PEORIA, Ill. – A historic piece of Peoria’s history could be moving to a museum in 2020.
The railroad turntable located at Riverfront Park has been selected by the Monticello Railway Museum to become a part of the living museum.
A meeting was held Thursday night at the Gateway Building to allow the public to make comments about the turntable leaving Peoria.
Past President and volunteer of the Monticello Railway Museum John Sciutto said that he knew it would be controversial.
“But then at the same time it would be refurbished, restored, and we would have it eventually back in operation at our museum,” Sciutto said.
The turntable was made in the early 1900s and was a part of the Rock Island Railway. Currently, the turntable is not connected to any working railways.
“Even though it looks like it’s totally unusable, it’s just a gem that’s waiting to be restored,” Sciutto said.
Sciutto said they would make sure to honor the citizens of Peoria and the turntable’s history with the city.
“We would have some signage and a plaque on the turntable that it was donated by the city of Peoria, it was formally the Rock Island Railroad heritage,” Sciutto said.
The self funded museum would take care of the cost of moving the turntable to Monticello, and there would be no cost to the citizens of Peoria said Assistant City Manager Deborah Roethler.
However, the community members who attended the meeting were concerned of what would take the place of the turntable once it leaves the area.
“There were a lot of great suggestions around the future of the Riverfront Park,” Roethler said. “We got the feed back that they really want the city to follow that commitment to maintain that as open space to perpetuity.”
Roethler said that community members also brought up the idea of commemorating the space.
“Because of the significance of rail travel and transportation to Peoria. The suggestion was made that there was an opportunity to possibly have some kind of educational or informative plaque or signage in the area,” Roethler said. “I think that’s a fantastic idea that we should definitely look at as we consider how we’re going to refurbish that space.”
Roethler said that no definite date has been set for this process to begin, but spring of 2020 is anticipated.
