The Historical Society of Forest Park celebrated its 50th anniversary at BABS Comedy Club Nov. 16. One of the activities of the evening was a Forest Park-themed game of Chronology, where teams tried to accurately create a timeline of notable local events and milestones.
The custom Chronology — created by Jill Wagner, a board member for the Historical Society of Forest Park and reader engagement manager for Growing Community Media, which publishes the Review — will be available to purchase soon. The game is just one way the historical society is looking to rejuvenate itself and its role in town.
“We definitely modernized a lot when I started,” said Alexis Ellers, who’s been the historical society’s executive director for nearly a decade.
The Historical Society of Forest Park started taking advantage of online platforms, Ellers said, like to sell event tickets and share videos they create. The group even relaunched its oral history project, posting about local veterans on its website.
“It’s hard to get people to come to a local history society, so our method is more bringing it to people,” Ellers told the Review.
She said one of her favorite historical society activities is to bring film photos and information about the Altenheim to Forest Park’s annual German Fest. And that way people who wouldn’t necessarily visit a local history museum get to interact with it.
“I like to think we’ve changed peoples’ opinions about a historical society. It’s not a dim, dusty building that you go to if you hit it at the right time,” Ellers said.
Because locals often ask the historical society about the specific people who used to live at the Altenheim and if their relatives were among them, Ellers said she hopes to work with the senior living home to digitize its fragile documents.
She also wants to create cemetery tours at the Altenheim and Woodlawn, since the historical society has ones for the other cemeteries in the village. And the society is working to create an illustrated booklet of local architecture by Henry Fiddelke.
Emphasizing the goal of bringing Forest Park history to locals, Ellers said the group has long had the dream of having a mobile museum to bring to events.
“I hope that we can just keep bringing history to people,” Ellers said of her hopes for the historical society in its years to come.
History of the Historical Society
Dr. Frank Orland launched the Historical Society of Forest Park in 1975 to preserve the village’s history. With a day job as a dentist, Orland put together the historical society’s first board of directors, organized Forest Home Cemetery tours and collected artifacts to display in the Forest Park Public Library. Orland led the organization until his passing in 2000.
According to a previous Review article, it took a while for the Historical Society of Forest Park to recover. Rich Vitton became the organization’s next president and moved much of the group’s collection to his basement.
Under Vitton, the historical society helped preserve the mural at the Forest Park post office and cleaned gravestones at the Altenheim. Vitton and Bob Cox, a board member of the historical society who would later become president, sponsored a historic preservation ordinance that is now part of the process to getting a site landmark designation.
Augie Aleksy became the next president of the historical society. The owner of Centuries and Sleuths, which closed in the summer of 2024, Aleksy succeeded in hiring the group’s first executive director, Diane Hansen Grah. Under her, the historical society started organizing new events and fundraising efforts.
After Aleksy, Cox became president. Cox told the Review that Orland and Vitton organized most historical society programming themselves.
“Vitton was a one man band, and so was Dr. Orland, and so was I,” Cox said.
Next, Jerry Lordan became president. At the 50th anniversary celebration on Nov. 16, the Historical Society of Forest Park recognized Lordan with the Dr. Orland Award. Theresa Steinbach followed, and today, Mark Boroughf is the historical society’s president. Nearly a decade ago, Ellers succeeded Grah.
Ellers said that, before she became executive director, she worked for Mark Rogovin, helping him with his dad’s photography collection. Rogovin was on the historical society’s board, and Ellers said she often heard him talk about the Haymarket riot and even helped Grah and Rogovin locate graves from the Eastland Disaster in honor of its 100-year anniversary. Shortly after, when Grah left, Ellers became the historical society’s executive director.
Though the Historical Society of Forest Park once had space in St. Peter’s church and First United Church, a space above the police station at Village Hall holds most of the historical society’s collection today. The group also has access to some of the newly village-owned space at 7410 Madison St.
In the lower level of Village Hall, the historical society displays a few of its artifacts, along with its Wall of Renown of notable Forest Park residents, which was updated earlier this year. Ellers said that, once two defunct vending machines are removed, the historical society plans to revamp another wall in the basement.
“We’re very appreciative to have that space,” Ellers said of the area at Village Hall above the police station and in the lower level. “Not having a space with rent and utilities is one of the ways that we are able to do so much with such a small budget. All that money just goes straight into programming, collecting and all of the things that are more important.”
“We really appreciate all of the members and all the volunteers. People keep saying we got so much done this year,” Ellers added. “We just have so many people who come out and help with stuff and they’re really enthusiastic.”
Dec. 2, 10:30 a.m.: This article has been updated to include additional information.