One of Joliet’s newest attractions offers the opportunity to delve into that city’s rail travel history.
The Joliet Railroad Museum officially opened to the public May 10 within the Joliet Gateway Center train station.
“Joliet is such a transportation hub,” said Jayne Bernhard, who has been one of three city planners for Joliet since June 2017.
“The Railroad Museum is in a facility that the city decided to save and not tear down.”
The Joliet Area Historical Museum, which operates the attraction, describes the Joliet Railroad Museum as a former circa 1913 interlocking signal tower, known locally as Union Depot Tower.
“It’s important to save this piece of Joliet’s history and highlight, past and present, the importance of the railroad industry in Joliet,” said Bernhard, who has been a member of the all-volunteer Joliet Area Historical Museum board of directors since November 2020.
Bernhard began working on establishing the Joliet Railroad Museum at the request of her former boss, Kendall Jackson, who retired from his role of community development director for the city of Joliet in December 2020.
“One of the reasons I took the job here in Joliet was because they were looking for a city planner who would also staff the city’s Historic Preservation Commission,” said Bernhard, who has a master’s degree in regional planning and a master’s degree in history.
When the official grand opening ceremony took place in June 2018, the Joliet Gateway Center included a temporary exhibit about Union Depot Tower curated by Bernhard, who used that information to seek grants for a permanent Joliet Railroad Museum.
After the city of Joliet was awarded $19,600 for fiscal year 2019 through the Certified Local Government Grants Program via the State Historic Preservation Office and matched it with $8,400 in staff labor, an exhibit designer was hired and the exhibit’s first phase was fabricated and installed.
“Another grant opportunity became available. That allowed us to bring what is now open to the public to the next level. The second grant helped us to do some physical improvements to the facility and add a whole other wall of information about the railroad companies that came through Joliet,” Bernhard said.
The Route 66 Grant Program administered by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity awarded a $1.6 million grant to Heritage Corridor Destinations and that funding included approximately $68,000 for the city’s Joliet Railroad Museum.
The two-floor attraction includes information about the 1910 to 1912 track realignment and elevation project, which included building Joliet Union Station. A wall full of relays and an interlocking machine are among the displays.
“When you’re up there you have a wonderful view of the area including the diamond. Freight and passenger rail traffic still goes through that intersection,” said Bernhard, a Joliet native.
“The museum’s really excited about having that as a platform to engage in lots of different topics — work history, labor history. You can do ethnic history. You can do social history. There’s so much that can be done and we still have some space on the walls where you could put up temporary or social exhibits.”
Jessi Virtusio is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
Joliet Railroad Museum
When: 10 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Fridays to Sundays
Where: Inside Joliet Gateway Center, 90 E. Jefferson St., Joliet
Tickets: $5 admission; free Joliet Area Historical Museum members
Information: 815-723-5201; jolietmuseum.org/joliet-railroad-museum.html
