St. Charles Heritage Center, Oregon's Chana School featured in latest issue of Historic Illinois

SPRINGFIELD - The historic building that houses the St. Charles Heritage Center and the grassroots drive to move and save Oregon's Chana School are featured in the latest issue of Historic Illinois, a publication of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency (IHPA).

 

            When St. Charles businessman Charles McCornack built a gas station in a residential neighborhood in 1928, he made sure that the architect designed a structure that blended well with its neighbors.  The Tudor-Revival-style structure still stands in its original location, although the building today dispenses local history.  As the location of the St. Charles Heritage Center, the building preserves and interprets the community's heritage.  The McCornack Building itself needed some preservation after it was abandoned in 1989 and seemed ready for the wrecking ball.  But a visionary group of local preservationists and community leaders secured the needed funding and commitments to restore the building to its original appearance and moved the local museum there.  The article was written by Keith A. Sculle, head of Research and Education for IHPA.

 

            "We couldn't save the dinosaurs, but maybe we could save that school."  Those words uttered in 1997 by a fourth-grade student were in response to the planned demolition of the 1883 two-room Chana School in the Ogle County Community of Oregon.  The fourth grader's teacher, Connie Stauffer, and fellow teacher Val Maas organized a grassroots drive to save the building by moving it to another location.  Following numerous fundraisers and the donation of land by the Oregon Park District, the Chana School was split into two pieces and carefully moved across town.  There, it was re-assembled, and volunteers spent the next five years restoring the interior and exterior to its original late 1800s appearance.  Today, the Chana School is open for field trips, once again educating students.  The article was written by Sherry Piros, a retired English teacher in Oregon who serves as a docent at the Chana School.

 

Historic Illinois is a bimonthly IHPA publication that features historically significant sites in Illinois.  Subscriptions are $10 per year, which includes six issues of Historic Illinois and one full-color Historic Illinois Calendar.  For more information, call (217) 524-6045, visit www.Illinois-History.gov, or write:

 

                        Historic Illinois