My European friends sometimes tease me about the relative youth of American history, but this region has a history that goes back thousands of years to the Mississippian culture of the Native Americans. Of course they left no written records, but they certainly left artifacts.
There’s an interesting historical marker at the junction of Illinois Route 96 and U.S. 24, north of Quincy. There’s a nice, large triangle where I considered parking my pickup for the night, but the state has erected a no parking sign. Much as I yearn to sleep in a bed, I’m not at all interested in spending a night in the Adams County Jail.
Here are some notes from the marker. The first exploration of this area (that’s by the paleface, of course) was in 1673, when Louis Joliet and Pére Jacques Marquette came down the Mississippi River from Canada. Many of the French names of creeks and towns in this area (La Harpe, La Salle, and so forth) derive from the names of men in that exploring party.
The French claimed the entire part along the Mississippi River of what would later become Illinois until the Treaty of Paris ceded it to the British. During the American Revolution, George Rogers Clark and his army won the area for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Illinois became part of the Northwest Territory in 1784, and joined the Union as the 21st state in 1918.
East of here was the Military Tract, where veterans of the War of 1812 were granted land for their service. Farther east (beyond Peoria) was the Grand Prairie, where the first large-scale cattle ranching in the world took place (1840–1890). During that same era, barbed wire was invented, right here in Illinois, and improved dent corn was also developed here. (That previous sentence is not from the historical marker, by the way.)
I ended up sleeping in front of the old parts store, right on U.S. 24, after talking with some neighbors, including Tony, who’s across the street in the old bank building. That’s also a parking place for some car-pooling school teachers. I was under a shelter with the pickup, so that was a positive (there’s an overhang built onto the building).
Fowler is a small, unincorporated town. It’s on U.S. Route 24 and on the main east-west line of the Burlington-Northern Railroad. In about 1980, Pastor Robert Schubert, a long-time family friend, drove from his home in Mount Carroll, Illinois, to my little farm near Carthage to ask me to take over the pastorate of the little Fowler Church of the United Brethren in Christ.
I was, in due course, examined and granted a quarterly conference license to preach. My first pastorate ended some years later, when the little church closed its doors. Among the highlights of my ministry there were the wedding of the daughter of one of our parishioners and the fact that a number of former members resumed their attendance at the church. Among the lowlights of that period was the funeral of an inactive member, who had left the church after being publicly embarrassed when a former pastor asked his son to behave during a worship service. I say it was a lowlight because, among other things, the widow requested that very former pastor to conduct the funeral service, but he refused to do so unless I agreed (which I did).
When I offered to pick up the widow and take her to the funeral and grave site, she said, “Pardon me. I won’t be going. I don’t do funerals.” I have not heard whether she attended her own.
One fun event happened in this way. I usually rang the church bell half an hour before the service began. Some local teenagers climbed up into the belfry, wrapped the clapper in an old pair of pants, and attempted to otherwise disable the bell. Their primary social activities took place very late on Saturday night, and they weren’t particularly interested in being called to worship, though their grandmother did attend services.
One tug of the bell rope told me something was wrong with the bell. I climbed up to the belfry, diagnosed and fixed the problem, and returned, ringing the bell only about a minute later than usual. The young men were so curious about why the bell rang that morning that they attended the service and asked me afterward about the bell. When they saw that I thought the entire matter was funny, they were surprised. Of course I already knew who had done the deed because I recognized their grandfather’s trousers, which I returned to them after our discussion. Thereafter they did attend services a number of times, but they never because regular attenders.
Fowler was founded in 1857. Probably the most comprehensive history of the town was written by Kevin Ahern, who has thoroughly researched the town’s past. Ahern puts the population at about 200.
After our interview in the park, Tegan Orpet of KHQA TV said I had to visit the Paloma Diner, so I drove over there at 6:00 for a delicious breakfast. I walked in and headed for the restroom. When I came back to the dining area, someone asked me where I had slept the night before. I asked whether they had recognized me from the news, and they said yes, from just five minutes earlier. When I told him where I had spent the night, he told me his trailer was just about 100 feet from there.
The group I spoke with are the morning coffee regulars, showing up faithfully at 6:00 every morning. They included Glen, retired from the Air Force, and Ace Shippendecker, an 84 World War II veteran. Amy, the waitress, treated me very well. I would not learn until later that her sister had been killed by a drunk driver on her way to work at the café not too long before. Later in the day I parked my pickup right across the highway from the small memorial put their in her memory.
I drove back to Fowler and headed west along 24 on my bicycle, after receiving assurances from Ace Shippendecker that it wouldn’t rain before noon, but I got rained on during both my bike ride and my walk, though not enough to do any damage.
On my way back into Fowler, I noticed that my front bike brake was dragging, so I took an hour to take it apart and repair it. It worked well for several hours after that. I had just finished my bike repair and was wondering what to do with the rest of my day when a vehicle pulled up. The driver was Ron Powell, Camp Point resident, who had served in the Illinois Army National Guard at the same time as I did. We hadn’t known each other, but we both reached the rank of First Sergeant, and we had some adventures to discuss. He had seen me on the news and come looking for me.
It wasn’t even noon yet, so I decided to ride on at least to Paloma.
Paloma, IllinoisPaloma is named after a small, local tribe of Indians. I have been unable to find any information about this tribe, which may have been associated with the Peoria Tribe. A tribe on Native Americans with flattened foreheads lived in the area at one time, but were apparently annihilated by invading tribes. There doesn’t seem to be much available on that group, though there used to be information about them at Dickson Mounds.
Local pickle producers had a rail platform about a mile west of Paloma’s location. Daniel Gooding negotiated with the Wabash Railroad to build a depot on his land if the railroad would move the Pickleville platform there. According to local tradition, the wife of a railroad conductor renamed the town Paloma. There is also a tradition that the town was named for the Spanish word for dove, Paloma, though that would contradict the local Native American tribe version.
As with many communities of the 1800s, Paloma thrived with the railroad running through it. A playhouse called Euterpe Hall hosted shows and plays well into the 20th century, before moving to nearby Fowler, and eventually closing altogether.
I walked to the Paloma Diner and arrived by 11:00 a.m. or so. Amy treated me to about 5 glasses of ice water, which was a real treat. Her grandpa died in World War II, and her son-in-law just returned from a year in Iraq.
During that visit to the diner, I also met Bobbie and Kendall, who had ridden motorcycles (Hondas) for many years, including a special trip to Canada. I met Ann Veyle, a widowed and retired schoolteacher, who worked for the Army Map Service (forerunner of the Defense Mapping Agency), all during World War II. Her late husband Joe had fought in the Pacific. When his unit got lost, he wrote his wife that it was because they had been using one of her maps. Joe also played the electric guitar. Ann had 3 sons in the Vietnam War, all in Vietnam at the same time.
She and Joe had ridden their motorcycle (also a Honda) to Anchorage, Alaska, a round trip of 93199 miles. They went with a United Methodist tour group, led by a retired pastor. They had a great time. Waitress Amy called Ann and Bobbie the “Harley Mamas,” though they hadn’t ridden Harleys.
As I was leaving, two ladies actually handed me donations for my walk, though that is not something I am soliciting. I was deeply touched. One lady said, “This is for your supper, though it won’t be as good as if you had eaten it here.”
I also met Bill and his wife. He was a POW in Germany during World War II. The Germans put a group of him and his fellow prisoners to work making little rocks out of big rocks. He said that because he had grown up on the farm, he knew how to break the sledge hammer handles. Each time he broke one, he had to walk to the shop to have a new one fitted, and that bought him an hour or so away from breaking rocks. He also specialized in breaking the handles of the 6-tine pitchforks they issued for handling smaller rocks.
I made sure to thank each veteran for his service before I left. I toured Paloma by bicycle (it doesn’t take long, really), and ran into Sergeant Ron Walton, U.S. Air Force, retired. He is a real Santa lookalike, affable, and a great conversationalist. We swapped stories for a few minutes, and I thanked him for his service. Then I road back west to retrieve my pickup.
I decided that I could do the two miles to Coatsburg without difficulty, so I walked there and back. Then I drove to the home of some friends I hadn’t seen in about 30 years. They graciously fed be (and plied me with numerous glasses of ice water, my new favorite beverage). We caught up on old times, and, as I left, Mel told me he’d be praying for my left knee, which has been my biggest limiting factor so far on this walk.
Coatsburg, Illinois
When I was farming east of Carthage, Illinois, in the seventies and eighties, I often took goats to the Coatsburg sales barn to sell. In those days, town signs were white with black lettering. Some local youth periodically used black electrical tape to change the spelling of the town’s name to “Goatsburg.” The sign would read that way for a few weeks, until a road worker removed the tape. Though I eventually moved from the area, I never saw that intentional misspelling again after the state adopted the white-on-green town name signs.
Coatsburg still has a nearby sale barn, where livestock is sold. The 2000 census counted 226 inhabitants.
Golden, IllinoisIt was far from dark, and I wasn’t sure I could handle another walk, so I drove north to Golden, home to a restored grain windmill. Our generation is not the first to be wind energy enthusiasts after all. Built in 1872, and functional in 1873, the mill is completely restored. It’s well worth a trip to see, if you haven’t seen it. Next door is the Emminga House, which was the residence of H.R. Emminga, an immigrant from East Frisia, who founded and operated the mill. Because East and West Frisia were politically part of Germany, these folks are known as Germans, but the North, East, and West Frisians spoke a language much closer to Dutch and English than to German. There’s an old ditty that says, “Milk, bread, cheese—good English and good Fries.” That is to say that the two languages share those exact words. The Frisian word for “word,” is “uurd,” and that use of the double u would eventually lead to formation of the English letter w.
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