MAGNOLIA MANOR HOLIDAY HOUSE OPENS THURSDAY

CAIRO, Ill. -- Magnolia Manors has been open to the public for more than third of its 130-year history. Thousands of visitors tour the four-story, 14-room, red brick Victorian mansion at 2700 Washington, constructed by Cairo businessman Charles Galigher in 1869. The Galighers was the first of five owners of the mansion, which has been open for tours since 1952. Galigher, a successful flour mill owner in Cairo, became friends with Gen. U.S. Grant, who visited the manor on occasion, including the years when Grant was president of the United States. Gen. Grant's headquarters during the early years of the Civil War were in the Holliday Hotel, a huge structure that overlooked the Ohio River at Cairo. The Holliday Hotel in its final days served as a "storage shed" for the city of Cairo before giving way to a demolition crew in the late 1970s. In 1952, Galigher's House became vacant. It had served as home to the Galighers and later to H.H. Candee, P. T. Langan and Fair W. King before becoming vacant. The Cairo Historical Association formed in 1952 and decided to restore Magnolia Manor as its first project. At that time, The Galigher House became Magnolia Manor. Since that time the historic mansion has opened the annual Christmas season on Thanksgiving Day. Each year as the manor's main fund-raising effort, the house is decorated for Christmas. Admission is charged and the decorations are sold, with proceeds used to maintain the manor. Tickets for "Holiday House" will be available at the Manor. That will continue this week, with a "Christmas on the Avenue" theme. All 14 rooms of the mansion will be decorated, with many outside decorations as well.

The 47th annual "Holiday House" opens Thursday from 1 to 5 p.m. The manor is open for tours Nov. 27 through Dec. 12. For the past three years, Lynne Deweese has volunteered to help with the decorations. Deweese, a retired florist, prepared many of the hand-crafted decorations that are for sale throughout the house."Every room, and every nook and cranny is decorated," said Tim Slatinski, curator at the mansion.

Christmas trees stand in almost every room, and wreaths decorate all the windows.

The curved stairway is decorated, and spirals hang from the high stairway.

Although the mansion has a curator, much of the work is done by volunteers. The decoration job starts at the manor in late June or early July of each year. The finishing touches area being added each day this week before the Thursday opening. The house, besides being loaded with history, has some of the original furniture of the Galighers.

The Galigher heirs donated many original family pieces to the museum and helped the historians place items like an umbrella stand, paintings and china in the places they were placed when the Galighers owned the home. Galigher designed much of the house himself, including unique round bricks used as decoration on the chimney and other places in the mansion.