Skip to main content

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

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Flashback Friday

Class, Or Lack Thereof The Dwight Vice gravestone in Oquawka, Illinois. I bring this old chestnut out every so often just to remind me that class is classless.  Dwight Vice was killed in his home near Oquawka in 2001.  It was one of those things that can generate crime:  two guys thought Dwight had a lot of money stashed at home because of his pot-selling sideline to supplement his fishing job.   Not really one of those big drug deals gone-bad things.  Marijuana was, according to the trial, about the only stuff Dwight sold.   But these two guys barge into the house and killed Dwight and attempted to kill his 11 year old kid, Darryl, before they took off with what money they could find.   His son, now 23, was stabbed in the back and left for dead.  He survived and is wheelchair bound and has undergone several surgeries to repair his wounds.  He will be paralyzed for life.   None of this is pleasant.  Reading the f...
Post a Comment
Read more

Philippe Park and The Tocobaga Indian Mound

About ten miles or so north of Bedlam is a place called Safety Harbor.  Its the place that has the 300-500 year old oak that the city tried to kill I featured a couple weeks ago on BFE .  They have a pretty nice park that has some interesting history, too.  Count  Philippe landed here and introduced the pineapple and cigar making to the Tampa Bay area. Today, however, I want to mention something else about this area, besides the really nice scenery.  Phillipe Park was also the home of the Tocobaga Indians.  The Tocobaga occupied the Tampa Bay area from around 600 A.D. to the 1600's.   This is a fairly common view of old stately moss-laden oaks down here.   This shot was taken atop the only Tocobaga Indian mound in the area.  This exact spot is home not only to the Tocobaga until they died out, but then to Count Phillipi who settled the area after the Tocobaga died out.   The place is full of oak and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Mary Davis Home - Part 2

None of these pictures were taken by me,  they came right from the MDH website.  I am posting these so that friends who have never seen inside where I worked can gain access.  After 27 years I have many stories, tales and acquaintances.  But, I wouldn't know how to express them appropriately in a few paragraphs.  I enjoyed 98% of my stay there and hope I made a difference in the lives of a fraction of the kids who entered.  The original MDH at this site was just the front part.  The large red-roofed area in back was added on in the 90's. This is the Jerry Carlton library.  It was unofficially named after one of the counselors who truly loved the place.   He passed away around 2002, I think.  Mr. Farber looks like he is explaining a few things to a client. The classroom. Activity area with the gym behind the windows. Another shot of the classroom. It was a little different area to teach since we had 2 classes and 2 teachers i...
Post a Comment
Read more