Historic Plainfield
Summer Tours 2022

Historic Plainfield Summer Tours

To provide an example of what a successful historic preservation program can look like, Naperville Preservation sponsored three monthly Downtown Historic District tours of the Plainfield downtown this summer.

Our tour guide was Michael Bortel, member of the Illinois Historic Sites Advisory Council, chair of the Plainfield Historic Preservation Commission and former chair of the Plainfield Historical Society.

Plainfield’s amazing National Register Historic District consists of a diverse variety of architectural styles including Greek Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne, Richardsonian Romanesque, and International. There are also vernacular house types like upright and wing, bungalows, American Foursquares, and vernacular 20th Century commercial structures.

In addition to having its downtown designated a National Historic District, Plainfield has 3 individual National Register landmarks, and 23 designated local landmarks.

For the first tour in May - who knew this would be so popular? Over 50 people signed up! It was almost too many, but we added more tour guides. Michael Bortel, Sue Hasenyager and Michael Lambert made it a great success.

NPI Board President Becky Simon along with Board Members Jane Burke, Bill Simon, Tom Ryan and Joe McElroy joined the group. Plainfield Mayor John Argoudelis welcomed us in front of Station One Smokehouse, another example of adaptive reuse. It used to be the downtown Fire station.

Naperville Preservation repeated the tour in June and August. All attendees agreed that downtown Plainfield is a great example of thoughtful, community-supported historic preservation. The downtown Plainfield built environment is a great example for other communities.