LAKE BLUFF – The Lake Bluff History Museum will host its popular docent-led Walking Tour: Camp Meeting Cottages and Country Houses, on Sunday July 8, 2018.
Tours will start from the Lake Bluff History Museum, 127 E. Scranton Avenue, Lake Bluff at 1 p.m. The cost is $10. The Museum requests that tickets be reserved in advance to guarantee a space. Payment will be taken the day of the event. Reservations can be made via phone (847) 482-1571 or email: [email protected] by leaving contact information and the number in the party. The walking tour takes approximately 90 minutes. Parking is available at no charge in the Lake Bluff Central Business District and in the Metra parking lot adjacent to the train station.
This is one of three docent-led tours offered by the museum. Each tour covers a different area in east Lake Bluff. On this tour, participants will learn the history of homes and the area developed by the Lake Bluff Camp Meeting Association and summer residents during the latter part of the 19th century.
The Lake Bluff Camp Meeting was started in 1875 by a group of Methodist Ministers and businessmen who purchased 100 acres in Lake Bluff with the intent to develop a summer resort and religious camp meeting. Lake Bluff’s Camp Meeting was greatly influenced by the Chautauqua movement that started at Lake Chautauqua, NY in 1874. Chautauqua assemblies were organized around four pillars: arts, education, religion and recreation, and they were popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
This tour covers the western half of the Camp Meeting Grounds. Our next tour (September 30) covers the eastern portion of the grounds and an area known as the Artist’s Colony in the early 1900s when Lake Bluff was a destination attracting an eclectic mix of writers, poets, musicians, artists and anarchists.
The Lake Bluff depot
Lake Bluff Cooley Cabin
Lake Bluff summer resort map
Submitted by the Lake Bluff History Museum. For additional information visit the museum web site: www.lakebluffhistory.org, e-mail [email protected], or call 847 482-1571.
