Summer 2001

Bliss Woods
Kane County, Illinois

Nearby are a variety of attractions, including Blackberry Farm’s Pioneer Village at 100 S. Barnes St., Aurora, (630) 892-1500, a 54-acre open-air museum and parkland recreating a typical Illinois farm village, including a blacksmith, one-room schoolhouse, and pioneer cabin, and natural areas for bird-watching and nature appreciation.

Also see the Fabyan Villa Museum, a lavish estate redesigned in 1907 by Frank Lloyd Wright (630) 232-4811 and the Fabyan Windmill, a five-story mill built by a German immigrant in the 1850s. Both are maintained by the Fabyan Forest Preserve and located on Rte. 25 in Geneva.

Another local bit of history is preserved in nearby St. Charles at the Durant House Museum on Dean Street in the LeRoy Oakes Forest Preserve. It’s a brick farmhouse built in 1843 that is one of the area’s few surviving examples of a workingman’s home. Costumed guides offer insight into how people lived there in the mid-19th century, (630) 377-6424.

Children with a scientific bent may enjoy visiting Aurora’s SciTech, 18 West Benton St., (630) 859-3434, a hands-on science and technology center in the city’s historic post office. The center has 200 exhibits explaining weather, light and sound, heat, sound and music, magnets, and electricity.