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Before railroads, stage lines crisscrossed the prairies
By Bill Kemp. Published on April 1, 2009.
One of the more striking modern day conveniences we take for granted is the ease of long distance travel. Before commercial airlines, c...
Honeybees sweetened 19th century life in Central Illinois
By Bill Kemp. Published on May 20, 2012.
In November 1887, a poor local honey harvest led The Pantagraph to predict scarce inventories and high prices. “Biscuit will have to be...
Lightning a menace, past and present
By Bill Kemp. Published on May 17, 2015.
On May 20, 1897, a heavy afternoon shower accompanied by a “brilliant electrical display” passed through the Lexington area, catching 1...
Solar superstorm awes locals in 1859
By Bill Kemp. Published on July 31, 2016.
It was known as “the week the sun touched the earth.” In late August and early September 1859, two geomagnetic solar superstorms wallop...
Bloomington witness to 1869 total solar eclipse
By Bill Kemp. Published on August 20, 2017.
Illinois became the nation’s 21st state in 1818, meaning next year will be the Prairie State’s bicentennial. Remarkably, in nearly 200 ...
Weston Cemetery Prairie window to lost world
By Bill Kemp. Published on November 5, 2017.
In 1971, C.E. “Bud” Wink and Dr. Lee Garber of Fairbury undertook an investigation of five-acre Weston Cemetery, located in nearby Yate...
Fearsome ‘Sudden Change’ threatened pioneer life and limb
By Bill Kemp. Published on January 28, 2018.
A cataclysmic meteorological event swept across much of Central Illinois the afternoon of Dec. 20, 1836. The “Sudden Change,” as it bec...
Evergreen Lake groundbreaking 50 years ago
By Bill Kemp. Published on April 22, 2018.
Fifty years ago this week—April 27, 1968—Bloomington officials held a groundbreaking ceremony for the city’s second lake. On that day, ...
Springtime once meant return of prairie flowers
By Bill Kemp. Published on March 31, 2019.
Novelist, poet, essayist and farmer Wendell Berry has said that we live in a time of “punishment and ruins.” This is certainly true whe...
Teays River coursed through Central Illinois eons ago
By Bill Kemp. Published on May 26, 2019.
With no major navigable bodies of water, McLean County and much of east-central Illinois are landlocked. Yet that was decidedly not the...
Twin Cities once hosted own Chautauqua
By Bill Kemp. Published on June 9, 2019.
“The most American thing in America.” That’s what Theodore Roosevelt said of the Chautauqua movement, the popular, week-long outdoor ga...
Moraine View park opened in 1959
By Bill Kemp. Published on January 5, 2020.
There are few lovelier corners of McLean County than Moraine View State Recreation Area. Situated several miles north of LeRoy, the 1,6...
Museum collections window to East Bay’s early years
By Bill Kemp. Published on June 22, 2020.
The COVID-19 crisis has taken many things from us—above all, the lives of 125,000 Americans. We have also lost, for a tim...
For pioneers, river crossings sometimes matter of life and death
By Bill Kemp. Published on March 21, 2021.
Of all the hardships faced by pioneers, the danger of crossing swollen rivers and creeks is one of the more difficult for present-day f...