Illinois is celebrating it’s bicentennial next year, and a Smithsonian traveling exhibit will make its home in Shelbyville next winter. The exhibit will focus on rural America, and there will be a local companion exhibit with a focus on Shelby County’s history.

Brenda Elder is the Co-Director of the Shelby County Bicentennial Committee. She says Shelbyville is one of six locations in Illinois where this exhibit will visit.

Elder says this exhibit gives Shelby County residents who cannot make it to D.C. a chance to have American history brought to them.

The exhibit will be housed at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Visitors Center at Lake Shelbyville from December 15, 2018 to January 26, 2019.