governor small museum

Studying the area's history at its best. The museum is full of area history and the memorial home, one room school, and gardens are beautiful. They have another museum in downtown Kankakee, IL open weekends on how the area started as a French community.

Glad to see this has been added to Trip Advisor! Welcoming, quaint museum provides a thorough history of the Kankakee area. Note that the Governor Small historic home and the Taylor School are opened upon request. The docents will be very happy to take you over to them. Neither has ramp access, however, and you must be able to safely climb up and down three stairs to visit each of these outbuildings.In particular for the smaller visitors, we enjoy the Taylor School, a working one-room schoolhouse that served in the area from 1904-1954. It features desks of all sizes to accommodate multiple grades, and furnished living quarters in the back - sort of the original bachelor studio apartment. The school also features a blackboard. Not so exotic to those of Gen X or earlier, but in these days of white boards and Smart boards, it's fun to see small children's delight at this wall you can draw on.

We really enjoy the K3 museum. They have some exhibits that stay the same and others they change regularly. It's a nice museum for all ages. The schoolhouse and Gov. Small's house are also very nice to tour.