Chapter 14: Making Bold Strides Together in DeKalb County
Chapter 14: Making Bold Strides Together in DeKalb County
In DeKalb County, Crossroads: Change in Rural America inaugurated a new chapter in the life of a vital local institution, as well as a heightened degree of collaboration and mutual support among keepers of the county’s history.
Documentation of local agricultural history formed a component of the DeKalb County History Center’s Crossroads-related activity as well. Through the Smithsonian Institution’s “Stories YES” program, students at Sycamore Middle School interviewed members of several multigenerational farm families. These students also researched issues related to solar and wind power and documented organic agriculture in DeKalb County.[1] Their interview with Dan Kenney, founding director of DeKalb County Community Gardens, is featured in the October 2, 2020, episode of the Smithsonian’s Stories from Main Street podcast, entitled “How We Grow.” The history center’s collaboration with Sycamore Middle School represented only one of its many efforts to engage people and organizations throughout the county with Crossroads. Its preparations to host the exhibition coincided with its transformation from the Sycamore History Museum into the DeKalb County History Center, which culminated in the construction of a new, state-of-the-art facility. The opening of Crossroads on May 11, 2019, doubled as the grand opening of that facility.
The new building is situated on the same property where the Sycamore History Museum was located: the former Engh farmstead, which is owned by the city and lies on the outskirts of Sycamore. The original museum had been distributed among three buildings: Exhibitions were displayed in a tenant farmer’s house, which also held the museum’s collections of three-dimensional objects; public programs took place in a garage, which lacked climate control and therefore could not be used in especially cold or hot weather; and the office and archives were located in a hired hand’s house.
Now, however, the DeKalb County History Center occupies a 7,600-square-foot facility, the construction of which was funded by a capital campaign that raised $1.6 million.
The center includes a 1,200-square-foot exhibition space, a multipurpose room where programs can be held, and a large collection storage area. The building also houses the Joiner History Room, the county’s historical archive, previously located within Sycamore Public Library.[2]
Part of the impetus for converting the Sycamore History Museum into the DeKalb County History Center and constructing a new facility to house it was that both the museum and the Joiner History Room were outgrowing their physical settings. Another significant factor, however, was an aspiration to respond to the challenges experienced by the more than twenty small museums and historical societies distributed throughout the county, only about five of which have paid staff. DeKalb County is geographically relatively large, extending more than thirty-five mi