For almost 74 years, one of the favorite exhibits of visitors to the Kankakee County Museum has been a large, detailed scale model of what was once a popular resort hotel located on the Kankakee River.

Erected in 1887 on the edge of what is now Cobb Park, the Hotel Riverview attracted numerous vacationers from Chicago and other Midwestern cities. Its natural setting and elegant accommodations made it an attractive “getaway” for visitors from the noisy, smoky, grimy atmosphere of the cities of that time. Although it existed for only a single decade (succumbing to a disastrous fire in 1897), the hotel became a well-remembered part of Kankakee’s history.

Soon after the Kankakee County Historical Society gained its first permanent home (the Historical and Arts Building —now the Kankakee County Museum —opened in Small Memorial Park in October 1948), two members of the Society conceived the idea of a hotel model as a museum exhibit. Artist Joseph L. Campbell and local historian Harold W. Simmons began constructing the scale model in 1949.

“Work on the miniature building was started more than a year ago,” wrote Simmons in his “Up ’til Now” local history column that appeared in the Nov. 12, 1950, edition of the Kankakee Sunday Journal. “and at least three hours each week were expended in the work. … The model … shows the hotel as it stood in about 1893, when the popularity of the hotel was at its height.”

Campbell and Simmons used old drawings and photographs of the building and its surroundings, as well as floor plans for the hotel, to recreate the hotel “as it once existed.” Simmons wrote that the model included “Small figures in the costumes of that period” created by Mrs. Effie Van Tuyl Davis. “Each figure, about an inch tall, is modeled of clay and painted. Each … represents a vast amount of painstaking labor and knowledge of the costumes of the period.”

The model faithfully reproduced the four-story building, with its pointed turret on the southeast corner and broad verandahs on its west side facing the river. Like the original, the walls of the model were painted a deep forest green, and the roofs a rich red. It was unveiled at the Historical Society’s annual meeting on the evening of Nov. 15, 1950. Since that time, it has been a popular feature at the Kankakee County Museum, as part of the Story of Kankakee County exhibit.

The 80-room Hotel Riverview opened in July 1887, with out-of-town guests delivered to its door by a free horse-drawn “wagonette” that met arriving trains at the city’s railroad depots. Located on a triangular site bounded by what are now South Chicago Avenue, South Greenwood Avenue, and Park Place, the building was surrounded by mature forest trees and acres of landscaped grounds. It had been constructed by a partnership that included Kankakee landowner/entrepreneur Emory Cobb and two of the railroads serving Kankakee: the Illinois Central and the “Big Four” (Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Chicago).

A promotional booklet describing the hotel proclaimed, “The house has every beauty and convenience that modern invention and money can supply as completely as any hotel in New York or Chicago. … All the rooms are outside rooms; every room contains a closet and all rooms are connecting, so that a family may occupy as many or as few rooms en suite as they may desire. Many rooms contain fireplaces, and the whole house is heated by steam. … There are several general bath rooms, and many suites have separate bath with hot and cold water.”

Amenities of the Hotel Riverview included a formal dining room with seating for 150, a barber shop, billiards room, smoking room and several formal parlors. There was, however, no public bar. While the dining room offered wine for its guests, no liquor or beer was available; in fact, visitors were not allowed to bring any type of alcoholic beverage into the building.

The hotel catered to both overnight guests and “day trip” groups arriving in Kankakee via the IC or Big Four railroads, which offered special “excursion fares” from Chicago. Only a month after it opened, the hotel played host to 1,600 members of the Chicago Wholesale Grocers Association. The visitors arrived aboard three 10-car special trains on the IC line.

A financial panic in the mid-1890s seriously decreased the number of guests coming to the Hotel Riverview. To make up for lost tourist revenue, the hotel’s management began accepting residents who leased rooms and suites on a monthly or annual basis. Eventually, about one-half of the rooms were occupied by long-term guests, including part-owner Emory Cobb and several members of the Cobb family.

The Hotel Riverview’s saga came to an end in the early morning hours of Nov. 12, 1897, when dense smoke awakened guests on the second floor. The fire spread rapidly through the wooden building, causing some 40 guests to flee into the chilly night. The only injury was to a guest who leaped from a second-floor window and landed on a pile of rocks. He was not seriously hurt.

By dawn, the once-elegant hotel was reduced to a pile of smoking rubble. Only the stone foundation walls and the hotel’s tall chimneys survived. Since just 25% of the building’s value was covered by insurance, the owner decided against rebuilding. The ruins were cleared away, and the hotel site was divided into residential lots.

While most of the Hotel Riverview’s guests arrived in horse-drawn vehicles, some chose a more romantic and scenic method of transportation. What was it?

<strong>Answer:</strong> Captain William Gougar’s steamboat “Minnie Lillie.” The vessel, which also served Gougar’s picnic grove and resort farther up the Kankakee River, made two round trips each day between its landing at the foot of Schuyler Avenue and the hotel’s dock