Jubilee College State Park
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
Images
A view of Jubilee College, courtesy of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.
Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
In the early 1800s, an Episcopal Bishop, Philander Chase, had made a name for himself by establishing Kenyon College in Ohio in 1824. After this enterprise, Bishop Chase found himself in Illinois in 1839 and opted to build yet another college, this time what he would call Jubilee College. Though he was getting along in years, Bishop Chase was not deterred from his purpose, and he set about constructing the College, which ultimately included within it a seminary, a prep school for boys, and a modified seminary for girls, in addition to the main college campus and farming operations elsewhere on the campus. The construction took five years, finishing in 1844, including dormitories for the students therein.
For a time, Jubilee College attracted a significant number of eager students willing to learn under the tutelage of Bishop Chase and his faculty there. However, Bishop Chase died in 1852, just a few years after the completion of the College. Jubilee College continued to offer its services for a decade after Bishop Chase’s death, but in 1862, the College closed its doors as an institution. The College, then placed under private ownership, sat unused for decades until it was given to the state of Illinois in 1933. From then on, Jubilee College was treated as a state park, and was then put under restoration and maintenance details. Today, the Jubilee College State Park offers visitors guided tours of several of the buildings in the College’s campus.