General Daytime Tours

Non-costumed guides conduct interpretive tours every half-hour between 9:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., Wednesday-Sunday; each tour lasts approximately 45 minutes.  Tours are free, but a donation of $2/adult and $1/child (under 18) is suggested.  A seventeen-minute video is shown prior to each tour (recommended for children in grades 4 and up).  Reservations are required for groups of ten or more.

Docents use artifacts and stories about the Davis family to interpret the rich social and cultural history of America's western frontier from the 1850s through the 1880s.  Specific themes include servant life, domestic life and technology at the dawn of the industrial age, family history (with a focus on children), and Victorian architecture.  The mansion is a precursor of the modern homes and comfort systems that we take for granted today, and is an impressive reminder of the important role that Illinois played in the nation's history when Abraham Lincoln was President.  The tour gives human shape and drama to the technological, architectural, cultural, social and aesthetic history of the Gilded Age.