The Breaking the Prairie Museum in Mendota, Illinois is the latest installment of Cody’s Road Trips’ Magazine Article series. These destinations are places that I have written about for the magazines that I write for with my work for Shaw Media. When I’m not embarking on road trips, I’ll post some of my older road trips for work to keep this website fresh. There will be more to come.

One of the magazines that I write for is the northern Illinois edition of Shaw Media’s “Ag Mag.” This is operated out of Shaw’s Sauk Valley office, where I work, and I write almost all of the stories in this publication. The biggest weakness to doing this is that I have no farm experience whatsoever, so agriculture isn’t really a strong suit. I do try to learn more about it with each issue I work on.

Sometimes I find myself falling back on my own strengths – such as tourism. I look at our magazine as something that can attract readers of all ages, and that includes educating the younger ag-minded people about how things were done many decades ago. Perhaps it would also educate me as I learn more about agriculture. This hatched the idea, in 2023, to feature a couple of farm museums in the region. One of them was the Breaking the Prairie Museum in Mendota. 

This museum honors the region’s agricultural heritage through exhibits of early farming tools and equipment used to cultivate the Illinois prairie. The site features the Mathesius Brothers Barn, a 2002 replica building containing antique buggies, tractors and farming implements. Glass walls allow for year-round, exterior viewing of the collections, which includes a mid-1800s windmill, agricultural machinery, and a chapel gallery. Dedicated to preserving local history, it highlights the transition from natural prairie to farmland.The museum is generally available by appointment.

The museum is one of three operated by members of the Mendota Historical Society. The others are the Union Depot Railroad Museum, housed in the former Burlington Northern depot, and the Hume-Carnegie local history museum. Mendota was a railroad town with three major lines going through it: the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy (later BN), the Illinois Central, and the Milwaukee Road. I visited the railroad museum a couple of years ago, but will one day visit again to write a dedicated post about it. 

I took this trip to the Breaking the Prairie Museum on June 20, 2024 for publication in the Summer 2024 “Ag Mag.” 

I have posted the link to my article from the magazine below. Learn more about the museum by reading the story, and hearing from the people who care for it.

Breaking The Prairie Museum
684 Eighth Street, Mendota
For tour appointments: 815-539-3373 or email mmhsmuseum at yahoo dot com

Link to this story
Link to the magazine
Link to the publication index
Link to the magazines I write for

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