Civil War Re-enactors Join Lineup at Depot Days 2011

Submitted by Wayne Dunham

Join us on Saturday, Sept. 17 to experience a noisy remembrance of the Civil War while stepping back into the history of Lisle and DuPage County.

Beginning at 11 a.m. and hourly until 4 p.m., a group of Civil War re-enactors will fire a Civil War canon as part of the 27th Annual Depot Days celebration at , 921 School St. Admission is free.

In between firings, the group, dressed in Civil War uniforms, will be on hand to explain how the canon fires, talk Civil War history, and lead you through several displays. The group represents Taylor's Battery, a Chicago Light Artillery unit organized early in the Civil War by Ezra Taylor. Approximately 207 members from the greater Chicago region fought under Generals William T. Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant and were recognized as one of the finest light artillery units in the Army. The battery's six guns were heard at most of the great battles of the West.

Other attractions on both Saturday and Sunday from noon until 5 p.m. include:

• Maggie is a life-size replica of a real milking cow that has been specifically designed to give both children and adult hands an understanding of milking a cow.
• The pioneer children’s games will take place in the afternoon and include seed spitting, a pie eating contests, and tug-of-war.
• Miller’s Petting Zoo will provide opportunities for parents to record or photograph their children getting up close and personal with a wide variety of farm animals.
• The Plank Road display is a replica of a section of the wooden toll road which connected Aurora to Chicago for part of the 19th Century.
• Children can help pull the bellows in the blacksmith shop to help fan the fire that working blacksmiths will use to create horseshoes, nails and other items from iron.
• Other attractions include more than 30 demonstrations of pioneer crafts, hay rides and daily tours of Lisle’s Pioneer Cemetery. There also will be an operating HO gauge railroad in the basement of the restored Netzley/Yender farmhouse. Apple pies and cookies will be baking in the brick oven of the farm house’s summer kitchen.
  
  

All campus buildings will be open during Depot Days. A recently restored waycar (caboose) from the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad also is available to tour.

Music will be provided by artists from the Old Town School of Folk Music, courtesy of the Friends of the Lisle Library. There will also be a used book sale and antique automobiles on display.

Depot Days is organized by the in conjunction with the . For further information, contact the Lisle Heritage Society at 630-968-0499 or the Depot Days event link on the park district website.