A tour bike standing in front of a massive yellow and green accent brick Streamline Moderne three story factory with five story central entryway tower.

A brief two hours along the Fox River

Two Saturdays ago Mrs. CBA had a French teachers meeting at Geneva High School. I threw a bike into our hatchback and tagged along. Laughably ambitious plans of getting to Aurora were aborted when I got the “I’m packing up” text and I was just the next town over. Next time.

Thanks to the Batavia Public Library for their very helpful online resources.

If you are interested in seeing Chicago, contact me for half or full day custom guided rides and gift certificates, or use The Map to plan your own ride, run, or walk.

A tour bicycle leaning on a Viking sculpture made of welded together metal bike and car parts.
Geneva High School Viking Mascot (Art by Joseph, 2013) 5/6/23. A gift from that year’s graduating class. I didn’t even make it out of the parking lot!
A barely visible tour bike on a pedestrian bridge running underneath a rail road bridge over a calm flowing river, a fisher visible in the distance.
Geneva Railroad Bridge (Chicago Bridge & Iron Works of Chicago, 1917) over the Fox River, between Geneva & Batavia, 5/6/23. An estimated 10 trains a day go over this deck plate girder bridge. No need for an exercise in Where’s Waldo?, the bike is on the bridge to the right of the fisher.
A tour bike standing at front of a grey cobble stone Romanesque church with a large limestone arch entry and central bell three story tower.
United Methodist Church of Batavia (Solon Beman, 1887) 5/6/23. Website. On the National Register of Historic Places, the church was modeled after one that major funder Captain Don Carlos Newton had seen in southern France. The original drawings at the Library of Congress
A tour bike standing at front of a three story pink glass mid-century office building sitting on a steep hill.
201 Houston St in Batavia (1991) 5/6/23. In it’s early life it was referred to as the Pitz Corporate Center (pdf) after the original owner developer John Pitz. Space available!
A tour bike standing at front of a yellow painted mid-centruy modern entry way with a flat but curving roof and three vertical rows of glass blocks above.
Elderday Center (Raymond A Orput & Assoc, 1950 pdf) 5/6/23. From 1950 to 2000 it was Grace McWayne Elementary School. They specialize in day memory care for adults and seniors. Closed on weekends, there were no seniors around to be freaked out about the dude taking too many pictures [none of which he was terribly happy with]. Rockford based Raymond Orput seems to have been a rather prolific school architect in northern Illinois. I love this and plan to keep an eye out for more of his surviving buildings.
A tour bike leaning on a bamboo fence to the right of a Japanese Tori gate with a Japanese style garden behind.
Fabyan Japanese Garden (Taro Otsuka, c 1910) 5/6/23. On the grounds of George and Isabella Fabyan‘s Frank Lloyd Wright 1907 remodeled country retreat. The garden was restored in 1974 by the Geneva Garden Club, then two more times since.
A tour bike standing out from of a arched tan painted corrugated metal building with two white columns framing the entry.
115 State St, 5/6/23. For this address I found 1950s ads for Fox Tools and a 1992 reference to Dwell and Dwell Auctioneers (pdf). It has been Wituk Martials Arts since 2006.
A tour bike standing at front of a two story brick storefreont and flat with Western United Building epigraph amd a one and half story wood storefront and attic sitting on a sloped street.
Western United Building on Wilson Street 5/6/23. Looking at the Sanborn Maps it looks like it was built between 1907–1916 and a couple separate times the offices for the Western United Gas & Electric Company. William E Williams opened a short lived bakery there in 1928 (pdf). Today it is Invitations Etc., printing. 233 Wilson next door could be as early as 1891.
A tour bike standing under a Japanese and Prairie School inspired orange wood band shell on thin rock pillars.
Peg Bond Center Bandshell (Vasilion Architects, 2011) 5/6/23. Steve Vasilion is a Batavia based architect. Looks like there are a lot of events scheduled for this summer.
A tour bike standing in front of a massive yellow and green accent brick Streamline Moderne three story factory with five story central entryway tower.
Former Campana Factory (Frank D Chase, 1936) 5/6/23. Manufacturers of Italian Balm hand lotion and other beauty products until the mid 70s. A 2018 plan to convert the building to apartments did not work out (pdf) The current tenants are All Dressed Up Costumes (rentals) and Fizzy Magic, bath bombs for kids.

Contact CBA for custom guided rides through Chicago’s neighborhoods and for gift certificates for the cyclists in your life. Also, have a look at The Map, where you can plan your own ride, run, or walk around Chicago.

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