STOCKTON — The Stockton Heritage Museum invites history enthusiasts to a captivating presentation by historian Daryl Watson, who will share rare photographs and compelling stories of Millville, the once-thriving settlement that evolved into Apple River Canyon State Park.
The presentation, “From Millville to Apple River Canyon State Park: The Land and the People,” will take place at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 26, at the Stockton Heritage Museum, 107 West Front Street, Stockton, Ill.
Millville was a bustling little mill town and stagecoach stop during the 1840s and ’50s. On the overland route between Chicago and Galena, it withered when bypassed by the Illinois Central Railroad in 1854. A huge flood in 1892 erased what little was left. But new life was just around the corner. The picturesque little canyon with its steep bluffs, quiet fishing ponds, and rare plants soon attracted new visitors. Only this time they were coming by automobile. Newspapers began extolling the charms of the area. Some even began to think in terms of a state park.
Through the use of many old photographs combined with contemporaneous newspaper accounts, historian Daryl Watson will chronicle the origins and evolution of what is now Apple River Canyon State Park. Watson, whose grandfather had purchased the family farm a short distance downstream in 1895, grew up exploring those bluffs, gullies and plants, even as he pursued college degrees at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. With some never-before-seen-slides, he will give a close-up and personal view of the “Canyon”, concluding with the listing of the lost settlement of Millville to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
The Stockton Heritage Museum is a not-for-profit entity dedicated to the preservation and teaching of Stockton area history. Visit the museum from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., May-Nov. 2 on Saturdays, and on Sundays, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., or by appointment. Email info@stocktonheritagemuseum.org for more information.
