About the Wheeling Historical Society
The Wheeling Historical Society's stated object is "the discovery, preservation and dissemination of knowledge about the Community of Wheeling," a village in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Its museum is a cooperative effort of the Village of Wheeling, the Wheeling Park District, Indian Trails Public Library and the Society, and it occupies the original Wheeling Village Hall at the west end of Chamber Park on North Wolf Road. The white frame building was put up in 1895 for $553.26, a 20-by-30-foot hall with two jail cells at the western end. It served as the trustees' meeting room, police station and courtroom, and a lean-to on one side housed the hand pumper the Volunteer Fire Department bought in 1904. The hall originally stood at 84 South Milwaukee Avenue; the Park District bought it and moved it to Chamber Park in 1978. One shortened cell survives, a rear addition and basement were added, and every inch of the upper floor is given over to permanent and changing exhibits.
Wheeling began in the 1830s as an overnight stop for travelers heading from Chicago to the Wisconsin Territory along the trail that became Milwaukee Avenue (Illinois Route 21); the inns, taverns and eateries of that era are the roots of the village's Restaurant Row. Farmers exploited the fertile soil, and the area became known for landscaping nurseries before manufacturing arrived in the 1960s, bringing Soo Line freight service and then residential subdivisions. Two other Park District buildings tie into the Society's work: the Sicks Carriage House, built behind Katarina Sicks's 1892 Dundee Road home and now holding a carriage, a sleigh, the pole from the old firehouse and farm tools donated by local families; and Childerley Chapel, a small brick chapel built in 1927 by Frances Crane Lillie for her family and the families of the Crane farm, restored by Society members after the Park District bought it in 1977.
Collections and Research Services
The basement of the Village Hall serves as the museum's working area and research center. The Society maintains an inventory and archive database of its holdings that can be searched from the website, and it posts its newsletters online going back to 2019, with earlier issues available on request. Research inquiries are taken by phone on Thursdays between 9 a.m. and noon at (847) 537-3119, or by email to the curator; the website also hosts a written history of Wheeling with chapters on the Village Hall, the train station, the chapel and the carriage house, plus a guestbook where residents leave their own memories of the village. If you are researching a Wheeling house or business, our guides to using old city directories and finding old photographs of a neighborhood cover the next steps once you have checked the Society's database.
Planning Your Visit
The museum keeps seasonal hours: from April through October it is open Sundays from 1 to 3 p.m. on non-holiday weekends, and Thursdays from 9 to 11:30 a.m. by appointment. Admission details are not posted, so ask when you call. The Society holds open meetings on the fourth Wednesday of each month at 7 p.m. in the Chamber Park Church Building at 251 N. Wolf Road, and its annual events include a dinner and white elephant auction, an installation dinner in May and Lollipop Lane for children each December. Note that the Society's contact page gives its street location as 131 N. Wolf Road while the museum itself is described as being in Chamber Park at 251 N. Wolf Road; both are on the same stretch of road. Confirm times at wheelinghistoricalsociety.com. Nearby, the Arlington Heights Historical Museum and the Long Grove Historical Society cover neighboring communities.
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