Articles
Filter by topic
Featured article
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...
Stevenson faced anti-U.N. mob in 1963
By Bill Kemp. Published on May 15, 2016.
On United Nations Day 1963, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Adlai E. Stevenson II didn’t come back to his hometown of Bloomington. Even so,...
Dance marathons, walkathons once talk of the town
By Bill Kemp. Published on March 13, 2016.
Although born out of the Roaring Twenties, dance marathons and walkathons peaked in popularity during the 1930s and the Great Depressio...
Community fund drive kept C&A Shops in Bloomington
By Bill Kemp. Published on March 6, 2016.
Local and state governments often offer incentives to keep existing businesses or attract new ones. These inducements—in the form of la...
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...
Taps for last Bloomington Civil War veteran in 1940
By Bill Kemp. Published on September 14, 2014.
Today the median age of Korean War veterans is 88 years old, and as the ranks of these old soldiers get increasingly thinner there will...
Bloomington’s Oakland School a modernist architectural gem
By Bill Kemp. Published on June 25, 2013.
The post-World War II era marked a dramatic evolution—if not revolution—in the design of school buildings. In Bloomington...
Normal’s rich past dealt blow with razing of Fell house in 1980
By Bill Kemp. Published on June 25, 2013.
Beginning in the 1960s, many fine, sturdy single-family homes dating from the 19th and early 20th centuries were unceremoniously bulldo...
First brick street in U.S. myth endures in Bloomington
By Bill Kemp. Published on September 30, 2012.
At the southwest corner of the Courthouse Square, near the intersection of Center and Washington streets, stands a historic marker of b...
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...
Brown’s delivered white-collar education
By Bill Kemp. Published on November 29, 2008.
Business colleges played an important but often-overlooked role in American education. For the better part of a half-century, Brown’s B...
Hollywood Legends Brought Local Author’s Novel to Silver Screen
By Bill Kemp. Published on March 5, 2006.
Bloomington writer Harold Sinclair always looked a little out of place, whether it was standing in the middle of John Wayne and filmmak...