Glenn Young honored with Little White School Museum’s 2017 Mary Cutter Bickford Award

The Oswegoland Heritage Association Board of Directors announced at their annual meeting that Oswego resident Glenn Young is the recipient of the group’s 2017 Mary Cutter Bickford Award for excellence in local history and preservation.

The award honors those who have demonstrated excellence in the preservation of Oswego-area history in the tradition of early village historian Mary Cutter Bickford. Previous recipients included John Hafenrichter, Theodore “Ted” Clauser, Helen Zamata, and Stephenie Todd.

Young has deep roots in the Oswegoland community, with his ancestors arriving to settle the area in the 1830s. In keeping with that long tradition, in 1977 he became active in the Oswegoland Heritage Association’s restoration of the historic Little White School Museum.

With his father, Stan Young, Glenn Young and his brother, Don, helped recreate the building’s distinctive bell tower and then helped put the original bell and the restored bell tower in place in October 1980.

Starting in 1983 and continuing into the first years of the 21st century, Young coordinated restoration efforts on the building’s interior, along with the volunteer workers that were responsible for so much of the work on the project, including members of the Optimist Club of Oswegoland and the Oswego Lions Club.

In 1982, Young designed the movable partition system for the Little White School’s community museum room when the museum’s first exhibits were mounted in the spring of 1983.

He was also instrumental in guiding the heritage association to its decision to restore the building to its appearance around the turn of the 20th century as a Greek Revival style Methodist-Episcopal church. He was responsible for restoring the building’s wainscoting by graining it himself. He researched methods for recreating the building’s diamond-patterned glue-chipped window, and then supervised the window restoration project. Having taught himself how to do the glue-chipping process on the windowpanes, Young recreated all 32 patterned glass panes for the building’s restoration.

Young also served four terms on the heritage association’s board of directors, from 1989 until 2001.

“Glenn was instrumental in persuading the heritage association board to restore the Little White School Museum to its look about 1901, including taking the interior of the main room back to its original dimensions by removing the interior partitions and the drop ceiling,” said museum director Roger Matile. “As a result, we wound up with a beautiful, classic Greek Revival building that now provides not only public meeting space but also offers a real connection to the community’s early history.”

Outside of the restoration of the Little White School Museum, Young was also responsible for persuading local officials to work towards retaining the old Oswego bridge across the Fox River as a bridge-park. Originally, the Illinois Department of Transportation planned to demolish the old bridge after the new four-lane structure was finished in 1993. But Young was able to persuade local officials that the bridge could be saved and that IDOT could be persuaded to restore the bridge for a bridge-park instead of demolishing it. Today, Hudson Crossing Bridge Park is a valuable addition both to the adjoining Hudson Crossing Park, but is also a scenic centerpiece of Oswego’s historic downtown business district.

“Without Glenn’s prompting and reassurances, the project never would have happened,” said Bert Gray, who was executive director of the Oswegoland Park District during the time the new bridge was built and the old one saved.

Young, who has lived in the Oswego area for almost his entire life, is a 1964 graduate of Oswego High School and retired as a bridge inspector for the Illinois Department of Transportation.