The best time to visit Kewanee is during the annual Hog Days festival (August 29 to September 1, 309-852-2175), when locals and visitors take to the streets for three days of socializing, drinking beer, and eating pork chops, fried dough, fried onions, French fries, gyros, brats, and calzones. Store windows are decorated with pigs, and there’s a carnival midway with games and rides plus a hog dunk. If you get bored, try the helicopter rides or mud volleyball. Last summer a roving band of Andes mountain musicians were in the downtown park performing alongside people selling crafts, antiques, worthless collectibles, and vintage clothing. But you mustn’t miss the three semitrailers-cum-BBQ grills, where scores of sweating old men from the VFW, Pork Producers Association, National Guard, and American Legion battle flies and heat to grill 20,000 butterfly pork chops and 10,000 pork patties over the weekend.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Kewanee is located several miles south of I-80, three hours west of Chicago and an hour southeast of the Quad Cities, and it’s accessible by train and air. As you travel down route 34 and get closer to town, farms give way to neat frame houses whose front yards are decorated with pig-theme lawn ornaments.
As for accommodations, if you’re going whole hog Good’s Bed ‘n Breakfast (309-852-5656) has showroom-new country-decor rooms, baskets of snacks, fridges full of soft drinks, and comfortable beds. Rooms range from $75 to $125 (which includes Jacuzzi, skylight, raised dining area, wet bar, and L.L. Bean terry-cloth robes in the closet). All rooms have cable TV and phones. Reservations are recommended, since there are only four rooms. The rate includes breakfast anywhere inside the emporium; we chose to dine on homemade granola and muffins on the skywalk, where we had a view of Kewanee’s grain elevator and its version of morning rush hour.
The Aku-tiki room of the Andris Waunee Farm Restaurant (at the intersection of routes 34 and 78, 309-852-2481) is decorated with totems, a canoe, and Hawaiian flowers; the menu includes prime rib, red snapper, veggie appetizers, a salad bar, and, of course, tropical drinks in glasses with parasols. In the other half of the restaurant the specialty is an American smorgasbord ($7.95), which can include roast beef, chicken, fish, shrimp, baked beans, salads, and homemade chocolate pudding.
Excelled Sheepskin & Leather (1700 Burlington, 309-852-0102) supplies Henry County residents with discount leather jackets, coats, hats, skirts, pants, chaps, and vests made from the skins of pigs, horses, lambs, sheep, and cows. Styles range from varsity jackets to military-style bomber jackets ($99-$300). Most are made at the adjacent factory, which dates back to the 1950s. –Cara Jepsen
