Welcome to Naper Settlement.Where looking back is looking forward.Naper Settlement is an award-winning, outdoor history museum offering visitors 13 acres of educational programs, exhibits, guided tours, and special events. Whether watching the blacksmith at the forge or sitting down for a lesson in our one-room schoolhouse, visitors are immersed in history as they learn about the past and how it relates to the present. Explore our interactive exhibits including the newly reimagined Building Naperville: Tallgrass Prairie to Today. On view through December 2024, celebrate the Naperville Fire Department’s 150th anniversary with a look back at the department’s history in a thought-provoking new exhibit, A Strong Back and A Strong Mind. 

This statue of Joseph Naper was dedicated by the city of Naperville on Friday, August 23, 2013, in recognition of his role in establishing the community from his arrival in this area in 1831 to his death in 1862. Recognized as the founder of the community, Joesph Naper helped establish the community's infrastructure. Naper also occupied a variety of local, county, and state political offices, and he was an influential supporter of Abraham Lincoln. The statue is located downtown at a location that was once part of the Naper Homestead.

Located just west of 2900 Ogden Avenue is the Beaubien Cemetery. It was set apart decades ago by Mark Beaubien, Sr. on a portion of the 260 acres in Lisle that he acquired in 1841. The property included an tavern inn structure which later also served as a toll house for the Plank Road. (See Beaubien Tavern Clio entry to learn more about this structure.) Today a single stone monument, put into place in 1989, records the names, birth, and death dates of those known to be buried in this small family cemetery on the north side of Ogden Avenue. The Museums at Lisle Station Park continue to research the history of the cemetery as well as its residents.

Built 1850s, recreated on site in 2002 Original location: barns in Wisconsin, 200 miles north Current primary use: Blacksmith and wood turning demonstrations and classes This structure displays an important part of the landscape in the 1800s: the local craftsmen who kept communities functioning with their custom handiwork. The Blacksmith was especially vital to a settlement in pioneer days. Among other things, he provided the nails, hinges and other hardware for their homes. It is reported that often when moving to another area, a family would burn their home down to collect the precious nails since wood was readily available but nails might not be. This operational 19th century woodworking and Blacksmith shop demonstrates a business combination that would have been typical of the time period. This structure is made of timber frame construction with wood pegged mortises and tenons from three different barns. A massive double firepot stone hearth (forge) designed and built inside provide the heat necessary to shape and create raw and used materials. The larger bellows is from the Haumesser Blacksmith shop which operated in Lisle on the northwest corner of Ogden Avenue and Main Street in the 1800s, while the smaller was donated by the Aurora Historical Society. Museum visitors have the opportunity to talk with the skilled volunteer craftsmen during museum tours and learn firsthand how materials are reshaped and reused to meet the challenges of the life of early settlers through demonstrations and classes. Exhibits include a substantial amount of sample work which visitors can handle and feel the textures of the wood and heft of hand-wrought iron. If you look closely inside and outside at the museum, you can see the objects whittled from wood and hand-forged by our own Blacksmiths.