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, Springfield got its first “modern” transportation – horse-drawn trolleys. A company organized in 1861 by some local bigwigs, including several of Abraham Lincoln’s friends and peers, established a trolley […]
History
Posted inNews
Canoe dig it
Dean Campbell of Springfield says ideas are cheap. Putting them into action is what matters. On Sept. 1, the 78-year-old former teacher will launch a 1,200-pound dugout canoe that he fashioned out of a single gigantic log. The canoe will start on the Illinois River at Beardstown and travel 125 miles down the Illinois and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Secrets uncovered by 1950s drought
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 current dry spell – a local family gave the museum some bones they found on the Sangamon River. The bones, which were visible […]
Posted inArts & Culture
When Vladimir Nabokov came to Springfield
When the great Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov visited Springfield in 1942, he met a man who would become fodder for one of the most entertaining letters he wrote to his wife. It was excerpted last year in The New Yorker magazine and is among 300 letters to be published in a forthcoming volume titled Letters […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Springfield’s Ladies Aid supported Civil War soldiers
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 governmental activities, it was a town center, where people gathered for social, civic and charitable activities. As part of […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Lithuanians in Springfield
The placing of a church cornerstone is an act of faith. For the founders of Springfield’s St. Vincent de Paul Lithuanian Catholic Church it was an act of survival. Exiled from their tiny homeland on the Baltic Sea, they came to America at the turn of the last century seeking peace, opportunity and religious freedom […]
Posted inArts & Culture
When Lincoln’s friend was killed just as war began
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: newspapers around the country mourned his martyrdom and composers penned songs in his honor. His death hit Springfield and Abraham Lincoln particularly […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Springfield history in old newspaper photos
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 of business after Prohibition, a swimming hole packed on a busy summer day, and many more scenes of daily life in Springfield between […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Lincoln, the tax-and-spend president
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 locally, April 15 is significant because it’s Abraham Lincoln’s death date. But the two events are related, thanks to federal legislation Lincoln […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Illinois’ first black legislator
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 became the first state in the Midwest and only the second state in the north to send a black man to its state legislature. That man, John […]
Posted inOpinion
Tag-teaming history
Another Lincoln birthday month has come and gone, and this one was busier than most. We learned that the Mary Todd Lincoln that had looked down from an oil portrait in the Executive Mansion for more than 30 years isn’t the president’s wife after all. The painting was removed as fraudulent, but I think it […]
Posted inArts & Culture
African-American history museum opens with photo exhibit
The Springfield Illinois African-American History Foundation’s museum opens its first exhibition tonight, Feb. 23, capping 14 years of work. The exhibition will feature photographs by Eddie Winfred “Doc” Helms, a well-known Springfield African-American who was a photographer for Illinois secretaries of state for 58 years. In his spare time, Helms photographed local events, especially those […]
