Chenoa

Resources are listed in alphabetical order. More information can always be found by using our website search bar, or contacting a member of our staff.

Articles

A small selection of Pages from our Past articles written by Bill Kemp

4 items

Two light-skinned men stand outside a military vehicle. They are parked on a dirt road with a masonry building with large arched windows behind them.

Dr. E.D. Churchill, savior to wounded GIs

Winning a war is not only about killing—it’s also about saving lives, especially if those lives...

Article

Springtime once meant return of prairie flowers

Novelist, poet, essayist and farmer Wendell Berry has said that we live in a time of “punishmen...

Article

Weston Cemetery Prairie window to lost world

In 1971, C.E. “Bud” Wink and Dr. Lee Garber of Fairbury undertook an investigation of five-acre...

Article

‘I-house’ early Corn Belt architectural style

Along Illinois Route 165 between the rural communities of Cooksville and Colfax in eastern McLe...

Article

Biographies

2 items

Elder, Mary

Mary Elvira Elder was born in Bloomingburg, Fayette County, Ohio on September 18, 1835 accordin...

Biography

Scott, Julia Green

Julia Green Scott was born to privilege and distinguished ancestry on February 14, 1839 in Danv...

Biography

Blog

5 items

Chenoa Airport, 1948

The most recent Sunday Pantagraph “Page from Our Past” installment examined the fascinating his...

Blog Post

Collection Highlight: Trench Art

The Museum owns two unique and personal pieces of history that provide a glimpse of how individ...

Blog Post

Photo of the Week, 71: Grim Reapers Pay Respects to Fallen Comrade

On June 16, 1970, about 50 members of the Grim Reapers Motorcycle Club led a funeral procession...

Blog Post

Photo of the Week, 84: 'Bloody 66' claims 4 victims in early February 1939

On Friday, February 3, 1939, four area men were killed in a late evening automobile accident on...

Blog Post

Tot Tries Tiny Tractor August 1947

Three-year-old Janet Schultze gets comfortable on her father Floyd Schultze’s two-cylinder, nin...

Blog Post

Farming in the Great Corn Belt

Digital Exhibit

1 item

1946 to 2000: Livestock Consolidation

After WWII profits for those raising livestock began to decrease. As a result, so too did the n...

Digital Exhibit

Making a Home

Digital Exhibit

1 item

Vaughan Family

In 1857 Hugh Vaughan, together with several other families, left Wales seeking a better life. T...

Digital Exhibit

Oral Histories

1 item

Lucy Woosley

Oral History

Publications

6 items

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Chenoa, McLean County, Illinois 1885

Publication

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Chenoa, McLean County, Illinois 1892

Publication

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Chenoa, McLean County, Illinois 1894

Publication

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Chenoa, McLean County, Illinois 1901

Publication

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Chenoa, McLean County, Illinois 1907

Publication

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Chenoa, McLean County, Illinois 1914

Publication

Working for a Living

Digital Exhibit

2 items

Building Better Roads

Automotive travel created a demand for better roads, as rural dirt roads could not withstand th...

Digital Exhibit

Powering Rural Communities

Bloomington residents began to electrify their homes in the late 1880s. But rural McLean County...

Digital Exhibit