No longer housed in downtown Waukegan, the Ray Bradbury Experience Museum is looking for ways to fulfill its mission of honoring the famed writer in his hometown without a permanent location.
Sandy Petroshius, the museum committee chair, said its goal since the organization’s founding in 2017 is creating an interactive museum honoring Bradbury in his hometown, where he first developed his love of reading and began to hone his literary skills.
The committee is looking for opportunities to continue pursuing its objective of educating people about Bradbury and his roots in Waukegan, which he made the setting for some of his books, calling it Green Town.
“Hundreds of visitors have attended our programs, exhibits and events virtually and in person,” Petroshius said. “Continuing to find ways to engage and educate people about Ray Bradbury and his roots in Waukegan are on the table. We are going to focus on programs.”
Originally located on the first floor of the Greater Waukegan Development Coalition — now known as the GWDC — Eddie Soto, the director of the Lake County Tech Hub and a resident of the space, said the museum outgrew the first-floor space there.
“They were growing, and needed more square footage for their exhibits,” Soto said. “They outgrew their space on the ground floor. They have a lot more (Bradbury items) in their possession now.”
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Petroshius said she understood the museum needed more space, and the existing area at the GWDC required more room for some of its projects.
“We would not have been able to grow there,” she said. “There was no space for our exhibits.”
Though not a permanent possibility for a location, Petroshius said exhibits and programs could be held at the new Waukegan History Museum when it moves into its new location in the former Carnegie Library at the northeast corner of Sheridan Road and Washington Street.
“We have done cooperative events before, and some may be able to happen in the future,” she said. “There are no talks at this time.”
The Carnegie is undergoing a $13.5 million renovation to become the history museum. It is scheduled for completion in early 2024. It will feature a permanent Bradbury exhibit, including the papers and other items he willed to the Waukegan Public Library when he died in 2012.
Some of the newer items Petroshius said the museum received include signed pictures by Bradbury taken when he was writing the screenplay for “Moby Dick,” and the issues of Playboy magazine where Bradbury’s novel “Fahrenheit 451? first appeared in serial form in 1953.
“There was a connection between Ray Bradbury and High Hefner,” Petroshius said, referring to the magazine’s publisher. “‘Fahrenheit 451’ was about burning books, and Playboy was getting blowback because of the content of its centerfolds.”
Among some of the other Bradbury items are a brick from his home in California, and a piece of yellow stucco from the Waukegan home where he spent his childhood. Petroshius said it is important people know Bradbury’s connection to his hometown.
“Many people don’t know he was from Waukegan,” Petroshius said. “The Green Town of ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’ and ‘Dandelion Wine’ is Waukegan.”