Billy Graham Center
Archives
A Walking Tour of Billy Graham's Wheaton
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Billy Graham (on right) with friends in front of Williston Hall, ca. late 1940 |
On Saturday, May 5th , from 9–10:30a.m., the staff of the Billy Graham Center Archives will lead the Walking Tour of Billy Graham's Wheaton, in cooperation with the City of Wheaton Preservation Week.
The tour will include sites associated with evangelist Billy Graham on Wheaton College's campus and throughout the town of Wheaton. In his over six decades of preaching, Graham has shared the gospel with hundreds of millions of people. Many of the foundations of his ministry were created in the spiritual and personal experiences of his Wheaton College student days (1940-1943). The tour will highlight these, as well as the 1959 Billy Graham Crusade in Wheaton and the creation of the Billy Graham Center. Participants will also learn more about how World War II impacted the college campus.
The walking tour will cover a little less than two miles and end at the Billy Graham Center Museum, where participants are invited to visit the exhibits describing the history of evangelism in the United States as well as the story of Graham's ministry.
The tour is free, but space is limited. Anyone interested in participating is encouraged to sign up in advance. To sign up or learn more, call the BGC Archives at 630.752.5910 or email us at bgcarc@wheaton.edu .
There will also be an ONLINE display (called the Archival Bulletin Board) about the 1959 Billy Graham evangelistic campaign held in Wheaton. Attendance was over 100,000. Wheaton’s population at the time was less than 25,000. The display URL will become active on May 1st and can be reached on that date through the Archives website at www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives The Archives Reading Room (Room 309 in the Billy Graham Center building at 500 College Avenue) will also have a scrapbook with photos, newspaper clippings and other documents from event which visitors can come and look through during City of Wheaton Preservation Week.
The City of Wheaton Preservation Week is an annual event coordinated by the City of Wheaton Historic Commission. Preservation week is May 4-14. For information on related events, visit the City of Wheaton website, www.wheaton.il.us/ .