A 21-foot mosaic mural greets visitors at Warrenville's Prairie Path Trailhead Building, connecting the city's railroad past to the recreational trail that replaced it.

The Warrenville Tourism and Arts Commission (TAC) unveiled "Rails to Trails: A Seasonal Journey" during a dedication ceremony Saturday, Sept. 12, at the Butterfield Road trailhead near Batavia Road. The city described the piece as the newest addition to Warrenville's public art collection.

Ceramic artists Laurie Pollpeter Eskenazi, a West Chicago resident, and Linda Lee Kiepke of Naperville created the mural from individually crafted stoneware tiles, hand-brushed glazes and hand-cut art glass mounted on Wedi board. The TAC proposed the project to the pair in the summer of 2025. The two spent months researching native plants and wildlife along Warrenville's stretch of the Prairie Path before translating their findings into four seasonal panels.

Each panel depicts life on the trail during a different season. At the center sits Warrenville's official flower, the Black-Eyed Susan, linked to the colorful "W" from the city's logo by a railroad track.

That railroad detail is deliberate.

The Trailhead Building sits roughly where Warrenville's station on the Chicago, Aurora and Elgin Electric Rail Line (CA&E) once stood. The CA&E served Warrenville for more than 50 years, carrying farmers and businessmen to and from Chicago, according to the DuPage County Forest Preserve District.

After the line was abandoned, naturalist May Theilgaard Watts published a 1963 letter in the Chicago Tribune calling for a public path on the old route. The Illinois Prairie Path organization calls the result "North America's first successful rails-to-trails conversion." The U.S. Department of the Interior designated it a National Recreation Trail in June 1971.

Eskenazi and Kiepke have collaborated for more than 25 years, a partnership that began at ClaySpace Ceramic Arts Center. ClaySpace originated in Warrenville before moving to Lisle, where it houses 55 resident artists and serves more than 150 students every eight weeks, according to Kiepke's artist biography.

Eskenazi grew up in Iowa, moved to the western suburbs more than 40 years ago and earned her degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has completed more than a dozen large public and corporate art installations.

Kiepke earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in art education with an emphasis in ceramics from Arizona State University in 1987. She later served as a resident artist for the city of Tempe, Arizona.

After moving to Illinois, Kiepke co-founded the Clay People Ceramics Club at College of DuPage. That group helped establish ClaySpace in 2006.

The mural is visible anytime from the Butterfield Road side of the Trailhead Building, between Stafford Road and the Prairie Path. The trailhead also serves as a parking and rest stop, with Cora Coffee and the Recycled Cycling Bike Shop nearby.