One of the 29,000 souvenir envelopes printed up for the inauguration of Springfield’s air mail service in 1926. This envelope was flown on the test trip on April 10 and bears the signatures of William H. Conkling, postmaster, and Charles Lindbergh, pilot.. Before he was Lucky Lindy, America’s aviation hero, Springfield knew Charles Lindbergh as […]
History
Posted inNews
Forging a new path
An artist’s rendering of how a revamped pedestrian-friendly Jackson Street might appear, from Fifth Street looking west, with the Executive Mansion grounds on the left. MASSIE MASSIE AND ASSOCIATES In the 1820s, when Springfield was still changing from a sleepy frontier settlement to a bustling metropolis, a small creek ran through what is now the […]
Posted inOpinion
Unionizing moms and dads
Pamela Harris won her case, and the U.S. Supreme Court won another skirmish in its war against the liberal consensus. What Illinois’ disabled and dependent citizens won is less clear. Chicago-area resident Pamela Harris is the mother who cares at home for her 25-year-old son who’s had severe intellectual and developmental disabilities from birth, with […]
Posted inArts & Culture
About history, so what?
Erika Holst, Springfield historian and curator of collections at the Springfield Art Association, is guest columnist this week while Jim Krohe takes a week off. Your favorite dyspeptic is away this week, so instead of your regularly scheduled dose of Dyspepsiana you have me, leaving the comfort of my niche as an occasional writer of […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Lincoln’s extended family
Charles and Julia Edwards, two of Abraham Lincoln’s Springfield nieces and nephews now all but forgotten to history. Ask someone how many children Abraham Lincoln had and they are likely to answer correctly (four) and will probably be able to name some if not all of them: Robert (born 1843, the only one to survive […]
Posted inOpinion
Squabbling over the inheritance
The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, front, and museum, rear, feature large rotundas in Springfield, Illinois PHOTO BY BILL HOGAN/MCT That nice Mr. Madigan, I’m sure, just wants to help. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency have not been getting along. Friends of both have offered their advice, but […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Iles House receives Lincoln’s Courting Couch for one year
Underfanger Moving and Storage brings the Lincoln Courting Couch into its temporary home. Photo BY ERIKA HOLST The horsehair-covered sofa long known in central Illinois as Lincoln’s Courting Couch has been loaned for the 2014 season to the Iles House, 628 S. Seventh St. (corner of Seventh and Cook streets). It is on display in […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Lincoln museum is a showstopper
The Lincoln Heritage Museum offers visitors a state-of-the-art, immersive experience of Lincoln’s life. I worked part-time at the Lincoln Heritage Museum in Lincoln 10 years ago, back when it was called the Lincoln College Museum. In those days, the museum was quaint, almost anachronistic. Tucked away in a small room outside the college library, old-fashioned […]
Posted inOpinion
Prince of demagogues
Stephen A. Douglas The prospect is in store of two rabble-rousing populists trading insults for the next seven months. Each will try to tap the deep vein of grievance that runs through a middle class convinced that privileged interests (unions or the rich, it hardly matters) have robbed them blind. It’s all too depressing to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Crossing boundaries
“Woman with a Monkey” was featured in the April 1909 issue of Harper’s Weekly. This painting, possibly a self-portrait of Mars, now hangs at the Springfield Art Association. Vachel Lindsay undoubtedly wins the distinction of Springfield’s Most Famous Resident, Arts and Letters Category, but he wasn’t the only Springfield native to make it big on […]
Posted inArts & Culture
When Springfield got gas
Springfield’s homes and were lit by gas starting in 1855. The Illinois State Journal declared that gas light “is not only more brilliant than that of candles and lamps but…is much cheaper and more convenient.” “The City is now lighted up with Gas with great success,” John T. Stuart wrote to his daughter in February […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Another kind of schoolhouse
Students and staff of the Ambidexter Institute, which operated at the Taylor House, 902 S. 12th St., from 1901 to 1908. PHOTO COURTESY SANGAMON VALLEY COLLECTION AT LINCOLN LIBRARY The 150-year-old Taylor House at 12th and Cass streets in Springfield now faces possible demolition after numerous attempts to save it. New efforts to preserve the […]
