I have started several posts this week, however none have been completed to my satisfaction. I have been searching for images to go with one of the posts. In that search I found one image that relates to my post earlier in the week about the importance of drainage tile. The image above is a drawing of the Bernard Youngman Tile Factory in Pesotum Illinois. I would imagine that much of the tile that was used here was made at this factory. The Tile Factory also made bricks, however I don’t think that they sold many bricks since there are not many brick buildings in this area. I can’t say for sure, however I would guess that this factory went out of business in the 1900’s. Demand for tile had declined by then and it is likely that they could not compete with the larger brick factories like Danville Brick in Danville Illinois. Whenever the factory did go out of business there is almost nothing that remains of it today. The only possible remnant is a small brick building that I have been told was once part of the tile factory.
For some reason the idea of a place that was once a place of vital activity in a community disappearing is fascinating to me. There are a couple of other places like that in Pesotum. The one I remember best is the grain elevator that used to be between the highway and the railroad. For decades it was a center of activity during the fall harvest. Because it was on a narrow strip of land and also very close to the Pesotum lumberyard you had to turn very sharply as you came down the ramp that exited the elevator. In the late sixties a newer elevator was built at the edge of town and that eventually lead to the closing of the old elevator. As I mentioned next to the elevator there was a lumberyard. Like a lot of small town businesses the lumberyard was past its prime by the time I came along. About the only thing I remember about it is my father telling me that his family once purchased their coal there and that the coal came in bags. I believe that the fate of this lumberyard was to burn down in the late 70’s. The fate of the elevator was to be torn down when the highway was widened in the 1980’s. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of the old elevator. It was a fairly substantial building being made of at least three concrete silos that could be seen for miles. When it was gone it did leave a whole in the local skyline. Now there is only a strip of grass between the highway and the railroad. I imagine that it will not be long before it is forgotten that such a large and important building was there.
The above picture is of the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad Shops in Villa Grove Illinois. The Photo is probably from sometime shortly after 1904 when the shops came to Villa Grove. The C&EI shops were built to service steam engines and employed a lot of people in Villa Grove. When diesel trains took over from the steam trains in the 1950’s the shops were closed. Today the roundhouse pictured here along with the building to the left are still standing. They were used for many years by an agricultural supply business, however they appear to have received little maintenance.
Anyway it is interesting how often places that where once important vanish or fall into ruin. Wish I could put all that together and reach a profound conclusion of some sort, however for now all I have is the observation.
The picture is of Harold’s in Danville, IL. Some people say it can be a scary place to go into at night. I don’t know since I have only taken pictures of the place. Still in general I have mostly found the bars that are supposed to be scary to be a disappointment. Although I don’t go into bars much anymore so that may have changed. Maybe the scariest experience I ever had in a bar was when the working class bar the Dodge House in Champaign changed to the Office II. I went in there late in the afternoon on a Friday and it was filled with office drones freshly released from their cubicles. Most of the guys were wearing ties. I still remember how unsettled I was by seeing this.
Now with this being the Halloween season a more proper subject would be the supernatural type of scary. My strongest memory here is of a abandoned farm house. Back in the 70′s when I was in high school my father had worked out a deal to remove some woodwork from the house and I was helping him. The house had been built by my great-grandfather probably in the 1880’s and hadn’t been lived in for years. While we were there I had the strange feeling of the presence of a young woman. Think what you will of my state of sanity, however that is what I felt. Strangely while we were removing the woodwork we found some letters that had somehow gotten behind the woodwork from a young woman to her boyfriend. I wish now that I had investigated more and found out if there was any story in these letters, however looking back on it I seem to have been fairly incurious about many things in my youth.
Sometime during these days my friend Tim and me were driving around in the country one night. I decided to show him the house we were working on. We pulled into the lane leading up to the house and saw a glowing light coming from one of the upper windows. By glowing I mean it was much brighter than what you would get from a light bulb. And there seemed to be some solid mass to it. We both looked at each other and without words knew that we each just wanted to get out of there. So I backed down the lane and drove away. When we talked about it later we agreed that we each had the feeling that we weren’t supposed to be there. Now however I do wish that I had investigated more. There definitely should not have been any lights in the house since there was no electricity. However I would guess that there could be plenty of worldly explanations for what we saw. At least I have found that to be the case now that I tend to check further into odd things that I see.
Well, I do have some more stories, however I will save these for another post. I have a goal of keeping my posts to a reasonable length. I took a week where I didn’t get on the computer much so I did miss my goal of posting at least every couple of days. Hopefully I can get back into the habit.
I mentioned that I was going to visit Greenwood Cemetery in Decatur last week. It is a pretty interesting and impressive place. From the entrance you are confronted with many fine Mausoleums for some of the well-known Decatur families like the Milliken’s and the Mueller’s.
The photo above is of the “Barrackman Steps“. Legend has it that the spectral image of a woman in a long white grown can be seen here at sunset. Since I was there late in the morning I didn’t get to see if this was so. I do think that it wouldn’t be hard to let your imagination run away in Greenwood Cemetery. If you would like to read more about the history and legends of Greenwood Cemetery here is a link.
The Nelson Cemetery above is unusual for what is often called a Pioneer Cemetery in that it is still occasionally used for burial. In the days before good roads and motor transportation people didn’t go far to bury their dead. So every few miles there appears to have been some type of cemetery. Most of these early cemeteries have not been used in decades and many are in poor condition. Most were used by just a few families in the immediate area. The Nelson Cemetery is located between Pesotum and Tuscola Illinois.
Another pioneer cemetery is the Jeese Cemetery pictured above. This small cemetery holds mostly the graves of the Jeese and Congleton families. I seem to remember that the latest date that I saw on the graves was from the 1930’s. Even through I have spent many years in the vicinity of this cemetery I don’t know much about it. There was a Mrs Congleton who once lived near the cemetery and who worked at the library where I went to grade school, however she was gone before I developed an interest in local history. My guess is that this cemetery was used by the protestants in the area who later used the larger cemetery in Villa Grove when transportation became better.
Some day I have thought that I may do some research on the people who are buried in one of these old cemeteries. I wonder how much I could find out. The idea that these small plots hold the remains of the people who once formed a vibrant community hold some fascination for me.
Once cemeteries were a popular spot for an outing. Families would often spend the day and have a picnic while visiting the graves. Cemeteries were often park like and graves were marked with various kinds of elaborate monuments. Demand for flowers for grave sites was enough that often there would be a florist shop located near the entrance to the cemetery. If you could go back to one of the large old cemeteries in the late 19th century on a weekend you would probably find it to be one of the busiest places in town. Traffic was great enough to the main cemeteries that most towns had a trolley line directly to the cemeteries.
Today most of us stay out of cemeteries unless we have to be there. I don’t remember ever seeing anyone having a picnic in a cemetery. Some people still occasionally visit and decorate graves, however that seems to be becoming more rare. From what I have seen the newer cemeteries seem to be designed so that they can be mowed more easily. Monuments are smaller and often are set at ground level so a mower can easily pass over. Cemeteries seem as if they are where we file away the dead.
I suppose the change came as advances in health care made contact with death a less frequent thing. When I read of people living in the 19th century I am struck by how they must have often been grieving. Today the death of a child is a rare thing. Back then it was common to lose half of your children before they became adults. Before vaccinations and antibiotics death came frequently as the result of infectious disease. Of course this had been the condition of people for a long time, however I wonder if it did not become even more painful during Victorian times. Many people in those times were beginning to enjoy a level of comfort and leisure like humanity had not often experienced on a large scale. Life had become less of a constant struggle for the material things needed to survive. Still the Victorians were just as vulnerable to disease as they were in less prosperous times. And considering that humans have a good capacity to make a bad thing even worse we in the US added in a Civil War to up the death rate even more.
So in the 19th century death was a frequent visitor. And it appears that part of the way they coped was to use some of their new wealth to make places of burial more pleasant. And the result today can be seen in the many old cemeteries with their mausoleums, monuments, and large trees. What got me to thinking along these lines is that I plan to visit one of these old cemeteries this weekend. Greenwood Cemetery in Decatur Illinois is one of the best of the great cemeteries of Illinois. While burials still occur there its glory days ended with the Great Depression. Still Greenwood is in pretty good shape. The Cemetery is on hilly ground with many large oak trees. Many of Decatur’s prominent families used Greenwood so there are some outstanding monuments. I have visited Greenwood in the past, however I didn’t have my camera with me. This time I hope that conditions will be such that I can make some worthwhile photos. I imagine that my friend and I will be the only people in the place. Although Greenwood is popular today with ghost hunters since it is said to be very haunted, it has been empty of people on my previous visits there. I imagine that if I see any picnickers this weekend they will be apparitions from another time.
