WGLT: "The Smithsonian comes to Chatsworth"

Central Illinois is prominently featured in a traveling exhibit highlighting rural innovation.

Illinois Humanities partnered with the Smithsonian Museum for "Spark! Places of Innovation." The exhibit is part of the Museums on Main Street initiative — a 30-year effort to bring the country’s flagship museum into small towns across America.

Through October, “Spark!” is installed at Community Connection of Central Illinois in Chatsworth, a Livingston County farming community 45 miles northeast of Bloomington-Normal. Chatsworth is the third of seven stops on the statewide tour, which previously exhibited in two southern Illinois towns: Equality and Hillsboro.

The heart of downtown Chatsworth is a three-block stretch of Locust Street flanked by a Casey’s at one end and an American Legion on the other. Between those is Community Connection of Central Illinois, a nonprofit aimed at revitalizing the region’s social and economic landscape.

“Because we’re awesome!” said Mary Catherine Carter...

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