Aurora guide

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AREA MUSEUMS

• African-American Heritage Museum
  126 S. Kendall Avenue (630) 375-0657

• Air Classics Museum of Aviation
  Aurora Municipal Airport, 43W776 Route 30
  Sugar Grove, IL 60554 (630) 466-0888

• Aurora Regional Fire Museum
  53 North Broadway (630) 892-1572

• Aurora Historical Society
  Cedar Street & Oak Avenue (630) 897-9029
  20 East Downer Place (630) 906-0650

• Aurora Public Arts
  20 East Downer Place (630) 906-0654

• Blackberry Historical Farm Village
  Barnes Road & West Galena Boulevard (630) 892-1550

• G.A.R. Memorial & Veterans Military Museum
  23 East Downer Place (630) 906-0654

• SciTech
  18 West Benton Street (630) 859-3434

• Schingoethe Center
  347 South Gladstone Avenue (630) 844-5402

• Tanner House Museum
  Cedar Street & Oak Avenue (630) 897-9029

Public Library

Residents of Aurora, who live within the city limits, are eligible to receive a free library card from the Aurora Public Library. The main branch of the Library is located at 1 East Benton Street, with extension branches on the City’s far east side at 555 S. Eola Road, and at Washington School, 233 S. Constitution Drive, on the City’s west side. They have an incredible array of not just books, magazines, audio-visual materials, artwork, services and programs. For information on the Book Mobile time and locations, call the Aurora Public Library – Main Branch.

Main Branch at (630) 264-4100
Eola Branch at (630) 264-3400
West Branch at (630) 264-3600

MUNICIPAL PARKS
Phone: (630) 898-7228

GARFIELD PARK
Located at Church Road and Sheffer Road. Provides two little league fields, two horseshoe courts, two bocci courts, a roller hockey rink, a winter ice skating rink with lights and warming house, one picnic pavilion with rest rooms, playground equipment, a basketball court, tennis courts and open grassy recreational areas.

McCARTY PARK
Located at East New York Street and West Park Place. Provides one gazebo, gardens, benches and tree shaded grassy areas.

PHILLIPS PARK
Located at Smith Boulevard, Ohio Street, Montgomery Road and Ray Moses Drive (630) 898-7228. Provides four baseball fields, twelve tennis courts, fourteen competition grade horseshoe courts, two bocci courts, one croquet court, a five mile jogging/bike path, one picnic pavilion, areas with grills, one gazebo, a large playground, an 18 hole golf course, a formal twenty-eight acre fishing lake, flowing gardens, winter ice skating with lights and warming house, a zoo with over 100 birds and animals and open tree shaded grassy recreational areas. Special events throughout the year, hosted by the Friends of Phillips Park, (630) 898-7228. Phillips Park Aquatic Center, Managed by the Fox Valley Park District, offers pools, water slides, sand volleyball, picnic area and concessions (630) 851-8686.

SOLFISBURG PARK
Located at Ohio Street and Indian Avenue. Provides one Little League field, one Pony League field and one Legion League field with lighting and rest rooms.

TOTLAND PARKS
Are at three (3) separate locations: at Claim Street and Beach Street; Anderson and East New York Street and Best Place and Linda Court. Each provides playground equipment; flower gardens and tree shaded grassy areas.

WILDER PARK
Located on North Lake Street (Route 31) between West Park Avenue and Vine Street, in front of the Aurora Police Department. Provides gardens, benches, a Vietnam Memorial, an Aurora Police Memorial and tree shaded grassy area.

To arrange for a private rental (vs. public event) of a City of Aurora Park Pavilion, contact the Park Department at (630) 898-7228.

AURORA GOLF COURSES

PHILLIPS PARK GOLF COURSE (630) 898-7352
Located within Phillips Park is an 18-hole golf course comprised of 5,634 yards. The course has bentgrass greens, bluegrass/ryegrass fairways and tees. Nine holes have automated irrigation on greens, tees and fairways, while the other nine have irrigation only on greens and tees. Phillips Park Golf Course has open golf during the week. Tee times are required on weekends and holidays. Visit our web page.

FOX VALLEY GOLF CLUB (630) 879-1030
Located on Route 25 in North Aurora, is an 18-hole golf course that plays 5,927 yards. This course has bentgrass greens, bluegrass/ ryegrass fairways, tees, and fully automated irrigation on greens, tees, and fairways. Several ponds enhance aesthetics of the course. Tee times are required at all times. Visit our web page.

YOUTH & SPORTS ACTIVITIES

The Department of Youth & Sports Activities offers numerous programs, activities and events throughout the year concentrating on Aurora’s youth. The Black History Month celebration is held in February, the Aurora Sports Festival in May and many school, after-school and summer programs are open to area youth. The department is located at the Aurora Community Center, 501 College Avenue, Suite 301. For more information contact (630) 264-8266.

View websites in Aurora of things and places to shop.

The beautiful Fox River, which flows through the center of Aurora and the fertile valleys, attracted the Native American Indians. One of the tribes was the Pottawatomie, headed by Chief Waubonsee.

The first permanent settler was Joseph McCarty, a 24-year-old millwright from Elmira, New York who arrived in 1834. He staked out a 400-acre claim on the east bank of the river, and soon after bought an adjoining 400-acre tract for his younger brother, Samuel. The brothers built a sawmill in 1834-35, and gristmill next to it in 1836-37, so the settlers could grind their grain into flour.

The settlement, which had been called McCarty’s Mills, needed an official name in 1837, when application was made for a U.S. post office. The name Aurora was chosen, after a town in New York– a state many of the early residents had called home, including the McCarty’s. In addition to the river, another major factor in the development of Aurora was when it was chosen as the birthplace of the mighty Burlington railroad. The railroad began as a 12-mile branch line from Aurora. Through mergers, it became the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy (CB&Q). Aurora was chosen as the site for the railroad’s major car shops, and soon employed over 350. In the 1860s, the shops built the first American diner car. At its height, the shop complex covered over 70 acres and employed 2,500. The shops closed in 1974. All but three of the buildings were demolished. The former machine shop is now the downtown commuter station, and the roundhouse was recently remodeled and opened by former Chicago Bear and football Hall of Famer, Walter Payton as Payton’s Roundhouse Complex, a restaurant/entertainment complex.

Aurora, which means luminous bands of light, 1ived up to it’s name when in 1881, the town became the first to have electric streetlights. Five years later when the contract expired, the city built and operated its own electric plant, the first municipality in the world to do so. Aurora has other firsts: first free school in the state, first YMCA building to be constructed in Illinois, and in 1995, the first large city in the United States to connect all its schools to the Worldwide Web.

Aurora, a city of 117,000, is the third largest in Illinois, behind Rockford and Chicago, and is expected to be the second largest, soon after the turn of the century.