Naper Settlement, Naperville's Living History Museum

The thirteen-acre outdoor museum you are passing preserves the founding story of Naperville. In eighteen thirty-one, an Ohio shipbuilder named Joseph Naper arrived along the DuPage River with his family and a small band of settlers. They staked out what they called Naper's Settlement, one of the earliest American outposts in northeastern Illinois.

By nineteen sixty-nine, many of those original structures had fallen into disrepair. Residents formed the Naperville Heritage Society and began rescuing historic buildings from across the city, relocating them here to form a cohesive outdoor village. Today some thirty structures span the period from the eighteen thirties through the early twentieth century, with costumed educators bringing the frontier community back to life. It is an accredited museum and one of the largest outdoor history sites in the Chicago region.