La Grange resident Ed Ellis went from running a railroad in Colorado to being the driving force behind Wesley’s Place, a music venue within the First United Methodist Church of La Grange.
Born in Paducah, Kentucky, Ellis spent his career in the railroad business, working at various jobs in several different railroads, including the Illinois Central, the Chicago and Northwestern and Amtrak.
Wesley’s Place — named after Methodist Church founder John Wesley — began in 2022. At a recent Friday evening performance featuring folk singer Anne Hills, Ellis said the venue at First United Methodist Church of La Grange, 100 W. Cossitt Ave., evolved from house concerts he and his wife, Peggy, would organize there “in the early part of this century.”
“We had Anne Hills and Michael Smith and people like that,” he said. “And then I ended up buying a railroad in Colorado.
“I’ve been in the railroad business all my life — for about 45 years. We bought this railroad in Colorado (near his second home) and there was this really nice meadow at the top of the mountain pass and I put a venue there.”
The Colorado venue, Mountain Rails Live, brought in some fairly big acts, including the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Michael Martin Murphey, and Trout Fishing in America.
“We did 330 concerts there, and USA Today named us one of the top outdoor venues at one point,” he said.
After 45 years in the railroad business, Ellis decided to retire back in La Grange. He funded and participated in the rebuilding of United Methodist’s chapel, which was completely refurbished.
“I thought this would be a great place to have live music,” he said.
Ellis said the brother of the venue’s namesake, Charles Wesley, was one of the foremost songwriters of the eighteenth century, composing over 6,500 hymns in his lifetime, including the Christmas Carol “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”
“I wanted to have a family-friendly place where people could hear live music,” he said. “And we wanted to make it where songwriters who don’t necessarily have places to play could have a friendly place.”
The regular crowds of about 70 to 100 people who come for shows at Wesley’s Place tends towards the over-50 crowd, he said.
A former teacher at the Old Town School of Folk Music, Ellis is mostly retired from performing these days, but still finds time to participate in the music he loves.
“If I actually play a gig a year, that’s probably a lot,” he said. “But what I do is a lot of sing-alongs. There’s a Wednesday night dinner at the church and I guess you could say that I perform almost every Wednesday night during the school year because we sit over there in the corner and sing songs for an hour and a half while people eat dinner.
Wesley’s Place has shows once a month on Fridays. The May 8 show featured singer-songwriter Mark Dvorak and Wesley’s Place volunteers hosting the venue’s annual Pete Seeger birthday party.
Dvorak, a Brookfield resident and also a former teacher at the Old Town School of Folk Music, has played venues all over the country, but these days is concentrating on booking midwestern shows.
“I’ve known Ed for many, many years and he began the series right after the pandemic,” Dvorak said. “I attended a couple of them and he booked me in there to perform.”
He noticed in 2024-25, Wesley’s Place schedule becoming very, very light, saying “I was concerned that we’d be losing another venue.”
Meeting Ellis for coffee, Dvorak told him he only lived a mile-and-a-half away and I want to see the place survive and thrive.”
At that meeting over coffee, Dvorak offered to open for artists headlining Wesley’s Place free of charge.
After the initial performances, Ellis suggested Dvorak could host events.
Realizing that Ellis had brought talent to the venue from all over the country, Dvorak said, “let’s try it.”
The Rev. Cerna Castro Rand, First United Methodist pastor, is happy with the musical addition to the church. For one thing, it’s helping to attract people to his church.
“It’s really a church ministry,” he said. “It’s really so much fun and I was so thankful that Ed Ellis gave birth to it. … He said ‘how about having music available on Friday night when people are walking through town and having their meals and all, then there will be this playing in our chapel.’
“I’m really pleased at how Wesley’s Place is doing and when you look at it, the people are not just coming from the community, when they see the performer is connected to the chapel, they will travel to La Grange.”
The next scheduled performance at Wesley’s Place is Crowes Pasture, a New England–based folk/Americana duo that is a two-time nominee for Roots Act of the Year. The concert is from 7 to 9 p.m. June 12. Information is at wesleysplacemusic.com.
Hank Beckman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
