Archive of: November, 2015

We’re not sure this photograph was taken on a “Black Friday” sometime in the 1930s, but it sure looks like it! Seen here is an undated photograph of the main floor of the locally owned department store, A. Livingston & Sons, during a Christmas season in the 1930s. Livingston’s, located on the south side of the Courthouse Square, closed in 1979.

Towanda Grade School kindergartners perform Thanksgiving themed poems and songs for their parents the week of Thanksgiving 1980.

Seen here are a wild turkey hen and her chick crossing Cabintown Road in Bloomington more than a quarter of a century ago. Happily, wild turkeys, once extirpated from Illinois, have made a comeback over the past several decades.

Seen here is the 1939-1940 Illinois State Normal “A” or varsity squad, which would go on to finish the season 21-5 and champions (two years running) of the “Little Nineteen” athletic conference.

As the McLean County Museum of History prepares for major exhibit and technology changes that usher in a new era of teaching and promoting local history, the man who -- working with his mentor Barbara Dunbar -- transformed the McLean County Historical Society’s operations into a nationally accredited museum has announced his plans to retire.

This aerial view of Bloomington Municipal Airport (now Central Illinois Regional Airport, or CIRA) looks northwest and shows the main hanger and East Lawn Memorial Gardens Cemetery. Today, this old hanger site is occupied by Image Air and the Prairie Aviation Museum.

Veterans Day ceremonies have been held on the lawn of the old McLean County Courthouse (now the McLean County Museum of History) for as long as most folks can remember. Seen here is five-year-old Becky McCormick of Charleston, IL, who was here on a visit.

The “Page from Our Past” feature in Sunday November 8, 2015's Pantagraph delved into the history of the Rhythm Rollers, Bloomington’s very own roller skating dance team active from the 1930s to the 1950s. Seen here is a rare action shot, taken at a 1947 or 1948 performance at the Miller Park bandstand on Bloomington’s west side.

On November 10, 1966, JCPenney moved into the still under-construction Eastland Shopping Center on what was then the far eastern edge of Bloomington. Eastland Mall would officially open its doors three months later, February 16, 1967, though Penney’s and other retailers, such as Sears, Roebuck and Co., were already doing business there.

On November 9-10, 1937 First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, sans husband Franklin Delano, paid a visit to Bloomington-Normal. Mrs. Roosevelt is seen here relaxing at the Illinois Hotel in downtown Bloomington while taking questions from a Pantagraph reporter.

Seen here is Illinois State Normal University senior Connie Townsend from Princeton, IL, enjoying an idyllic fall day back in early November of 1961.

This 1908 scene shows Campbell Brunton behind the wheel of the very first truck owned by the family business, Brunton’s Parcel Delivery and City Express. At the time Campbell worked as a clerk for his father Frank G. Brunton.

I am Chelsea Pokrzywinski, a first year graduate student at the University of Illinois studying library and information science. With a bachelor’s degree in history from ISU and the goal of working in a library or museum after graduate school, I felt the museum was the best place to learn what archivists do every day. I worked with several collections during my internship in the fall of 2015, but my main project involved the St. Mary’s Church and School Collection.

On the evening of November 3, 1926, Charles Lindbergh jumped out of his U.S. airmail biplane somewhere in the skies far above McLean County. Flying blind and out of fuel at 13,000 feet, a 24-year-old “Lucky Lindy” parachuted into the inky darkness and blowing snow. He landed unharmed at a farm just outside of Covell, an unincorporated community southwest of Bloomington. Meanwhile, his doomed, pilotless aircraft had crashed nearby.