You knew there was a Peoria in Arizona, right? And you knew that it was named after our fair city because this was their home town, right? Well, also on the History page for their Chamber of Commerce, I discovered this:
To accommodate the expanding community, Central School was built in 1906 and used continuously for the next 70 years. Today it is home to the Peoria Museum where tantalizing tidbits from the past await you.
Isn’t that interesting? They had an old school built around the turn of the century, and instead of tearing down the building, they repurposed it as their city’s history museum! Now, that would be novel to put the history museum in an historical building, wouldn’t it?
You might think I’m going to suggest Peoria convert one of the schools District 150 is closing into a museum. You would be wrong. I can’t see that working here, simply because of the location of the schools that District 150 wants to close. But let me ask you this: We have a big, historic building downtown right on the river in the central business district that currently has no tenants, save one. You know which one I’m talking about? That’s right — the old Rock Island Depot, also known as The River Station. Wouldn’t it be cool to use that building to house the Peoria history museum? It seems like it would be perfect for that use; it has everything going for it: location, availability, already owned by the city, age, beauty, historical significance, space . . . . What’s not to like?