For about a decade, from the mid-1910s to the mid-1920s, Herman Kadgihn ran a newsstand and cigar shop at 607½ North Main Street. No one was identified in this photograph, so it's not known if Herman is one of the three men pictured here.
Seen here is a 1935 photograph of the Nierstheimer Bros. grocery store at 428 North Main Street in downtown Bloomington. Today, Crossroads, the popular fair trade handcrafts shop, occupies the main floor of this building.
In September 1933, during the dark days of the Great Depression, Bloomington hosted a parade and a series of programs trumpeting President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's National Recovery Administration (NRA), a cornerstone of his First New Deal.
During the Second World War, communities such as Bloomington scrounged for scrap metal to boost the war effort.