SUGAR GROVE – Step into the Bliss House Museum, and Ruth Frantz and the other members of the Sugar Grove Historical Society will be glad to tell you about the history of the area.

“You can’t shut me up,” joked Frantz, who has deep roots in Sugar Grove. In 1854, her family relocated from Vermont to Sugar Grove. Frantz’s great-grandfather’s farm was at the intersection of Dugan Road and Route 30, where Scot Industries is located.

The Bliss House Museum, which is operated by the nonprofit historical society, is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesdays or by appointment for those looking to brush up on their Sugar Grove history or find out about their family history.

Frantz is treasurer on the Sugar Grove Historical Society’s board of directors. She and her late husband, Clare, helped start the Sugar Grove Historical Society in 1984.

“We felt it was time to keep the history of Sugar Grove,” Frantz said.

The museum is in a historic building, the 1838 P.Y. Bliss House & Store. Frantz said the building was the first store in Sugar Grove Township.

“There was nothing between here and Geneva,” she said. “There were not many houses at all.”

One can get a better idea of how the area looked back then by thumbing through the 1872 Kane County Atlas that is on display in the museum.

The Bliss House in 1997 was moved from its original location to its current spot at 259 Main St. It took five years to get the building in shape before it opened as a museum in 2002.

For those who want to know how houses were built back then, all they have to do is venture into the building’s basement and see the original log beams in the ceiling. They also can see an example of the original brick wall in the house.

“Every line of wall was lined with brick, I’m assuming for insulation,” Frantz said.

The Sugar Grove Historical Society also gives presentations about the village’s history. For example, historical society volunteer Lori McCaffrey will give a lecture on Frank Hall, who headed the Sugar Grove Normal and Industrial School in 1875.

“It was a very progressive school,” McCaffrey said. “It wound up being a prototype for universities.”

Hall also invented the Hall Braille typewriter in May 1892 while working as superintendent for the Illinois Institution for the Blind. Hall died in 1911 in Aurora.

McCaffrey got involved in the historical society almost by accident.

“I live down the street in an 1887 house,” she said. “I found a toy head and donated it. Now I’m on the board.”

The Sugar Grove Historical Society wants to share history with those of all ages, including school children. Every May, third-graders from the nearby Kaneland John Shields Elementary School come to the museum to hear how school was taught 100 years ago.

Frantz loves to see the expression on their faces when they hear the stories.

“They look amazed,” she said.