Latest news with #MidwayVillageMuseum
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Immigrant students acclimate to life in Rockford with help of Midway Village Museum
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — The Midway Village Museum has announced a new program to help immigrant students acclimate to life in Rockford. A partnership with Rockford Public Schools and a grant from the Kjellstrom Family Foundation will enable 120 students from East High School and Lincoln Middle School to visit Midway Village over the course of two days, beginning May 13th. A costumed guide will lead them through activity stations, and language interpreters will be on hand for those who don't speak English. A centerpiece of the program is the Museum's Victorian Village and the 'Many Faces, One Community' exhibit, which explores many generations of immigrants to Rockford since the 1830s. The Newcomers pilot program will also introduce students to exhibits on the founding of Rockford, the Rockford Peaches, local manufacturing, the history of the Sock Monkey, and the role Camp Grant played in World War II. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Rockford's ‘Symbol' landmark remains a topic of intrigue and debate
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — Standing nearly 50 feet tall at Sinnissippi Park, the steel sculpture known as 'Symbol' has been a local landmark for decades and continues to spark curiosity and debate. Designed in 1978 by Russian sculptor Alexander Liberman, 'Symbol' was constructed with a price tag of just over $117,000. 'It was part of a federal arts grant, but we helped raise about $50,000 in Rockford to help fund the statue,' said Luke Fredrickson, marketing director at Midway Village Museum. Initially erected in the middle of West State Street just west of the Wyman Street intersection, 'Symbol' was part of the old downtown pedestrian mall. Fredrickson said the mall and the sculpture were intended to boost traffic and revitalize the area, which had been struggling since the tollway came in several years earlier. By 1984, the sculpture was deemed a bit out of place in its original location. 'It was just too crowded here,' said downtown advocate Gary Carlson. 'So, they took it down and put it in storage.' Later, 'Symbol' was reassembled at its current spot in Sinnissippi Park, where overlooks the Auburn Street/Highway 251 interchange. 'It doesn't look like anything in particular,' Fredrickson said. 'But it sort of has an industrial look that harkens back to Rockford's industrial heritage and metal-working industries.' For locals, the sculpture holds varied meanings. To Taylor Beck, of Rockford, even though it wasn't designed by a local artist, it's a nod to the city's creative side. 'Rockford is known for its art community, and there's art everywhere,' Beck said. 'So I just figured it was a piece of art.' Beck's friend, Natalie Bagley, said 'Symbol' has come to represent everything about the Forest City. 'There's no other symbol like it,' she said. 'So it always makes me think Rockford. It makes me think abstract.' 'It's not orange,' Carlson said. 'It's Liberman red.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Did you know? Rockford's Camp Grant gave rise to city's thriving black community
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — What is now the Chicago Rockford Airport used to be the site of Camp Grant, one of the largest U.S. Army training camps, housing thousands of soldiers during World War I, including thousands of black soldiers. The camp was opened in 1917. Six thousand African American soldiers arrived at Camp Grant as part of the 92nd Buffalo Soldier Infantry Division, forever changing the demographics of the community. 'By spring it was up to almost 8,000 black troops. And by the following October of 1918, there were more than 13,000,' said Midway Village Museum curator Laura Furman. The camp, like America at the time, was segregated and the black soldiers were relegated to one area of the facility. 'The southwest part of camp was set aside with barracks specifically for black troops. They also had their own post exchange where they could do their shopping,' Furman said. After the war ended, the soldiers returned home as silent heroes and found themselves facing another struggle. Many did not want to return to the South, and stayed in Rockford. David Ruffin, curator of Rockford's Ethnic Heritage Museum, explained, 'With Rockford being a very factory-oriented town, they needed workers and unskilled laborers and they could get them a cheaper price.' The influx gave rise to black neighborhoods on the city's southwest side. The Booker Washington Association from the prior 'Colored Soldier's Club' on S. Main Street. 'The black community … stepped forward and said we need to do more for the black soldiers at Camp Grant who … need support,' Ruffin said, catering to a population that created a community that still exists in Rockford today. Midway Village Museum, at 6799 Guilford Road, has opened an exhibit on Camp Grant which features artifacts, interactive displays, and rare footage of the camp. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why does the Illinois Tollway bypass Rockford? Here's what happened
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) – Most Rockford residents have heard the story of how the I-90 Tollway, now called the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway, was to be routed through downtown Rockford. But is it true? And what about other projects that could have seen a major highway system come thought the heart of the city? According to experts, the answers are rather interesting. 'Business was booming in Rockford in the 1950s, just like it was around the country,' said Luke Fredrickson, marketing director at Midway Village Museum in Rockford. By the '50s, Rockford was well on its way to becoming one of the largest manufacturing hubs in the United States. Industrial smokestacks were a symbol if the city's vibrant middle class. Recreation, as well as shopping districts on Seventh, Main and East State streets, were booming. Highways 20 and 51 were the main ways out of the city. And as more people bought automobiles, personal travel was evolving. 'They wanted to be able to travel to Chicago taking and not take three, four hours taking [Highway] 20 and having to stop in every little town,' Fredrickson said. Shipping needs were also changing. As factories became more streamlined, goods also needed to come in and out the city faster. 'Business leaders wanted to move their freight on semi-trucks as opposed to having to pay for trains and go along with those schedules,' Fredrickson added. 'It wasn't nearly as nimble.' As the country modernized, the federal government was at work to accommodate the need for a more efficient highway system. In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act, which spurred construction of Interstate 90, a portion of which would connect Rockford and Chicago. There were preliminary talks of having the interstate come through downtown, but those talks were halted. 'The political leaders and the large property owners at the time felt that they didn't want that disrupting their neighborhood,' Fredrickson said. 'So, the political forces that be pushed for a different solution in cheap farmland out toward Boone County.' Before the tollway was completed in 1958, for anyone droving east on East State Street, Rockford largely ended at Alpine Road. Everything beyond that point were fields and farmland. 'All that cheap farmland got bought up and developed, and things moved out that way,' Fredrickson said. 'Rockford College moved out there. Saint Anthony Hospital moved out that way. Rock Valley College was built on the east side, the next big mall, CherryVale, was built out that way.' As the east side flourished with the addition of the tollway, city leaders looked for ways to keep people downtown. Enter another push to bring a major highway through the center of the city. Enter the Woodruff Expressway. After the city built the Whitman Street interchange and the cloverleaf at Spring Creek Road and North Second Street in the 1960s, leaders eventually wanted the structure to be part of having Interstate 39 cut through Rockford. The plans were to come in off of Woodruff Avenue, following the railroad tracks and connecting to Rural Street. The highway would then continue across the river to Huffman Boulevard. But, the Woodruff Expressway was never built. 'The thing that really put the nail in the coffin on that project is when City Council voted to allow FedEx to go in just north of the kind of curly cue there on 39 where it kind of wraps around so you can get to Alpine,' said City of Rockford Traffic Engineer Jeremy Carter. 'That was supposed to continue north and connect into that railroad right-of-way. And then, in [19] 92, I think, that kind of transportation plan ended.' Carter says structures like the Whitman interchange and giant overpasses that cut through cities aren't part of modern design practices. 'They destroyed neighborhoods,' he said. 'They made it difficult for pedestrians to get past. They created these big, vehicle rivers through urban areas.' And while there has been tremendous benefits to building the tollway on the east end of the city, there have been economic consequences for downtown and the west side of Rockford. 'Not as much development was in that area and that's unfortunate for that part of town,' Fredrickson said. Construction on a Whitman Street interchange redux is currently underway. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
