Elgin history will come alive when the Bluff City Cemetery Walk returns for its 34th year with expanded offerings.
“This is the first year that we’ve ever done it for two days, and the first year that we’re doing an evening performance,” said Trish LaFleur, media coordinator at Elgin History Museum.
Walks will be held at 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. Sept. 25 and at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Sept. 26 at Bluff City Cemetery in Elgin. In addition, a virtual walk will be available online starting Oct. 3. Tickets cost $15, with all of the money raised from the walk supporting the Elgin History Museum. For the first time ever, tickets to the event must be purchases online ahead of time. No tickets will be sold onsite.
“We’re asking people to pick one of these time slots. It’s a timed-ticket entry,” LaFleur said.
By selling tickets this way, “we feel we can accommodate more people at one time, but there will also be less waiting.
“This year since we know when we’re sending people out, people know when to arrive so they won’t have to wait for more people to come so they have a complete group (to start the walk),” she said.
In the past the Elgin History Museum, whose volunteers and staff organize the walk, would partner with local businesses to sell physical tickets.
“We didn’t know where we would be with COVID, so we needed to have a way that in case we had another shutdown, we’d have a way to refund customers,” LaFleur said. “When people were going to the local businesses and paid cash we had no idea who bought what, so that’s why we chose that route this year.”
The advance sales and timed entry will also allow for social distancing as groups of attendees travel from each gravesite to watch actors portray historical figures from Elgin and the surrounding area.
“That’s another reason we’re keeping track of how many people are coming, we’ll be able to spread (the groups) out accordingly so everybody has personal space,” LaFleur said.
The 108-acre cemetery, which dates back to 1889, has been the site of the annual event since 1987. Each a year a different group of historical figures are portrayed by volunteers. Now in its 34th year, “maybe twice we’ve done the same character,” she said.
“We find an area of cemetery. We try to find a general area and go look at the stones. Then we come back to the museum and do research on the people and see if we can piece together a good story we can tell or to make sure we have enough information about the person,” LaFleur said.
Among the historical figures that will be portrayed this year is featured character Daniel Broadnax, who came to Elgin in 1925 and opened his own shoe repair business on Dundee Avenue 11 years later. He would work there for the next 50 years. Broadnax will be portrayed by his grandson, Rage Ledbetter.
Other figures portrayed this year are farmer and businessman Henry Sherman, who donated land and a building for the city’s first hospital, merchant William Grosvenor Hubbard who helped bring the first railroad to Elgin and humanitarian Eliza Ann Hadwen Lovell, who opened her house on Margaret Place to many homeless children.
Typically between 500-600 people attend the cemetery walk, LaFleur said. With an extra day added to the walk, organizers are expecting twice that amount.
Upon arrival, participants will be assigned a group, which they will travel with to seven different stations featuring actors.
“The actors will do their performances, then everybody will move like a clock so they will get to see all seven performances,” she said.
Because of the uneven terrain in the area of the cemetery for this year’s walk, it is suggested that attendees with mobility issues attend the virtual cemetery walk, which will be available for viewing starting Oct. 3.
“We’re just doing it out of an abundance of caution. This part of the cemetery does have more hills and it might be a little bit difficult,” LaFleur said. “The reason that we’re saying that is we are offering a virtual version if people don’t feel comfortable with that kind of terrain, they can absolutely do the virtual version. It is kind of steep.”
After last year’s in-person walk was canceled due to the pandemic, Elgin History Museum filmed the volunteers portraying the characters and posted the walk to its YouTube channel, where it was available to watch for two weeks for free. This year, there is a fee to watch the walk, but it can be viewed whenever the ticketholder wants.
“This year we are selling tickets,” LaFleur said. “We’re treating it sort of like a pay-per-view. So if you buy a ticket to the pay-per-view you can watch it as many times as you want.”
Even though there are in person walks this year, the museum decided to add the virtual version after it proved popular in 2020.
“We’re now doing almost everything in person and virtual because we’ve had such a wonderful reaction to our virtual events,” LaFleur said. “It’s amazing how many people have moved away from Elgin but have this big, true love for all things Elgin.”
Elgin Cemetery Walk
When: Sept. 25-26 (in person); Oct. 3 (virtual tour available)
Where: Bluff City Cemetery, 945 Bluff City Blvd., Elgin
Tickets: $15
Information: 847-742-4248; elginhistory.org/events/cemetery-walk/
Kathy Cichon is a freelance reporter for the Courier-News.
