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FRANCIS HOME PART I

This is the home of Fred Francis at Francis park near Kewanee. I was aware of this place because I used to go here for the annual Fourth of July car show.

Our tour guide waiting for the Mild Ones to get ready.

Back when I was home in September the North Henderson Mild Ones took off in search of adventure and what we found was culture. While I am tempted to repeat the timeless "You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think" quote, we stopped at Francis Park outside Kewanee and ran into a pretty neat historical structure. Attached is a brochure describing the house better than I can. Suffice to say that we were offered a tour, for a price, and became enamored with the site, our tour guide, and and our unquenchable thirst for knowledge was sated.

Tim, Christopher, Ryan and myself went on Monday. The trip was to see Christophers grandparents and get out and ride a bit. I ended up with Rod's 650 cc Kawasaki, with the others riding grown-up bikes. At our gas stop in Altona one guy went up to Tim and whispered "What's wrong? Can't he afford a real bike?" Actually that was an unfair remark directed to a pretty gosh darn neat motorcyle. The thing ran well and the kicker is its at least three decades old and real good shape. The fact that I am a bit over-sized shouldn't be a reflection on the KZ. Anyway it was a great day. The next few days will be an education for those who have never been to the Francis home at Francis Park on 34 about three miles outside of Kewanee.

Francis was an educated man who was certainly eccentric. I'm not going to try and describe him here, there are other resources you can look up if interested, but he was an accomplished engineer, patented a gear for Elgin watches that helped longevity rates. He amassed money from this patent and at a certain point wrote and told them to stop sending any more money. He built this home for his love, and is the first air conditioned home without electricity. There were many many interesting features he built into the home like secret drawers, see-through floors, and solarium. He was a nudist, athiest, herbalist, and designed metal shoes so the "essence" of places like Chicago wouldn't seep into the soles of his feet. He designed a clock for the University of Illinois clocktower. He also solved an unsolvable mathmatical problem and the paperwork still resides in the home. look him up, Fred Francis, for more information.

The unique home of Frederick Francis was built in 1890 out of brick, stone and native wood. The house features disappearing doors and windows, an air cooling system, radiant heat deflectors in the fireplace chimney, and running water, all without the benefit of electricity.


http://www.cityofkewanee.com/FrancisParkBrochure.pdf

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 10, 2009 at 6:35 PM

    The guy that made the comment about the KZ was just showing he didn't know a thing about bikes. The fact that you still see bunches of 1980s KZs around today speaks to their quality.
    See Redlinecycles.com for examples.

    ReplyDelete

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