Holiday | Thursday, December 13,2012

Historic Christmas

Six historic sites welcome visitors for holiday tour

This Saturday, Dec. 15, six downtown historic sites are combining efforts and welcoming visitors to celebrate the holidays, a bit like the hospitable ol’ Fezziwig in Charles Dickens’ A Chr

History | Thursday, November 8,2012

Lincoln’s Election Day in Springfield

By Tara McClellan McAndrew

Election Day, 1860, started with a boom for Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln. According to Harold Holzer’s book, Lincoln: President-Elect, local Republicans (not including Linco

History | Thursday, November 1,2012

How sick was Lincoln?

Springfield author’s new book separates fact from myth

By Tara McClellan McAndrew

The theories are plentiful: Abraham Lincoln was gay, or had Marfan’s syndrome, or syphilis or mercury poisoning; Mary Lincoln was insane, and on and on. But, are they true?It’s been 80 yea

History | Thursday, September 13,2012

When Springfield’s competing streetcars came to blows

By Tara McClellan McAndrew

Corporate arrogance and malfeasance seem like modern phenomena, but they’re not. Take the story of Springfield’s 1890 “streetcar wars,” for example. Shortly after the Civil War

History | Thursday, August 16,2012

Secrets uncovered by 1950s drought

By Tara McClellan McAndrew

It’s hard to think of anything good about droughts, but they have turned up some interesting finds. On Aug. 6, the Illinois State Museum announced a new acquisition that resulted from the curren

History | Wednesday, July 18,2012

Springfield’s Ladies Aid supported Civil War soldiers

By Tara McClellan McAndrew

On July 4, 1837 – 175 years ago – the cornerstone for what we now call the Old State Capitol (OSC) was dedicated. In the decades that followed, the building was not only the center of gove

History | Thursday, June 21,2012

When Lincoln’s friend was killed just as war began

By Tara McClellan McAndrew

The Civil War was only five weeks old when Col. Elmer Ellsworth, 24, was killed tearing down a Confederate flag in Virginia. As the first prominent Union casualty, he became an instant hero: newspaper

History | Thursday, May 10,2012

Springfield history in old newspaper photos

By Tara McClellan McAndrew

It’s like a long forgotten, 80-year-old scrapbook of our city. It shows a bustling downtown crowded with men wearing fedoras and women in fur coats, a family brewery preparing for the onslaught

History | Thursday, April 12,2012

Lincoln, the tax-and-spend president

By Tara McClellan McAndrew

Tax Day is just days away. Nationally, April 15 is significant because that’s the traditional day when tax returns are due. This year we get a two-day extension, to April 17. Perhaps more locall

History | Thursday, April 5,2012

Illinois’ first black legislator

By Tara McClellan McAndrew

From Slave to State Legislator: John W.E. Thomas, Illinois’ First African American Lawmaker, by David A. Joens. Southern Illinois University Press, 2012. 288 pages, $34.95.In 1877, Illinois beca