Mill Race Inn Restaurant, Geneva, Illinois. Photo by Kane County Chronicle c. 2000.
The Mill Race Inn (pictured here from the early 2000s) was a popular restaurant on the eastern bank of the Fox River off State Street in Geneva from 1933 until 2011. Inside, it held a secret—a 30-foot by 48-foot limestone building constructed by blacksmiths Julius and Edward Alexander and Lyman German in the 1840s. The stone building was built on the mill race (now gone) which was a channel from the Fox River diverted to power mills. The blacksmiths likely used this waterpower to drive equipment in their building to make shovel blades and plowshares, according to a report from Michael A. Lambert, former Preservation Planner of Geneva. Regardless of its initial purpose, the building exemplifies the practical architecture of an emerging nineteenth-century settlement and the changes in commerce ordinary Geneva residents experienced throughout its history.
Common stone buildings, such as the Alexander brothers’ blacksmith shop[1], were built all over the Midwest because they were easy to construct and easy to alter to accommodate new industries based on what communities needed. Once ubiquitous in the nineteenth century, these common structures are nearly extinct in the twenty-first. This rarity makes its architecture significant. Every day citizens passed by or visited it, making it so woven into the fabric of the community as to be almost invisible. Yet, these everyday activities tell a lot about how the people of Geneva lived.
While not glamorous, the Alexander brothers’ blacksmith shop is rich in its commonness.
Located in a highly trafficked area and easily adaptable, the limestone building remained important to commerce as the village of Geneva grew into a city. Between 1846 and 1933, the Alexander brothers’ blacksmith shop served as a:
Paper mill
Carriage and Wagon shop
Cooperage factory
Laundry business
Paint shop
Machinist shop
Auto sales and repair
Plumbing and heating business
When Anne Forsyth purchased the building in 1933, during the height of the Depression, she converted the building into a seasonal restaurant, the Mill Race Inn.[2] As business grew, she and subsequent owners expanded the restaurant and eventually enclosed the stone building which became known as the “Stone Room.”
Throughout its history, the building was like a chameleon, changing and evolving alongside the community.
The everyday lives of the residents of Geneva are embodied in the unassuming Alexander brothers’ blacksmith shop and their stories deserve to be told. This mundane, but now rare, building not only reveals the history of the formation of the city but also its evolution (see infographic). Because the building was a significant part of the City’s early settlement, its vernacular architecture is nearly extinct, and its role in the evolution of commerce in Geneva, the Alexander brothers’ blacksmith shop is a consequential building with a rich history that should be preserved.
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[1] This building is referred to as a blacksmith shop because that was its original use. This name can be confusing since it has served as the home of nearly one dozen different types of small businesses and is best known locally as the Mill Race Inn restaurant which was its last use. Typical naming conventions of historic structures are either the builder, if the architecture is significant, the property’s owner if the individual(s) is the reason for the building’s significance, the name of the building during its period of historic significance, or the original use of the building. The greatest significance of this building is its location on the former mill race of the Fox River in Geneva. Since its original use was a blacksmith shop (or more likely a forge) with the intent to use the mill race for power, the name that makes the most sense to describe the historic building is as a blacksmith shop.
[2] Michael Lambert, “Evolution and Preliminary Historic Significance Evaluation of the Former Mill Race Inn Property,” City of Geneva, Illinois, January 15, 2014 as revised through June 3, 2021.