A visit to the Midway Village Museum in Rockford, Illinois takes you back in history to the end of the 19th century. You will find an historical village with twenty six different buildings representative of a typical farming town in Northern Illinois. There is a general store, a hardware store, a blacksmith shop, a print shop, schoolhouse, town hall, police station, hotel, bank, fire station, church, houses, and a variety of other buildings. There is also a Midway Village Museum which was first started in 1968 through the combined forces of the historical societies of the towns of Rockford, and Harlem. The museum is home to seven different galleries, classrooms, library and a Museum Store.
The complex located on 136 acres also contains the Old Dolls House Museum which opened in 1988. This world in miniature is an exhibit of dolls, and dollhouses from around the world. The collection contains both antique and handcrafted dollhouses, some of which were part of a local woman’s collection that she decorated based on what she saw in her world travels. It is like taking a world tour in miniature.
The Midway Village Museum is open year round and offers a variety of activities to enjoy from historical encampments to Victorian teas, to Harvest Festivals. Other exhibits of interest include the Girls of Summer an exhibit which tells the story of the Rockford Peaches, a girl’s professional baseball league.