Of course, though I did plenty of walking in both Champaign and Urbana, I hadn’t really left Urbana, heading out east, so I started this morning’s walk at 7:50 at what Urbanites call “Five Points.” No one has been able to tell me why it’s called that. It’s at the intersection of Cunningham and Urbana Avenues.
My wife Mary, a life-long resident of this area, believes that at one time another road or street ran into that same intersection, but I haven’t yet found the historical map to bear that our.
I hadn’t walked too far when I saw a photographer taking my picture up ahead. It was Darryl, of the News-Gazette. I would learn later that the chief photographer was in Indiana at a horse show. We talked for a few minutes, and then I walked on. Along the beautiful park on the north side of the road, the walking was pretty tough, in mowed but very wet grass. There were no more sidewalks (nor would there be), and there wasn’t enough shoulder for me to consider it a safe place to walk.
Near the place where Route 150 turns off University Avenue to go south, I turned around and rode the bike back to the pickup. I used to know lots of people in the National Guard who were assigned to the Urbana Armory, so I drove across the street and into the armory parking lot. The building was covered with numerous cracks, and at least 50 workers were chipping away at them with jack hammers. They were the only ones there. Clearly that armory is not currently in use by the Illinois Army National Guard. Hmmm. OK. On down the road.
I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but I’ll blame it on old age: when I got back up to the Route 150 turnoff, I continued on, only to realize that I was committed to taking I-74 east, which was of course not my intention. I had been looking around for a good place to park, but most of the good parking places were equipped with no parking signs.
OK. So I’m on I-74 headed east, and the next interchange is at St. Joseph. I took the St. Joseph exit and headed back, toward Champaign on Route 150. Hey, didn’t I just drive down this road last night, checking it out as I went? Furthermore Darryl had intimated that someone from the News-Gazette would come looking for me in the near future. How was I to explain where I was and why I was there?
Mayview
I parked on the south side of Route 150 and bicycled back to about where I had left off (I of course didn’t want to risk riding my bike on the Interstate). I then restarted my walk to St. Joseph. Gee willikers, this walking business can be confusing some days. I should have picked a younger day.
There’s an Arends Brothers John Deere dealership north of Route 150. I had been there once to buy my brother-in-law Steve (http://www.steveandruth.com/) a John Deere cap. His son Ryan had borrowed his, and someone had swiped it from a hat rack. The dealership didn’t have one exactly like his original cap, but at least he had a John Deere cap again. Now that I’ve mentioned Steve, I should tell you that he and his wife Ruth are accomplished concert musicians. You really ought to click the link in this paragraph and sample their wonderful music.
I walked into the dealership and gave a couple of employees my flyer, explaining why I was walking across Illinois. They thanked me. The dealership has a fairly large wind generator, much bigger than the 400W one you can buy at Menard’s. I would have enjoyed discussing it with someone, but time was wasting.
Later, when I was walking along the road back to Route 150, a man pulled up next to me in a pickup and asked where I was headed. I told him my story, and he was amazed. I gave him a flyer and continued back to the highway, where I turned east and walked back to Mayview.
Just before I reached Mayview, a car with an Eagle Scout license plate frame stopped. The occupants had heard of my walk, and they wanted to thank me for it. I thanked the gentleman, a veteran, for his service for our country, handed him a flyer, and waved as he drove off.
In Mayview is saw an open business and walked my bike up to the open door. It was Dale’s gun shop, and his big dog came out barking, hackles raised, annoyed as most dogs are by the bike and the snapping flag. Dale welcomed me and invited me to park my pickup in his lot, which I did. I went inside and thanked an employee who was a veteran for his service and then continued down the road.
Next door is a body shop, very much alive, and seemingly doing a healthy business. Not long afterward I saw an old church building, now a residence. I reflected that the gun shop had a booming business, but that the church had gone out of business years before. I was reminded of a family in Rock Island, Illinois, who once ran a gun shop and a Bible bookstore out of the same building. Because the bookstore business was slower and slower, they kept diminishing the amount of space allocated to it, but because the gun shop business was prosperous and expanding, it kept taking up the space formerly occupied by the Bible bookstore.
One day I drove past on my way to a National Guard drill, and I saw that the Bible bookstore was closed, and the gun shop had the entire building. Maybe they offer a prayer with each gun sale.
A little farther along I was a man sitting out on his front step, talking on a cell phone. He looked up with mild interest as I walked by, and I decided to explain to him what I was doing. I heard him say, “Hey, can I call you back later?”
Jim Kates, alias Campfire Jim, later confessed that he had thought I was a Jehovah’s Witness, walking up to him with a flyer in my hand. He took the flyer, glanced through it, and then asked, “Do you have a minute? I want to show you a song.
“I did, and he did.” The song he played for me, I will call “I Want to Shake a Soldier’s Hand.” It’s moving, and it has the same uplifting purpose as my walk across Illinois. In fact I’d go so far as to say that it’s a great song. I was really moved by it. Before I left, Jim gave me a DVD of him playing and singing the song at a local American Legion.
I mentioned Campfire Jim. A local TV station sometimes plays his comedian show briefly, and though I hadn’t seen it, I’ll be looking for it now. It also turns out I know his mom and dad in this amazingly small world. Jim’s mother-in-law started an organization called “Toys for Troops” (http://www.toysfortroops.blogspot.com/), and that group has its own amazing story.
I left Jim, glad that I had met him and heard his song, and glad to know another fine American. Well, maybe the detour via the Internet was another of God’s appointments to bring me to Jim’s doorstep right when he was sitting on it. I believe it was.
Just down the road from Mayview is Fulls Siding, where the Fulls Siding Elevator is still active, despite the absence of a rail line. There used to be 2 parallel rail lines running past there, one an electric interurban line, and the other the Danville, Peoria & Eastern. Both sets of rails have been pulled up now, but there’s an amazing history there, which I hope to get to before I fall asleep writing this blog.
A litter farther on to the east is a large DeKalb seed corn processing plant. What I found unique was that the corn is brought in stover and all, and the kernels are separated out in the plant under highly controlled conditions. A few years ago when I combined seed corn for Cargill, the seed companies were complaining that too much corn was being lost in the field and along the roads on the way to the plants. At that time companies began to use sweet corn pickers for picking seed corn, because those pickers keep the husks on. The husks were removed in the plant, and the corn was gently shelled there. I had seen some loads of what looked like corn stalks on the road on this trip, but now I know the rest of the story.
Just west of St. Joseph is the St. Joseph Wetland, a wetland restoration project. Its goal is to reestablish the traditional wetlands that used to be found along the Salt Fork. They have a good start.
St. Joseph
St. Joseph residents display lots of American Flags. I stopped at a house where a Marine Corp flag flew under an American Flag. I gave the Marine veteran, Mr. Long, one of my flyers and thanked him for my service. Mr. Long had served with the Marines during the Vietnam War, and he is a Vietnam veteran.
The library didn’t open until 3:00 p.m., and it was only about noon when I reached St. Joseph, so I drove south in search of adventure. I saw a man out walking. He walks around an entire section each day for exercise. His name is Dave, and he has a lovely home, nestled among mature oaks. I’m not sure just how the subject of the interurban rail line came up, but he invited me onto his lovely and capacious porch, where we perused three books on the subject, all with beautiful photographs.
I learned the answer to more of my questions about the interurban line in the hour I spent with my host than in all of my research up to that time. For instance I had heard various accounts of the voltage used on the route. Dave told me that it was 600 Volts. The books filled in lots of the history of electric interurban trains in Illinois.
The earliest ones started in about 1895, with lines going from Venice, Madison, Granite City, and other towns across the river from St. Louis. The Illinois Traction Company, succeeded by the Illinois Terminal Company, ran a growing network of electric (and eventually steam and diesel) trains on lines that ran to Danville, St. Louis, Peoria, Springfield, Decatur, Mackinaw, and eventually to the Chicago area. They featured parlor cars, sleeping cars, and freight cars, and on may routes, before there were reliable paved roads, it was a common site to see full milk cans sitting on a platform waiting for the train, or empty milk cans dropped off by the train. The last day of operation for the Bloomington line was February 21, 1953.
Dave recommended a History of Illinois written by Daniel McCollum, which can be purchased at Barnes and Nobles, right in Champaign. It’s now on my booklist. He also told me that, if I went to the Homer Lake Road and turned right, I’d see a historic marker about Kelly’s Tavern. It was so pleasant I almost hated to leave, but I was really curious about Kelly and his tavern.
There was the marker, right where Dave said it would be, surrounded by New England asters, milkweed, and goldenrod, the latter 2 probably not cultivated. That marker opened a whole new can of worms, because it turns out St. Joseph wasn’t always where it is today. Who knew?
St. Joseph
St. Joseph wasn’t founded until 1881, though for some reason I can’t determine, it celebrated its centennial in 1972. It’s in Champaign County. The population has grown from 2,912 (2000 census), and is estimated to be over 4000 as of 2010. We’ll see what the 2010 census has to say.
Some friends, including Chris (an Army veteran) and his lovely wife Mariana live there, but it’s most important to me because my son, daughter-in-law, and grandkids live there. (Well, technically they live at a St. Joseph address, but good luck finding their house.) My son Joe was born at St. Joseph’s hospital, and now he lives in St. Joseph, colloquially (and locally) called “St. Joe.” The village is primarily a bedroom community for Champaign-Urbana, which helps explain its growth in population, despite a general lack of industry, and by that I don’t mean the residents aren’t industrious.
Though the main part of St. Joseph lies south of I-74, there is a subdivision north of town along the Salt Fork, which at times strays out of its banks to cause mayhem and dismay. The first time I visited someone in that area, I noticed that many residents along the stream had boats, and I thought, “How nice. So many sportsmen.” Then a resident told me about the periodic flooding and I realized those boats might be commuter insurance rather than fishing or recreational craft.
Like most small towns in Central Illinois, St. Joseph has a Mexican restaurant, a Boy Scout troop, and even a Cub Scout Pack. There are plenty of churches (one near the Interstate with a unique design), a few bars, and lots of really nice, newer homes. There’s even an antique mall (not a really old mall, but a place to buy antiques).Some years ago a tornado nearly devastated the town, but it has been rebuilt, and there are only the hair-raising stories of death, destruction, and near misses left as reminders.
There are still new houses being built in St. Joseph, recession or not, and some of them are quite classy. The St. Joseph-Ogden High School is located there, and the streets are in good repair.
But it turns out that the site of Kelly’s tavern was the original site of St. Joseph. As long as there were still buildings at the old location, the older site was called “Old St. Joseph.” There’s a bridge over the Salt Fork today, but in the 1830s a man named Cyrus Strong built a house near what would come to be known as Strong’s Ford, and the house he built eventually became known as the Strong’s Ford Inn.
The ford and inn were both on the Bloomington Road, later called the “State Road,” which connected Bloomington, Urbana, and Danville. And, wouldn’t you know it, here comes Honest Abe again. Yes, he frequented this inn, where he sat in an oversized rocking chair, often covered with a buffalo robe, rocking and telling yarns by the fire in colder weather, and sitting out on the long porch that ran along one side of the inn, looking over the Salt Fork, when weather was more pleasant.
A man named William Starbuck related that he and his father had often sat in the inn listening to Lincoln’s stories. Judge Davis would stretch out on the floor and enjoy the stories along with everyone else.
That rocking chair is sometimes on display at the Children’s’ Museum in Indianapolis. Lincoln would have travelled the Bloomington Road from 1840 until 1859, following the sessions of the Eighth Judicial Circuit, which held court in county seats across the midsection of Illinois. Lincoln would have been on his way to or from Danville when he stayed in that inn.
The first road officially surveyed in the area was the Ft. Clark Road, which went from Danville to Ft. Clark, at the site of present-day Peoria. This road had already been in use for some time before the Illinois Legislature made it officially a road.
Kelly’s Tavern took its name from Joseph Thornton Kelly, who came from Rockingham County, Virginia. His father had been a Revolutionary War hero. Kelly rented Strong’s inn in 1848 and bought it a year later. The tavern served as bar, hotel, grocery store, and meeting place, and a number of people built houses near it.
A man from the East stayed a while at Kelly’s place, and the two became such good friends that Kelly told the man he wouldn’t accept payment for his bill. It was on the house. As the man went on his way, he said he was going to do something for Kelly. It turned out he was well connected in Washington, and he had the local post office named “St. Joseph” in honor of his generous friend Kelly.
Kelly was appointed postmaster in 1851, and the settlement gradually came to be known as St. Joseph, Illinois. The local township also took that name, and once the Illinois, Bloomington & Western Railroad came through Champaign County near present-day Route 150, the town of St. Joseph was relocated to its present location, which had been a Native American burial site. St. Joseph Township contributed $25,000 to the building of that rail line, which had a raised bed on rock ballast.
The local lore and history of St. Joseph are well documented, and the St. Joseph Library had a book that was published for the centennial that includes lots of interesting information about early settlers. I’ll include just one item that caught my attention. Uncle Billy was a preacher of the gospel. To fund his ministry, he went to Wabash, where he bought good-quality whisky by the barrel at 20 cents per gallon. He then sold the whiskey at 50 cents per gallon. Far from being offended, apparently some people thought it their religious duty to buy Uncle Billy’s whisky to keep his work going.
OK. I’ll share one more tidbit. In about 1856, Paul Blaker opened a small store at Old St. Joseph. The store was known as the “Crooked House,” not only because Blaker sold adulterated whiskey there, but also because the building that housed his store was for some reason twisted and misshapen. Two large signs adorned the building. The first said “STOR,” and the second advertised “KORN” to the travellers headed west along the Bloomington Road.
Though I had received a very gracious invitation to stay with a local family, I demurred and returned home to my wife, my supper, a shower, and my own bed. Long may they thrive.
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