McKee Preservation Group, Inc.

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Funding, constructing and operating the Native American Cultural & Environmental Center at the McKee House in Churchill Woods, Glen Ellyn, IL

11/02/2026

Native American Heritage Month at College of DuPage

November is Native American Heritage Month, and the Native American Studies Committee at College of DuPage has a full month planned on campus here in Glen Ellyn. The committee is our partner, and we'll have a table at the opening.

📅 Wednesday, Nov 4, at 12:30 PM: the opening celebration in SRC 2000. Pow wow dancers will demonstrate traditional dances and talk about them. Come find the McKee House table.

📅 Monday to Friday, Nov 9 - 13: the Hub becomes an art gallery, open 10 AM to 4 PM. COD student Samantha Thompson talks about her beadwork on Monday at 12:30, Annabelle Two-Rivers Broeffle about her paintings on Tuesday at 1, and Sharon Hoogstraten about her photographs on Thursday at 1.

📅 Thursday, Nov 19, 12:00 - 1:30 PM: hoop dancer Starr Chief Eagle performs in the Atrium.

There's also a photo display in the SRC corridor, across from the bookstore, through December 11.

College of DuPage, 425 Fawell Blvd., Glen Ellyn

fundthecenter.org

10/31/2026

Thanks for this post.

10/31/2026

CHILDREN FIND SKULL IN McKEE HOUSE.

(A stone one. We'll explain.)

In 1936 the McKee family moved into a brand-new stone house in Churchill Woods. Robert McKee was the Forest Preserve District's first superintendent, the house was his headquarters and his home, and the WPA masons were still finishing it around him. Four kids came with him: Doug, Margie, Russell and Joanne.

Down in the basement was a fireplace of rough stone, built by hand by the men on the job. And set into the middle of it was one stone that didn't look like the others. Two hollows, side by side, like eye sockets.

The youngest, Joanne, never forgot it. Seventy years later, in 2007, she told the Daily Herald: "It was spooky; it looked like a skull."

In January 2007 the Daily Herald tracked the McKee children down for a story on the house, and Joanne told the reporter about the stone. The Herald's photographer went down to the basement and photographed the fireplace. The stone was still there.

The house has sat empty for more than 30 years. No heat, no light, no water, year after year. This Halloween we went down to take a look.

The stone is still there. And someone has given it a pair of googly eyes.

We don't know who, or when. A ranger on a slow afternoon. One of the last kids living in the house? Somebody who saw a skull in the dark and thought: I can make that funny.

That's the house we're saving. The roof and the chimneys come first, with a state grant and your support behind us, and then the long work of turning the house into the Native American Cultural & Environmental Center. The skull stays.

Happy Halloween from Churchill Woods. Help us bring the house back: fundthecenter.org

Photos: Kirk Burger, 2026, and the Daily Herald of Jan 31, 2007, courtesy Glen Ellyn Historical Society.

10/31/2026

Children find skull in McKee House

In 2007 the Daily Herald tracked down the McKee children, who grew up in the house in the 1930s. The youngest, Joanne, never liked the basement fireplace: one stone in the middle of it had two hollows, like eye sockets. "It was spooky," she said. "It looked like a skull." The Herald's photographer went down to look, and there it was.

The house has been empty for decades. This Halloween we went down to take a look. The stone is still there, and someone has given it googly eyes. We don't know who, or when.

That's the house we're saving. Happy Halloween from the McKee Preservation Group. Help us bring it back: fundthecenter.org

Clipping: Daily Herald, Jan 31 2007, courtesy Glen Ellyn Historical Society. Interior: Kirk Burger's tour, March 10 2026.

10/31/2026

Rainy morning at the McKee House

10/29/2026

For National Cat Day: the wild cats of Churchill Woods

Long before anyone kept a house cat here, Illinois had wild cats of its own.

The cougar, or mountain lion, was gone from Illinois by about 1870, driven out by settlers along with the wolves and black bears. Then in 2008 a young male showed up in Chicago. DNA traced him to the Black Hills of South Dakota, almost 1,000 miles away, by way of a barn in Wisconsin. Police shot him in an alley in Roscoe Village. Illinois has protected cougars by law since 2015. The cougar in the first photo was caught on camera in the Black Hills too, at Wind Cave National Park.

The bobcat nearly went the same way. Farming plowed under its prairies and woods, hunting did the rest, and by the middle of the 1900s it was close to gone from the state. Illinois listed it as threatened in 1977. It came back, and it came off the list in 1999. The Forest Preserve District says bobcats turn up in DuPage now and then, mostly in the woods along the Des Plaines River, and that the ones seen elsewhere in the county are probably young cats passing through.

In Potawatomi, a cat is mayos, a bobcat is bezho, and a cougar is zhepshi. You can hear all three spoken in the Pokagon Band's online Potawatomi dictionary at wiwkwebthegen.com.

The center will be the gateway to the 263 acres of Churchill Woods, and teaching about this land and how to care for it is part of the plan. If you're ever lucky enough to see a bobcat out here, the Forest Preserve's advice is to stand still and enjoy it before you reach for your phone. Then tell us about it!

fundthecenter.org

10/28/2026

THE BIG CABIN

In June 1951 the Glen Ellyn News ran a front-page story about the Girl Scouts' little cabin in Memorial Park. It was handy for cook-outs, the paper said, "without having to go so far to the Big Cabin in Churchill Forest Preserve." So where was the Big Cabin, and what happened to it?

The first clue came from the state's LIDAR survey, a laser map of the bare ground under the trees. Just west of the McKee House it shows a raised, squarish pad about 120 feet across, with a cut in the road bank where a drive once came in. From the air today you can still see the concrete apron in the curb of St. Charles Road where that drive began.

This fall, with the undergrowth dying back, we went looking. Once you know where to look, the ground rises to a flat top, and there are old timbers, some limestone and broken concrete blocks in the leaves. That's all that's left.

The DuPage County Historical Museum has the photograph above, labeled "Girl Scout Cabin, G.E. Scouts." It shows a long, low log cabin in the woods, with a chimney and a screen door at one end.

L.A. Wittenberg, who grew up in Glen Ellyn in the 1950s, remembered it in a memoir: "On the north side of the pond there was the Girl Scout Cabin. My sister Judy did some overnights there, but I was never invited."

We think the cabin went up alongside the McKee House. The WPA project that built the Forest Preserve's headquarters, the building we now call the McKee House, also built a scout cabin at Churchill. Its 1937 application set aside $1,300 for "the completion of a log cabin" in the preserve, a July 1938 report has the scout cabin done, and the project's paperwork lists the two together: "Administration building and Scout cabin located in Churchill Forest Preserve on St. Charles Road."

The cabin is on the U.S. Geological Survey maps from 1953 to 1993, and on aerial photos from 1956 through 1987. By 1998 it was gone, and the woods have grown back over it. We don't know why it came down. Maybe it just cost too much to keep up.

The McKee House nearly went the same way. So far the house has been saved. Join us in turning it into a place where the long history of the people in these woods can be remembered.

If you camped at the Big Cabin, or have photos of it, tell us in the comments or send us a message.

fundthecenter.org/join

Sources: Glen Ellyn News, June 14 1951, via the Glen Ellyn Park District's history archive; L.A. Wittenberg, "The River" (2013), via the Glen Ellyn Historical Society; DuPage County Historical Museum, 1982.001.2116.12; WPA records for the Forest Preserve District's 1935–39 project, National Archives (Record Group 69); Glen Ellyn News and Daily Herald, 2006; Patch, 2011 and 2016; USGS Lombard quadrangle, 1953, 1993 and 1998; USDA and DuPage County aerial photographs; Illinois State Geological Survey LIDAR.

Image Courtesy of the DuPage County Historical Museum. The photograph is shown cropped, with text added.

10/27/2026

Where is the Girl Scout Cabin?

In 1951 the Glen Ellyn News mentioned the Girl Scouts' "Big Cabin in Churchill Forest Preserve." So where was it, and what happened to it?

The state's LIDAR survey, a laser map of the bare ground, shows a raised, squarish pad in the woods just west of the McKee House. From the air you can still see the concrete apron in the curb where its driveway met St. Charles Road. This fall we went looking and found the pad, with broken concrete blocks in the leaves.

We think it was the log scout cabin the WPA built here in 1937–38, in the same project as the McKee House. The cabin is on the maps into the late 1980s. By 1998 it was gone. Maybe it just cost too much to keep up.

The McKee House nearly went the same way. The Forest Preserve board voted to tear it down in 2006, and demolition came up again in 2011 and 2016. So far it's been saved. Help us make it a place where the long history of the people in these woods is remembered.

Did you camp at the Big Cabin, or know someone who did? Tell us in the comments.

fundthecenter.org/join

Sources: Glen Ellyn News, June 14 1951 (Glen Ellyn Park District archive); L.A. Wittenberg, "The River"; Glen Ellyn Historical Society; WPA records, National Archives; Daily Herald; Patch; USGS; USDA; Illinois State Geological Survey.

Cabin photo: Image Courtesy of the DuPage County Historical Museum. It's shown cropped and zoomed, with text added.

10/25/2026

Fall color at Churchill Woods

On our walk this morning, the fall color had come in: a tree gone bright orange over the Churchill Woods sign, more red along the water, trails deep in fallen leaves, and the big oaks around the McKee House turning gold.

It's a good week to come see it. Churchill Woods Forest Preserve is free and open every day, and you can park in the lot just west of the house, at 1017 St. Charles Road.

If you'd like company, DM us to arrange an exterior tour of the house and the woods with one of our board members. We can't take you inside yet, but we can walk you around the outside and tell you what's planned for it.

fundthecenter.org

10/22/2026

Trickster Cultural Center at the Glen Ellyn Public Library

Upstairs at the library right now, the Gallery Wall and its display case belong to Trickster Cultural Center, a Native-led cultural center in Schaumburg. We stopped by last weekend. There are paintings and prints, ribbon skirts and a ribbon shirt, beadwork, pottery, hand drums and moccasins, with books from the library's own shelves set out on top of the case.

In Trickster's words: "Our collection emphasizes living, contemporary Native cultures. It provides perspectives not only on history, but the present and future through First Voice."

This is the kind of exhibit we want to be able to host at the McKee House. The plans for the house include a gallery wing, and shows like this one are what it's for: Native-led organizations showing Native art and telling their own story, here in DuPage County.

Go see it while it's up. It's free, and it's right downtown.

📍 Glen Ellyn Public Library, 400 Duane Street
Second floor, on the Gallery Wall, during library hours

gepl.org/space/gallery-wall
https://fundthecenter.org

Address

1017 St. Charles Road
Glen Ellyn, IL

Website

https://www.mckeehouse.org/, https://fundthecenter.org/

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