A Day of History

When we visited Cantigny Park earlier in the month I promised the kids we would come back for the birthday celebration. Well today we spent the day soaking up all kinds of history.

We started our day at the McCormick Museum with a guided architectural tour.

Then we were led on a one hour tour of the inside of this beautiful mansion. It contains 35 rooms, 13 bathrooms, a movie theater, and a formal dining room with walls covered with hand painted rice paper wallpaper from China. The three of us agreed the most impressive item in the mansion for us was the collection of over 5,000 first edition books of which the majority are signed by their respective authors.

Next up was the First Division Museum.
They had tons of artifacts(vehicles, tents, clothing) from WWI, WWII, and the Korean and Vietnam Wars set up for today's open house.


Then we took an artillery tour. Our guide wore authentic WWI attire and explained the history of the different cannons located on the grounds.


On the grounds they also had vintage 1890's children's games set up, a neat display of vintage farm implements and free ice cream and birthday cake.