Events at Central during 2016 Railroad Days

Central Church is delighted to be participating in the exciting events to be held during the 39th Annual Galesburg Railroad Days.  All of our activities will be held on Saturday, June 25. We hope you can attend these outstanding events.

LUNCH ON THE LAWN

11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.  Have lunch with us! Burgers and brats, sides and beverage.  Seating provided.  All proceeds go towards preservation of our historic building.

PRESENTATIONS

Railroading in the Prairie State
The Origin of Illinois Railroads: Failure to Triumph
Auditorium, 10:30 a.m.

Illinois Railroads in the Twentieth Century: From Profits to Despair and Renaissance, Auditorium, 1:30 p.m.

corderyA rapid run through the colorful, surprising, and important history of the railroad industry in Illinois, from original failure to unprecedented success to near-extinction and then unexpected renaissance.  Part 1 at 10:30 a.m., Part 2 at 1:30 p.m.  A book signing will follow each presentation.Simon Cordery is the author of The Iron Road in the Prairie State: The Story of Illinois Railroading (Indiana University Press, 2016) and chair of the nominations committee of the National Railroad Hall of Fame.

Mrs. Lincoln’s Salon

South Room, 12:00 noon

Carl Sandburg Festival

The month of April is packed with activities for the Sandburg Festival.  Of note for Central Church is the concert on Wednesday, April 27.  Proceeds from the evening will equally benefit the Carl Sandburg State Historic Site Endowment and the Central Church Historic Building Preservation Fund.  For more details, check out the following sites.

Click this link to go to the Sandburg Festival site event page.  Scroll until you get to April 26.   (The date of the event is actually WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27!).  There are lots of great details of the event and presenters.  We hope to see you there!

Click this link to go to the Galesburg Register-Mail story that ran April 25 which gives a brief description of the remaining events.

2015 38th Annual Galesburg Railroad Days

Hundreds of visitors from the Galesburg area (as well as from several different states) stopped by Central Congregational to experience living history, listen to some great singing, enjoy lunch, and tour our historic building. While it was a lot of work, it was great fun to host these activities as part of Railroad Days.  A special thanks goes to our many friends from the community at large who really pulled together to make this event happen.

Leading up to Railroad Days, an article appeared in the Galesburg Register-Mail highlighting one of our featured events, an appearance of Harriet Tubman as portrayed by Kathryn Harris.  Click here to read the complete story.

A wonderful photo gallery of the days events can be found on our Photo Archives page, or you can click here to go directly to the Railroad Days gallery.

2015 Zephyr Quest

On June 1, about 80 seventh grade students from Lombard Middle School came to visit Central Congregational as part of Zephyr Quest.  For most, it was their first time to visit our beautiful building and there were many “oohs” and “aahs” throughout their tour.  Their guide was “Mary Allen West” as portrayed by Gail Masinda.

We received the following note of thanks:

“Thanks for helping in contributing to our first ever Zephyr Quest [to make it] a big success.  We enjoyed learning the history of the church and its ties to the early settlers of Galesburg.  We hope this brings attention to the immediate need to preserve the church so others may enjoy it’s beautiful architecture.

Lombard 7th Grade”

Additional information about the 2015 Zephyr Quest can be found here.  A photo gallery from the event can be found here.