Oakville 'Living History' Site Hosts Open House

In its early days, Oakville was a busy trading center. Visiting the Oakville Complex historical site is an opportunity to see what life in Carroll County was like in the 1800s.

The Carroll County Historical Society will host an open house Sunday, June 28, from 1-4 p.m. in conjunction with their annual meeting at the Oakville Complex, just off Timber Lake Road, five miles southeast of Mt. Carroll. Seniors come and reminisce about the good old days.

Bring the grandchildren to learn about their ancestry. Step inside two log cabins, a blacksmith shop, a granary and the one-room Oakville School.

Oakville School, built in 1888, is the only one-room school still standing in Carroll County for educational purposes. Come and sit in a school desk from the 1800s. Four other historical buildings have been relocated to this site to provide visitors with glimpses into the past.

Step into the Weitzel log cabin where Henry and Maria started married life and raised their family of nine children. See antique kitchen ware, appliances and home furnishings from a typical frontier family. In lead miner Peter Hay's log cabin from 1838, see the tools of his trade and some early appliances. William Graham was an early pioneer who ran the blacksmith shop. Tools of his trade were used to forge early iron plows, shoe the horses and repair harnesses. The pioneer farmers built granaries to store the harvest from their fields. The McKean granary dates to 1869 and was relocated to this site from their farm near Milledgeville.

For more information regarding the open house or the Carroll County Historical Society, call 815-244-3474.

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