"Through the efforts of the Kane County Forest Preservation Commission [now the Forest Preserve District of Kane County] and the Durant House Restoration League committee, made up of Thornapple, LaValle and Charlemagne on the Fox Questers chapters in St. Charles, the lovely old house is getting the full beauty treatment so that it may soon be opened to the public," reported Ruth S. Pearson in the pictured article from the St. Charles Chronicle on October 4, 1972. The "Durant House Restoration League committee" became the registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization "Restorations of Kane County" two years later. In 1993, the organization's name was changed to our name now, Preservation Partners of the Fox Valley.
According to the article pictured, Luther E. Peterson informed the Thornapple Questers, a local chapter of a national organization that studies, restores, and preserves antiques, of a deteriorating old house in the LeRoy Oakes Forest Preserve. The Questers met with the Kane County Forest Commission in 1970 to request permission to restore and furnish the old home for a museum. The Forest Commission granted the request and the Questers got to work restoring the old home which came to be known as the 1843 Durant-Peterson House Museum. Led by Evelyn Johnson and June Anderson Ziegler, the Durant-Peterson House was partially restored and furnished in time for the museum's first event on December 13, 1972, a tradition we have continued every year since and called "Candlelight."
(NOTE: We believe Luther Peterson was unrelated to the Godfrey Peterson family who lived at the house from 1880-1931).