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‘Dr. Mrs. Keck’ battled male-dominated medical establishment
By Bill Kemp. Published on January 27, 2019.
Back in the 19th century when miracle pills, plasters, creams, powders and tonics promised to cure all—from mild indigestion to pancrea...
Area’s deadliest cholera outbreak in 1855
By Bill Kemp. Published on November 3, 2019.
During the summer of 1855, cholera swept through Bloomington and outlying communities. It was one of the largest outbreaks of this drea...
Arrowsmith once home to small hospital
By Bill Kemp. Published on May 19, 2019.
“It is very seldom that a town of some 350 inhabitants can boast of an up-to-date hospital,” declared a spring 1923 advertisement for D...
BroMenn donation speaks to 125 years of community service
By Bill Kemp. Published on July 4, 2021.
Carle BroMenn Medical Center has undergone one transformation after another since its modest beginnings 125 years ago. It opened on May...
Dr. E.D. Churchill, savior to wounded GIs
By Bill Kemp. Published on December 8, 2019.
Winning a war is not only about killing—it’s also about saving lives, especially if those lives are wounded soldiers fighting on your s...
Early African-American doctor faced segregated Twin Cities
By Bill Kemp. Published on January 31, 2016.
African-American physician Eugene G. Covington came to Bloomington about 1900 to open a medical practice. This being thir...
Ellen Ferguson, 19th century suffragist, polygamist
By Bill Kemp. Published on November 25, 2018.
Ellen B. Ferguson, who made Bloomington-Normal her home in the 1870s, was a remarkable but ultimately inscrutable champion of women’s s...
Few locals found fame, fortune in Klondike Gold Rush
By Bill Kemp. Published on September 21, 2008.
Back in the late 1800s, a fair number of Central Illinois residents found themselves in the wilds of Canada’s Yukon Territory panning a...
Great Epizootic of 1872 ravaged the horse population
By Bill Kemp. Published on August 14, 2016.
Bloomington’s streets were eerily quiet for several weeks in late November and early December 1872. Missing from the normally bustling ...
Influenza pandemic brought Twin Cities to standstill
By Bill Kemp. Published on March 15, 2020.
“Do Not Fear Influenza,” read a local Red Cross notice from October 1918. “Learn how to avoid it—How to care for those who have it—What...
New Year’s Eve 1919 meant hope for better times
By Bill Kemp. Published on December 29, 2019.
One hundred years ago, New Year’s Eve 1919 brought hope for better days to come. After all, the nation had been deeply scarred by the t...
Poor Farm home to society’s friendless and forlorn
By Bill Kemp. Published on September 8, 2019.
“Be careful or you'll end up at the poor farm” was a popular admonition well in the mid-20th century.From the early 1860s u...
Railroad shops center of deadly 1920 typhoid outbreak
By Bill Kemp. Published on May 10, 2009.
For much of its first 100 years, Bloomington’s formerly unreliable water supply threatened to hold back the city’s growth and industria...
Women’s Improvement League kept Normal clean and healthy
By Bill Kemp. Published on April 21, 2019.
Editor's note: This is Bill Kemp's 650th original "Page from Our Past" column. Bill began writ...