Day 13—September 13, Teheran to east of Mason City

Today's walk takes me to the 100-mile mark (according to my Garmin GPS, reckoning the starting point as the junction of U.S. 24 and Quincy's Broadway Avenue). That point is east of Mason City. I think I will then have only 155 miles left to walk.

I planned to leave home in the early afternoon yesterday (Sunday) to drive back to Teheran and restart my walk on Sunday afternoon, but after church Mary and I went with some friends to eat at a Mexican Restaurant. I still had a few things to pack after that, so I didn’t get away until around 5:00 p.m., and it took longer to drive across Route 10 to Mason City than I had anticipated.

I decided to stay the night in Mason City, which I did. I got bedded down in the bed of the pickup at about 7:30 p.m. and got some really good sleep. At 12:30 a.m., the air mattress deflated. I blew it back up, but I was right down on the floor of the pickup bed again for the rest of the night.

Not to worry: I have a 3-year warranty on the air mattress. It’s just that it’s a long way from here to Farm and Fleet in Urbana, where I can exchange the air mattress or get a refund. This is my third air mattress for the trip. No, I don’t have spiked hair or anything else that would pierce the mattress, and I have both a bed liner and a deflated air mattress under the main air mattress. Unless there’s a weight limit, and I’m over it, I just don’t get it. At this rate, I’ll be sleeping on metal rather than on air for much of the rest of the route east.

I rode back west to Teheran, leaving Mason City at about 7:00 a.m. There was lots of traffic, with folks going to work, and with trucks getting ready to load corn at the field to take to the elevator. As I was walking back into Mason City, an eastbound pickup truck made a U-turn and came back. The driver stopped and asked whether I had had a blowout on one of my bicycle tires. I thanked him for coming back to check on me, told him all was well, explained my walk across Illinois to him, and gave him one of my walk brochures. Later, when I got into town, I saw the same pickup parked at the Illini Central High School parking lot, so I take it this well-dressed young gentleman is a school administrator or teacher.

I had a few waves and honks, but I can tell I’m well out of the reception area for the Quincy television and radio stations because I’m mostly incognito here. I should check in with the local paper, at least. I did sent them a press release, but that was weeks ago.

Mason City is at the intersection of Illinois Routes 10 and 29. In fact it’s midway between Peoria and Springfield (north to south on Route 29) and midway between Havana and Lincoln (west to east on route 10). It is evident from the abundant harvest of corn and soybeans that this is a highly productive agricultural area.

In the Upper Midwest, just about every little town has its annual festival or “days.” Mason City celebrates the Prairie Harvest Days Festival every fall. This year the celebration falls on the 18th, just 5 days away. So far I’ve been missing all of the local festivals and special celebrations by at least a day or so one way or the other.

They’re setting up the rides for the carnival near the park, several blocks south of Route 10. There’s a boulevard with one lane blocked off, and the carnival workers have a few campers and some tents pitched near the park. Of course I’ll miss this celebration too.

According to a Wikipedia article on Mason City, 3 notable local people have gone on to be very successful:

Gordon Buehrig (1904–1990) became an important automotive designer.

John Means, with the stage name “Dr. Gonzo,” became a stand-up comic, and toured with Huey Lewis and the News.

Vic Wunderle would earn an Olympic silver medal in archer in 2000.

Mason City is 153 years old this year (2010). Mason County was constituted from parts of Menard and Tazewell Counties in 1841. The Illinois Legislature passed an act on January 20, that gave this partial description of the new county: “All that portion of Territory lying between the Sangamon River and Salt Creek, on the south, to the north of the twentieth tier of Congressional township that belonged to Menard, and before that, to Sangamon County.

Prairie Creek Precinct was constituted in 1857, and in 1858, the name was changed to Mason City. The first settler in the area was William Hagan, who arrived in 1830 and settled in the bottomlands near Old Salt Creek Bridge. In 1850, Hagan sold out to Ephraim Wilcox and moved on to Missouri.

At that first site, called Hiawatha, there was a blacksmith shop, a shoe shop, and a collections of houses, but the village eventually disappeared when the railroad ran through nearby Mason City instead of Hiawatha.

Other nearby settlements included that at Swings Grove, later known as Melton’s Ferry, after Austin Melton, who lived there operating a ferry across Salt Creek, and who build a house of hewed logs. Michael and Abraham Swing bought land from Issac Engle, who moved on to Fulton County. Michael taught at the Big Grove School in 1851 and 1852, riding a horse the 12-mile round trip, and receiving a dollar a day for his teaching.

Wild game abounded in the area, and it supplemented the tables of the early settlers. Wild turkeys, wild geese, and sand-hill cranes were a nuisance to the farmers, consuming lots of their wheat and corn.

The first owner of the land where Mason City would be built was an Irishman named William Maloney, who filed his claim at the United States Land Office in Springfield in 1849. Maloney sold out to George Straut, who platted Mason City on 240 acres. The surveyors for laying out the town were E. Z. Hunt and John M. Sweeney, and the plat was filed in September 1857, the same month the survey was completed. Also in September, the first sale of lots was held, and about twenty thousand dollars’ worth of lots were sold.

Mason City is the county seat of Mason County, Illinois. Both are named in honor of George Mason, a Virginia legislator who was instrumental in the adoption of the United States Bill of Rights, now the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

I was putting my bicycle back onto the front of the pickup, when a grain semi stopped next to me. The driver got out, came over, and thanked me for my walk. He said his 19-year-old son is serving a tour in Iraq right now. He’s really proud of his son, and so am I. He says the kid is growing up and maturing really fast, and I believe that.

Last week Sandy Showalter told me that Mason City has a really nice, new library. The building is now 10 years old, but it is a really nice facility, and the director is letting me post my blog using the library's wi-fi..