ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR) – Samantha Hochmann taps her shoe against a limestone slab behind Tinker Swiss Cottage. The national landmark overlooks Kent Creek near downtown Rockford.
“This is one of my favorite places in the entire state of Illinois,” she exclaimed. As the executive director for the Tinker Swiss Cottage Museum, Hochmann considers it her mission to protect local history.
“I want you to feel like this is part of your history too, not just Rockford’s history, but part of our community.”
According to the museum’s website, Robert Hall Tinker constructed the Swiss-inspired home in 1865 atop a limestone bluff just across from Rockford’s founding location.
“Limestone, which we’re set on, is already a soft rock,” conceded Hochmann. She claimed decades of weather’s wear and tear eroded the “soft rock,” visible along the cottage’s west side.
The national landmark pushes to meet a fundraising goal.(Nathaniel Langley)
Tunnels beneath Tinker help groundwater flow and keep the basement dry. But the director says erosion started with a leaky pipe in the basement — a system installed in the early 1900s.
“It has drastically accelerated the deterioration,” contended Hochmann.
Caution tape closes off the cottage’s west side stairs as well as a gap in the metal fence. When the executive director grabs the fence, the force is enough to wiggle it back and forth.
“This fencing is not even really… it’s not great,” she conceded. “What we need to do: we need to detach the porch, which the erosion’s already starting to do for us, unfortunately, but we need to remove the porch, we need to move the grindstone table out of the way, we need to dig up the blacktop area as well as the crumbling limestone.”
Tinker Swiss sets a goal of raising $600,000 to cover the “large project.”
“It’s a lot of money to do, but you also have to include in the fact that there’s a very big safety situation that needs to take place with this,” explained Hochmann.
The executive director said the first fundraising solution would be federal grants, which she calls competitive. The second option is reaching out to legislators for funding from the state.
The cottage also dips into its dollars in the capital improvement project funding that it receives from the Rockford Park District. Those funds arrive from the museum tax levy, which is split across six different organizations.
“And all of our organizations have more needs than we have funding for,” said Hochmann. She added local donors and businesses are stepping in with contributions.
“It’s been a really nice thing to see that people remember that we’re here.”
With a restored bluff, Hochmann believes Tinker Swiss will stand for generations to come.
“You can’t really continue building up a community if you don’t know where the community’s already been.”
If the fundraising goal is reached, the executive director expects construction to start as early as 2027. Anyone wishing to help can donate on Tinker’s website.
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