The best surprise of my visit to Pontiac. This museum has such an amazing and eclectic collection…read moreof items to delight everyone. From the outside it seems like any regular historical building -- but the quantity and quality of the displays within create a fun spot to enjoy an afternoon with plenty of learning opportunities. I'm not sure you'll find any larger collection of Route 66 themed items than on the lower floor here. Being immersed in these objects really gave me a feel of the history of Route 66. Attached to this are several other museums covering everything from murals to the Titanic to the Civil War to the 1940's and more. Truly a must visit set of museums that's worth a special trip.

Amazing people with great service. Super friendly definitely recommend stopping here. They…read morerecommended things to do places to go

VERY nicely done! Clean, welcoming and organized. Not kitschy at all. I own a 1969 Firebird, so…read moreI had high expectations and this place was very good. The staff was friendly and you could spend as much or as little time as you want. It is not particularly large, but had nice items on display including several cars. I am glad we stopped in.

Great spot to visit if you're a fan of the Pontiac and Oakland automobile lines. It's incredible…read morehow such an iconic set of cars is available for visitors to enjoy at only the cost of a small donation. The automobiles are arranged nicely here with good lighting and spread out so visitors don't feel too crowded. A must visit if you're in Pontiac and a fan of cars.

My friend and I had an errand out in this area and decided to see what else there was to see while…read morewe were here. This museum (the home of the Hegeler and Carus families, who were involved in a local zinc company and also a publishing house, Open Court Press) is a national historic landmark and is unique because it was owned by the same family the whole time, & they never made any fundamental updates to the house so it's largely as it was when designed by WW Boyington (who also designed Chicago's Water Tower and the old Joliet prison) in the 1870s. Several rooms have been restored, but you can see in areas where it hasn't where time is taking its toll (for example, the main hall was painted with egg tempera paint, and that organic element [the egg] is now degrading after 150 years). Still, the parquet floors are amazing, and details like pocket doors, carved wooden decorations and historical elements like the speaker tube system in the walls for speaking through the house are unusual! The house also contains the only German-style turnhalle (gymnasium) in a historic home in the US. Other interesting details include an ornate butsudan (buddhist cabinet shrine) due to Hegeler's interest in Eastern religions. We just took the general tour ($15), but you can do half house (upper or lower half for $50 each) or whole house tours ($100). The longest one is apparently 3.5 hours with two breaks and children are discouraged since it is long. You must register for the tours as they max out at 6 people. Despite it saying "masks are required" and our temperatures taken at the door, our guide was initially trying to take his mask off to talk and the other couple on the tour followed suit. When my friend and I left ours on, they all put them back on at some point. The rooms do have 6 foot markers on the floors, but since some of the rooms aren't big, if you had a full tour group this would be an issue. There is an elevator so the Mansion is handicap accessible. Overall, this seems to be one of the bigger attractions in LaSalle, so take a tour if you're in town.

This mansion is beautiful and a amazing historic site to see!! The house tour is incredible! I…read morehighly recommend going here and learning about this incredible family!

Amazing museum. Norway Illinois had the first settlers from Norway in all of the United States. I…read morehad no idea that was a fact. Free Parking and friendly staff who are volunteers of the museum. There's so much to learn and they have a beautiful timeline of Norwegian history. Many people dresses and uniforms and art from Norway to see here.

This Museum is an exciting living cultural museum of the past, in the area of the first Norwegian…read moreImmigrants to America. It is run by enthusiastic energetic people interested in preserving and sharing the history of the area. Lynn Sove Maxson

A nice little museum located w/i the beautiful Kankakee Amtrak depot, from 1898 for the IC Rr and…read moreon the Natl Register of Historic Places. The museum holds three model train layouts, each of a different scale; a number of display cases of scale model trains, dishes and schedules. Outside is a 1948 Pullman passenger coach which has been partly beautifully restored and redecorated, a UP caboose and a streetcar which once operated in Kankakee.

We had our wedding at the train depot a few weeks ago. I will never hold another event there. Don't…read moreget me wrong, the place is beautiful, and it was the right size for our event. We had the worst experience with Peggy and her "assistants". The first time we met with Peggy she was very nice and willing to help us make the day perfect. After we signed the contract that all went away. We met with her a few times leading up to the wedding. Her story and pricing would change every time we spoke with her. She told us the contract was out of date and that she does not go strictly off of the contract and that it was just a formality to hold our date. We were told the price we owed which we were fine with. Then the week before the wedding she wanted to meet with us again. Her and her assistant tried to charge us over double the agreed upon price. She was the one who told us when we could get in the Depot the day of the event given the price we paid (Goes by hourly). She told us to come at 2:30pm and then charged us an extra $100 for it. Things she told us came with the rental price we paid she quickly tried to turn around and charge us for. She was very rude and unprofessional. They put together a timeline for the wedding day which was completely opposite of what we had wanted. It only gave us about 10-15 minutes for our ceremony and only 20 minutes for pictures. They were rude when we told them we needed about 20 to 25 minutes for the ceremony, and more time for pictures. Our vendors have said they do not want to do weddings here because of her rudeness and unprofessionalism. She told me for months that they do all the setup, that I was to bring in the decorations and do 1 table to show them how I wanted it and they took care of the rest. The day before the wedding comes and we set up a table and Peggy was so rude to my mom who worked hard on decorations and told her "you don't expect me to do this?". She was nasty about it with mom and told her that there will be a fee if we set anything up. That was not in the contract and Peggy had been telling me for months that this was just something they do. Peggy made so many disrespectful comments about our decorations. We were contracted to have the building until 11pm. At 8:30pm the air was shut off and they were trying to push us out the door. Many of our guests have told us they saw her drinking our beer for our guests. She has posted pictures of our wedding without our consent (and yes, I checked the contract). We contacted the city to get this addressed and they just give us the run around saying meetings are scheduled and we will get a call back within the next few days. We have called multiple times and just keep getting the run around. It is a shame because the money is used for events downtown, but to deal with this kind of person does not make it worth is. She was a nightmare to work with. NEVER AGAIN!

Home Again on Route 66 is home to a lot of cool stuff. In this part of the museum complex there are…read morea lot of memorabilia from Pontiac, Illinois' connection to Route 66. They have gas pumps, road signs, street lights, motor vehicles, and a booth from the original Steak N Shake. The attendants are very friendly and happy to talk about Route 66. This is a must see if you are interested in Route 66 history.

Cute little gift shop for the Route 66 museum. Get all your postcards, tchotchkes and collectibles…read morehere, as well as art from the owner. A note in the time of Covid: masks are required in the museum but clerk was not wearing one (looked like she had just finished lunch but did not put one on when we came in).

Adorable little shopping location for the kiddos! The staff help me pick out a gift for the kid I…read moream babysitting. Shoutout to employees for going above and beyond!

Review Visit: November 10th, 2012…read more Where a kid can be a kid and where an adult can also be a kid. If you are wondering, I don't have any explanation why 3 adults visited a museum that is geared towards kids besides that we are all kids at heart and like to have silly fun. With that in mind, Erin, Matt, and I checked out the Children's Discovery Museum. I'm not sure exactly how we ended up wanting to explore the Children's Discovery Museum but I am glad we did. None of us have kids so it was a bit weird that 3 grown adults were walking about this museum and playing with the stuff as if we were kids, but we were never told to not play with the stuff as well. We did avoid the stuff that our adult size might break or render unusable. Overall, I don't have much to say about this place since it's been so long and I can't remember all the activities and interactive things they had. I will say that if you have kid(s), they will love this place. If you have kids and are a kid at heart, you AND your kid(s) will have a blast here.

This was the first opportujity after landing in Chicago to purchase our Route 66 Passport and begin…read moreour drive to Santa Monica on Route 66. The facility is very clean and the employees are very helpful. They explained how it all worked and we received our first stamp. We did not take the full tour, but from what we did experience it was nice and worth the stop.

We stumbled upon this museum while stopping in Joliet on our Route 66 road trip. This museum was…read moreour favorite stop in Joliet. Being from Illinois, it brought back a lot of memories of favorite bands and DJs. I'll be back to visit with my husband.

We probably covered 30% of all MSI has to offer, and my almost three year old is already planning…read morehis next trip! This place is really incredible. I was worried my toddler might be a little bit too young, but MSI does a great job of having spaces for all ages. We spent a lot of time downstairs looking at the fairy castles, baby chicks, in the mirror maze, and the idea factory! The idea factory was definitely a little outdated (my husband said nothing has changed since he came here as a kid) but even still, it was super cool and super perfect for toddlers. It's also great because this area is suuuper interactive (and especially aimed for smaller kiddos). The other space we spent a lot of time was the space exhibit. This is so cool with so much to see and learn. We can't wait to come back and see more of MSI! Super happy with our first visit with a little guy though.

Wow, our minds were blown away by this Smithsonian quality museum! We only expected to check it…read moreout for a few hours but ended up spending the entire day here. Although the submarine was their signature piece, what we enjoyed the most were the thoughtful and engaging displays with the trains and airplanes (especially the airplane engine). This museum is truly a gem and we were lucky to spend the day here.