What to See in Wheaton - Top Sights and Attractions

Museum in Wheaton, Illinois. The Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College is a special research collection of papers, books, and manuscripts, primarily relating to seven authors from the United Kingdom: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, G. K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, and George MacDonald, as well as C. S. Lewis's wife, the poet Joy Davidman. The center is named after Marion E. Wade, founder of ServiceMaster Corp.

The Wade Center serves primarily as a research center, attracting scholars from around the world. It holds at least one copy of every book written by the Wade authors, plus books, articles, and other materials about the various writers. It holds the world's fullest collection of the writings of Dorothy L. Sayers, including 30,000 pages of letters and documents both published and unpublished. For some of the Wade authors, collections of family documents are also available.

The center's museum features memorabilia and changing displays about the authors from its collection of books, letters, manuscripts, and artifacts.^[4]

Museum in Wheaton, Illinois. The Wheaton College Billy Graham Center was founded and opened in 1981 on the campus of Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. Named after Billy Graham, the center is the primary location for many of Wheaton College's bible and theology classes, as well as the graduate school's main headquarters, and host to multiple museums and auditoriums.

The Wheaton College Billy Graham Center Museum, opened in 1980, is designed to help visitors "extend their understanding of the good news about Jesus", and contains exhibits about the history of Christian evangelism in the United States and the ministry of Billy Graham. Changing exhibits are designed around the themes of evangelism, missions and Christian art.

The center differs from the Billy Graham Library, opened in 2007 in Charlotte, North Carolina; the library serves primarily as an evangelical tool for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and is open to the general public.

According to journalist Jeff Sharlet, The Billy Graham Center holds 600 boxes of records for the Christian political organization The Fellowship.^[7]

Theater in Wheaton, Illinois. The Grand Theatre is a historic theater located in Wheaton, Illinois. It opened on May 25, 1925, with 1,000 seats, and hosted live drama, silent films, and vaudeville performances. The theater changed hands many times in the 20th century, and at various times was known as the Paramount Theatre and The Wheaton Theatre. In the late 1990s, the theater was used for second-run films, and more recently, as a small concert hall for rock and roll bands. The theater was donated to the non-profit Grand Theater Corporation in October 2001. In the fall of 2005, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places. It was closed in 2006 for a full renovation of the property and the Grand Theater Corporation was anticipating to re-open it as a single screen theater in late 2011. However, Wheaton rejected a plan to allocate $19.3 million to finance the renovation and the theater's debts. Wheaton Park District is currently considering a $10 million plan that would reopen the theater with 860 seats. The theater will feature a donated Morton organ from the 1920s, originally from one of the Loew's Wonder Theatres.^[9]