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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 8, 1896, as the 22-bed Deaconess Hospital—this nearly a quarter century before the discovery of antibiotics. Today, the medical center offers everything from cardiac electrophysiology to interventional radiology. About the only thing that hasn’t changed is its central location—where Franklin and Virginia avenues meet in Normal. Deaconess Hospital owes its origin to a group of local doctors who believed Bloomington-Normal was ready to support a second traditional hospital, specif...
Memorial tablet honors ‘Great War’ dead
By Bill Kemp. Published on November 18, 2018.
One hundred years ago today, November 11, 1918, the guns in Europe fell silent after more than four years of unrelenting carnage. World...
‘Welby and Pearl,’ minstrel act with local roots
By Bill Kemp. Published on October 28, 2018.
For the better part of four decades, friends Jacob Welby Bucher and Charles Carroll Fell of Bloomington performed as the popular vaudev...
Million-dollar cartoonist got start in Bloomington
By Bill Kemp. Published on August 12, 2018.
Although nearly forgotten today, Bloomington-born artist Sid Smith was a towering figure in American popular culture. From 1917 until h...
Kent State shootings spark month of campus unrest
By Bill Kemp. Published on August 5, 2018.
The Vietnam War, it’s been said, was fought on two fronts—in Southeast Asia and back home, especially on college campuses. ...
Railroaders’ library once west side hub
By Bill Kemp. Published on May 13, 2018.
Many longtime Twin City residents will remember long-gone Withers Library, located at the corner of Washington and East streets in down...
Colonial Theatre once Colfax mainstay
By Bill Kemp. Published on April 29, 2018.
As with most small town movie houses, the Colonial Theatre in Colfax offered area residents more than a parade of Hollywood legends on ...
Silos sentinels of Corn Belt since late 19th century
By Bill Kemp. Published on March 11, 2018.
Farm silos, an iconic symbol of the Corn Belt, have long flummoxed city and suburban folk. Frustrated parents clueless as to the purpos...
Turner Hall lost monument to German pride
By Bill Kemp. Published on February 11, 2018.
More than a century ago, Turner Hall was the cultural hub of Bloomington’s large and influential German community. Locate...
‘Trolley Days’ raised funds for the underprivileged
By Bill Kemp. Published on December 4, 2017.
“Let the slogan of the day be, ‘Ride for Charity,’” announced the Jul. 6, 1911 Pantagraph. “Leave the automobile un-cranked and keep th...
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...
ISNU welcomed veterans after WWII
By Bill Kemp. Published on October 22, 2017.
After World War II, Illinois State Normal University put out the welcome mat for returning soldiers and sailors looking to reintegrate ...
Julia Vrooman brought jazz to WW I doughboys
By Bill Kemp. Published on September 24, 2017.
“Julia Scott Vrooman has always been in the news,” noted The Pantagraph in early October 1976. The occasion was her 100th...
Beloved ‘Rags’ rode the rails to local fame
By Bill Kemp. Published on September 10, 2017.
The story of “Rags” is proof that most everyone loves a shaggy dog story, especially those of the literal kind.From 1907 to 1912...
Local abolitionists faced rage, mob violence
By Bill Kemp. Published on July 23, 2017.
Rev. Levi Spencer came to Bloomington in April 1844, and it’s no exaggeration to say that his next four-and-a-half years in McLean Coun...
Bloomington home to world champion singing mouse
By Bill Kemp. Published on June 25, 2017.
“The voice that spanned continents and oceans to win international acclaim is forever stilled,” announced a somber Pantagraph in Octobe...
Emancipation Day once Black community’s July 4th
By Bill Kemp. Published on May 21, 2017.
In the years before the Civil War and for several decades afterward, Bloomington’s African-American community embraced alternatives to ...
‘Black Devils’ earned fame in WW I
By Bill Kemp. Published on April 30, 2017.
During World War I, several dozen Bloomington-Normal residents fought in an African-American regiment that earned a reputation for brav...
McLean County’s first corn farmers also mound builders
By Bill Kemp. Published on April 16, 2017.
It’s been nearly 200 years since the first Euro-Americans began settling would become McLean County. Those prairie pioneers of the 1820...
Four Burger brothers served in World War I
By Bill Kemp. Published on April 9, 2017.
This past week marked the 100th anniversary of the American entry into World War I, though for the other main combatants the unpreceden...
Clara Brian champion of farm families
By Bill Kemp. Published on March 26, 2017.
Clara Brian spent 25 years traveling to every corner of the McLean County countryside with the goal of improving the lives of rural hom...
Water-pumping windmills forerunner to wind turbines
By Bill Kemp. Published on February 26, 2017.
Today’s larger wind farms can include hundreds of 280-feet tall turbines and cover thousands of acres, generating enough megawatts to p...
Campaign to aid Britain comes to Bloomington
By Bill Kemp. Published on February 19, 2017.
On Dec. 5, 1940, two of Bloomington’s favorite sons returned home to call upon Americans to support Great Britain in her greatest hour ...
WW I freighter ‘Evergreen City’ named for Bloomington
By Bill Kemp. Published on February 5, 2017.
At the end of World War I, Bloomington citizens were given the honor of having a freighter named for their fair city. The...
Bloomington’s Fifer Bohrer first state Senator
By Bill Kemp. Published on January 8, 2017.
As thoughts this month turn to newly elected leaders assuming office, it’s a fitting time to look back at the groundbreaking legacy for...
Extinct passenger pigeon once visitor to Central Illinois
By Bill Kemp. Published on December 18, 2016.
In 1810, 24-year-old attorney Henry Marie Brackenridge traveled down the Ohio River to Ste. Genevieve, Mo. and what was still known as ...
Pantagraph reporter turns sci-fi writer
By Bill Kemp. Published on November 13, 2016.
You might’ve missed it, but Thursday, Nov. 10, marked the 50th anniversary of the first airing of the Star Trek episode “The Corbomite ...
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 ...
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...
WW I home front featured French-Belgian relief
By Bill Kemp. Published on July 24, 2016.
The War to End All Wars, as the First World War was once called, brought out the best and the worst in Americans. On the ...
Courts offered women few protections in cases of rape
By Bill Kemp. Published on June 19, 2016.
Rape was the “least-reported, least-prosecuted, and least-punished” of crimes in the 19th century. On Feb. 18, 1874, Lyma...