The Story Beneath Our Feet: A Reimagined McKee House

by Karin

If you've walked through Churchill Woods (or driven by!), you may have noticed the beautiful old stone buildings along St. Charles Road. You've seen the McKee House, and it has a fascinating history and, we think, a very exciting future!  

This past week as part of our monthly Walking Club, Go Green Glen Ellyn hosted a hike through Churchill Woods with Forest Preserve Commissioner Jeff Gahris, to learn more about the natural area as well as the plans for the historic building. We came away excited about the possibility of a new Native American Cultural & Environmental Center and about what it could mean for Glen Ellyn and the ability to tell some stories that need telling.

A Short History of the House
McKee House was built in 1936 during the Great Depression as a Works Progress Administration project, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps. The limestone building became the headquarters of the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County and the home of Robert L. McKee, the district's first superintendent.

McKee was an early conservationist. He helped acquire and reforest lands and  preserve historic places like the Graue Mill. His full story can be found here and it is worth a read. He was the OG Greeny!  

So there is already a conservation story built into these walls:  It was the birthplace of the Forest Preserve of DuPage County which started here and now stands at 26,000 acres at over 60 sites. But there is another much older story here, and that is one of the reasons we are excited about this project!

Before the McKee House, a Potawatomi Village
Churchill Woods is the site of a historic Potawatomi village. The project's website describes a large village here dating back to about 1670, along a trail connecting the Chicago River and Fox River.  When we talk about the history of Glen Ellyn, it's easy to begin with the arrival of European-American settlers in the 1830s. (The Glen Ellyn Historical Society, for example, notes that the Babcock brothers arrived in 1833 and the Churchill family in 1834.) But life in what we now know as Glen Ellyn certainly did not begin there!

The Potawatomi and other indigenous nations had lived throughout this region for generations. The 1833 Treaty of Chicago took more than five million acres of Potawatomi, Ottawa and Chippewa land and forced removal of many indigenous people from the Great Lakes region. So the land where we hike today has a history that includes this loss and forced removal, not just settlement and development or beautiful oaks and prairies. We feel it is an important story of our village that should be told.

So why a Native American AND an environmental center?
When we first hear that it was combining the two areas, we were intrigued. After our walk and talking with some of the center's founding forces, it is clear that the relationship between people and the land is the connecting link.

The proposed center is a partnership involving the Midwest SOARRING Foundation, the McKee Preservation Group, the Village of Glen Ellyn and the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County. As you can read about on their website and with a video tour of its current state,  it will be a place where visitors can learn about Native American history and culture while also learning about the natural world.

Plans call for a Native American museum, library, education and meeting spaces, public (native!) gardens and a traditional longhouse with environment education baked in throughout. The hope is that the center can provide a perspective for conversations about all the things we talk about in this newsletter such as conservation, native plants and climate resilience, viewed from different perspectives than our own bubble. It will help us understand how people have interacted with this land over hundreds of years.

The proposed center has already started to connect those dots. For example, this Saturday night there is a showing of a documentary “Singing Back the Buffalo," about an indigenous tribe’s efforts to bring herds back to the Great Plains. It is also a mini fundraiser for the center, and a bargain at only $10 a ticket. I'll be there!

Picture if you will, a place we can gather! Imagine using the future center for an environmental workshops, speakers, and discussion about native plants, etc. 

 And of course, McKee House is in Churchill Woods which is fortunate to have several ecosystems packed into its acres: Oak woodlands, riparian wetlands, prairie, plus the East Branch DuPage River and the Churchill Prairie Nature Preserve. It is already an outdoor classroom!by