Ulysses S. Grant Home

On a hill above the old lead-mining town of Galena, Illinois, stands the Italianate brick house that the citizens of Galena gave to Ulysses S. Grant in August of eighteen sixty-five, after he returned home as the general who had won the Civil War. Grant had come to Galena just before the war broke out, working as a clerk in his father's leather goods store after a series of professional failures.

The town he returned to as a hero presented him this home as a gift. He lived here only briefly before the presidency called him to Washington, but he returned after his two terms and again after his world tour. The house is now a state historic site, furnished to its mid-eighteen sixties look, with many pieces that belonged to the Grant family, offering a quiet portrait of the man before the legend fully took over.