Wheaton, IL

Wheaton, Illinois is the seat of DuPage County and, more famously, of American evangelical learning: Wheaton College, founded in 1860 by abolitionists — an early station of the Underground Railroad and among the first colleges in the state to graduate a Black student — grew into the movement's intellectual capital. Its most celebrated alumnus, Billy Graham, is honoured in the campus museum bearing his name; its most visited room belongs to Oxford: the Marion E. Wade Center holds the world's premier collection on C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and their circle — including Lewis's own family wardrobe, before which visitors pause with entirely understandable expectation.

The college's Conservatory of Music gives the town a concert tradition of long standing, centred on Edman Memorial Chapel — the 2,300-seat hall documented in this archive, where the college's orchestras, choirs and its Artist Series of international soloists and ensembles have performed for generations. The town around the campus is a prosperous railroad suburb of Chicago with a courthouse cupola, leafy avenues and a footnote of athletic legend: Red Grange, the "Galloping Ghost", ran his first touchdowns for Wheaton's high school. A wardrobe, a chapel and a ghost who galloped: Wheaton's relics are well chosen.