Illinois History

Tom's Place Owners Celebrate 15 Years at Historic Eatery

2012-01-17T21:33:00.000-06:00

Lasse and Maryjane Sorensen, owners of Tom's Place, arguably the premiere food establishment in Southern Illinois, will celebrate their 15th year as owners of the historic restaurant in 2012. With the anniversary will come additional improvements.

The Southern Illinoisan ran a nice feature Sunday on the former 20s roadhouse. Today, Tom's Place "one of 3,000 worldwide to have earned a Wine Spectator Award and was awarded a five-star Award of Excellence from the North American Restaurant Association."

It's come along way since Tom Endsley opened his place around 1923 one and one-miles north of DeSoto on the hard road that was then Illinois Rt. 2, now U.S. Rt. 51. Fried chicken and frog legs topped the menu then. Now, "the menu will often feature items like guinea fowl, Boston lobsters, oysters from the Pacific Northwest and fish from both coasts."

This year, the Sorensens have many special plans for celebrating 15 years in the business, including special events geared at introducing new customers to Tom's Place by offering a lower price point. A calendar of events for the year will soon be released on the restaurant's website.

Among the highlights are a prime rib night, the annual Easter breakfast buffet, weekly wine dinners, a morel mushroom feast and an evening of Spanish cuisine.

The article didn't have nearly as much history as I would have liked, so here's a bit more from my Bloody Williamson research.

During Prohibition agents raided the roadhouse a few times, but unlike other establishments, Endsley focused on the food and entertainment.

On July 6, 1928, a prohibition agent visited Tom’s Place pretending to be a former druggist wanting to sell his stock of medicinal alcohol to Endsley. After they talked for a while Endsley brought out a couple of beers for the two men to drink.

A few days later a larger group of prohibition agents arrived and confiscated several bottles of “alleged home brew” from his ice book. The Murphysboro paper noted that the “men were socialable, bought cigars and sandwiches for themselves and some patrons who happened to be in there at the time. They called Tom by his first name and were congenially inclined.”

Endsley asked one of the agents why they raided him so much. “We told him he should just sell to his friends.”

In 1929, he advertised "Tom's New Place," though it's not clear if he meant a new location or just a new addition to the building.

The raids didn't bother his business. By the end of the decade he was hosting the Carbondale chapter of the Business & Professional Women's luncheons, as well as regular weekly dinners for bridge clubs. He added a miniature golf course no later than 1930 and three outdoor bowling lanes in 1931.

Endsley sold the restaurant to Frank Moroni in 1940, who took over Sunday morning, Sept. 1. Here's how The Daily Independent in Murphysboro covered it on Aug. 28.

Thomas Endsley, proprietor of the tavern for 17 years, verified reports of the deal today and said that “everything will be turned over to Mr. Moroni next Sunday morning.”

Mr. Endsley spoke of Moroni as an experienced caterer who formerly had the management of The Villa, a tavern not far north in State Route 3 of the Colony Club, near the Cape Girardeau “Y.” He expressed the wish that his patrons continue to favor the tavern of their preference.

Mr. and Mrs. Endsley intend to rest for several months. Then Mr. Endsley will turn his attention to some other pursuit, he said.

“Tom’s Place” was built on its reputation for fried frog legs and chicken, and good management. Mr. Endssey, who has been county supervisor for years from De Soto, for some time had intended to retire from the business. He had erected a splendid home at DeSoto with this in mind and enjoys a 150-acre tract for fishing and hunting in the “wilds” of the strip mine country, which he is developing.

Mr. Endsley said Moroni intends to retrain the present tavern personnel.

Moroni had a long history in the hospitality industry. His father Louis had previously operated the Ozark Resort at Creal Springs in the 1920s and 30s. Before that his father and uncles ran taverns throughout the country both before and during Prohibition.

Moroni ran the restaurant for nearly 28 years until he sold it to P. M. "River" Hewitt in April 1928.

Carmi As It Appeared in 1928

2011-12-30T23:07:00.000-06:00

While researching a query for someone tonight I just came across these videos linked from the White County ILGenWeb site.

I'm not familiar with downtown Carmi enough to recognize these buildings, but these films of scenes from 1928 provide a wonderful glimpse of life in the early 20th Century of Southern Illinois.

Here's Part II of the video, the only part I'm able to embed. This part includes residential sections, the First National Bank, the cemetery and golfers hitting the links at the local golf course. There's a school, presumably the high school as it's fairly large, and speaking of fairs, next up is the racetrack and grandstand at the fairgrounds.

Follow the link for Part 1 (17.11 minutes)

Thanks to Cindy Birk-Conley for offering the film to be uploaded to YouTube.

Feast fit for a governor, Egyptian-style, 61 years ago tonight

2011-12-18T23:10:00.000-06:00

While researching the story of a young Herrin woman dating a member of the Shelton Gang back in 1920s, I came across this story of a feast prepared by her boss, Nick Tudoff, some 14 years later for Illinois' governor.

The woman in question had been shot during a robbery of Tudoff's restaurant and the neighboring confectionery where she worked as a waitress. Interestingly, her suitor had been shot and killed the night before east of Herrin.

The Daily Independent of Murphysboro carried the following story on Dec. 19, 1940, about an Egyptian feast prepared for Gov. John Stelle, who was from Southern Illinois and was later buried at McLeansboro.

It's late as I write this. I'm full, but still my stomach's growing with anticipation.

Murphysboro and Herrin Men Carry Foods to Governor

Stelle in Role of "Pharoah" Receives From Egypt Rich Morsels and Red Wine

SPRINGFIELD, ILL., Dec. 19 -- (UP) -- Gov. John H. Stelle played the role of "Pharaoh" last night when a delegation of legionnaire friends appeared at the executive mansion bearing baskets laden with food from the "Little Egypt" area of Southern Illinois.

The food, it was said, consisted of the Governor's favorite dishes. Main course was Italian ravioli cooked in broth made from the "fat of the lamb of Egypt" and served with a sauce seasoned with "spices grown down Egypt way."

Other dishes included thick bacon rolled in corn meal, Italian garlic sausage, Italian peppers seasoned in wine vinegar, Egyptian corn crust bread, Egyptian peaches and red wine.

Supervising the final preparation of the food was Chef Nick Tudoff of Herrin. Others present included:

Loren Margrave, Tom Shannon, John Bandino, Harry Calcertino [probably Calcaterra], Frank Felts, Harvey Yuill, Harry Pollock, W. D. Toll, C. V. Walker, Paul Harris, and James Bailey, all of Herrin; and Ray Hubbs and Gordon Franklin of Murphysboro.

Some time ago the Herrin-Murphysboro boys asked if they could expect "Governor John," Illinois' first Legionnaire governor, to take time out for a feed on genuine Italian ravioli, pork in a corn meal jacket, pickled peppers, salad, meat, and the wine that is read in "Little Egypt,"-- meaning the wine of the grape as the American boys with forebears in sunny Italy know how to make it.

"John" said: "Come arunning," and the delegation left by car Wednesday afternoon with provisions in great hampers dispatched ahead of them.

The state's "First Lady" promised to look in on the party last night.

Governor Stelle has many Legionnaire and other friends down south in Illinois.

Interstate 57 Marks 50 Years of Traveling

2011-09-25T23:19:00.003-05:00

MARION, Ill. (Sept. 26, 2011) -- Today marks the 50th anniversary of first dedication of Interstate 57.

On Sept. 26, 1961, Gov. Otto Kerner dedicated the first 30-mile stretch of the Chicago to Cairo superhighway. At the time motorists could drive only from Marion down to Dongola.

The Southern Illinoisan quoted Kerner at the time claiming the route through the Shawnee Hills as “one of the most scenic to be found in the entire 41,000 mile national interstate system.”

Illinois had 1,589 miles of planned interstates, but only about one-third ready and open to the public.

Kerner bragged that when completed, the interstate system “would make it possible for motorists to leave the point where we are assembled today and drive from coast to coast and from border to border without encountering a single traffic light.”
Work on the interstate began in the 1950s. At the time engineers priced the 50-mile stretch “though the hill county of southern Illinois” at $21 million, according to an Oct. 17, 1959, article in the Mt. Vernon Register-News.

Interstate 64 was part of the original plans for the state’s interstate system, but not Interstate 24. Originally, planners called for I-64 to cross the region from Vincennes, Ind., to St. Louis, intersecting I-57 at Salem. Only due to strong pressure in Indiana to move the interstate closer to Evansville helped pulled the route down to Mount Vernon.

Although not part of the original system, U.S. Rep. Ken Gray hinted at the future I-24 as early as Mar. 8, 1960, according to the Register-News.

By using a southerly alignment of Route 64 it may be possible to utilize Interstate 57 from a point south of Mount Vernon, Ill., to Pulley’s Mill south of Marion, Ill., and a newly constructed road from Pulley’s Mill across the Ohio River to Nashville, Tenn., and points south,” Gray said, accurately predicting the eventual route.

When I-57 opened in 1961, only the 20-year-old Motel Marion stood close to the interstate, luckily for them as a new Route 13 had opened along DeYoung St., on the north side of Marion a couple of years earlier. The four-lane portion of Route 13 only ran from Fair Street on the east side of Marion west to Illinois Route 148. From there it was just two lanes to Carbondale.

The Motel Marion added a new pool and completely rebuilt their rooms to compete for interstate travelers, bragging about Georgia cypress paneling, glass shower doors and lavanettes in the bathrooms. The sleeping rooms included walnut furniture, brown and tweed carpeting, television sets and colored telephones.

Marion Castellano broke ground on the first modern multi-story hotel on DeYoung St. in the summer of 1960. It opened eventually as the Travelodge in Nov. 1962. It later became the Family Inn and then the Heritage Inn before closing in the 1980s.
Rep. Gray’s brother Ralph Gray opened up the Marion Gray Plaza motel in the summer of 1963.

Ralph Gray and three Harrisburg businessmen developed the 101-room Ramada Inn on the east side of the interstate in Marion which opened in July 1967. The coffee shop had half barrels in the ceiling and became the city's first Cracker Barrel when it opened. Today the inn is operated as a Days Inn.

Carbondale Holiday Inn owner Stan Hoy announced plans for a new Marion hotel in 1968. The new Holiday Inn with then just 100 rooms opened in June 1969. It later became a Travelodge and finally an Executive Inn before closing in the last decade. A new Holiday Inn Express is currently under construction in the city up on The Hill.

Gov. Kerner came back to the region on Nov. 1, 1962, to open the next stretch of I-57 from Marion to Johnston City. The West Frankfort interchange opened the following year and by 1965, the interstate opened for traffic as far north as Mount Vernon.

One interesting tidbit about the original construction. when the state bought the land for Exit 30, the I-57 interchange with Illinois Route 146 east of Anna, a small park had to be relocated. Known as King Neptune Park, it was the final resting place of a 700-pound hog whose patriotic duty during World War II helped generate $19 million in sales of war bonds.

Eventually, his remains and a marker was placed along Route 146 a few miles east of the interchange. In recent years though a new marker has been placed at the Trail of Tears Welcome Center along the interstate just north of the interchange.

Dedications and ribbon cuttings continue 50 years after the interstate opened. State and local officials will open Marion’s newest ramp onto the interstate off of Morgan Avenue this Thursday.

The Black Hand and the West Frankfort Riot

2011-09-08T16:01:00.001-05:00

I'm working on a new book — think of it as another bite-size morsel of Bloody Williamson — but this time of a chapter of Southern Illinois' history that's been all but forgotten. It's a chapter that Paul Angle should have included in his book but missed because Oldham Paisley didn't include newspaper clippings of it in his scrapbooks.

You see, two years before the Herrin Massacre, three years before the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, four years before the Klan War, five years before the rise of Shady Rest, six years before the Gang War, seven years before the big media trials and eight years before Charlie Birger's hanging, there was the West Frankfort Riot.

It had all the ingredients of what happened later — vigilante justice, riots in the streets, striking miners, anti-Italian mobs, gruesome murders, well-publicized trials, a hanging in Marion's Paradise Alley and, of course, organized crime.

In many ways it was just the latest wave of violence that had rippled through the region in the decade or so before national Prohibition. It had been fueled in part by factions and elements of the Sicilian mafia emigrating to the Egyptian Coal Belt.

Known also as the Black Hand, they extorted and killed, bombed and harassed both fellow Italians and their American neighbors. Their actions, and the counter-actions they generated, left a trail of distrust and bloodshed that stained the region's name.

The book's title will most likely be "'DeSantis the Doomed' and the Curse of the Black Hand." The name's inspired a booklet published in 1921 following the hanging of Settimi DeSantis. A Williamson County court ordered the death sentence for his role in a double murder south of Royalton the year before.

The picture above is him just minutes before his death as the Catholic priest, Father Seneese of Herrin, gives him comfort. I believe it's Sheriff Melvin Thaxton in the back (though I'm still trying to confirm that). The photo is an enlargement of one of four in the possession of the Williamson County Historical Society in Marion.

West Frankfort, Johnston City, Willisville and Whiteash were just some of the communities that saw bloodshed. I'm still looking for descendants of some of residents, victims and participants of that time period for additional stories and photographs. Anyone with more info please contact me.

Best Movie of the Year - The Help

2011-09-07T00:47:00.000-05:00

Went and saw "The Help" tonight at the theater. After a summer of popcorn movies of super heroes, teen wizards and battling robots, it was great to watch a film that showed some heroic actions at a scale we all can relate. Excellent movie. The best I've seen this year.

Teachers I highly recommend this one for your classes. It's more than a history lesson. It's a life lesson in character and self worth.

The trailer doesn't do it justice, and this is one I suggest don't look at the trailer, just go and be pleasantly surprised.

Video of the 1937 Flood at Cairo

2011-04-26T12:19:00.000-05:00

Don't know much about this video other than it's been on YouTube for less than a year. The footage is from the 1937 Flood at Cairo. It starts with the toll house at the approach to the Mississippi bridge on the south side of the city.

For the latest on flood news check out the "flooding" category at Southern Illinois Tourism News.

How the 2011 Flood Compares with 1937 at Cairo

2011-04-25T15:51:00.000-05:00

The National Weather Service is predicting the Ohio River will crest next Tuesday at 60 feet at Cairo, a half a foot higher than the record Flood of 1937.

[For more, check out my posts at Southern Illinois Tourism News.

I talked with Louise Ogg of Tamms this afternoon. She's a former city librarian at Cairo and local historian who remembers the 1937 flood.

"I was nine years old. We got out of school and went boating every day."

One difference she noted between then and now were the levees. Cairo's got more protection today than it did. A quick check of my Red Cross book on the '37 flood disaster gave the figures (I knew I bought that book off of eBay for a reason). In 1937, the levee offered protection only up to 60 feet. Today that protection extends to 64 feet.

Another thing she brought up was the dynamiting the levee that took place back then. In order to help save Cairo, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dynamited a levee downstream in Missouri to take some of the pressure off.

Again, from the Red Cross book, "The Ohio-Mississippi Valley Flood Disaster of 1937: Report of Relief Operations."

A Threatened Second Disaster
Simultaneous with the havoc in the Ohio Valley was the insistent threat of another major disaster in the valley of the Mississippi River below Cairo, Illinois. New levees constructed after the Mississippi Flood of 1927 were being put to a severe test for the first time.

If they failed, the fertile, low-lying cotton plantation country on both sides of the river to the Gulf of Mexico would become an inland sea. Another million persons might be forced to flee. Thousands of homes would be destroyed. The livestock loss would be staggering.

The Spillway Is Flooded
On January 25, the "fuse-plug" levees along the Missouri shore of the Mississippi River near Cairo were dynamited by U.S. Engineers to relieve the pressure on the sea wall of that city.

This action was part of a definite plan devised since 1927. Cairo stands upon a narrow and low-lying neck of land at the confluence of the Ohio and the mighty Mississippi Rivers. The city's sea wall can withstand a stage of 60 feet; more than that brings disaster.

In anticipation of what was now happening, and for the purpose of slowing the velocity and reducing the depth of flood waters in the Mississippi, the Engineers, under an act of Congress, had purchased flowage rights through a 130,000 acre strip of rich plantation land extending from Bird's Point to New Madrid, Missouri.

Across the face of this $21,000,000 spillway, they constructed a "fuse-plug" levee of low height. Around the back of it, they built a very strong and high levee to protect the adjoining countryside. Property owners, tenant farmers and share crops who continued to live in the area naturally hoped that there would never be a government warning to evacuate.

But it came several days prior to January 25.

The effect of the spreading of the water over the spillway is seen in the fact that the river at Cairo fell from 58.6 feet on the afternoon of January 25, to 57.9 feet on the morning of the 28th; and then resumed a slower rise until the crest of 59.6 feet was reached on February 3 and 4. The rate of rise decreased materially as far upstream as Paducah, Kentucky.

Louise said families of some of those squatters between the two levees turned and sued the city of Cairo in 1987 in a case that was settled out of court.

Population Figures Show Who's Gained, Lost 2000 to 2010

2011-02-15T16:12:00.002-06:00

Details will be available within the next 24 hours for better population breakdowns, but there's what the U.S. Census Bureau offers up right now.

IFRAMES not supported

Click in the top right corner of the graphic to take it full screen and make is readable.

This Day in Illinois History - Jan. 18

2011-01-18T23:57:00.000-06:00

On this day in Illinois History, Jan. 18, 1813, the first deeds were filed with the county clerk in Gallatin Co., Illinois, then a brand new county just getting off the ground in southeastern Illinois.

Gallatin County had been created the previous September and stretched from nearly Vincennes, Ind., south down the Wabash and Ohio to the mouth of Lusk Creek at modern day Golconda.

Johnson County, organized at the same time started at Golconda and ran down the Ohio to its mouth and then up the Mississippi to the Big Muddy. The county line followed that river to around modern day Blairsville, in Williamson County where a trail from the Rosiclare area heading to Kaskaskia cross the river.

Everything to the south was Johnson, everything to the west of the Big Muddy was Randolph and everything to the east was Gallatin.

Interestingly, the first deeds filed in Shawneetown, or Shawanoe Town, as it was then known, were for properties in Kentucky.

John Hart of Gallatin County transferred to Adolphus T. Hubbard of Warren Co., Ky., two tracts of land in Madison Co., Ky. The first was next to the William Hicks’ plantation. The second dealt with another 1,000 acres. M. S. Davenport and Ephraim Hubbard witnessed the deeds.

For more on the early days of Gallatin County check out the "Handbook of Old Gallatin County and Southeastern Illinois" available at www.IllinoisHistory.com/books.

This Day in Illinois History - Jan. 17

2011-01-18T23:40:00.000-06:00

On this day in Illinois history (actually yesterday since I'm a day late), Jan. 17, 1927, members of the Birger Gang kidnapped the first member of the Illinois State Police to die in the line of action. A few hours later he was murdered in a wheat field near Du Bois in Washington Co., Illinois.

Lory L. Price's assignment on paper was to patrol Illinois Route 13 between Harrisburg and Carbondale. His secondary role was to serve as the eyes and ears of Gov. Len Small in the turbulent Egyptian Badlands of 1920s Southern Illinois.

Price wasn't the only one to die that night. Another carload of gangsters kidnapped his wife Ethel Price, a pregnant school teacher who had taken the spring semester off. They shot her and dumped her body in an abandoned mine's air shaft on what's now the grounds of the Williamson County Shrine Club on Route 37 north of Marion.

Price had known and had been friends with both Carl Shelton and Charlie Birger for more than a decade by that time, according to the story Price's half-brother William Dufour told me back in 1994.

A few months after the second trial acquitted the perpetrators of the Herrin Massacre, Gov. Small hired Price, a World War I veteran, to be a motorcycle cop on the newly opened stretch of Route 13.

His job wasn't Prohibition enforcement and he continued his contacts with all sides. Birger, in particular, would tip him off to the whereabouts of stolen cars when good rewards had been offered. The pair would then split the reward.

There are three versions of what happened the night of his kidnapping and death, Birger's, Art Newman's and the one told by Gary DeNeal's source for "A Knight of Another Sort," who took part.

The event took place following the open warfare between the two gangs in the fall of 1926, the murder of West City Mayor Joe Adams in December, and the burning of Shady Rest a few days before.

Price was finally acting like a cop, investigating and getting close to the more junior members of the gang locked up in the Williamson County Jail. There he may have learned that one of the prisoners was booked under an assumed name, and really was somebody else, one of Adams' two killers nonetheless.

If so, he also managed to talk to the killer's fellow gunman and younger brother who perished in the attack and destruction of Shady Rest. Price definitely was one of the last to visit the cabin before its destruction. How much had he put together and how much had he reported back to the governor.

It's my contention that Newman was most responsible for the night's events. He had decided that Price was too much of a liability and whose long-term relationship with Birger would keep the gang leader from doing anything about it. By ordering the other carload of gangsters to kill Ethel, rather than just keep her safely out of the way while they scared Price, Newman must have thought that it would force Birger's hand. It did.

Some of the accounts indicate Newman fired the first shot at Price.

Ethel probably died on the 17th before midnight. Lory likely was shot and killed after midnight in the early morning hours of the 18th. His body wasn't found until Feb. 5. Ethel's body wasn't found until later in June.

More about the events of the Price murders can be found in DeNeal's book as well as "Bloody Williamson" by Paul Angle, though not the background. For that you'll have to wait until my upcoming book, "The Bloody Years."

This Day in Illinois History - Jan. 16

2011-01-16T01:19:00.000-06:00

On this day in Illinois history, Jan. 16, 1862, Col. Edmund D. Taylor supposedly met with Abraham Lincoln in the White House and suggested the use of treasury notes printed on banking paper to be used as legal tender. These notes, as they became known, were the nation's first greenbacks.

I write supposedly because the letter from Abraham Lincoln written in December 1864, confirming this incident has been declared "spurious" by some historians. That it once hung on display in Lincoln's tomb and its whereabouts today unknown doesn't help the matter.

There's a second letter on the 16th that served as a letter of introduction for "Mr. Taylor" to Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase. However, it's not clear if this was a reference to Col. Taylor, as Lincoln would have known him, or to another person named Taylor.

The earliest reference I've found comes from a Feb. 24, 1876 issue of the Decatur Local Review. In a series of news briefs on the front page the following references Col. Taylor and the greenback, though the identity of the "professor" is unknown to me at this point.

"The professor is becoming jealous of the greenback popularity of Col. Taylor, and it is said that is the reason why the professor refuses to put up the ticket."

It's very oblique but it does mention Taylor and the currency in the same breath.

Taylor and Lincoln's acquaintance dated back three decades when Lincoln first ran for the legislature following the Black Hawk War. Lincoln lost that election. Taylor won.

Though on opposite sides most of their lives, for one point in the mid 1850s, or at least in 1854, the two became political allies in the fight against Stephan Douglas, then the state's senator. Lincoln was a new Republican and Taylor, an anti-Nebraska Democrat.

I first came across E. D. Taylor in the pages of Springhouse magazine. Gary DeNeal, my fellow "Crenshaw Rascal" in the search for the real story of the Old Slave House came across Col. Taylor who was John Hart Crenshaw's brother-in-law. Taylor also held the mortgage on the Old Slave House for many years.

I didn't realize it at the time, but Taylor was one of my fourth-great uncles (my great-great-great-great uncle). His father, Giles Taylor, was Crenshaw's father-in-law and my fifth-great grandfather.

Taylor played an important role in the development of Chicago as the receiver of public monies at the federal land office. He later got into banking in Indiana, coal mining in La Salle County and real estate development in Chicago.

Although his role in the greenbacks is questioned, his financial acumen is not. Nor was his son-in-law's who served as comptroller of the City of Chicago.

On Nov. 8, 1855, the Alton Weekly Courier reprinted news from Chicago about Taylor's business skills.

Several sales of real estate have been effected within the week of importance. Col. E. D. Taylor sold $68,000 worth of property on cash and short time. Less than seven years since the same property cost the Col. but $8,000. A nice little transaction. But such is not an uncommon occurrence in Chicago.

Taylor, who was born Oct. 18, 1804, at Fairfax Courthouse, Va., died Dec 4, 1891, in Chicago.

This Day in Illinois History - Jan. 14

2011-01-14T05:29:00.044-06:00

On this day in Illinois history, Jan. 14, 1919, the General Assembly ratified the 18th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages.

Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

Congress passed the Volstead Act implementing the amendment on Oct. 28, 1919. President Woodrow Wilson vetoed the bill, but Congress overrode the veto and the law went into effect Jan. 17, 1920.

The same day Illinois became the 26th state to ratify the amendment, so did lawmakers in Arkansas (25), Indiana (27) and Missouri (28). Five more states ratified it the next day (Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire and Oregon), and another five did so on the 16th putting it over the hump needed for the super-majority. (North Carolina, Utah, Nebraska, Missouri and Alabama). In all 46 states ratified the amendment. Only Connecticut and Rhode Island did not.

For a basic overview of Prohibition in the Prairie State, check out Bootlegging in Illinois from the April 2001 edition of Country Living.

To say it was a failure understates the problem. Congress offered the 21st Amendment to repeal it which states ratified quickly in 1933.

Congress also rejected it as late as last week when lawmakers read the U.S. Constitution on the House floor. Rather than read the entire text, they read the document as amended, thus they skipped over the 18th Amendment, but did include the 21st.

This Day in Illinois History - Jan. 13

2011-01-13T00:22:00.000-06:00

'Uncle Bob' Wilson born in 1836

His parents are unknown and despite having fathered supposedly hundreds of children, he died without family at the age of 112.

On this day in Illinois, Jan. 13, in 1836, a slave child named Robert Wilson was born on a plantation near Richmond, Virginia. He would be known in his old age, and remembered long after his death as "Uncle Bob."

For at least the last 25 years of his life he repeated stories that he had been used as a stud slave on seven different plantations, the last of which was the house on top of the hill outside of Equality, Illinois.

Residents knew it then as John Crenshaw's Hickory Hill Plantation. Today it's known as the Old Slave House.

His role of a stud slave probably took place in the 1850s as he was back in Virginia when John Brown was hung on Dec. 2, 1859.

He entered the Civil War on the Confederate side with the 16th Virginia Infantry. An Associated Press article about him from his 111th birthday in 1947 described him as a "batman," which wasn't a Gotham crime-fighter but a term for an orderly or servant to an officer. A United Press wire story after his death the next year described his duties as having "to shine boots for a Confederate officer."

After the war he was a Baptist minister at times. He made it back to Gallatin Co., Illinois by the late 1920s or 1930s. He lived in Equality briefly following the 1937 flood that devastated Shawneetown and moved to Chicago sometime later in the decade.

He eventually made it to Chicago and was transferred to the Elgin State Hospital in 1942 suffering some illness. At the time he was not surprisingly, the oldest inmate in the veterans colony there.

He's smiling in almost all of the photographs I've seen of him. The stories from his time in Elgin show him quick of wit. Once when Gov. Dwight Green visited the institution Wilson hit the politician up for a donation to his tobacco fund. With a posse of reporters and photographers trailing his tour, Green couldn't refuse and gave him a 50-cent piece which he long treasured as his lucky coin. When he lost it, Green sent him another one for his 111th birthday.

Wilson also told the secret to his long life to the staff at Elgin, "I never drank, chewed, or stayed out late until I was 11 years old." Good advice for us all.

This Day in Illinois History - Jan. 12

2011-01-12T21:37:00.000-06:00

Back on January 12, 1899, a young woman named Hulda (Young) Mitchell gave birth to a baby boy that she and her husband Charles named Alvis M. Mitchell.

Mechanically-inclined he grew up in Saline County and developed an interest in the mechanical wonders of the day. After World War I in 1919 and 1920, he served as a mechanic with pioneer aviatrix Ruth Law who had broken the long-distance flying record in 1916 by flying non-stop from Chicago to New York State.

He remained a lifelong interest in aviation and helped found the Egyptian Flying Club here in Southern Illinois.

But it's not for aviation that Mitchell is best remembered. Cameras also interested him and he opened a professional photography studio in Harrisburg in the 1920s where he worked alongside his first wife.

One day in late September or October 1926 (and probably the latter), a member of the Charlie Birger gang came into the shop to pick him up. Charlie wanted some photos taken. The Gang War between Birger and the Shelton Brothers had already started and the body count was beginning to stack up.

Mitchell took at least five shots out at Shady Rest that afternoon, two with Charlie and 15 other members of the gang on the Hupmobile in front of the cabin, one with the gang on the porch and another with the gang just off to the side with their weapons drawn in a pose. The fifth shot included just the cabin, car and firearms, plus Charlie's dog which sat on the roof of the car.

Eighteen months later he also covered Birger's execution in Benton, taking at least six shots of the hanging. He had practice covering the hangings of Rado Millich, Joe Chesnas and Joe "Peck" Smith in Marion, Harrisburg and Shawneetown all within the year before.

During the Depression he became a locksmith and in 1942 he moved to Carbondale where he operated Mitchell Office Supply. After suffering from cancer for a year, he died on August 31, 1962.

Random Connections Between Preachers and Bootleggers

2011-01-12T21:06:00.000-06:00

It's interesting the connections that I find while researching. During the wee hours of last Sunday morning I came across the obituary of Roy Shaw, a member of the Charlie Birger gang of bootleggers in the 1920s.

Shaw ran a roadhouse on the county line between Johnston City and West Frankfort on Route 37. The Sheltons shot it up a few hours after they debuted their armored car in October 1926. A few weeks later they burned it to the ground and planted dynamite in the ruins to blow up Birger when came to look. He didn't and they retrieved the dynamite to use in the aerial bombing of Shady Rest.

[To read more on the incident buy my new book, Secrets of the Herrin Gangs.]

Shaw is one of these guys on the periphery of my research, but his name keeps popping up ever more frequently. For example, the obituary.

I had found the obit before, but this time I recognized another name, Wendell Garrison, the pastor of Second Baptist Church in West Frankfort who officiated his funeral back at the end of November 1962. You see two weeks ago my church, Second Baptist of Marion, started with a new interim pastor in the pulpit after ours had retired following 30 years at the church. The new guy was Wendell Garrison too.

Of course I just had to ask. That evening I did and it was a good news/bad news situation for my research. Yes, it turns out it's the same pastor, but the bad news was he couldn't remember the man. It's been 48 years, and he had only been at the West Frankfort church for three months at that point. It's also quite possible and likely that Shaw wasn't even a frequent church attendee or even a member.

In talking with Garrison he told me he was from around Opdyke in rural Jefferson Co., Illinois. That was interesting because I had just came across a short blurb about how that village got its name. It ran on the same day in the Mt. Vernon Register-News as a wire story that Leslie Simpson, another member of the Birger Gang getting paroled.

The story from March 24, 1950, told how Opdyke got its name also dealt with a preacher, though this one was Methodist not Baptist and his name wasn't included. Back around 1870, give or take a few years, the L & N. Railroad laid tracks through Jefferson County.

... a contractor named Opdyke proposed to the original townsite promoters that if they would name the town after him, he would donate a handsome bell for the M. E. Church, then under construction. The bargain was agreed upon, the bell was delivered, and the town so named.

In 1950, the newspaper noted the bell still remained in use.

When I asked Garrison if he knew the story, that one he did, and even remembered the name of the church.

For next Sunday I'll just have to remember to ask him about another criminal from the 20s, a youth named David Garrison from Mount Vernon who robbed a number of gas stations and was almost recruited by Charlie Birger to kill West City Mayor Joe Adams.

Garrison and his partner Alva Wilson were thieves, not killers and told Birger so. The next night they were arrested at Albion. Both ended up testifying against Birger at the Adams murder trial the following summer.

This Day in Illinois History - Jan. 15

2011-01-05T05:04:00.000-06:00

On this day in Illinois history, Jan. 15, 1924, Williamson County Sheriff George Galligan asked Gov. Len Small to withdraw state militia troops from the county.

The sheriff had requested troops following government-led raids staffed by hundreds of members of the Ku Klux Klan against bootleggers and others in Herrin and surrounding communities

Though sanctioned initially by federal authorities, incidents of abuse that took place in the raids had risen to the level of diplomatic complaints by the counsels of France and Italy on behalf of their citizens in the county.

Anti-Klan sentiments had risen and the sheriff (with this two full-time deputies) had no way to guarantee the public safety.

Klan and anti-Klan forces negotiated and worked out an agreement on the night before at a meeting at Herrin City Hall. On the 15th at 11 a.m. Galligan made his request to the governor to remove the troops.

Over the next few days he and his men conducted raids on bootleggers, but received no help from Klan supporters or their hand-picked local police.

The peace lasted six days when the Klan violated the agreement and began raids of their own.

After additional raids and reprisals, chaos erupted early in February and the governor ended up sending nearly a thousand troops to control the county.

Carbondale police seeks department's history

2010-12-28T15:34:00.000-06:00

As work progresses on the new Carbondale police station Police chief Jody O'Guinn is looking for pieces of the department's history to display in the new building.

They already have some old uniforms and a badge from the only Carbondale officer killed in the line of duty, Leonard Alonzo Sizemore (1879-1933).

Carbondale escaped pretty easily most major tribulations of the Prohibition Era in the 1920s. A running gun battle by a group of teenage wannabe gangsters was the biggest event that I've found. Two of whom were later approached by Charlie Birger to kill West City Mayor Joe Adams, but turned him down.

O'Guinn told the Carbondale Times that the historical display would serve an important purpose.

"It shows the officers where we came from and where we're going... What it was like for police work in years past," O'Guinn said.

Persons with information, photographs or other artifacts that could be displayed can call Chief O'Guinn at 618-457-3200, ext. 421, or e-mail him at joguinn@ci.carbondale.il.us.

New Director Named for Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum

2010-12-06T10:45:00.000-06:00

The head of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission has taken another job along those same lines. Eileen Mackevich was selected Friday as the new executive director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and Library in Springfield. She starts the job the last week of this month.

She says fundraising and making the museum even more interactive are at the top of her list.

Congratulations Machevich on the new job.

Secrets of the Herrin Gangs

2010-10-23T10:36:00.001-05:00

The Secrets of the Herrin Gangs, my latest book, has arrived from the printers! This 96-page paperback gives a unique inside view of the Shelton Brothers and Charlie Birger from the 1920s, as well as in in-depth account of the gangster known as the brains of the Herrin outfit who worked for both gangs.

Ralph Johnson, co-author, was the alias of a Shelton gangster who decided to cash out when he got out of the gang temporarily at the end of the Gang War in January 1927. He sold his inside account to the St. Louis Star, and then to the N.E.A. news service which distributed his story in a 10-part series that newspapers printed from coast to coast that month. For the first time all ten accounts are collected on one volume.

I first ran across Johnson's stories in the clippings from the St. Louis Star in the Paul Angle Papers at the Chicago Historical Society. Angle, was the Illinois historian who wrote the classic, Bloody Williamson, more than a half century ago.

When I started this round of Bloody Williamson era research a couple of years ago I had two questions dealing with Johnson's account. One, "Was he for real?", and if he was, then, "Who was he?" since he freely admitted Johnson was his alias.

The second half of the book deals with those questions and reveals the real man behind the pseudonym. He had quite an interesting criminal career.

I won't reveal his name here in this post, but I'll give you a hint, if you look on the cover closely you'll see his name. He's also the double mugshot on the cover as well.

Click on the "Buy Now" button if you want purchase the book online and get a signed copy. You can also mail your orders to IllinoisHistory.com, PO Box 1142, Marion, Illinois.

Books cost $9.95 each, plus $2.25 shipping and handling for a total of $12.20, plus another 80 cents sales tax if you live in Illinois, for a total of $13.

Check out my IllinoisHistory.com Books page for my other books on the Old Slave House, the Bloody Vendetta, Lincoln stories from the Civil War, and the history of Gallatin County, Illinois.

Secrets of the Herrin Gangs Goes to the Printers

2010-09-23T12:03:00.001-05:00

It's on its way. Secrets of the Herrin Gangs has been sent to the printers and I can now take a breath for a moment or two before jumping into the next project.

Like the earlier post from August, the Secrets book is an inside account of Bloody Williamson as told by a member of the Shelton Gang who had worked for both the Shelton Brothers as well as Charlie Birger. Unlike the earlier post the new book is a 96-page paperback that expands on Ralph Johnson's inside story with what I've discovered about the man behind the Ralph Johnson alias.

I won't tell you the name in this post, but if you click on the cover and look at the signature in the bottom right corner, you'll find it. He was a Benton native who played a much larger role in Bloody Williamson than anyone realized. It's also his fingerprints on the book as well.

For the last couple of years I've been digging into the region's Prohibition Era history which has grabbed my interest like the Old Slave House did a decade ago. I think I'm working on four or five (or maybe six) different Bloody Williamson projects from a screenplay with a St. Louis-based filmmaker to publishing other writers' works, as well as working on my own writing projects.

I'm still looking for photographs and stories for an upcoming pictorial history of Southern Illinois in the 1920s that will be titled, "The Bloody Years." I've found some real neat ones that's not been published before as well as intriguing angles on the big stories that are just now being uncovered.

The new "Secrets of the Herrin Gangs" will be out in mid October. Within the next 24 hours or so (I've got a couple of other deadlines to meet before then), I'll have links up for some special offers for those wanting to pre-order the book before it gets shipped back to me.

New Shelton Gang Book Available

2010-08-09T10:41:00.002-05:00

While I'm still working on my pictorial history of Southern Illinois in the 1920s, I've come across of gem of original history that I wanted to bring out.

Ralph Johnson ran with the Shelton Gang during Prohibition. As the Shelton-Birger Gang War wound to close in December 1926 and the first week or so of 1927, he decided to get out and cash out.

The way they did it back then wasn't much different than today. He went out and sold his story to the press, first to the St. Louis Star and then to the NEA news service which distributed his story as a 10-part series for newspapers across the country.

They called it "Secrets of the Herrin Gangs". In it Johnson told the inside account of life in the Shelton Gang as well as well as his own experiences with Charlie Birger and his gang.

It's been a key source of original gang life for decades. Now, for the first time it's available in one volume. I've added a new foreword with information about the life and times of Johnson, as well as who I think he really was. I've also added footnotes with corrections, dates and additional information, as well as an index.

~~The booklet retails for $9.95, plus shipping and handling, and sales tax if you live in Illinois. To order online just click the "Buy Not" button below.~~

SOLD OUT

For more information on books from IllinoisHistory.com, including books on the Old Slave House, the Bloody Vendetta, Abraham Lincoln or Gallatin County, Illinois, check out the book page at www.IllinoisHistory.com/books.

Orders can also be mailed in with a check or money order for $9.95 plus $2.25 s/h. Illinois residents add $0.85 sales tax, for a total of either $12.20 or $13.05.
The book is also available at the Book Daddy at Taylor's Mini Mall on Hwy 15 east of Fairfield.

UPDATE - I'm out of stock with this version of the book, though Taylor's Mini Mall in Fairfield and the Book Emporium in Harrisburg may still have copies. There's a new version at the printers that has much more on the man behind the alias of Ralph Johnson. It will be out in mid-October.

Books from the Bloody Williamson Era

2010-05-16T01:02:00.003-05:00

Amazon.com Widgets

History of Theme Park Proposals in Southern Illinois

2010-05-06T11:14:00.003-05:00

After last Saturday's announcement of a major new tourism and retail development more than one person has commented to me that they first thought it was about Busch Gardens, Marion's long-running urban legend that's been circulating for a quarter century.

It's not. Legoland is the park the developer has been trying to get, at least in its earlier incarnation at Glen Carbon. Whether its parent company, Merlin Entertainment, will look at Southern Illinois is not clear.

But Legoland isn't the first and neither is Busch Gardens (a project that has never been verified). The Tony Watkins Company, also of Glen Carbon, is still pursuing plans for Music City, Illinois, destination and convention resort in western Perry County near Pinckneyville.

Announced in 2007, Perry County officials were still publicly dealing with the developer the following year and the company is still promoting the county as a site of its North American plans on its website.

Even before the company arrived on the scene the land in question had been the subject of theme park interest and speculation for decades according to tourism people I've talked with over the years.

Going back a couple of decades we had the Amazing World of Superman proposed for Metropolis and an unnamed Silver Dollar City-type development pushed by area tourism promoter and operator Wayman Presley for three different locations in the western Illinois Ozarks.

History of Legoland and Southern Illinois

2010-05-03T22:16:00.003-05:00

Saturday's announcement of a new destination shopping and entertainment center on Marion's north side did not mention Legoland, but that was part of the deal in its previous incarnation, and city officials believe it still is.

Up until last Thursday, April 29, Bruce Holland had been pushing the University Town Center development at Glen Carbon, Illinois, in the St. Louis Metro-East area. After opposition to the use of STAR bonds, the local state Rep. Tom Holbrook, dropped legislation that would create the state incentives.

At some point last week Southern Illinois lawmakers state Rep. John Bradley, D-Marion, and state Sen. Gary Forby, D-Benton, jumped on board. After a rash of meetings with the lawmakers, area mayors and economic development officials, Holland announced plans for the Marion project.

The clock though is ticking. House Speaker Michael Madigan wants to adjourn at the end of this week.

So what's the history on Legoland and the Midwest?

Four years ago Nick Varney, CEO of Merlin Entertainments Group, announced that his company was "actively engaged" in finding partners and a location for a fifth Legoland theme park. They already operated three in Europe and one in North America at Carlsbad, California.

The Theme Park Insider reported the news on Jan. 19, 2006, under a headlined time frame of "3 to 5 years":

Varney said that the company's goal is to develop its Legoland parks as "mini Disney Worlds," destination resorts attracting visitors over several days, rather than just destinations for local day-trippers. As a result, Varney suggested that Merlin might build new installations of its SeaLife and Dungeon amusements next to Legolands, as well as working with local governments and developers to encourage more tourist development around the parks.

Important for Marion and Southern Illinois is the following quote.

"We have three parks in Europe. Looking to the future, in the blue sky, I could see three parks in North America, too. With a Legoland here in Southern California, it does not take a genius to see the Midwest and the East Coast as potential new sites," Varney said.

Merlin Entertainment found its East Coast location at Winter Haven, Florida last year when it acquired the legendary Cypress Gardens site.

In the Midwest, they first looked at Kansas City before targeting the St. Louis region.

In June 2007, the city council at Columbia, Illinois, learned that St. Louis developer G. J. Crewe, which they had been working with since 2004 to develop the Columbia Crossings site, had landed the interest of Merlin to locate a Legoland as part of the proposed 2,000 acre development. Amazingly, the city backed out of the plan.

Skip forward a couple of years with a new developer, Holland, this time, and the idea of a suburban St. Louis Legoland resurfaces at Glen Carbon, Illinois, on the northeast side of the MetroEast.

Holland was able to get work with his local lawmakers to get the STAR bonds incentive legislation through the General Assembly in 2009, but Gov. Pat Quinn vetoed the bill with a change that only half of the state sales tax increment could be used rather than all of it.

Plans were to address that this year, but opposition grew from other MetroEast mayors over the retail development which they feared would threatened their own retail areas. That opposition killed the Glen Carbon proposal last week.

While Legoland officials have officially "downplayed" an Illinois location, company officials did approach Quinn last October while he visited Copenhagen to lobby the International Olympic Committee in support of Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics. For those who don't know, Lego is based in Denmark.

Holland probably didn't mention the park because he was still trying to sell Merlin Entertainment on Southern Illinois. Still the possibilities are tempting for area tourism. Holbrook's legislation provides an idea of the minimum investment on a theme park needed to qualify for the bonds - $100 million. That's an investment we can take to the bank.

On a lighter side, here's something we probably won't see in a Land of Lincoln Legoland.

NOTE: Also posted at the Southern Illinois Tourism News blog.

Abandoned Mines to Tourist Attractions?

2010-05-03T14:54:00.005-05:00

First it was a baseball stadium a few years ago, now another St. Louis Metro-East developer wants to attract (at least) a themed hotel and indoor water park, (and possibly) a Legoland amusement park to the formerly blighted and mostly reclaimed mined lands on Marion's northwest side.

Bruce Holland of Holland Construction announced plans Saturday for a major destination retail and tourist center on the north side of Marion on hundreds of acres that include many abandoned strip mines.

The hotel he mentioned, the amusement park he didn't, though it was named as a target in a previous incarnation of this project that had been set for Glen Carbon, Illinois - the University Town Center which he pulled two days earlier due to opposition from mayors who didn't represent Glen Carbon.

Both the Southern Illinoisan and the Marion Daily Republican covered the announcement.

The presence of area mayors and politicians present other than Marion Mayor Robert Butler indicate two things, one they realize what a boost this would be for the entire region, and two, if the legislation is similar to the bill for Glen Carbon, they know towns within a 12 mile radius of the project would share in some of the sales tax increment generated.

The massive $395 million development would require the use of public Sales Tax and Revenue (STAR) bonds to finance the development, described in the earlier version of the project as "TIF districts on steroids" - an adequate comparison.

A standard Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district uses the new property taxes generated from the development to pay for the incentives. STAR bonds use the state's sales tax increment generated, shifting the burden (to the extent that one is created) from local property-taxing governmental bodies such as school districts to state government.

There will be much to debate about the proposal in the next few days as the legislation will have to be passed by lawmakers this week. However for now, let's just consider the history of the area targeted.

Developers are focusing on 350 acres of land mostly on the east side of Interstate 57 immediately north of Morgan Avenue. It's bounded on the north by Longstreet Road and I'm assuming on the east by Russell Street. There's also a roughly 40-acre tract west of the interstate, which I assume is the undeveloped land on The Hill behind Menard's.

The Hill development on the west side by Marion Heights LLC, and this project on the east side includes the well-defined strip mine belt that highlights the southern limits of the Herrin coal seam, a highly valued stratum of coal that's about 8 feet thick on average in Williamson County.

This belt of strip mines can be seen in the map as the band of brown. The large body of water on the left side is the strip pit that still exists north of McAlister Restaurant and west of Fairfield Inn.

The reason that the band exists is that the veins of coal in Southern Illinois generally slope up to the south due to the uprising of the Shawnee Hills. Thus, this band represents the area where coal companies could mine the coal from the surface.

In order for land to be considered for either a TIF district or a STAR district (based on the existing legislation), is that it has to be blighted. Abandoned mine lands pretty much meets everyone's designation for blight.

There were underground mines on the north side of this project that began in the closing years of the 19th Century, and the strip mining began in the 1920s. More than a dozen mines operated in this area, though the exact number is unknown even to the state's Office of Mines and Minerals.

Much of the stripped out area on the west side has been reclaimed for both the "The Hill" as well as Kokopelli Golf Club. This area also includes the modern-day locations of Drury Inn, Hampton Inn, 17th Street Bar & Grill, MidCountry Bank, Rent One Park and Menard's.

Strip mining began in this area in 1922 with Southern Illinois Coal Company's strip mine about a half mile north of the Williamson County Pavilion. It operated until the Herrin Massacre in June 1922.

Strip mining began closer to the modern I-57 / Route 13 interchange in 1924 when the Pyramid Coal Company began operating Pyramid Mine No. 1 in the area of the big strip pit on the left side of the map west of the modern Fairfield Inn. Its steam shovels dug 20 to 40 feet in places to mine the 7.5 foot thick on average Herrin seam of coal. They took out 920,480 tons of coal before Coal Stripping Company took over the the mine and renamed it Coal Stripping Mine No. 1 in 1928. They mined another 511,416 tons of coal through January 1931.

Meanwhile up on The Hill itself where Rent One Park is now located and the Southern Illinois Miners play ball, the Scottsboro Coal Company's Scottsboro Mine stripped the area in 1928 and 1929 producing 372,388 tons of coal.

To the east in the general location of the Menard's store and the land to the north, the McLaren Mining Company began stripping in 1948 and 1949 on the Herrin seam which was 25 to 35 feet below the surface. Beginning in 1950 through '55 (except for 1953 and 1954 when idle), it mined the deeper Springfield seam. Overall it produced 98,613 tons of coal.

Immediately north and possibly including some of the later stripped out area was the underground Peabody Mine No. 2. The Ohio and Mississippi Valley Coal & Mining Co. started production in 1897 on its Ohio & Mississippi Valley Mine No. 2. It operated until 1900 and produced 243,343 tons before the Southern Illinois Coal Mining and Washing Company took over renaming the mine the Southern Illinois No. 2 mine which mined 639,461 tons of coal from 1900 to 1904.

Peabody Coal Company took over the mine in 1904 and operated it as Peabody No 2. mine up through May 1916 producing 1,419,571 tons. Overall, the mine in its two-decade history produced more than 2.3 million tons of coal.

Peabody No. 2 was connected underground with Peabody's No. 1 mine that was located east of the interstate just north of the modern end of Peabody Lane (a small lane running north of Morgan Avenue in between Carbon and Russell Streets). Originally, the lane was the right-of-way for the railroad spur up to the mine.

Mine No. 2 mined the coal at 78 to 84 feet below the surface. The average thickness of the Herrin vein was 7 to 9 feet. To the east at Mine No. 1, the coal was anywhere between 21 to 90 feet deep. Some of this shallower parts of the mine were later stripped mine from the surface to take out the remaining coal the original miners had left.

Mine No. 1 started about the same time as No. 2, but with a different owner. Johnston & Reed sunk the mine in 1895 and produced 75,000 tons through 1896 when it was taken over by the Ohio & Mississippi Valley Coal & Mining Co. which operated the mine from 1896 to 1900.

The Southern Illinois Coal Mining & Washing Co. took over at the turn of the century and operated the Southern Illinois Mine No. 1 in 1900 and 1901. They produced 25,900 tons. The previous owners had produced 296,711 tons. Peabody's production was likely included in the No. 2 totals.

On the east side of the interstate there were a number of small operators.

One of the underground mines was the Wilson Mine operated by H. L. Wilson from 1923 to 1926, J. W. Wilson in 1927 and W. A. Wilson in 1928 and 1929, for a total production of 8,794 tons.

Another underground mine was located on The Hill's lands on the east side of the interstate which presumably pledged for this new development was likely the Bradley & Scullin No. 1 mine which operated from 1922 to 1924, then followed by other owners lost to history before Quality Coal Company took over in 1933 and operated it until 1941. It mined the Springfield seam. Quality mined 28,176 tons of coal during their control.

There was another underground mine along Russell Street north of Morgan. The Southern Jewel Coal Company operated their Southern Jewel mine from 1935 to 1939, producing 8,329 tons.

The strip mines seemed to come later on the east side.

The Wenzel Brothers Coal Co. operated Wenzel Mine about a quarter mile north of Morgan Avenue, just north of the trailer park, in 1964 to August 1965, mining a total of 27,520 tons.

Claude White Construction Company stripped out part of the Herrin seam just 6 to 35 feet below the surface in his North Side Mine in 1969. White came later in 1977 and over the next five years mined another 41,600 tons for a total of 48,680 tons produced.

Mr. White was the father of the late G. A. White, one of the three original partners of Marion Heights LLC, the developers of The Hill.

Arrowhead Coal Company operated their Arrowhead mine in 1978 and 1989 taking out the mining pillars abandoned in earlier underground workings about 20 feet below the surface. The produced 5,307 tons.

On the eastern edge of the proposed development in Section 12 was the Polinksi Mine operated by the Polinksi Coal Company in 1947 and 1948 which produced 14,021 tons and the Hamilton Mine or Consumers No. 1 mine in the area near and south of the intersection of North Russell and Longstreet.

State mining officials aren't sure if the last two mines were separate or the same one. Consumers Coal and Materials operated Consumers No. 1 mine from 1931 to 1938 producing 59,634 tons. The Hamilton Coal Company operated the Hamilton Mine around 1932, which was listed with the same production figures.

For more on this new development, particularly the possibility of a Legoland theme park, check out the post The History of Legoland and Southern Illinois.

For more on Williamson County's mining history and maps to the actual locations of the mines mentioned above as well as a hundreds of others in the county, check out the Williamson County Coal Data page at the Illinois State Geological Survey's site.

New Charlie Birger Video

2010-02-19T16:44:00.003-06:00

Just came across this video of "Charlie Birger Time" on YouTube. The song is apparently by a group called the "Copyrights". The video below is just some other guy.

Somehow I think it would it still please his Birger's ego to know people were still singing about him more than 80 years after his death in 1928.

Old Slave House Presentation Monday

2010-02-14T21:40:00.002-06:00

I'll be giving a presentation on the Old Slave House tomorrow, Monday, Feb. 15, 2010, at the Marion Carnegie Library in Marion, Illinois. The program starts at 6 p.m.

The library is located on South Market Street two blocks south of the square. The event is free.

Illinois' Slave History Talk Set for Dec. 12

2009-12-03T13:29:00.004-06:00

Union County historian Darrell Dexter will offer an intersting presentation on Sunday, December 12, 2009, about the history of one particular slave family from Union County. Descendants of both the slave and the slave master's family are expected to attend.

The Southern Illinoisan has an article:

Dexter has traced the life of Daugherty, who was brought into Illinois as a 5-year-old slave in 1810. His master, Owen Evans, was a tavern keeper and territorial legislator who had settled around 1807 in the western part of what is now Union County. Evans became indebted and began selling his slaves in 1819. He took Harry's mother north and sold her to pay some of his debts. A few years later Owens moved to Tipton County, Tennessee, taking Harry along.

In 1833, Harry ran away from the Evans plantation in Tennessee and headed north to find his mother. He was captured in Southern Illinois and turned over to Owen Evans' brother, George, in Union County. Harry filed a freedom suit in Johnson County, but a judge in Vienna ordered Harry to be auctioned off to pay debts that Owen Evans had left behind when he moved from Illinois.

Harry's lawyer was John Dougherty of Jonesboro, who later became an Illinois lieutenant governor. Dougherty purchased Harry at the auction in front of the courthouse for $33.

Dexter's presentation will be at 2 p.m. during the monthly meeting of the Genealogy Society of Southern Illinois in the library at John A. Logan College in Carterville, Illinois. The public is invited.

Dexter, who edited Saga, the society's quarterly prior to going back for his master's degree, has long researched the history of African-American settlements in Southern Illinois, through the mostly-forgotten court records that have survived in our region's courthouses.

I found his early work published in Saga as well as a new history of Union County, extremely helpful in my work on researching the Old Slave House. He has a new book coming out sometime next year based on the work he did for his thesis. The book's title is Bondage in Egypt: Slavery and the Underground Railroad in Southern Illinois. Southeast Missouri State University Press is the publisher.

CORRECTION - Actually it's SEMO's Center for Regional History that's publishing the Dexter's new book. While they are already taking pre-orders ($20, plus, $4 s/h), the book won't be out until "early next year".

Nashville Artist's Music Mines Region's History

2009-11-14T14:26:00.005-06:00

The song's story may be fictional in terms of the disaster at the Muddy mine, but the sentiment certainly is real for the coal mines of that era. Also, the photographs in the video come from the Saline County Historical Society in Harrisburg.

The singer-songwriter behind this is Rocky Alvey, a Saline County native who's now the assistant director at Vanderbilt's Dyer Observatory just outside Nashville, Tennessee.

He's got more of these Southern Illinois songs, including Hardin County Line, Shawneetown and Grand Pier Creek, just to name a view. All are on his latest album, Blackberry Jam. Listen to some of the songs on his MySpace page.

If Blackberry Jam focuses on Southern Illinois places, his next project mines the history of the region's bloody 1920s history. Although the title song hasn't been released publicly, it's really good I can tell you. He's also getting good reviews on it from others in the Nashville music industry.

In the video below he talks about the Muddy song.

French Colonial Era Movie Set to Premiere

2009-11-12T14:01:00.004-06:00

The Marion Cultural and Civic Center will host the Marion premiere of Under These Same Stars: The Celedon Affair later this month on Tuesday, Nov. 24, at 7 p.m.

The film, set in 1773 during the French settlement of Illinois and Missouri, was filmed on location in Southern Illinois and the Ste. Genevieve, Mo., area.

Under These Same Stars - the Celadon Affair is a brand new, feature length, independent film from Céladon Films LLC of Webster Groves, Missouri and Alto Pass, Illinois.

Based on a true story from 1773 and shot in the historic homes of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, in Cahokia, Illinois, and at rural locations across Southern Illinois, Under These Same Stars tells a tale of Céladon, a mixed race hunter and his struggles with love, loss, and his dual life in town and in the Ozark wilderness. This is set in a time of Native and Black slavery and French, Spanish and English colonial rule along the central Mississippi Valley.

The Southern Illinoisan has covered the project during filming as well as last month when announcing the premieres. Their first story ran in May 2008, and the second story ran last month.

Tickets are available at the civic center box office at $7 for adults and $5 for students. As a history junkie and someone interested in films from Southern Illinois, I plan to be there. Hope you will be to.

Herrin Massacre Song Recalls Era

2009-09-08T12:16:00.003-05:00

I just found a neat video on YouTube about the Herrin Massacre. It was just posted this summer by a folk singer from Southeast Missouri. Here it is.

89th Anniversary of 19th Amendment

2009-08-26T14:34:00.004-05:00

Today's the 89th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution giving women the right to vote.

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Many states had already allowed women to vote in state or local elections, including Illinois, which was the first state to ratify the 19th.

One of the earliest, if not the first, woman elected in Southern Illinois was Emma Rebman, county superintendent of Johnson County. Her 1912 biographical sketch in the G. W. Smith's History of Southern Illinois tells the story.

On her return to Illinois in the spring of 1910, Miss Rebman's large circle of acquaintances were glad to take advantage of the opportunity of offering her an important office of public trust. She was elected superintendent of Johnson County schools, by the largest majority any nominee of the county had ever received. The heavy duties of her office have been discharged with exceptional efficiency and a rare quality of discrimination which is the result of her wide experiences, keen pedagogical instinct and her logically practical mind.

In addition to her educational expertise, she's probably better remembered today for her homeplace. She operated Ferne Clyffe as a private campground which she later sold to the Greater Egypt Association following World War II to hold until the state could purchase it for a state park.

New Book, New Human Remains at Cahokia Mounds

2009-08-10T19:21:00.004-05:00

The idea that the residents of the ancient metropolis at Cahokia Mounds were somehow more civilized than their blood-thirsty cousins south of the border takes a major hit in a recent new book as the Chicago Tribune reports

Exhibits at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site near Collinsville have shown ancient peoples as hunters, fishers and pottery makers.

But Tim Pauketat's new book highlights a darker side, saying it appears they also practiced large-scale human sacrifices.

The book is Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi. The link above is to a much longer story in the Belleville News-Democrat.

Meanwhile in related news, construction crews uncovered 800 to 900-year-old human remains last week while digging a foundation for a new home in Collinsville. Experts believe them to be from the Mounds civilization.

IHPA To Remain Free, Independent & Improverished

2009-08-10T19:05:00.003-05:00

Gov. Pat Quinn signed House Bill 88 into law last Friday which represents a legislative pardon for plans to merge the financially-strapped Illinois Historic Preservation Agency with the Department of Natural Resources.

The bill was titled the "Lieutenant Governor Vacancy Act" and mostly dealt with issues from the elevation of Quinn to the governorship. Under Illinois' Constitution, no replacement is named for the lieutenant governor's seat when it becomes vacant. However, by statute certain programs are assigned to the office.

The bill also transfers the Illinois Main Street program from the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity back to the lieutenant governor's office.

Now we'll wait to see what happens.

1905 Boeheim House Recognized in DuQuoin

2009-08-06T11:12:00.003-05:00

The DuQuoin Historic Preservation Commission recognized Jane Minton last week with its historic preservation award for her home her grandfather grandfather built in 1905.

The DuQuoin Evening Call as the story.

The home is located at 223 E North Street in DuQuoin, Illinois.

Congratulations Minton and the DuQuoin Historic Preservation Commission.

Bloody Williamson Firepower Returns

2009-08-04T17:02:00.004-05:00

Two keys pieces of the firepower used during the days of Bloody Williamson have returned to Southern Illinois for the first time in more than 80 years.

S. Glenn Young was famous for his Thompson machine gun, his World War I era rifle, and his pearl handed revolvers. As head spokesman and gunman for the Ku Klux Klan in this area from 1923 to January 1925, Young ranks was one of the leading figures of that violent era.

Two of his weapons were recently bought from his daughter and grandson, the latter I had the opportunity to meet in June. Look for an announcement or two in the next few weeks as to what museum will take them on display.

I know the answer of course, but it's not my place to make the announcement. The revolver was last fired on the night Young was killed.

Lincoln's Breakfast in Southern Illinois

2009-08-03T16:02:00.003-05:00

In the process of cleaning up my office I found a couple of Springhouse magazines I had set aside for the articles inside.

One dealt with "Bloody Herrin", a pro-Klan pamphlet by Rudolph Lasker published in 1925 shortly after the great European Hotel shootout that killed Klan gunman S. Glenn Young, anti-Klan leader Ora Thomas (who was also the chief deputy sheriff at the time), and two of Young's gunmen.

As a journalist you always want to get both sides. The same is true as a historian, but I have to admit it's been a bit strange for me this summer to talk with the grandsons of both men, at least one of whom killed the other (the grandfathers, not the grandsons). As to which one killed whom, that's debatable as both sides published their version of what happened that January night in 1925.

As to what I think happened, you'll have to read my new book coming out this fall, War in Egypt: Southern Illinois in the Days of Bloody Williamson.

As to the second issue of Springhouse I found in my stacks of books and articles, it was Gary DeNeal's, "My Very Own Lincoln Discovery" from the Vol. 2, No. 6 issue in 2005. What I found interesting was a Lincoln in Southern Illinois story Gary thought he'd seen no where else, which I agree with him.

The story came from J. W. Watson, an artist and writer who told his story to the North American Review, the first literary magazine published in the United States back in 1815. Watson's recollections were printed in November 1888 under the headline "With Four Great Men".

...[Lincoln] related how, when he was a young man, after traveling all night, cramped up in a stage, in southern Illinois, he stopped at a small wayside Inn, where he had fried chicken, buckwheat cakes and coffee for breakfast.

"Such coffee, sir I have to say nothing of the buckwheat cakes and chicken, I had never before tasted. It was delicious, and as I found out afterward was simply made from parched rye."

Herrin Massacre Novelist to Discuss Story Saturday

2009-07-24T14:54:00.000-05:00

The Roaring 20s remains a popular subject for both historians and writers. There are a number of projects in the works, some announced, others not. I'm working on some of them, but there are others as well.

Tomorrow, Saturday, July 25, University of Illinois instructor John Griswold will be signing copies of his new novel, "A Democracy of Ghosts", which is based on the 1922 Herrin Massacre. The main character Bill Sneed, is based on his real-life grandfather William J. Sneed, who was Williamson County's state senator at the time and as well as the District 12 president of the United Mine Workers of America.

The historic Sneed was out of town on the day of the massacre, which I'm sure was a calculated decision. According to testimony in the subsequent murder trials, District Vice President Hugh Willis was the instigator of the riot at the power house as he rallied the miners to shoot their replacements. However, Griswold tweaks the history to put the fictional Sneed in the middle of the action.

Griswold will speak about his book at 2 p.m. tomorrow at the Bookworm bookstore in Carbondale's Eastgate Shopping Center at 618 E. Walnut.

Scott Doody of Anna, formerly of "The Working Man" show on WXAN-AM is also working on a documentary about the Herrin Massacre. I haven't talked to him for a few months when he came into the Williamson County Historical Museum while I was there doing some research. It's supposed to be ready sometime this summer or early fall.

Is the End Near for IHPA?

2009-03-18T18:44:00.003-05:00

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn announce plans to merge the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency into the Department of Natural Resources during his first budget address to lawmakers.

The move isn't surprising. I told a staffer in the then-Lt. Governor's office that I didn't expect IHPA to survive intact. The agency's Historic Sites Division has lost 60 percent of their staffing since 2000. Even if Quinn restores the cuts made by Gov. Blagojevich last fall, that means there's a 40 percent cut in staff.

While many people feel state government is bloated, I can assure you that IHPA is not the agency where you are going to find a lot of fat. That's been trimmed along with a lot of muscle.

Even with a restoration of recent cutbacks which would reopen the French Colonial sites in Randolph County there's still seven IHPA-owned sites in southeastern Illinois from Lawrenceville down to Golconda that don't have any staff.

Even if all of the late Ryan-era retirements and the Blagojevich-era cuts were restored, there would be just one state employee for those seven sites.

IHPA's heyday occurred during the Thompson Administration when it was spun off from state parks in the Department of Conservation. During the 1990-91 recession Jim Edgar had to slash state spending and IHPA took hits from which to this day they have never recovered.

Historic sites are forgotten assets that need to remembered. I don't see Quinn's move as good or bad for the agency, just expected. What comes next is what will really be important.

Mission Trip Time

2008-07-09T09:37:00.002-05:00

It's time again for Second Baptist Church's mission trip to Ukraine. If you want to follow our journey check out the mission trip blog at ukrainemissiontrips.blogspot.com.

Region Still Rumbling with Minor Aftershocks

2008-04-21T10:26:00.004-05:00

We're on our 18th aftershock since Friday's morning 5.2 magnitude earthquake up near Mount Carmel, Illinois.

I was in a recliner this morning at writing down some ideas for a screenplay when I felt the chair underneath me begin to move. Ironically I had just started a scene with the word "rumbling" to indicate the start of a roof fall in an underground coal mine.

The U.S. Geological Survey's website isn't the easiest to navigate, but here's the page that lists all of the
Check out this aftershocks as well as Friday's earthquake.

80th Anniversary of Birger Hanging Saturday

2008-04-18T17:53:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow, April 19, is the 80th anniversary of hanging of Charlie Birger, Southern Illinois' most famed gangster.

He was the last man executed by hanging in Illinois and by all accounts most deservedly so. Officially he was sentenced to death for his role in the conspiracy to murder Joe Adams, mayor of West City, Illinois, but was responsible for a number of other deaths, including that of Lory Price, the first Illinois State Policeman to die in the line of duty.

I grew up hearing the family stories about Birger and his hideout, Shady Rest. My grandmother's family, the Angels, lived less than a half mile away from the site to the northwest.

There were stories of gangsters passing counterfeit money in my great-grandparents' store, of Birger offering my grandmother and another friend a ride into Crab Orchard, the offer of medical help for my grandmother's baby sister, and the plaster dog my grandmother and her future husband won at the grand opening of the barbecue stand Birger had established right along the hard road between Marion and Harrisburg.

It wasn't until junior high did I learn about Paul Angle's book, "Bloody Williamson" and Donald Bain's "War in Illinois" since republished as "Charlie and the Shawneetown Dame".

None of the books included my family's stories, but they proved to me there was something real to them.

There was a cheesy western song written after the hanging. Southern Illinois' "original, caustic acoustic band", The Woodbox Gang, has resurrected it and made it sound cool. Here's the video from their performance last fall at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

The 'King' and 'Little Egypt'

2008-02-26T00:38:00.004-06:00

Josie Brooks, owner of the Book Emporium in Harrisburg, recently auctioned off on eBay a 12-year-old American Weekend section of the Daily Register that contained my cover story on how Southern Illinois became known as Egypt.

I saw the sale, bid on it and as I was just notified, lost. I didn't really need it but I haven't been able to find my copy the last time I looked. It really doesn't matter because the original article is posted here.

An expanded version of the story is posted on the wall in the basement of the SIU Student Center near the craft shop as part of a larger display on Southern Illinois and the Egypt theme.

The item on eBay led to a night of Internet surfing searching for Little Egypt references. Here's my favorite and it's also why Will Griffith, the late publsiher of the Egyptian Key magazine back in the 1940s disliked the name "Little Egypt" rather than just "Egypt".

Note: I realize that the Coasters released this song in 1961 and Elvis did it in 1964 in the movie "Roustabout", long after Griffith died, but Little Egypt the dancer had been around in one form or another since 1893. There was even a movie about the dancer titled "Little Egypt" in 1951.

For more on the dancers named Little Egypt, check out the Wikipedia article. It seems fairly accurate.

In the whole debate over Little Egypt versus Egypt, I prefer Egypt as the historical name for Southern Illinois, but Greater Egypt for modern usage.

Governor Considering Entry Fees for Parks

2008-02-18T23:31:00.001-06:00

Lee Enterprise's Kurt Erickson is reporting that Gov. Rod Blagojevich may push entry fees for state parks in Wednesday's budget address.

Although the final touches are still being made to the governor’s latest spending proposal, officials acknowledge they’ve considered imposing entrance fees at state parks as a way to balance the budget in tough financial times.

Details of what those fees might be were not available Monday and it’s not clear whether they would affect users of all of the state’s more than 100 state parks, forests and natural areas, most of which are located in downstate Illinois.

That may not actually be a bad thing, depending on the details.

Our system of state parks and historic sites are in crisis. Staffing levels at the various sites are at the lowest levels in decades. The Historic Sites Division of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency has lost around 40 percent of its staff in the last six or seven years. A number of sites are simply mothballed and barricaded off from the public.

I understand the desire of keeping free admissions so that everyone can participate regardless of income, but it's becoming increasingly clear that free access equals no access when there's no money.

In Southern Illinois in the counties along the Ohio River there are five IHPA sites and absolutely no state employees.

The Department of Natural Resources faces similar struggles with state parks though not as severe.

Like the current proposals from the U.S. Forest Service for fees on the Shawnee National Forest it's not the overall concept that's worrisome, it will be in the details.

I made this argument a decade ago and have repeated it ever since now through three governors: It's ridiculous to take a site such as the Old Slave House (which was once privately operated with admissions) and keep it closed because there's no money for staffing yet while there's enough interest to draw large crowds that would pay to enter the facility.

The same admission price wouldn't work for all sites. A market driven approach based on interest and operating costs much like California's approach should be used. There it costs much more to visit major sites such as the 115-room Hearst Castle ($20 to $30 for adults depending on the tour and the season) than it does to visit the Gold Rush museum at Sutter's Fort historic site ($4 for adults).

In Illinois there could be one price for Lincoln sites in Springfield, or one ticket for parks and sites in other tightly knit areas.

If the governor moves forward with this it's also time to look at merging the Historic Sites Division of IHPA with the Division of Land Management in DNR as well as the state museums into one site-based agency.

This may be brought about due to budgetary constraints, but there's larger problems out there that could be solved at this time if a big picture approach was taken.

Maybe we'll be surprised Wednesday. I just hope the issues of parks and historic sites will finally be addressed.

Cross posted on the Illinoize politics and public policy blog at over at Capitol Fax and the Williamson County Tourism News blog.

Neat Book on Abraham's Children

2007-12-17T12:54:00.001-06:00

OK, it's not Illinois history, but books like this one fascinate me.

Buy the book now online at Amazon.com.

Southern Illinoisans Recall World War II in Region

2007-10-07T23:06:00.000-05:00

Carbondale writer Lucinda Guinnin has two new features up at AssociatedContent.com focusing on residents' memories of World War II on the Home Front.

The first is Single Mother Worked at Munitions Plant which deals with a single mom working at the Illinois Ordinance plant in what was known as the Ordill in what's now Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge outside Marion.

The second story focuses on a young couple from Herrin married in 1942 as they recall the war in Herrin Couple Recalls the War.

First Female U.N. Ambassador Dies

2006-12-08T14:01:00.000-06:00

The Associated Press is reporting that former U.N. Ambassador Jeane Jordan Kirkpatrick has died. President Ronald Reagan appointed her as the first female American ambassador to the United Nations.

Though a native of Oklahoma, Kirkpatrick grew up in Southern Illinois in Fayette County and attended high school at Mount Vernon Township High School.

I had a chance to meet and speak with the former ambassador in 1985 or 86 when she returned to MVTHS as the keynote speaker for the Mount Vernon Conference, and I was a junior or senior. I later met her a second time at Georgetown University where she was on the faculty when I visited the school my senior year.

She was a true Reagan Democrat, who stayed the course when her party drifted away from confronting tyranny. Like an American version of Margaret Thatcher, she was impressive to watch in the news coverage of the early 80s and equally impressive in person later.

History will remember her well.

Jeane Jordan Kirkpatrick, rest in peace.

Update: Thanks to Power Line Blog for pointing out that Commentary has posted Kirkpatrick's piece, "Dictatorships and Double Standards" which helped lead Reagan to pick her as the face of America at the U.N.

Female Civil War Soldier's House to be Restored

2006-11-13T19:35:00.000-06:00

Today's Quad-Cities Times outlines work ready to progress at restoring the home of Jennie Hodgers who served in the Civil War and lived most of her adult life under the name of Pvt. Albert D.J. Cashier.

The one-room house is small and unprepossessing. With its shuttered windows and the multiple padlocks that used to be inside its door, it's secretive, too _ much like the person who lived in it for some 40 years.

Now, to honor one of Illinois' most unusual Civil War veterans, plans are being made to move the 130-year-old Albert Cashier/Jennie Hodgers house back to its original site in the Livingston County village of Saunemin from a storage site in nearby Pontiac.

The house's secret was that Cashier and Hodgers were the same person.

Saunemin Mayor Mike Stoecklin told the reporter the house will be back in his city by the end of the year, but restoration will likely take longer.

He said a lecture by former Pontiac tourism director Betty Estes convinced him the house should be restored to its original site. Estes personally stepped in to save the house 10 years ago when Saunemin volunteer firefighters wanted to burn the house as a training exercise; she had it dismantled and trucked to Pontiac for safekeeping.

Way to go Betty, and thank you Mayor Mike for your work to preserve history and help figure out a way today's society can find value in it.

Blogger Angst Over Lincoln 200 Plans

2006-11-13T19:30:00.000-06:00

Marathan Pundit, a/k/a John Ruberry, uses historian John J. Miller's comments in the latest National Review to highlight what both men see as problems in the planning for the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth in 2009.

As they pointed out, the first events are scheduled for little more than a year away in February 2008. They point to the makeup of the commission leadership as the key issue.

Sangamo Frontier Book Looks Good

2006-11-08T22:38:00.000-06:00

Robert Mazrim's new book, The Sangamo Frontier: History & Archaeology in the Shadow of Illinois" looks interesting.

I've got a mini-review up for it at the Illinois Writers blog.

Although the publisher sent me two review copies I actually purchased the book last week in part because it might offer a hint of what archaeologists might find next year at the Old Slave House.

The book's title refers to Sangamo Town, which like New Salem, developed and died out within a generation in west-central Illinois in the area of the Sangamon River.

Ballroom Doors Gone at Hickory Hill

2006-11-03T22:48:00.000-06:00

I talked with some of the project team at RATIO Architects this morning concerning the Old Slave House. One of the items discussed centered on the old ballroom that once occupied the front half of the second floor of the Old Slave House.

We had hoped that the old folding doors that once separated the front bedrooms and the hallway were still there just enclosed in the walls. Regrettably the team didn't find any doors last week.

However, they did find where the doors connected which might help them be able to reconstruct what they looked like. They didn't find any track in the floor for the doors and will check the top of the open on one of their future trips.

Crenshaw Rascal Ron Does It Again

2006-11-02T15:57:00.000-06:00

Tuesday night before I talked with George Sisk about what had happened 10 years earlier on that date, I talked with my fellow Crenshaw Rascal Ron Nelson.

Ron was the one who started the research into the Old Slave House in September 1996 and found the first solid proof that the stories were real on November 4, 1996, up at the Illinois State Archives.

While we talked Tuesday about all that has happened in the last decade he told me about his new research project.

While I won't reveal what it is, it's definitely breaking new ground in what we know about a major social and political character from Illinois history who lived here in the 1820s and early 1830s.

As a preacher and a former resident of Hardin Co., Illinois, where he helped organize the county historical society, Ron's interests usually fall into one of two categories. It's either religious history, usually that of the early Baptists, or outlaws and counterfeiters, of which Hardin County had plenty in its early days.

I won't give any more details about his current project other than to say this new project surprisingly may fall into both categories.

Iles House & Museum of Springfield History

2006-11-02T15:46:00.000-06:00

I just ran across Will Howarth's blog for the Iles House, the oldest residence in Springfield, Illinois.

It's been moved and renovated to house the new Museum of Springfield History — you know, all of the other history of our state capital that doesn't deal directly with Abraham Lincoln.

It's location at 7th and Cook places it on the edge of downtown and within walking distance of the various Lincoln sites.

Howarth's blog has some great pictures of the work being done as well as some older photographs from when the moved the house to its current location.

A Hidden Floor and a Forgotten Window

2006-10-31T23:31:00.000-06:00

The architects and researchers hired by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency have made some interesting finds in their two working trips down to the Old Slave House.

According to George Sisk the biggest surprises so far have been a second floor in the carriage way and a blocked-up window in the crawl space under the northeast bedroom.

The carriageway is the 19th Century "garage" on the rear side of the house that allowed horse-drawn vehicles halfway into the structure. From the picture you can tell it was as wide as the row of windows that are visible above the modern sliding-glass door.

In Crenshaw's day we have assumed that the "floor" of the carriageway was at ground level and just dirt.

George has long told of a story passed down in his family about his grandfather building the current floor in the family room that is now the former carriage way. His grandmother didn't like having to walk down down a few steps when entering the room and then walk back up in order to go to the room on the other side so his grandfather built the floor up to the same level as the rest of the house.

Apparently though, it was the second floor built across the carriageway. The researchers have discovered an earlier one about a foot or so lower than the rest of the floors on the first level.

While standing in the cellar beneath the northwest room of the house you can look through an opening in the inner foundation wall into the carriageway and can see the bottom of this floor above.

I had assumed it was the bottom of the floor I had walked across in George's family room. Apparently it is not, which from my memory would make sense because I had previously wondered about the lumber holding up the floor as it looked older and larger than typically used in early 20th Century carpentry.

Now the question is just how old is this floating mystery floor?

I don't think it's original. George's grandfather told of a story passed down in the area about how Crenshaw got a kick out of riding one of his horses into the carriageway because the horse liked to look at itself in the mirrors that hung on the walls.

Secondly, in 1942, a daughter of one of John Crenshaw's nieces who lived in the house in the 1840s, recalled the stories of her mother and aunt concerning the carriageway:

The second floor was a grand Ballroom. Mother and Aunt used to tell us about watching the beautifully dressed guests drive into the hall. They never got out of the carriage outside of the house and many do the same in California now.

[Source: Mrs. W. F. Brann. April 22, 1942. Letter to Mrs. A. J. Sisk. George Sisk Collection. Junction, Ill. (since transferred to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Ill.)]

The ballroom in question consisted of the front half of the second floor as the interior walls between the front corner rooms and the front hall contained folding doors much like modern conference rooms.

Though not visible to the thousands of tourists who toured the house when it was open, the indentions of where the doors once stood can still be seen from inside the corner rooms. I don't know if the architects have yet tore into those walls to see if the doors might still be there.

George had actually ran into the second floor when he installed gas heat into living quarters but had forgot it was there. The other intriguing find so far was a surprise even for him.

In the picture above there is a small window at ground level on the far right side of the foundation. This allows light into the cellar under the northwest room.

A second window has been discovered now in the foundation crawl space of the northeast room which would presumably be about the same distance from the carriageway entrance as the window above is, except on far left side of the picture.

This window has been bricked up and covered with the cement stucco visible around the outer foundation wall.

Today, there is a cellar across the front half of the house that is accessable from the outside, and the smaller cellar under the northwest room accessible from the room above inside. As far as we know there has never been a cellar underneath the northeast room.

Assuming that the foundation walls under the northeast side of the house go as deep as the walls on the other sides and now that we know there was a window there, the question is now whether a cellar existed there or not?

If so, why did someone fill it in?

One intriguing possibility comes from a story passed down by a woman who moved into the house in 1851. In 1936, a local county historian interviewed her on behalf of a Springfield historian working with one of Crenshaw's descendants digging into the history of the house.

The elderly woman, whom we believe to be Mary (Leishtenberger) Ulmsnider, told the local historian the following:

One room had blood stain on the wall and the floor had been taken up and earth filled where the floor had been on account of the blood stains

[Myra Eddy Wiederhold. April 2, 1936. Letter to Frank E. Stevens. Charles C. Patton Collection. Springfield, Ill.]

Myra Wiederhold was the Lucille Lawler of Gallatin County in the mid-20th Century. She was the local county historian researchers used. She was the granddaughter of Henry Eddy who also was Crenshaw's attorney, and her sister married a grandson of Gen. Michael K. Lawler who was also a great-grandson of Crenshaw as well.

In her letter she most likely paraphrased what the old woman told her. If she paraphrased it in the order she heard it and if the speaker kept a logical order herself while telling the stories, then the reference to the blood stains likely is pointing to a room on the third floor since the sentences both before and after refer to items on that floor.

However, I've found it rare for people I'm interviewing to necessary keep a logical order when recalling events that happened decades earlier. Mostly it's just flashes and tidbits. If the blood stain reference was just a random thought, or if Myra simply misunderstood her source, then it could refer to a forgotten cellar under the northeast side of the house.

Of course, that leads to the next question of how was the cellar accessed? Was there another staircase from that room going down to it? If so, was there another staircase along the back wall of the northeast room going to the second floor like there is going to the northwest room?

Questions, questions, questions. The more researchers dig into the house, the more we find.

UPDATE! 12:47 pm November 1, 2006

The more I think about the floating floor in the carriageway the more I remember a conversation I've had with a Dempsey descendant sometime over the last few years.

The Dempseys never owned the house, but operated the coal mine at the bottom of Hickory Hill. According to their traditions the family lived in the Old Slave House at two different times, the first time in the early 1890s and again after the turn of the 20th Century.

I think someone once told me that it was their grandfather who had built the floor in the carriageway, but at the time I discarded the info because it didn't fit with what I already thought I knew (a problem that a lot of people have had with the Old Slave House).

As they operated the coal mine below the house that would explain the oversized timbers used to support the floor - they might be the same timbers used in the mine itself.

Just a thought and maybe a hypothesis.

Old Slave House Closed 10 Years Ago

2006-10-30T21:46:00.000-06:00

Tuesday is the 10th Anniversary of the closing of the Old Slave House. Former owner George Sisk closed the site on Thursday, Oct. 31, 1996, after 70 years of operation.

This Saturday also marks the 10th Anniversary of Ron Nelson's discovery in the Illinois State Archives of the first solid proof that the stories were real.

I joined the research team of Ron and Gary DeNeal the following day.

Since then we've dug into attics and courthouse vaults in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas, pulling out clues to what really happened in Southern Illinois atop Hickory Hill.

In December 1996, Vincent DeForest of the National Park Service toured the house and told us then, if we could prove the stories, the Old Slave House would make one of the best sites in the entire country to interpret slavery.

Two years ago, the National Park Service looked at part of the research and agreed, adding the Old Slave House to its National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom program in recognition of its kidnapping history as a station on the Reverse Underground Railroad.

Just after that I was able to publish our entire researching findings in a new book about the site, entitled, "Slaves, Salt, Sex & Mr. Crenshaw".

The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency purchased the house in December 2000. They acquired most of the antiques in 2003 and a few more items last year.

Yet the house remains closed.

People ask me all the time if the state plans to reopen the house.

Yes, that's what they intend to do, but no, they don't actually have any plans to do so. Good intentions are free. Plans requiring funding or authorization from above.

Since the Old Slave House closed 10 years ago, two of the three gas stations in Equality Township have closed as well. Tourism efforts by local leaders continue to be thwarted as the house and a number of other state-owned sites remained mothballed.

In the past four years IHPA has lost more than 40 percent of its staff in the Historic Sites Division. Even before they lost the staff they only had one employee in southeastern Illinois despite having five sites (Shawneetown Bank, Old Slave House, Rose Hotel, Buel House and Kinkaid Mounds).

The agency is now working on a historic structures report. Though announced this spring, the architects only started last month.

Progress is being made, but very slowly.

To be added to my notification list for updates on the site send me an e-mail with your contact information.

Preserving the Past Brick By Brick

2006-10-20T16:54:00.000-05:00

Kudos to the Harrisburg City Council for considering a plan to save the city's remaining brick streets. Here's what The Daily Register said about it yesterday.

The proposed ordinance requires a permit before any work is done on a city brick street and the firm working on the street must carry a $1 million bond.

The street and alley commissioner is given the authority to issue rules for any excavation on a brick street and a “brick excavation license” is required.

The ordinance says the city will provide classes for contractors in the proper techniques for excavation of brick streets.

A "Brick Street Committee" of three to seven citizens would be appointed to handle affairs involving the future of the city’s brick streets.

The ordinance was developed by the city-appointed brick street study committee and the ordinance proposal was given council earlier this month by Dr. Ray Cummiskey, a member of the committee.

Don't know yet if it passed last night, but I'll along what I learn.

4th Annual Illinois Writers Fair

2006-10-20T12:19:00.000-05:00

The Southern Illinois Artisans Shop up at Rend Lake is hosting the 4th Annual Illinois Writers Fair and booksigning Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

I'll be there with all my books. Come on up and enjoy the art.

Bring your checkbook or credit cards, there will be a lot of good books you'll want to buy.

Take Exit 77 on Interstate 57 and following the signs.

Saline Creek Village Inhabited By Ghosts?

2006-10-10T16:13:00.000-05:00

The paranormal researchers who spent two nights at the Saline Creek Pioneer Village and Museum may have hit the jackpot in their search for evidence.

Saline County Historical Society President Eric Gregg spent two sleepless nights with the group from Tennessee this past weekend. I talked with him Sunday and he was stoked.

Brian DeNeal has the official story in today's Daily Register, so here it is in part:

Members of Southern Paranormal Experiences and Research have hours of audio and videotape to sort out, but they had enough strange pictures early Sunday morning they are eager to pour through the other data.

"One resembles a girl kneeling in the graveyard. We were all pretty impressed with that," SPEAR member Sandy Tullock said.

Beard Tagged to Run Lincoln Museum

2006-10-05T15:42:00.000-05:00

Gov. Rod Blagojevich named Rick Beard as the new executive director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum complex in Springfield.

Beard has helped run some of the country's biggest museums and is leading the effort to commemorate the upcoming sesquicentennial of the Civil War in 2011 to 2016.

Read more about the appointment in the state news release.

French and Indian War Assemblage Saturday

2006-10-05T15:14:00.000-05:00

From the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency:

PRAIRIE DU ROCHER, IL – One of the most historically correct re-enactments of an often little-known conflict will be held during the annual French and Indian War Assemblage scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, October 7 and 8 at Fort de Chartres State Historic Site near Prairie du Rocher, Illinois.

The colors will be raised at 9 each morning, and throughout the day visitors may watch teams of re-enactors portraying 1700s French and British units that fought in the French and Indian War.

Saturday, October 7 will feature live fire competitions. There will be a first place prize for the highest scoring French competitors, first place for the highest scoring British unit, and a traveling trophy for the overall first place unit.
The highlight of the weekend will be the Drill, Bayonet, Musket, Guard Duty and Officer’s competitions on Saturday. The winning unit will have “bragging rights” as being the best French and Indian War reenactment group.

On Sunday, October 8 at approximately 1 p.m. there will be a tactical event (mock battle) in front of the Fort. This will be a good chance for the visiting public to see how 18th century military tactics were used.

The closing colors ceremony for the event will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday.

The French and Indian War Assemblage is sponsored by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency (www.Illinois-History.gov), which administers Fort de Chartres. The Fort is a reconstruction of the mid-1700s fort built by the French at that location. It is open Wednesday through Sunday for free public tours, and is located four miles west of Prairie du Rocher, Illinois on State Route 155.

These are pretty impressive events.

Register Covers Vendetta Book

2006-10-03T18:16:00.000-05:00

Brian DeNeal gave me a good write-up last week in The Daily Register for my new book, The Bloody Vendetta of Southern Illinois, which can be ordered online here.

The story ended up with a list of Saline County signings. The first one this Friday I won't actually make. Blame the librarian at the Harrisburg Public Library. She's sponsoring me for a signing Friday at the Illinois Library Association conference in Chicago.

Josie at The Book Emporium will have signed copies of my book available though and I urge everyone to still go. Ernie Heltsley, author of the non-fiction "A Stroll through Egypt and Paradise" will be signing as well as Lois Barrett with her novel, "When the Earthquake Spoke". There may be some others there as well.

I will also be doing a book signing at the Harrisburg Public Library at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 16, and a signing and book discussion at 6 p.m. three days later on Thursday, Oct. 19 at the Eldorado Memorial Library.

Archeologist Lands Laclede's Home Site

2006-10-03T15:17:00.000-05:00

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a great story today about the recent discovery of the location of Pierre Laclede's house near Fort du Chartres in Randolph Co., Illinois.

Laclede is probably the best-remembered French colonist in the Mississippi Valley as he later founded St. Louis. Laclede's Landing along the riverfront upstream from the Gateway Arch is named for him.

In today's story Georgina Guston interviewed Robert Mazrim, an archegologist at the University of Illinois, about his findings.

"The huge community that means so much to all of us, the big 200-year-old iceberg that is St. Louis, has a tip," Mazrim said Monday, "and it's sticking out of the ground in Southern Illinois."

Read the rest of the story headlined, "Pottery called clue to Pierre Laclede's first home".

Book Signing Friday

2006-09-21T12:41:00.000-05:00

Barnes & Noble Booksellers of Carbondale is hosting a book signing for The Bloody Vendetta of Southern Illinois tomorrow from 5 to 8 p.m.

I'll be signing copies of my latest book as well as Slaves, Salt, Sex & Mr. Crenshaw.

Come on out and say hello.

UPDATE:
Book signings and tornado sirens don't go together to well.

Ancient Marks Generate Historical Interest

2006-08-14T18:02:00.000-05:00

Two stories out today highlight how historians look for interesting marks in their research.

One story out of Quincy, Illinois, looks at an artifact that may date back to the earliest French exploration of Illinois.

August 13, 2006 (QUINCY, Ill.) - What's certain is that something's written in the stone. What's less certain is whether the markings have any historical significance.

Now, University of Illinois scientists have agreed to examine the limestone slab some believe proves French explorer Robert Cavelier de LaSalle was the first white man to see the upper Mississippi River in 1671 — two years before Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet made their famous trek.

The other story comes from today's Southern Illinoisan concerning research this summer into the history of the Thebes Courthouse in Alexander County.

A team investigating the Thebes Courthouse had heard of etchings in the beams. But after hours of tiptoeing across the rafters, they decided to give up on finding them.

"It's right there," Alan Hulstedt called out just as they had turned to leave. The senior in architectural studies pointed to the date “1845” carved by a builder into the Southern Greek Revival structure dedicated in 1848.

"One angle, the way the light came in, and it was there," Hulstedt recalled.

Congratulations Hardin County

2006-08-12T14:25:00.000-05:00

Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn was at the historic Rose Hotel Thursday announcing the acceptance of Hardin County for the Illinois Main Street program.

Here's the release:

Elizabethtown – Lt. Governor Pat Quinn joined with local and state officials to salute Hardin County, which was officially inducted into the Illinois Main Street Program. Hardin County represents the first countywide community to achieve Illinois Main Street status.

Quinn unveiled the Illinois Main Street community sign. Signs soon will be placed at entrances to Elizabethtown, Rosiclare and Cave-In-Rock.

“From Elizabethtown’s historic Rose Hotel to Rosiclare’s American Fluorite Museum to Cave-In-Rock’s State Park – Hardin County is a place for tourists to truly experience the beauty and hospitality of Southern Illinois,” Quinn said.

Nestled in the scenic Shawnee Hills of Southeastern Illinois, Hardin County offers unparalleled natural beauty. Scenic roads guide residents and visitors along the Ohio River and through the historic river towns that make up the heart of Hardin County.

The quiet beauty of the area is matched by the resiliency of its residents who have fueled significant changes and improvements to the county, with many more changes on the horizon.

Visitors now can take a scenic ride on the Ohio River via the new Shawnee Queen River Taxi, or attend the Hardin County Heritage Festival. And residents can look forward to increased community education classes and small business seminars thanks to a partnership with Hardin County and the Workforce and Small Business Development Center at Southeastern Illinois.

“Hardin County is just another example of how hard work, volunteerism and dedication can keep a strong community going,” Quinn said.

Quinn was joined at the designation ceremony by Elizabethtown Mayor Eddie Rose, Rosiclare Mayor Harold Cowsert, Cave-In-Rock Mayor Perry Foster, and Hardin County Chairman Wendell Brownfield.

The Lt. Governor’s Office administers the Illinois Main Street program that is based on a national model that offers communities help with issues such as downtown improvements, historic preservation and economic development. Illinois is one of 40 states that belong to the National Main Street Program, administered through the National Trust for Historic Preservation. There are now 62 communities in the Illinois Main Street program.

Illinois Main Street represents one of the state's most effective public-private partnerships for economic development and community renewal. Since its inception, designated communities have reported net gains of more than 1,600 new downtown businesses and created more than 6,000 new full and part-time jobs. The Main Street program has spurred the reinvestment of more than $575 million in Main Street downtowns.

For more information about the Illinois Main Street program, please visit: www.IllinoisMainStreet.org.

Rubbish Find Rewrites Paper History

2006-08-09T20:48:00.000-05:00

The Times of London has an interesting story about paper, or at least how some ancient trash is helping to rewrite the history of the article itself.

CHINA’S claim to have invented paper was strengthened yesterday when archaeologists announced a discovery that suggests it was in use at least 100 years earlier than thought.

A scrap of paper made from linen fibre was found by archaeologists picking through an ancient rubbish tip at the Yumen Pass, the gate between China and Central Asia.

Measuring only 1.6sq in, it is believed to have been made in 8BC, or 113 years earlier than the first known paper. Fu Licheng, the curator of the Dunhuang Museum, said: “This is very important evidence to show that paper was invented in China.”

Bloody Vendetta is History

2006-07-30T20:59:00.000-05:00

The Bloody Vendetta of Southern Illinois is finally done. I am so happy.

I started this book last year and had planned to take it to the printers last November, but a drunk driver intervened and reset by calendar.

Now the book is larger and goes to the printer Monday. It should be back on shelves by the last week of August.

The book is 240 pages, 6" x 9", trade paperback.

I've held off on taking orders to make sure I was finally ready. Well I am now.

For readers of IllinoisHistory.com I'm offering a pre-order price of $14.95, which is normally the regular price, but without the $3 shipping cost and I'll cover the sales tax if you are an Illinois resident.

Plus, every book ordered from IllinoisHistory.com will be autographed and dated.

But this offer is good only until I get the books back from the printers in about three weeks.

To make a secure order online all you have to do is go here and click the "BUY NOW" button.

Or, you can pay by check or money order. Just make it out to IllinoisHistory.com and mail to this address:

New Writers Blog Begins

2006-07-26T14:33:00.000-05:00

I've just added a new blog to the site focusing on Illinois writers and authors. It's entitled, the new "Illinois Writers Blog".

I plan on using this to plug new books and works by Illinois-based writers as well as those who write about Illinois.

Politics, History & Troubles

2006-07-15T12:45:00.000-05:00

While I've been gone there have been some trouble developments with the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.

Former IHPA Director Maynard Crossland has sued the state for his dismissal and is blowing the whistle on political machinations in the supposed-to-be independent agency.

Here are some of the details Crossman brought forward in his lawsuit.

Don't know if any of these are true, but the administration is racking up a number of losses in the courts when it comes to former employees.

Mission Trip Blog Up & Running

2006-07-11T03:23:00.000-05:00

In less than 10 hours I will be leaving for a mission trip with my church in Marion and another one in Andalusia, Alabama. We're heading back to Chernivtsi, Ukraine, where we last went in July 2004.

I've signed up and learned how to update the blog by e-mail as well as add an audio blog by phone.

Check out the new Ukraine Mission Trip 2006 blog for more.

The Liberator and the Fourth

2006-07-04T19:56:00.000-05:00

The folks over at Power Line blog have two great pieces dealing with Abraham Lincoln and Stephan Douglas.

The Eternal Meaning of Independence Day recalls two speeches made by Douglas on July 9, 1858, and Lincoln, the next day, during their famed race for the U.S. Senate.

Douglas downplayed the Declaration of Independence in his support for popular sovereignty and the Dred Scott decision. Lincoln, as he did repeatedly through the campaign, stressed the importance of those important words about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

If [immigrants to America since 1776] look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration [loud and long continued applause], and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world. [Applause.]

The second post, Thinking about the Great Liberator, deals with Lincoln's effort to preserve the Constitution even though he took extreme measures to do so.

The constitutional powers of the commander-in-chief in time of war are critical to the system established by the framers. Lincoln's analysis and exercise of the commander-in-chief's war powers during the Civil War both serve to illuminate those powers. Given the Supreme Court's decision in the Hamdan case this past week, it may be an opportune moment to revisit some history.

Lincoln's primary aim as commander-in-chief was of course the preservation of the Union — the restoration of democracy and the rule of law among the seceding states. He meant to demonstrate that "among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and that those who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and pay the cost."

Both articles offer reminders of history's lessons too often ignored.

New Dig Eyes Site of 1730 Battle

2006-07-01T23:06:00.000-05:00

The Pantagraph of Bloomington has an interesting article this week on Parkland College Professor Len Steele's search to find the exact location of a major battle between the French and Illini Indians on one side and the Mesquakie on the other.

The French account of the 1730 siege of a Mesquakie fort, the remains of which are buried beneath rows of corn, are the “the beginning of history in McLean County,” the Parkland College professor said. What remains below the ground are buried trenches and dug-in houses, musket balls, arrow points and various tools and goods, such as blades from hinged French knives.

It was the last stand for the Mesquakie, who were outnumbered in the fortified grove near the Sangamon River, Steele said. There were up to 900 people in the acre-size fort, including women and children, and 1,400 French and Illini troops around them during a 23-day battle, he said.

The professor, his wife, 10 students and a woman whose family has owned the farm since the 1800s have been at the dig site near Saybrook several hours four times a week for the last three weeks, and the class is scheduled to end today. But Steele said he may extend the dig.

People had lived in the area about 12,000 years, but the military accounts are the first written histories for the area, he said.

Not familiar with Saybrook's location, well here's a map.

Benton eyes TIF for Wood Building

2006-06-28T09:16:00.000-05:00

Kudos for the Benton City Council after deciding to pursue a tax increment financing (TIF) district for the redevelopers of the historic Wood Building on the square of the Franklin County seat.

The developer's plans for the building, "include a banking facility, retail space and studio, and 2- and 3-bedroom units on the top floors."

Now if the city would consider expanding the proposed TIF for the rest of the downtown, help the county build a new courthouse, and merge with West City, the community would be set.

Historians stake claim for Fort Crevecouer

2006-06-20T00:48:00.000-05:00

Fascinating article in the State Journal-Register today by Michael Smothers of Copley News Service. A group of outside historians is challenging the long-thought-settled location of the first French forts built in the Illinois Country in the late 17th Century.

Following the script I've seen over and over Smothers managed to find a state-employed historian who disagreed and is backing the traditional site of near Peoria.

Marty Fischer of Macomb, whose research inspired the reappraisal, believes Fort Crevecoeur, long believed to have been built in 1680 on the Illinois River in the Peoria area, actually was constructed at Beardstown.

A research team eventually is expected to travel to farm country just south of Beardstown in search of evidence - shifted dirt, rotted wood pylons, maybe iron nails three centuries old - to, perhaps, resolve that question.

So far no one has found solid proof that the Peoria or the Beardstown locations are the location of the first French fortified settlements, but Fischer's research is based on some intriguing clues.

The Fischer theory is steeped in possibly ground-breaking discoveries, thanks to satellite photography, that offer fresh clues to historians.
Who built a 600-foot-long earthen wall, once at least 15 feet high and at least several hundred years old, on a high rocky bluff just down and across the river from Beardstown?

What is a perfect rectangle of ditches, 450 feet in circumference, doing in a farm field nine miles south of Beardstown on the highest plateau in the area?

Why was a very old ditch apparently carved between the beds of two streams to encircle a flat, sandy knoll that once was lapped by a wide bay jutting from the river just south of town?

What happens when you trace the 40th degree of latitude on two dozen maps produced by early French explorers to its intersection with the Illinois?

On those old maps, you find Fort Crevecoeur, which La Salle, Henri de Tonti and about 25 men built in January 1680 before abandoning their attempt that year to reach the mouth of the Mississippi River from Canada.

On modern maps, you find Beardstown.

Just when you think that all of historical mysteries are solved someone comes around with a new answer.

Way to go Marty Fischer. Keep researching and keep digging. The answers are there somewhere.

Grant Announced for Old Slave House

2006-06-07T10:56:00.000-05:00

The newest round of Illinois Transportation Enhancement Grants have been announced including $400,000 in federal highway funding for the Old Slave House.

The funds are to be used for engineering work and a historic structures report. Added to the $150,000 of state funding already announced for a historic structures report, this will allow the agency to likely conduct archeaological surveys and possibly engineering work on visitor services such as restrooms.

IHPA officials asked me for help on this grant last fall both in gathering letters of support as well as helping find the links to the site and transportation issue. While the main link is the site's recognized status as one of the last, if not the last, station on the Reverse Underground Railroad still standing.

Other links included John Crenshaw's role as a road supervisor for the 19th Century version of Route 13 between Shawneetown and Eldorado, as well as his role as a contractor in the first effort to build a railroad between those two towns in the late 1830s.

Overall, almost $2.9 million in grants are headed to Southern Illinois.

Other projects include the following:

Cairo - Confluence Tourist Welcome Center at Fort Defiance (I think this would be in the old Toll House) - $673,000.
Chester - Tourist Welcome Center in Segar Park near the Mississippi River bridge. This is something needed with the opening of the World Shooting Sports Center at Sparta later this year - 385,000.
Saline County - Engineering work for extension of the Tunnel Hill State Bike Trail from Harrisburg to Eldorado to eventually connect the city-owned bike trails in Harrisburg and Eldorado - $110,000.
Metrpolis - Brookport - Engineering work for the proposed George Rogers Clark Discovery Trail between Metropolis and Brookport to follow an old railroad grade between the two towns that also crosses through Fort Massac State Park - $354,000.
Mount Vernon - Downtown streetscape improvements - $500,000.
Rosiclare - Downtown streetscape improvements - $50,000.
West Frankfort - Downtown streetscape improvements - $427,000.

Drought Leads to Archealogists to Buffalo

2006-06-04T00:37:00.000-05:00

The Chicago Tribune ran a interesting story Saturday on a buffalo prehistoric archealogical find on the Illinois River. It now appears that buffalo roamed the prairies long before historians thought they had moved east from the plains.

But even better, one of the buffalo was found with a broken rib along with a Woodland Indian spearpoint, suggesting a story of how prehistoric Indians from around 1,000 to 200 B.C. used a narrow cossing point on the Illinois River as a funnel to hunt bison.

New Union County Museum Opens Saturday

2006-06-02T20:47:00.000-05:00

The former Cobden Museum has a new name and location with an opening set for Saturday.

The Union County Museum, located in downtown Cobden at 117 Appleknocker St., next to the post office, will have a grand opening at 1 p.m. with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house for people to view the very first display of historical items from all over the county.

Fort de Chartres Ready to Host Rendezvous

2006-06-01T22:02:00.000-05:00

PRAIRIE DU ROCHER -- The French are returning to southwestern Illinois.

The Midwest’s largest gathering of 1700s era soldiers, settlers, traders and campers, the 36th Annual Rendezvous at Fort de Chartres, will be held Saturday and Sunday, June 3 and 4, at Fort de Chartres State Historic Site near Prairie du Rocher.

Rendezvous features 1700s military units, traditional craft demonstrations, period music and dancing, an 18th century fashion show, black powder shooting events, cannon firings and more from the time when France controlled what is now the State of Illinois. All activities are free and open to the public, and many feature public participation. The event is cosponsored by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and Les Coureur de Bois de Fort de Chartres.

Each day’s activities begin with the Opening Ceremony and Posting of Colours at 10 a.m. The Retreat Ceremony ends each day’s activities at 4:30 p.m. Reverend Albert Kreher, St. Joseph’s Church, Prairie du Rocher, will lead Mass at Fort de Chartres Chapel at 8 a.m. Sunday, June 4.

If you are looking for something to do this weekend take a drive over to Randolph County. It's well worth the trip.

For more details and the daily schedule see the IHPA news release.

Opium, Bleeding & Other Hardin Co. Cures

2006-06-01T14:41:00.000-05:00

The Daily Register had an interesting article yesterday that goes along with the Anna Bixby/Bigsby references in the entry below.

Brian DeNeal's article focuses on four early 19th Century medical books found two decades ago during the remodeling of an Elizabethtown commercial building. They are believed to have belonged to William Warford, an early Hardin County physician.

Local Authors Needed for Event

2006-06-01T14:32:00.000-05:00

The Anna Bixby Women's Center is hosting a two-day Seven Windows/One View event at the Saline County Fairgrounds on Friday, Aug. 18, and Saturday, Aug. 19. As part of the festivities they want to host a local author book fair on Saturday.

Each author will conduct their own sales. The women's center is asking for 10 percent of the sales in lieu of any upfront registration costs. The whole event is an outreach for the center which serves as emergency housing for domestic abuse victims in a seven county area in Southeastern Illinois. They also sponsor and conduct numerous other anti-domestic violence awareness and prevention programs.

Authors interested in participating should contact Diane Taborn at the center at 618-252-8380 and provide a 50 to 60 word description of their works and themselves as soon as possible because they are starting work on a brochure and advertising. Diane can also be reached by e-mail at abixby (at) accessus.net.

As a historical note the center is named for Anna Bigsby, the patron saint for battered women in southeastern Illinois. A mid-19th Century midwife who lived in Hardin County Anna was chased off of a bluff by her second husband. That husband Eson Bigsby believed Anna had buried the fortune of her first husband out in the woods. Anna apparantly survived the fall, which by my research likely took place around the time of the Civil War.

"Dr. Anna" is also remembered for "discovering" the plant that caused milk sickness in cows and humans who drank the milk from sick cows. She was supposedly shown the plant by a woman folklore only recalls as "Aunt Shawnee". For more historical information check out .

Old Slave House Status Report

2006-05-31T21:05:00.000-05:00

Just returned this afternoon from a trip to the Old Slave House where IHPA officials, including Historic Sites Division Manager Paula Cross, had arranged a tour for a Federal Highway Administration official whose name I admit I didn't catch.

Gallatin County tourism officials were also present. Last year they were successful in securing the designation of an official spur off of the Ohio River National Scenic Byway along Route 13 to come down Route 1 to the house.

That's the first transportation tie-in. The second is a major grant application IHPA submitted last year for a transportation enhancement grant for the Old Slave House, or the Crenshaw House as they continue to call it.

The highway official was about 120 pages into my book and asked good questions during the tour.

Cross also noted that principals from Ratio Architects had met with officials from the Illinois Capital Development Board to negotiate their contract for the historic structure report.

Due to the limited funding - $150,000 - they will apparently be doing just the report, no archeaological work and most likely no repair work.

As to book updates, I'm am for all practical purposes out of the paperback edition of "Slaves, Salt, Sex & Mr. Crenshaw". All I have left are about 15 returns sent back to me from the distributor. I am only selling these to individuals or bookstores when they have seen the books first as these are not pristine copies, and a few are damaged.

The paperback was the 2004 edition. I still have plenty of copies of the 2005 expanded and revised hardcover edition.

I won't print a new paperback edition until I've almost sold out of the hardcover one. At that point it will likely be an abridged edition without some of the back matter from the hardcover. It will though include any correction or new research finding that's been found since the hardcovers came out.

New People Count Set for Hub of the Universe

2006-05-23T23:45:00.000-05:00

The Marion City Council authorized funds Monday to pay the U.S. Census Bureau for a special census to be conducted later this year.

Marion was the 139th largest incorporated place in Illinois in the 2000 Census, and the third largest in the Southern Illinois region outside the MetroEast. Only Mount Vernon and Carbondale were larger.

The Census Bureau currently estimates that Marion has grown by 818 residents since the 2000 Census for a new total of 16,853. The city council thinks the city has grown even faster and I agree.

The bottom line is that if the city has grown at least 500 residents then the cost of the special census will be covered by the increased per capita funding the city receives from the state. Anything over that is gravy.

What's interesting are the population figures for Williamson County. Enumerators counted 61,296 residents in 2000, which meant that the county had finally recovered from the four-decade downward spiral that began in the 1920s following the Herrin Massacre and the general switch from underground coal mining to surface mining that eliminated thousands of jobs.

The 2000 population figure for the county was only 204 residents more than in 1920. The downward trend ended following 1960 when the population was 46,117, or just 1,019 more than we had in 1910.

Despite the booming economy now, the fastest population growth actually took place in the first two decades of the 20th Century when the county went from 27,796 residents to 61,092 in just 20 years.

Herrin went from a post office in a prairie to the largest community in the county during those same two decades. (People have wondered if it will survive the upcoming closing of the Maytag plant. Trust me, it will. The community has survived far worse economic and social upheavels).

Interestingly, the Census Bureau estimates that in 2002 Marion surpassed Mount Vernon as the region's second largest community. Between 1990 and 2000 Mount Vernon lost 719 residents. By 2004 the Census Bureau estimated they only grew by 68 for a total of 16,337.

The 2000 Census also showed that Williamson County had surpassed Jackson County as the largest county in the region outside the MetroEast with 1,684 more residents. Census estimates through 2004 show the gap widening to 4,823 as Williamson County's population is now projected to be 63,094.

Population isn't the only way to measure the region, there's also retail sales.

Figures from the Illinois Department of Revenue show Marion edged past Carbondale for the title of the region's top retail trade center in FY2004 (the latest year available online) with $427.1 million in retail sales versus Carbondale's $426.9 million. The difference is even greater comparing the counties. Jackson County businesses reported $578.2 million in taxable sales. In Williamson County the figure was $679.0 million.

Besides the increased government funding the new census will provide hard data to replace the estimates now in place. The new data, if it shows the growth that's apparent, should help in the effort to attract new outside investment in the region in terms of new industry and other businesses.

Old Slave House Backer Dies

2006-05-09T23:31:00.000-05:00

Assistant House Majority Leader Lou Jones, D-Chicago, a strong backer of the Old Slave House died yesterday Chicago media are reporting.

Jones visited the house towards the end of the spring legislative season back in 1997 during a trip organized by the then local state Rep. David Phelps, D-Eldorado.

The site fascinated her and the other members of the Black Legislative Caucus who were able to attend. That fascination led to funding and she's been the House leader the state representatives in the 118th District had gone to in their efforts to secure additional funding for the site.

She was an interesting lady who has suffered long with poor health. I wish her family, friends and staff well.

How Many Cabins To Make A Village?

2006-04-20T16:13:00.000-05:00

Tom Kane has a good article in today's Marion Daily Republican about the cabins of Olde Squat Inn northeast of town.

PITTSBURG - Some people collect stamps or coins. Jim Grisley of Pittsburg collects log cabins.

Most of the cabins date from before the Civil War. He has 14 buildings on his Pittsburg property and seven of them are for rent as part of a bed and breakfast business he calls Olde Squat Inn. Not one of the 14 buildings is newer than 1874.

I've never been out to see the place though I know I should.

The most interesting aspect of the story comes towards the end of the story. Besides the 14 cabins standing, he has 17 in pieces in storage ready to reassemble. Overall, his goal is 100.

Lincoln Museum Celebrates Anniversary

2006-04-19T22:32:00.000-05:00

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield celebrated its first birthday today. Some 600,000 visitors have toured the exhibits since opening. For comparison the Bill Clinton Presidential Library only attracted 500,000 visitors its first year.

I was up in Springfield last week. Although I was supposed to be researching I decided I really didn't want to and walked on over to the museum. It was my first time touring.

The "Ghosts in the Library" multi-media event is fabulous. Even though I thought I recognized the technology before it started, I actually became more confused as the presentation ended. If you haven't noticed, I was paying more attention to how everything worked rather than the content.

Still, the content in that theatre should serve as an excellent opener to students to what historic letters and documents can reveal.

Compared with the "Ghosts" the "Eyes of Lincoln" presentation isn't as technologically impressive. I would strongly encourage anyone to see that one first.

Although the history is presented in such a way to be entertaining and engaging, I understand the flak the library's received for its disdain for facts if they don't fit the decor (in the case of the rug in the Emancipation Proclamation room or the fake generic regimental flag in the "Ghosts" presentation). For that, the flak is deserving.

However the Disney-fication of history complaint is a bit too harsh. None of the displays are real. It's a brand-new building, so fake and entertaining are OK if it works to convey the message.

The real problem is the poor condition of the historic sites across Illinois controlled by the state. Here's where history really took place.

For these sites, lack of staff has kept more than half the sites shuttered and mothballed for years, and those sites lucky enough to be open have limped along with hours only for five days a week. A recent announcement for part-time seasonal hires at some of the sites will help, but not if they are filled with political hacks and not persons enthralled by history.

The state does not have a long-term plan to open and staff the sites it owns. That needs to change, or all the efforts made so far to preserve history will be just that — history — with nothing left to show for it.

Architects Selected for Old Slave House

2006-04-12T23:31:00.000-05:00

The Illinois Capital Development Board may have forgotten the state capital was in Springfield when they relocated their April meeting to Chicago yesterday, but they didn't forget to select an architectural firm for Project # 104-620-002, which the state likes to inaccurately describe as "Renovate the Crenshaw House".

Surprisingly in my view CDB tabbed Ratio Architects Inc out of Champaign, Illinois, and Indianpolis, Indiana, for the project. My money was on White & Borgognoni Architects from Carbondale who did the work on the Old Rose Hotel in Elizabethtown and on some big historic preservation projects for the state in Springfield.

Still it will be interesting to see what becomes of the this project. There's $150,000 attached and CDB and IHPA can't seem to agree on a definition of what's included for the price. CBD uses the verb "renovate". IHPA limits their statements to basic repairs and weatherproofing, as well as a historic structures report.

From the budget front, have not heard any news about funding for the site, though the budget talks between the governor's office and the Democratic leaders controlling the Illinois House and Senate have broken down and everyone's taking the next week or so off.

In case you're wondering who's at fault. It's the Republicans' somehow.

The chances of a major capital projects bill passing are looking slim to none, though there's hope in the House for a scaled-down $500 million package for school construction.

Still it will be interesting to see what happens next. I look forward to meeting the good folks at Ratio.

Is the Region Ready for a Heritage Area?

2006-04-12T23:25:00.000-05:00

The Southern Illinois broke the story yesterday about SIU's efforts to get Southern Illinois designated a National Heritage Area.

Having attended some of the meetings, I can tell you that this is not a panacea. It's like everything else in the region. It's not the designation. It's what we do with it that will make the impact.

Still, it's a step in the right direction. I'll have more later.

Here's the SIU page with more information.

'Serious Christians', Politics & History

2006-04-02T20:45:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday, fellow Illinoize blogger Dan Johnson-Weinberger, took a gentle swipe at religious conservative voters in his post, "Meeks, Blagovich, Topinka...".

(Meeks reminds me that those Christians who take the teachings of Jesus seriously are economically liberal — chasing the money-changers out of the Temple and all that).

My first response is that only those who don't know much about economics are economically liberal. Not only do socialism and communism don't work, they also deny the existence of the individual, his needs, desires, work and responsibility. Capitalism works not because it was ordained by God, but because so far it's the best system that caters to the individual.

Now for the spiritual response. I had actually been thinking for the past few weeks about the misconception you have, because a surface reading of the scriptures would back up your position.

New Testament Christianity is all about the personal responsbility of the believer. Only I can make a decision about accepting Jesus. My parents couldn't do it for me, and I in turn won't be able to make that decision for my children. I can dedicate them to God in a church ceremony after their birth, as my parents did with me (a first for our Southern Baptist church).

Parents can set their children on the right paths, but there will come a time when each and every child will mature and have to make their own decisions and take responsibility for them.

The money changers in the Temple bit has nothing do to with economics. It's about respect for God. The money changers had turned a place of faith into a commercial bazaar that profited from those with faith.

Your belief that "serious Christians" must be economically liberal is actually from the Luke's Book of Acts which tells the early history of the church following Jesus' ascension.

Before that, Jesus had told the diciples, "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John was baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." (Acts 1:4-5 NIV)

Ten days later during the Jewish Feast of Weeks, also known as the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit filled the group of believers giving each the power to speak in every tongue so that no matter where the Jewish pilgrims to the Temple came from in the Roman Empire and beyond, each heard them speaking in their own language.

"Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs - we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "what does this mean?" (Acts 2:7-12 NIV)

Keep this in mind. At the crucifixion, among his believers only John, likely the youngest of the Apostles, and the women in his ministry remained to witness his death.

By the time of Jesus' ascension into Heaven 40 days later, many of those who had previously fled in fear had returned and the church of believes numbered 120 according to Luke (Acts 1:15).

On the Day of Pentecost following the gift of the Holy Spirit that morning Peter preached what may have been the greatest sermon ever delivered by man. "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins," summed up the message.

"Those who accepted his messaged were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day." (Acts: 2:41)

I mention this only to set the stage for the verses that come next, the verses that you originally sought dealing with the first Christians in Jerusalem.

"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." (Acts 2:42-47)

So why don't Christians today do the same? It's a good question.

The first thing to remember is that Luke was writing a history of the church. He wrote two books later compiled into the New Testament, the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts.

In the latter book he begins by writing, "In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen." (Acts 1:1-3).

In the former he began as follows:

"Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled[a] among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught." (Luke 1:1-4)

Luke wrote the Book of Acts no earlier than late 61 or 62 A.D., or about three decades after Pentecost and the church of his description. It's very likely that the early church in Jerusalem was unique.

At this point all of the Christians were Jews. The apostles went to the Temple in Jerusalem every day to pray and preach. This didn't sit well with the Sanhedrin, the Jewish elders, of whom only one or two openly professed themselves as believers. They fought and plotted against the believers, and even jailed the leaders, but to no avail.

"All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. (Acts 4:32-35)

More persecution followed as did continued growth. Eventually, the apostles found it necessary to find assistants for the distribution of food. From this crisis they appointed the first seven deacons to the task.

"So the word of God spread. the number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith." (Acts 6:7)

Stephen, "a man full of God's grace and power, did great wonders and mirarculous signs among the people." He also generated opposition from the Synagogue of the Freedman, who found witnesses to testify falsely against him before the Sanhedrin. Stephen didn't defend himself, but instead proclaimed his faith and pointedly accused his accusers of their failings.

"You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him — you who have received the law that was put into effect through angles but have not obeyed it." (Acts 7:51-53)

The speech infuriated those present. Without a ruling, the crowd dragged him out and stoned him to death making him the first Christian martyr for his faith. With their taste of blood unquinched, the mob then attempted to destroy the church.

On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godley men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them into prison. (Acts 8:1-3).

That's what happened to the church, all in a matter of months, no more than a year or two following the resurrection.

Obviously, persecution didn't stop the church. It was just dispersed. It's also the last time the church was described in such a way, and probably the reason why Luke emphasized it so as it represented something different than the gatherings of believers three decades later.

So what about economic systems? Does the Bible say anything to Christians about economic policy? It actually does in two places in the New Testament. Both Matthew and Luke in their Gospels related Jesus' parables on the talents, a unit of currency worth about $1,000.

The two parables are different account, but similar in theme. In both cases someone with money entrusts various portions of it to others to invest and protect for a length of time. In both cases, those who grew their amounts were rewarded proportionally. Those who did nothing with it, but didn't lose any, were punished for their inaction.

First, it should be noted that most commentators view these passages as warnings to believers not to waste the spiritual gifts they have been given. Still, there are lessons of a monetary nature that Christians should overlooked.

If you're not a Christian this may not apply to you, but as a Christian who believes my political beliefs - actually all of my public actions - should reflect on my spiritual beliefs, then I take this seriously. I don't like being called a hypocrite.

The last thing to explain is why I see no moral authority in progressive tax rates as economic liberals do. The tax of the Old Testament (and carried into the present through the New Testament) is the "tithe". I'm oversimplifying it a bit, but that was just a 10 percent flat tax payable by everyone (or at least every producer).

If Illinois needs a higher flat tax rate than the current 3 percent, then that's a legitimate political argument for society to decide. I personally think raising taxes will hurt our economy. For the most part that's what general tax increases do.

To call for a more progressive(ly worse) tax rate structure as a moral need, I will strongly oppose because I see no scriptural reason for doing so.

It's the responsibility of society to take care of those most vunerable. That's not liberal or conservative, Christian or whatever. What we are debating over is how we accomplish our collect responsibility.

That's what so many are finding fascinating about a possible candidacy by Senator Meeks. He skews across the ideological divide that defines the modern Democratic and Republican parties. I'm not in his camp — yet; but if he decides to seriously enter the race, his candidacy will challenge me to review how I weigh my vote.

Call for Papers

2006-04-02T12:53:00.000-05:00

The Illinois State Historical Society’s Symposium Committee is announcing a call for papers on the theme "Knowledge on the Prairie," for presentation at the 2007 Illinois History Symposium in Springfield.

Papers, panels, presentations, and video documentaries on all aspects of Illinois history will be reviewed, with special consideration given to topics and presentations focusing on teaching in the classroom. Proposals are welcome from scholars, graduate students, teachers, amateur historians, filmmakers, museum curators, librarians, and geneologists.

Proposals should include a one-page description of the proposed topic, a list of primary sources to be used, and the presenter’s curriculum vitae. Deadline for proposals is June 30, 2006.

The 2007 Illinois History Symposium will be held in conjunction with Illinois State University’s 150th anniversary on the campus in Normal. For more information about the symposium, call the Society office at 217-525-2781.

Road Party Wednesday at Vandalia

2006-03-27T14:38:00.000-06:00

America's first interstate highway turns 200 this week and promoters of the original National Road are hosting a party for its bicentennial Wednesday at the old State Capitol in Vandalia.

Wally Spiers has more on the party and the road's history in his column in yesterday's Belleville News-Democrat.

You can also get more information at www.nationalroad.org.

Late Winter / Early Spring Book Signings

2006-02-27T15:11:00.000-06:00

As the weather keeps getting warmer there seems to be more and more opportunities for book signings and presentations.

Saturday, March 4
Science Center of Southern Illinois, University Mall in Carbondale from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Book signing while the store conducts a major sale to reduce inventory before they move to a new location.

Sunday, March 12
The Reitz Home in downtown Evansville, Indiana at 224 S. E. First St. at 2 p.m. I will be doing a 45-minute presentation about the history of the Old Slave House and the book.

Saturday, April 1
Southwest Indiana Book Expo at the Scales Lake Pavilion (800 W Tennyson Rd, Boonville, Indiana) from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sponsored by the Warrick County Historical Society.

Old Mansion Transforms Into New B & B

2006-02-27T14:57:00.000-06:00

Tourism and historic preservation are mixing in the development of the 1913-era Wall Manor into a new bed and breakfast inn for Mound City and Pulaski County.

The Southern Illinoisan has Dixie Terry's story in today's issue. The inn's website is www.wallmanor.com.

Kudos to new owners Don and Robin Stacy for their work and investment into this project as well as to the new day-to-day innkeepers Jim and Rita Barger.

Tourism on the west side of Southern Illinois seems to be taking off south of Route 13 with the private sector, particularly the local wine industry leading the way. It's good to see that tourism growth spread south as well.

Wall Manor will be a nice complement to the still fairly new Grand Chain Lodge further up the Ohio in eastern Pulaski County.

Mine Wars Interview Online

2006-02-07T15:30:00.000-06:00

Thanks go out to David Purcell for sending me a link to an online transcript of a 1972 interview with his grandfather Henson Purcell of West Frankfort.

The Purcell was a retired newspaperman who recalled the violence of not only the gang wars of Charlie Birger and the Shelton Gang in the 1920s, but the more-overshadowed, and actually deadlier clashes between the United Mine Workers of America and the Progressive Mine Workers of America in the 1930s.

I'm not up fully on the UMWA and PMWA fully other than I often heard hushed whispers of events while reporting myself in Harrisburg in the 1990s. The last PMWA-organized mine (Saraha) wrapped up operations during my tenure at the Daily Register.

Purcell's interview starts with an overview of the struggle with a particular focus on the Battle of Mulkeytown in Franklin County.

It's a good read. There's a link to it from the Events page here at IllinoisHistory.com.

Bidding Begins for Old Slave House work

2006-02-03T18:59:00.000-06:00

The state is moving forward with the Old Slave House project announced last week.

The Capital Development Board, which oversees state construction projects, advertised for yesterday. The Professional Services Bulletin provides the details:

The scope of work provides for planning and beginning the renovation of the Crenshaw House, including a Historic Structures Report which will provide a description and prioritization of the restoration work to be done. The initial work will focus on making the building weather-tight. This may include roof replacement/repair, restoring windows, siding, flashings and weather seals. The scope of work also provides for the abatement of asbestos containing materials and lead.

The selected firm will be notified of the time and place for the orientation meeting by the contract executive or the project manager. The meeting shall be attended by the firm’s project manager, consultants and a person authorized to make scheduling and financial commitments for the firm.

Finally, it's clear just how much the $150,000 project will cover. Not only do we get the historic structures report, but also the basic repairs hinted at during the news conference.

What's left for future projects will be construction of any visitor services facilities (i.e. bathrooms and the such) as well as the big project of restoration, which could come down the road even after a site is opened.

From another source I found out that there is some discussion of IHPA trying to get at least one staffer to split time between the various IHPA sites in southeastern Illinois.

The good news still is the project is real and moving forward. Bids are due in two weeks on Feb. 16 and the agency will meet to select the winner at their April meeting.

Old Slave House Funding Update

2006-01-24T14:52:00.000-06:00

Jim Muir's story in today's Southern Illinoisan has literally generated interest around the world for the Old Slave House after UPI sent out a story a little over four hours ago. It's already on the websites of the Washington Times, Science Daily and, my favorite so far, Monsters and Critics.com, a site based in Glasgow, Scotland.

[UPDATE: It's now reached India at the WebIndia123.com site.]

The good news for me is that both Jim and UPI mention the name of my book, Slaves, Salt, Sex & Mr. Crenshaw.

The bad news is that UPI misread Jim's story and has incorrectly labled the house as a station on the Underground Railroad....

[PHONE RINGS. Intrepid blogger picks up phone.]

UPI is sending out a correction. Just got off the phone with them.

[UPDATE: Here's the corrected version.]

Next issue. Is the governor coming down or not?

Last week I was told he wasn't part of the delegation, but Jim had it in the story that he is. However an earlier phone call from a tourism official who was trying to find out about tomorrow's event had been told that he couldn't. The latest news release from the state doesn't mention him and the journalist I talked with doubted he would come back since he toured the region yesterday.

[In Jim's defense, he was working on the story last week for the Saturday or Sunday edition. That may have been the current plan as of last week.]

The most interesting thing about the article was the reference to the site actually reopening.

Rep. Brandon Phelps, D-Norris City, announced last week the state will appropriate $150,000 in funding to renovate the facility that was built more than 170 years ago and has been vacant for nearly a decade.

Phelps said the funding will be used for a twofold purpose.

"We have secured the $150,000 to help renovate the Old Slave House and to also help get it up and running," Phelps said.

Later on he hinted when it could reopen.

Phelps said he expects the Old Slave House to be "up and running" by the end of this calendar year.

As I noted last week, I'm still not sure where the money is coming from. I rechecked my notes from December when I called on the status for possible funding. At that time I was told the money is coming from previously-appropriated unspent allocated funds.

Because of the amount involved I thought it was the capital money Phelps had been working on with the governor last spring. This suggests old money that was still in the hopper. Just how old no one can tell me.

Better yet, it's looking like the money is coming from the General Revenue fund which would allow the governor to not only use the funding for capital projects like any renovations, but also for staffing, a necessity if they want to open before the end of the year.

Shovel Attack Criminal Reforms - Parts 4-7

2006-01-24T14:25:00.000-06:00

I'm tired of dragging this out with one idea a day so here are the last four suggestions to plugging the loop-holes in the state's criminal justice system when dealing with DUI offenders and victims.

Double Compensation under Crime Victims Assistance Act — $27,000 or $28,000 doesn’t cover much in the way of medical expenses when surgeries are performed. While the legislature has increased the amount covered over the years it has only kept up with general inflation, not medical costs which have increased much faster. Make it retroactive also to any victims of a crime committed in FY2006.

Demand Crime Scene Blood Alcohol Testing — BAC testing today is mostly voluntary with incentives offered to drunks for taking the test. If they take the test they don’t automatically get their license suspended. However what’s the incentive for persons with licenses already suspended? At the very least this loophole should be changed so that it is mandatory when the suspect does not possess a valid driver’s license for any reason. Frankly though the state’s implied consent rules should be expanded to include anyone operating a vehicle on a public roadway and all DUI suspects should be tested. Police should have the right to gather evidence at the scene where reasonable evidence suggests an impaired driver.

Target the Source — Require law enforcement officers to inquire of DUI suspects where they obtained their alcohol or drugs. Currently this is not on the Illinois State Police forms used by local police departments. While suspects may refuse to answer – this is their right, those that do would be providing authorities with information for future investigations if the same establishments appeared over and over. It would also highlight targets for victims looking for compensation. In my case this wasn’t asked.

Develop Suspended Driver Hot Sheets for Local Police — Require the Illinois State Police or the Secretary of State’s Office to compile a list of local drivers with suspended licenses cross-checked against vehicle registrations and license plates. This type of data could help aggressive police agencies to target suspended drivers who keep driving, a segment of the population which according to police are among the most likely to be involved in other criminal matters.

So what do you think? Tips, comments, constructive criticisms and suggestions wanted.

Cross posted at Illinoize.

Shovel Attack Criminal Reforms - Part 3

2006-01-23T14:10:00.000-06:00

Continuing from my previous posts about needed changes in Illinois' criminal laws (Shovel Attack Criminal Reforms - Part 2"), here's the third proposal:

Impound Drunk Driver’s Weapon of Choice, Their Cars — If a vehicle is used in the commission of a crime such as a DUI, or is involved in a wreck where a DUI citation is issued, or illegally enters private property (such as being parked in someone’s front yard), the vehicle should be impounded until the DUI case is resolved for the two-fold purpose of public safety by taking a drunk’s vehicle away from him, and securing assets for the court to take in the event that the suspect is unable to pay any fines or court-ordered restitution. If the vehicle title is held by a lender then they would only be able to secure the vehicle if they followed former repossession procedures.

Quickly now, tell me what's wrong with this proposal? Where are the holes that need to be plugged. Keep in mind that the vehicle used in by the drunk driver with the 11-year-old suspended license in my little incident has been driven since he posted bail and got out of jail. There are multiple vehicles at his house so this isn't the case of the only vehicle in the family.

Cross-posted at Illinoize.

Shovel Attack Criminal Reforms - Part 2

2006-01-22T13:06:00.000-06:00

Continuing from a previous post about needed changes in Illinois' criminal laws (Shovel Attack Criminal Reforms - Part 1"), I propose the following:

Stop New Car Titles for Drivers with Suspended Licenses — At the present time, according to police, the state must still issue car titles to individuals who are not legally allowed to drive. I’m sorry, but if you have a suspended or revoked license you should not be able to buy another vehicle in your name until your driver’s license is available again.

So what do you think?

Cross posted at Illinoize.

Shovel Attack Criminal Reforms - Part 1

2006-01-21T13:34:00.000-06:00

I'm hoping the headline got your attention. That's what it's there for. You see, two-and-a-half months ago I was hit by a drunk driver — with a shovel.

Actually, that's the cute way to say it. The looks on people's faces when I say it is priceless. Shock and sympathy quickly transform into something else, usually into a contorted face of someone trying to stifle a smile or outright laughter.

That doesn't bother me. Getting hit by a drunk driver is something people understand. Getting hit by a drunk driver wielding a shovel isn't.

Long story short, he got out of the truck, grabbed a shovel from the bed of his pickup and tried to "teach me a lesson" in his words by attempting to decapitate me with a shovel blow to the head. I put my arm up and survived with only a fractured elbow and damage to my ulner nerve which still prevents me from using my left hand completely.

What I thought would be a few hours in the ER with X-rays and stitches stretched into a five-day stay at the hospital and two surguries. By the the cops talked to me again the second time in the ER that night I was madder at the system than the assailant. You see, if the drunk had been prosecuted and punished properly for his earlier crimes he wouldn't have been on the road that night, or ended up in the front yard where the incident took place.

Since then I've discovered a number of flaws with our system of justice and I've asked my local lawmaker to consider them for new legislation. Rather than outline them all at once, I'm going to use this forum to discuss them one at a time so the comments can reflect each proposal on its own merits.

The first proposal deals with the state employees who for some reason must threaten the public safety by operating under a gag order. Law enforcement people I talk to can't believe this is real, but it was explained to me by a state employee.

Empower Secretary of State Employees — According to workers at the drivers license facilities; they are not allowed to report crimes they see on the job. For example, they could watch someone drive up drunk, stumble inside, reek of alcohol, admit to just drinking a fifth of Scotch, and ask to get their license renewed. Rather than keeping a drunk driver off of the roads they are required to serve him and allow him to drive off. I haven’t found out the reasoning, but it seems that this policy violates the general state law that citizens are legally bound to report crimes.

I'll published the next proposal tomorrow.

Cross posted at Illinoize.