My Chicago kids spent a few days last week visiting Galena, Illinois and filling our family photo albums with some fresh new pictures.
Just an hour away from my home in Wisconsin, Galena has always been one of my favorite places to visit. When I was a kid both my father and grandfather worked on construction projects there, putting in the sewer pipes and building a levee around the town to protect it from flooding.
My family history with the town goes back many years. But the origins of the town go back even further to when the first miners started digging for lead back in the early 1800s. Galena became a bustling town while Chicago was still a little village along the swampy shore of Lake Michigan. The Galena business district is little changed from the early days when the stores supplied the items that the miners needed, although the retail selections are much different today than they were then.
85% of the buildings in town are on the National Register of Historic Places. Ulysses S Grant worked in his father's leather shop, before he went on to become the 18th President of the United States.
Abraham Lincoln participated in one of the presidential debates with Stephen A Douglas from the balcony of the DeSoto Hotel. You can rent a beautifully decorated room in the old hotel for around $150 per night.
The town has a feeling about it of being forgotten by time.
