Glenview Park District awarded $375K grant for exhibit upgrades at The Grove

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources has awarded The Grove a $375,000 Public Museum Grant to improve its Interpretive Center exhibits.

The exhibits, featuring Illinois naturalist and 1800s Grove resident Robert Kennicott, will be added to the Interpretive Center's Discovery Room at the Grove, 1421 Milwaukee Ave. Construction is planned to begin in 2023, the park district stated in a release.

The grant will be the second phase of a renovation of the Interpretive Center that was done in 2020. This particular display will illustrate the 30-year-old Kennicott's posthumous journey back home to The Glen in 1866 following his death under mysterious circumstances on the banks of the Yukon River during his second expedition to Russia.

His collections and records led to the United States purchasing Alaska from Russia, according to the Glenview Park District's release.

The skeleton of Kennicott, a Smithsonian Institution scientist, are currently housed in the Institution's "Objects of Wonder" exhibit. Initially laid to rest next to his father's grave in 1867, later moved to a cemetery in Arlington Heights, in 1999 his body was exhumed to conduct a forensic autopsy.

Staff of The Grove are working to replicate Robert Kennicott's skeleton to explain the science used in forensic anthropology, the release stated. This theme of "discovery" will be incorporated into the new space in the interpretive center.

The park district stated that the conclusions drawn by the Smithsonian forensic team that examined Kennicott's body in 1999 will be released when the new exhibits are unveiled.

The Grove Interpretive Center is among 36 Illinois museums that were awarded grants in 2022, totaling $19.7 million. Others include the Holocaust Memorial Foundation of Illinois in Skokie and the Park Ridge Park District's Wildwood Nature Center.