Editor’s Letter
Last fall I had the pleasure of visiting a historic gem located in the heart of Chicago’s western suburbs. Nestled amid a Walgreens, a tire shop and other local businesses, Stacy’s Tavern Museum is an award-winning restoration of an authentic 1840s wayside inn. Now owned by the Village of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and operated by the Glen Ellyn Historical Society (GEHS, www.gehs.org), Stacy’s Tavern Museum transports visitors back to the days of stagecoaches and pioneers. I was lucky enough to discover the village’s yearly Tavern Day, a living-history celebration of mid-1800s life that features an enthusiastic group of volunteers—from lifelong Glen Ellyn residents and GEHS members to local schoolkids—who teach attendees what life was like for the innkeepers and for their guests.
The tavern was built by Moses Stacy and his wife, Joanna, as a respite for travelers and land-seekers. The Stacy family was among the many settlers flocking to northern Illinois in 1832 after the Black Hawk War. They often offered up their residence as a boarding house for passing travelers, so when they built their new home in 1846, they opened it as a wayside inn. Stagecoach travelers moving between Chicago and upstate Galena, area farmers heading to market downtown, and settlers moving farther west all enjoyed the hospitality at Stacy’s Tavern. For 50 cents, guests were afforded an overnight stay (limited to only five travelers per bed, by law!), two meals and enough hay for two horses.
The Village of Glen Ellyn purchased the property in 1968 and, along with the GEHS, began restoring the building to the state of a typical late-1840s tavern/inn. In 1974, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places as well as honored by the State of Illinois as the only tavern from its period still standing on its original foundation at its original location. As part of the town’s contribution to the American bicentennial in 1976, Glen Ellyn opened the structure to the public as a museum.
In the spirit of the beautiful historic homes and collections featured in this issue, I hope you’ll enjoy the photos on the opposite page that depict past meeting present on Tavern Day.