The Beloit community celebrated 50 years of Beloit Heritage Days from Sept. 11 to Sept. 13 with Open Doors Beloit, a weekend of community events including tours, open houses, expert talks, and special museum exhibits.
Heritage Days date back to 1976, when the U.S. was celebrating the Bicentennial. This year, the weekend included 18 well-attended free events and access to historic sites across the Stateline region. “Open Doors Beloit giv[es] a chance to get inside places you might not normally have an opportunity to see,” said Beloit Heritage Days Coordinator Therese Oldenburg.
Oldenburg, also a local historian, supported the mission of opening the doors of knowledge with a Guided Heritage Tree Walk in Leeson Park on Sept. 11. The event, titled Walk Among the Giants, included 15 specially designated trees, all at least a century old. The group posted the tour group on their Facebook with a 300-year-old tree. “It wasn’t just about the trees,” said Oldenburg, “it was about what the trees witnessed.”
The inclusion of the Heritage Trees is a new project for the 50th anniversary recognizing trees as living pieces of Beloit’s history. As a part of the Beloit Heritage Trees program, members of the community are invited to participate in identifying trees that are at least 100 years old and hold significance to the area.
Jackie Jackson, president of the Beloit Historical Society, said that, even after living in Beloit for decades, she is still learning things about the community. “We have a small community, and it turns out that it’s very nice to expand people’s knowledge,” Jackson said.
Over the weekend, doors were opened through open houses across Beloit, including the Rasey House, built in 1850. The cobblestone home across from Beloit College’s Neese Theater is maintained by the Beloit Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The Rasey house is not typically open to the public.
Beloit resident Cheryl Caldwell and her sister attended the Beloit Mounds Tour, and said they were most looking forward to open houses like the Rasey House. The pair attends the Beloit Heritage Days celebration every September. “We always look forward to this,” Caldwell said.
Beloit College’s tours of the Logan Museum, Wright Museum, and campus mounds were all part of the heritage celebration, connecting Beloit College to the broader community’s history. In order to decide what events will be part of the programming each year, Jackson said the committee talks to as many organizations as possible. “It’s about finding the history,” Oldenburg said.
The weekend connected Beloit’s history with the dynamic present-day community. A pamphlet listing the weekend’s many events served as the Heritage Days’ “passport.” If people attended and had four events stamped off on their passport, they could get a coupon for an ice cream turtle sundae at the Culver’s in Beloit. The coupons were distributed at various locations, including Bountiful Beloit and The Rogue Bookshop.
Beloit Heritage Days offered Beloit residents a way to get out into the community and experience its history, and to learn from those who carry on the stories.
Doors to Beloit’s history won’t close with the end of Heritage Days. Beloiters can continue to explore local history in many ways including through exhibits at the Beloit Art Center, campus museums, the Beloit Historical Society, and volunteer opportunities. “Everyone’s looking for volunteers,” said Danielle Clifton, treasurer of the Beloit Historical Society. “There’s a whole world outside of Beloit College … you miss a lot if you’re not going into the community of the place where you’re going to college.”
Many Beloit organizations are open and inviting to student volunteers. Students can stop by Career Works or make an appointment on Handshake to be connected with volunteer opportunities.
Featured image: Beloit Heritage Days
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