Help celebrate Annie Glidden’s 160-year DeKalb legacy

The DeKalb community is getting ready to celebrate the birthday of a woman who could be considered the matriarch of the city’s agricultural history.

Saturday will mark what would be Annie Glidden’s 160th birthday, and the Glidden Homestead is hosting a free event to mark the occasion at Annie’s Woods, 335 Miller Ave, DeKalb.

Glidden Homestead Executive Director Jessi Haish LaRue said the birthday event is an opportunity to help the community connect with the woman behind one of DeKalb’s busiest streets.

Annie Glidden was the niece of barbed wire legend and patent winner Joseph Glidden. Haish LaRue said Annie Glidden created a legacy that stands apart from her uncle and the other barbed wire tycoons, Isaac Ellwood and Jacob Haish.

“In her own way, she’s a very special relative of Joseph,” Haish LaRue said. “She actually goes to Cornell University in New York and studies agriculture, which in the late 1800s, early 1900s – that’s really unusual for a woman to do."

Born in 1865, on a farm west of the road that became her namesake, Annie Glidden became an award-winning corn, soybeans, alfalfa, raspberries and asparagus farmer, according to the Joseph F. Glidden Homestead and Historical Center.

Despite her family name, some of Annie Glidden’s greatest contributions to DeKalb came outside of agriculture.

“She was a big community mover and shaker, I would say,” Haish LaRue said. “She was very involved with the DeKalb Public Library when it first started.”

In 1898, Annie Glidden created the Library Whist Club – a weekly women’s card game club that used membership dues to buy books for the recently formed library, according to the Glidden Center.

While not among the men most famed in DeKalb for their barbed wire inventions, Annie Glidden’s legacy carries its own significance among turn-of-the-century DeKalb notables.

Haish LaRue said she thinks the large mural of Annie Glidden painted at Memorial Park on the corner of First Street and Lincoln Highway in downtown DeKalb in 1999 invigorated the community’s interest in the historical figure.

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The mural titled “Its Merits Recommend It...” by artist Olivia Gude Tuesday, July 22, 2025. The artwork graces the side of the building at the corner of Lincoln Highway and First Street in DeKalb. (Mark Busch)

“I think it’s interesting because in DeKalb, we have the barbed wire story, which is huge,” Haish LaRue said. “There’s three men behind that, so to have this giant towering woman on a main, busy street is really interesting.”

Haish LaRue said the mural often spurs people to ask the Glidden Center questions about Annie Glidden, and she hopes this Saturday’s birthday celebration will spark community intrigue.

Annie Glidden’s 160th birthday party will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday in Annie’s Woods, 335 Miller Ave.

Free activities will be incorporated into the event. Local artist Carol Ann Boecker of Printed Pooch will host a coloring station featuring a custom Annie Glidden coloring page, and the DeKalb County Farm Bureau will host interactive farm-themed activities.

Cheryl Johnson, a Glidden family descendant, will perform a live, historical portrayal of Annie Glidden. She will give a presentation at 12:30 p.m., according to the Glidden Homestead.

Haish LaRue said the party will be held on land that was once owned by Joseph Glidden and later donated to the city of DeKalb by Annie Glidden and her friends.

“When she was growing up, when she was a teenager, this was one of her favorite areas of her uncle’s property to spend time,” LaRue said. “We’re essentially going back to Annie’s favorite place, which is really neat.”