Last week I was fortunate enough to pass through the City of Chenoa, Illinois (on the way to Chicago) on a Tuesday, one of the two days (the other is Saturday) that the Chenoa Historical Museum is open. Chenoa was home to George B. Ferree, who built a “pre-foxhole” foxhole radio from spare parts during the First World War. I had worked with the Museum before – see my previous post about the late Evy Reis – but wanted to see if they had found anything else. 

We arrived a while before they opened and walked around the square a while. It is a classic small American town.

There wasn’t much activity other than a guy on his riding lawnmower down the street.

The museum opened at 10:00. It was packed with documents, photos, newspapers, and all sorts of local artifacts. They have done an excellent job collecting objects significant to the area. They had a file folder on Ferree, a shadow box with some of his metals and WWI documents, and his WWI campaign hat.

They also had an interesting little stone turtle Ferree presumably carved during the Second World War, which he also served in. It was found in a garage sale in Arizona and mailed to the historical society. How it ended up in Arizona is unknown.

I didn’t find much new information about Ferree but it was nice seeing the town and artifacts. The museum will be contacting me if anything else turns up so stay tuned…