More history of my home town.

 

 

 

 

Four Bottle Tavern, Old Dixon-Chicago Pike, Lee Center, Lee County, IL HABS ILL,52-LEEC,1-2 The original photograph was part of a Historical Architectural Building Survey. (This picture was taken in the 1930's, but the house was probably built in the mid 1800's I would guess.) . In 1829 present-day Chicago Road was part of the Fink and Walker stagecoach line from Galena, Illinois to Chicago, though the Pottawatomie Indians were the first to use the trail. The tribe didn't turn over the area to the U.S. government until 1833. Fink and Walker also held the mail contract for the area's settlers. The route became popular to area settlers and businesses. This old home, once a tavern along the Old Chicago Road in Lee Center, still stands after many years. The front door was once a double door and later remodeled , as you see it now. Mom and dad said a double door was originally built in order for barrels of whiskey to be rolled into the tavern from the stage coach delivering it. Across the street was an old barn where horses and coaches were kept for the night. It was a dangerous time to travel as the Bandities of the Prairie roamed the area and robbed people. There were boarding rooms upstairs and a summer kitchen in the back of the house. . I walked through this house when friends of my parents remodeled the home...there were no closets and the rooms very small. Esther and Roy Conibear carefully restored this home to its original beauty.  . I felt it a good thing to write of it's history, before it no longer exists to future generations. .
This house has quite a history, if walls could only talk

 

Lee Center's Fred Jahn wrote 'Most likely the type of carriage that stopped at Lee Center on it's way to the Dixon Ferry from Frink and Walker at the corner of Clark and Lake street Chicago headed to Galena."