophes,” said Marston.
Elgin Museum Crawl
When: 4-7 p.m. Aug. 26
Where: Elgin Fire Barn No. 5 Museum, 533 St. Charles St., Elgin
Elgin History Museum, 360 Park St., Elgin
Elgin Public Museum, 225 Grand Blvd. in Lord’s Park, Elgin
School District U-46 Planetarium, 312 Watch St., Elgin
Tickets: Free
Information: elginhistory.org/event/6pm-9pm-elgin-museums-catastrophic-crawl/
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Kathy Cichon is a freelance reporter for the Courier-News.