From wagons to automobiles, music, and cameras: the story of 525-527 Court St.

By Jared L. Olar

Local History Program Coordinator

Pekinites of an older generation will remember the building at 525-527 Court St. as the home of the Pekin Music Store and The Photoggery. Though this downtown building has long stood vacant, the current owners, Gary and Crista Flynn, are currently renovating and revitalizing the structure to become the home of their daughter Ashley Simmons’ resale boutique Take 2 and Gigi’s Pet Treats. Their daughter’s businesses will be located at 527 Court St., while the Flynns intend to rent out the next door 525 Court St. space to a local business.

525-527 Court St. and its adjacent “pocket park” are shown in this Aug. 2022 image from Google Street View.

Layout of 525-527 Court St. from the Tazewell County Assessor’s website.

The exact age of the 525-527 Court St. building is uncertain. The Tazewell County Assessor’s website says it was built in 1957, but city directories indicate the building was already there by the early 1950s if not earlier.

The story of 525-527 Court St. begins in 1881, when a pair of German immigrants named Nicholaus or Nicholas Weber (1834-1920) and John Frey (1837-1913) partnered to create the wagon-making firm of Weber & Frey in a building located at 625-629 Court St. – an address that was soon renumbered as 525-529 Court St. Weber and Frey made and repaired wagons and carriages, and Frey was also a blacksmith.

The 1887 Pekin city directory not only lists Weber & Frey at 625-629 Court, but also shows the related firm of Weber & Voll next door at 631 Court St. (later renumbered 531 Court). The proprietors of Weber & Voll were Nicholas’ son Henry Weber (1860-1940) and Charles P. Voll (1853-1911), who were general machinists, manufacturers, and repairmen.

In the midst of his family is German immigrant “Uncle Nick” Weber (1834-1920), wagonmaker in the firm of Weber & Frey that was located at the site that is now 525-527 Court St. Photograph uploaded to Find-A-Grave by RMCharlie.

This detail from the May 1885 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin shows the Weber & Frey machine shop and foundry at 625-631 (525-531) Court St.

In this detail from the Jan. 1892 Sanborn map of Pekin, the Weber & Frey Wagon Works is shown at 525-527 Court St. and the Weber & Voll Machine Shop is shown at 529-531 Court St.

An advertisement for Weber & Voll from the 1887 Pekin city directory. Weber & Voll, the machine shop of Henry Weber and Charles P. Voll, was the companion firm of Weber & Frey, the wagon-making business of Henry Weber’s father Nicholas Frey and Nicholas’ partner John Frey. Weber & Frey and Weber & Voll were next door to each other.

The buildings of Weber & Frey and Weber & Voll occupied all the lots from 525 Court St. east to Sixth and Court. Weber & Frey are listed at 525 Court St. in the 1893 and 1895 city directories, and at 525-527 Court St. in the 1898 and 1904 city directories. Weber & Frey appear in Pekin city directories up to 1909, with their street address give as 525-529 Court St. in the 1908 and 1909 directories.

The partnership of Nicholas Weber and John Frey was brought to a sudden end on 25 Sept. 1913, when Frey died of a stroke at the age of 76. Weber then retired, selling the wagon-making and blacksmithing business to Bert Fisher and his brother Henry Fisher, who thus changed the firm’s name to Fisher Bros. The business is listed under that name at 525-529 Court St. in the 1913 and 1914 Pekin city directories.

The firms of Weber & Frey and Weber & Voll are shown at 525-531 Court St. in this detail from the March 1898 Sanborn map of Pekin.

The Nov. 1903 Sanborn map of Pekin shows the Weber & Frey Wagon Shop at 525-531 Court St.

The Weber & Frey Wagon Shop at 525-531 Court St. is shown in this detail from the Dec. 1909 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin.

But by that time, wagons and carriages were fast giving way to automobiles. The Oct. 1916 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin shows that the old Weber & Frey, Weber & Voll, and Fisher Bros. buildings had been remodeled to become an automobile dealership and garage called “Court Garage,” with a 20-car capacity. By the time of the 1922 city directory, Court Garage had become a Ford dealership called Conaghan Motor Co., owned and operated by James T. Conaghan (1874-1936), son of Irish immigrant Thomas Donegan Conaghan who had founded the Planter’s Hotel (today’s Ashers Bar & Grill) at 353-355 Court St.

By the time of the Oct. 1916 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin, the former Weber & Frey Wagon Works had been Court Garage, 525-531 Court St.

This advertisement for Conaghan Motor Co., owned by James T. Conaghan, appeared in the 1922 Pekin city directory.

By 1926, the city directory shows that Conaghan Motor Co. had become the Dowdle Motor Co., owned by William R. Dowdle, and the Sept. 1925 Sanborn map shows that the Conaghan garage had been further remodeled to accommodate up to 50 cars. The 1930 Pekin city directory lists Dowdle Motor Co. at 525-529 Court St., but also shows that the building was being shared with Robert Orville Schwenk Sr., who had a bakery at 527 Court St., and with Henry Shutler “Harry” Kluever (1893-1949), who sold electrical appliances at 525 Court St. (Kluever also served on the Pekin City Council.)

With the 1932 Pekin city directory, however, we find Dowdle Motor Co.’s address listed as 529-531 Court St., while Toney D. Taylor was teaching music at 525 Court St. and Leland E. Jayne (1869-1952), a machine operator for Pekin Leather Products at 1101 Margaret St., was living at 527 Court St.

The garage shown at 525-531 Court St. in the Sept. 1925 Sanborn map of Pekin was first Conaghan Motor Co. and then Dowdle Motor Co., both Ford dealerships.

This advertisement for Dowdle Motor Co., 525-531 Court St., owned by William R. Dowdle, appeared in the 1926 Pekin city directory.

In the 1934 city directory, we find John W. Davis and Muriel Davis, a dressmaker, living at 525 Court, while 527 Court was the location of Progressive Miners of America, Charles Grant (1893-1950), secretary, which met every Friday. Three years later, the directory shows Elmer Alvis, locksmith, along with something called Pekin Dime Delivery, at 527 Court St., while the Central Illinois Light Co. (CILCO), Willis M. Beardsley (1890-1950), district manager, had moved their offices to 525 Court St.

From the 1937 Pekin city directory until the 1956 directory, CILCO’s address is listed as 525-531 Court St., but starting in 1956 the address is listed as only 531 Court St. After Beardsley, the Pekin district manager for CILCO during those years was Arthur L. Grob (1897-1962), who is first listed as district manager in the 1941 Pekin city directory. The 531 Court St. building is now Deverman Advertising.

This advertisement for the Central Illinois Light Co. appeared in the 1936 Pekin city directory, at which time their district office was located at 525-529 Court St.

As for the 525 Court St. address, the 1939 and 1941 city directories say that was then Lofthouse Dress Shop, owned by Fred Lofthouse (1888-1944). In the 1943 and 1946 directories, however, we find that Lofthouse Dress Shop had moved to 436 Court, while 525 Court St. was the home of one of Lofthouse’s dressmakers, Lillian G. Elkins. But by 1948, 525 Court St. was a substation for Peoria Newspapers Inc. (i.e., the Peoria Morning Star and Peoria Journal-Transcript). Peoria Newspapers Inc.’s office was then at 318 Elizabeth St., managed by Paul H. Massey. We continue to find Peoria Newspapers Inc.’s substation at 525 Court St. in the 1950 and 1952 Pekin city directories.

In the 1955 directory, 525 Court is listed as the Peoria Journal Star substation (following the merger of the Peoria Star and the Peoria Journal-Transcript). In the same directory, though, Pekin Music Shop makes its first appearance at 525 Court St. The proprietors of this popular business were Richard C. “Dick” McCloud (1921-2011) and his wife Merla M. McCloud (1926-2017). In 1967, Dick and Merla sold Pekin Music Shop to Charles Sisney, who changed the business’ name to Hi-Fi One Stop. Sisney’s store last appears in Pekin city directories in 1974. In the 1975, the music store at 525 Court St. is listed as Royal Sounds, owned by David Prince.

Richard C. McCloud (1921-2011), owned Pekin Music Shop at 525 Court St. from the early 1950s until 1967.

An advertisement for Pekin Music Shop, 525 Court St., from the 1961 Pekin city directory. The business, owned by Richard C. and Merla M. McCloud, had opened at that location in the mid-1950s.

Pekin Music Shop at 525 Court St. and The Photoggery camera shop at 527 Court St. are shown in this March 1958 photograph. The J & J Tap building on the left of the photograph has since been demolished and is now the site of a downtown “pocket park.”

Meanwhile, since the mid-1950s Bernard W. Heberer Sr. (1914-2002) had been running a successful photography and camera shop called The Photoggery at 527 Court St. The Photoggery first appears in Pekin city directories in 1956. In the 1969 directory, we find that Heberer had also started a companion business devoted to video and sound, called Engineered Sound-Video (later abbreviated at E. S. V.). Bernard W. Heberer Sr. is listed as president of The Photoggery until the 1989 city directory. After that he retired and his son Steven H. Heberer moved the business form 527 Court St. out to the Pekin Mall, and the old storefront at 527 Court went vacant for a few years.

As for E. S. V., Bernard W. Heberer Jr. took over that side of the family business, being first listed as president of Engineered Sound-Video Inc. in the 1977 Pekin city directory. The year before that, Engineered Sound-Video had moved into 525 Court St. after Royal Sounds went out of business there. After The Photoggery left 527 Court St. at the end of the 1980s, E. S. V. at 525 Court began to use the space at 527 Court as additional space.

E. S. V. Inc. last appears in Pekin city directories in 2000. Since that year, neither 525 Court St. nor 527 Court St. have been listed in Pekin city directories – both storefronts have been vacant since then. But Gary and Crista Flynn are now working to bring that long hiatus to an end.

525-527 Court st. sits vacant in this Dec. 6, 2001, photograph from the Tazewell County Assessor’s website.

This July 2011 Google Street View image shows 525-527 Court St.

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Once Jones Bros. Jewelers, now Rhythm & Brews: the history and prehistory of 519 Court St.

By Jared L. Olar

Local History Program Coordinator

Since 2011, the Brawner family has been serving up music and drinks from the 500 block of Court Street. Their tavern, Rhythm & Brews, first opened in 2011 in what was then a 70-year-old building that they leased at 513 Court St. Then on 5 June 2014, the Brawners purchased the building at 519 Court St., where Rhythm & Brews has been ever since.

Those who patronize their business, however, can see the evidence of their building’s history every time they walk in or out of the front entrance – because the front porch still prominently displays the words “Jones Bros.” That is left over from the days when 517-519 Court St. was the home of Jones Bros. Jewelers, a name well-known throughout Central Illinois. Jones Bros. Jewelers was based at 517-519 Court St. from 1939 to 1997.

In this Google Street View image from Aug. 2022, the old “Jones Bros.” business name is still visible on the porch of Rhythm & Brews at 519 Court St.

The business history of 519 Court St. predates the arrival of Jones Bros. Jewelers by about 45 years, commencing with a harness and collar manufacturing shop owned and operated by Fred W. Reichel (1866-1959) that first appears on record in the 1895 Pekin city directory. City directories and Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps show that there was no structure located at 519 Court St. until after January 1892.

The March 1898 Sanborn map of Pekin shows Fred W. Reichel’s harness shop at 519 Court St. The 1898 Pekin city directory says John G. Albers, Singer Manufacturing Co. agent, was also at 519 Court that year. The 1885 and 1892 Sanborn maps, as well as the 1877 aerial view map of Pekin, show that the lot at 519 Court St. was then empty, and city directories do not show anything there until 1895.

Fred W. Reichel’s harness and collar manufacturing shop is shown at 519 Court St. in this detail from the Nov. 1903 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin.

Reichel’s harness-making shop continues to appear at 519 Court St. until the 1908 Pekin city directory. He briefly shared his building in 1898 with John G. Albers (1861-1919), Singer Manufacturing Co. agent, and also rented the second floor in 1908 to Charles H. Haynes (1873-1919). Reichel closed his shop about the time of the 1908 city directory, as we can see from the following year’s directory, which shows the Schlegel & Linneman electrical supplies firm at 519 Court St., owned and operated by John O. Schlegel and Fred F. Linneman. The 1909 directory also shows that the 519 Court St. building’s second floor was the home of J. F. and Mae Richford – J. F. Richford worked at a liquor store at 309 Court St.

In this detail from the Dec. 1909 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin is shown the electrical supplies business of John O. Schlegel and Fred F. Linneman.

It’s unclear how long Schlegel & Linneman occupied Reichel’s building, but by the time of the 1913 Pekin city directory we find the Rubart Bros. Bakery at 519 Court St., with Frank Conaghan living on the second floor. The Rubart brothers were Nelson Rubart (1888-1961) and John H. Rubart Jr. (1883-1953). The 1914 directory says Bert Cordin also had a butcher shop at 519 Court St. alongside the Rubart Bros. Bakery. By 1922, the Rubart brothers had moved their bakery across the street to 526 Court St., though their clerk Alma Rutledge (1871-1955) still lived upstairs at 519 1/2 Court St. The bakery was purchased in 1926 by Martin Nelson Larkin (1904-1987), who changed its name to Larkin Home Bakery, and kept Rutledge on as clerk.

Meanwhile, we find in the 1922 Pekin city directory that Fred W. Reichel, in partnership with his son Otto F. Reichel (1897-1940), had opened a grocery store at 519 Court St. that they called Model Grocery Co. The Reichels’ grocery store continues to appear in Pekin city directories at 519 Court St. (with Alma Rutledge still living upstairs) until the 1928 city directory. But beginning with the 1930 city directory, we find that Model Grocery Co. had moved to 523 Court St. As for 519 Court St., that address disappears altogether from Pekin city directories until 1939, which indicates that the Reichel Building was either vacant or had perhaps been destroyed in a fire.

The Oct. 1916 Sanborn map of Pekin shows a grocery store at 519 Court St. This must be the Model Grocery Co. of Fred W. Reichel and his son Otto F. Reichel. Two years earlier the Rubart Bros. Bakery was still located there.

The old two-storey Reichel Building at 519 Court St. is shown in this detail from the Sept. 1925 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin. The building then housed the Model Grocery Co., owned and operated by Fred W. Reichel and his son Otto F. Reichel.

In any case, the Reichel Building at 519 Court St. was certainly replaced in early 1939 by a new structure known as the Kensey Building. That is the same building – albeit undergoing remodeling and expansion over the years – that still stands at that location today. The building’s lot covers the addresses 517-519 Court St.

The 1939 Pekin city directory heralded the arrival of Jones Bros. Jewelers, founded by Orville Ralph Jones (1906-1988) and Earl Edwin Jones Sr. (1909-1986) on 4 March 1939. The 1949 Pekin Centenary, page 16, includes the following historical narrative for their business:

Jones Bros. Jewelers was founded March 4, 1939, by Orville and Earl Jones. It was started after many years of preparation and study in all fields of the jewelry business.

The actual start was in 1928, when Earl started to study at Bradley Horological Institute. A short time later Orville took up the study of Horology. There followed years of practical experience in all fields of the jewelry business. Their combined experience includes watch and jewelry repairing, jewelry manufacturing, clock repairing, diamond setting, engraving, and jewelry designing.

Earl Jones took up the study of Gemology, and in 1936 received the title of Certified Gemologist and Registered Jeweler of the American Gem Society. He was president of the Northern Ohio Guild of the A.G.S. and has served as instructor at their annual Conclaves for many years. At present he serves on the Board of Governors of the Gemological Institute of America.

Earl was working as designer and sample maker of Orange Blossom rings at the Traub Manufacturing Company and Orville was managing the watch repair department at Wm. Taylor Son & Company in Cleveland when they decided to combine their talents.

In 1942 the Town and Country Gift shop was added, and 1947 the store was completely remodeled and enlarged to its present size. The remodeled store includes a large China and glass department in a separate room, a gift shop, a new silver department, and a much larger jewelry section. The repair department has grown to include four watchmakers and three jewelers. During the Christmas Season there are as many as 20 employees.

From a small beginning in 1939 their store has grown to the largest jewelry store and gift shop in Central Illinois.

A photograph of Jones Bros. Jewelers’ original storefront. When the jewelry store first opened, the business only occupied a third of a the Kensey building, but soon spread out into the entire building and even expanded the structure with rear addition.

Jones Bros. Jewelers first city directory advertisement, from the 1941 Pekin city directory. The business was found in March 1939.

In this photograph from the late 1940s that was reproduced in the Pekin Daily Times, Jones Bros. Jewelers co-founder Earl Jones uses a tool to measure ring size while Zillah Kriegsman (1907-1964) adjusts the focus on a gemscope.

A detail from the Jones Bros. Jewelers advertisement in the 1949 Pekin Centenary volume.

Further valuable details of the history of Jones Bros. Jewelers are provided by the 1974 Pekin Sesquicentennial volume, on pages 50-51:

In 1939 Orville Jones came to Pekin in search of a suitable location in which to start a jewelry business in conjunction with his brother Earl. Since he unfamiliar with the area, he stopped at the John M. Goar Agency to see if any useable sites were available. Much as Goar wanted to see a new business come to Pekin, he simply didn’t know of a good location at the time, but just as Orville was pulling away from the curb, Goar came running out of his office, having recalled a building under construction that might very well prove satisfactory. The Kensey building he showed them appeared to be the best location the Jones brothers had seen, and Jones Brothers Jewelers has been located there ever since.

With the aid of one assistant, Jane Prettyman Smith, Orville officially opened the business in March of 1939; in the fall Earl and his wife, Edna, moved to Pekin to help operate the enterprise, which at that time occupied one-third of the Kensey building. Today the store employs 21 people and has grown to fill the entire building as well as an 18-foot addition to the rear of the original structure.

From their first days in business, the Jones brothers have stressed good repair work and service. They were among the first in the area to offer the ‘Bride Has Whispered’ service, allowing prospective brides to register their silver and china patterns, as well as any special gifts they might choose from the store’s vast selection. A Certified Gemologist since 1936, Earl has held that title longer than any other living jeweler in the world; because he is especially interested in special order work, a number of loose stones are available at all times, making Jones Brothers Jewelers one of the more accommodating and respected firms in the area.

A Pekin Daily Times newsprint photograph of the Jones Bros. Jewelers storefront from Nov. 1954.

The Jones Bros. Jewelers storefront from the mid- to latter 20th century. The building, constructed in early 1939, is now the home of the Rhythm & Brews tavern.

Jones Bros. Jewelers final city directory advertisement under their original ownership, published the 1979 Pekin city directory. Orville and Earl sold their business to the Woolseys that year.

The Jones brothers remained the co-owners of their business until 1979, with Orville as president and Earl as vice-president and treasurer. They retired that year and sold Jones Bros. Jewelers to Robert Bennett Woolsey (1945-1989) and his brother E. Baird Woolsey, sons of Robert Baird Woolsey (1921-2003) of Woolsey Funeral Home. Bennett was president of Jones Bros. Jewelers until his death, and his brother Baird served as secretary-treasurer until the mid-1980s when he returned to the family’s funeral home business. In 1981, a second Jones Bros. Jewelers store was opened in the Metro Center in Peoria.

Many still remember Bennett’s whispered suggestion “Jones Bros. Jewelers” in his television commercials. Born in Galesburg in 1945, Bennett came to Pekin with his family in the late 1940s and grew up in Pekin, playing football at Pekin Community High School. Bennett was very active in the community, serving on the church council of St. Paul United Church of Christ and on the board of directors of First Federal Savings and Loan Association. He was also a member of the Boy Scouts, Pekin Elks, and Empire Lodge 126. Sadly, in the late 1980s Bennett’s tenure as company president fell under a shadow as he faced sentencing in federal court for sales tax evasion, and he took his own life on 27 Dec. 1989.

R. Bennett Woolsey (1945-1989), president of Jones Brothers Jewelers from 1979 until his death.

Jones Bros. Jewelers continued to prosper in Peoria and Pekin under the leadership of Bennet’s widow Betty Jo (Pratt) Woolsey. In the summer of 1997, however, the decision was made to close the Pekin store. Headed by Bennett’s and Betty’s son Bob Woolsey since the late 1990s, Jones Bros. Jewelers today continues the heritage of Orville and Earl Jones in Peoria at 7705 N. Grand Prairie Drive.

After the Pekin Jones Bros. Jewelers store closed, the 517-519 Court St. addressed disappeared from Pekin city directories for a couple years. Then in 2000, we find a listing for Pekin Bath & Body & Gift Shoppe, owned by Doris Gray. Her store was succeeded at 517 Court St. by a magazine dealership called Beers Direct USA (later called Magazine Yellow Pages), owned by Cathy Beers, a business that first appears in the 2004 Pekin city directory. Also listed in the 2004 directory in the 519 Court St. half of the building was DUI Countermeasures, with Colleen Moore as manager.

This Tazewell County Assessor’s photograph shows the storefront of 519 Court St. as it appeared in Dec. 2001, when Doris Gray’s Pekin Bath & Body & Gift Shoppe was located in the building.

One wonders if the fact that a business called “Beers Direct USA” was sharing a building with DUI Countermeasures may have influenced Cathy Beers’ decision to change the name of her business. Be that as it may, Magazine Yellow Pages last appears at 517 Court St. in the 2014 Pekin city directory, while DUI Countermeasures is last listed at 519 Court St. in the 2011 directory. However, from 2010 to 2014 we find Amanda Rogy’s consignment shop Amanda’s Closet at 517 Court St. Finally, beginning with the 2015 city directory, Rhythm & Brews is listed as the sole occupant of 519 Court St.

In this Google Street View image from July 2011, Amanda’s Closet consignment shop is shown at 519 Court St.

A Tazewell County Assessor’s photograph from June 2013 shows an estate sales business at 519 Court St. Pekin city directories do not identify this business, however.

The old “Jones Bros.” business name can be seen on the porch of Rhythm & Brews, 519 Court St., in this Google Street View image from July 2018.

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Pekin was encircled by the Whiskey Ring

By Jared L. Olar
Local History Program Coordinator

The era of Prohibition during the 1920s is remembered as a time of speakeasies, bootlegging and larger-than-life gangster kingpins. Not as well-remembered, however, is an earlier time when a vast and lucrative bootlegging conspiracy operated in the United States — and was active in Pekin.

Known as the Whiskey Ring, this criminal enterprise got its start in St. Louis about 1870, spreading to several other major cities such as Chicago, Milwaukee and New Orleans, also putting down roots in Peoria and Pekin. It was aided and abetted by corrupt political officials both high and low. Among the leading conspirators was none other than Gen. Orville E. Babcock, private secretary to President Ulysses S. Grant (though the president himself was never implicated).

In the 1949 Pekin Centenary, we read, “The power of the ring was said to be tremendous in a wide area with headquarters at St. Louis, and something of its potency here in Pekin is indicated by the incident in which a revenue man was reportedly arrested by local authorities and held in custody on a trumped up charge while a boat-load of whiskey was cleared off the dock and hidden away.”

Alcohol was not illegal in those days — quite the contrary, it was a booming business. However, during the Civil War the federal government had imposed heavy taxes on whiskey to help finance the war effort, and the tax remained in force even after the war’s end. Before the war, whiskey cost only 25 cents a gallon, but the federal tax of $2 a gallon sharply increased the cost of doing business. Added to that were local taxes and fees, such as the doubling of Pekin’s liquor license fee from $100 to $200 per year in 1870 (as recorded in the 1887 Pekin City Directory).

It wasn’t too long before many distillers began to come up with ways to evade the tax, chiefly through bribery, smuggling and bootlegging.

“Officials were party to the secret alliances which made it possible for some whiskey makers to present false reports, with the effect of paying taxes on as little as one-third of their actual whiskey shipments. In 1870 the vast bootleg conspiracy received some attention, although it continued until 1874, using less bold methods,” says the Pekin Centenary.

“On the other hand,” continues the Centenary’s account, “there was nothing bashful about the business of emptying the vast city cisterns built for fire protection here in Pekin, and filling them with highly inflammable bootleg whiskey instead of water. Liquor was also cached in corn shocks, and kegs were sealed and sunk in the Illinois river, here and at Peoria and other locations. Hundreds of those invaluable kegs were recovered by federal agents dragging the river later.”

Powerful and well-connected though they were, the ringleaders of the conspiracy could not escape justice forever. On 10 May 1875, U.S. Treasury Secretary Benjamin Bristow, using secret agents from outside his own department (since he couldn’t trust his own men), coordinated a series of raids and broke up the ring. Due to Gen. Babcock’s closeness to the president, Bristow did not inform Grant of the operation.

According to the Centenary, “(T)he break-up finally came with wholesale arrests all over the state. It is recorded that Pekin people at that time saw whole carloads of prisoners hauled through to St. Louis to face a Federal court. Actually, however, no one of importance was ever sent to jail, as only a few ‘mediocrities’ took the punishment and the whole thing passed over; but at any rate the ‘whiskey ring’ was broken and the millions of dollars being sidetracked from the U.S. treasury into private hands, while never recovered, was at least discontinued.”

In fact, although Babcock managed to secure an acquittal, 110 people were convicted in federal court and more than $3 million in diverted taxes were recovered by the federal government.

This Feb. 1876 drawing from “Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper” depicts a hearing in St. Louis, Mo., at the start of the trial of Gen. Orville E. Babcock, private secretary of President Ulysses S. Grant. Babcock was one of the ringleaders of the Whiskey Ring tax fraud conspiracy, but was acquitted in federal court.

Further details on the Whiskey Ring in Pekin can be gleaned from the November 2015 issue of the Tazewell County Genealogical & Historical Society Monthly, page 1466, which includes an excerpt and a reprint from two vintage newspapers that tell of Pekin alcohol distillery owner Henry P. Westerman (1836-1922). It’s not really the kind of news about one’s self that one likes to see in the newspaper.

The excerpt, headlined “H. P. Westerman in the Toils,” comes from the Delavan Times of 11 Dec. 1875. It reads as follows:

“The Pantagraph is responsible for the statement that a warrant was issued out of the United States District Court Saturday for the arrest of Henry P. Westerman, of the Pekin Alcohol Company. It is charged that there were frauds perpetrated by the Pekin Alcohol Manufacturing Company up to last January, when the name of the company was changed to the Pekin Alcohol Company. It is for refusing to produce the books of the old company showing the transactions during the time of the crooked work, that he is to be arrested. The penalty is from $500 to $5,000, and six months to ten years imprisonment.”

The federal warrant issued for Westerman’s arrest was a part of Bristow’s efforts against the Whiskey Ring. The 1949 Pekin Centenary’s account of the Whiskey Ring does not name any of the Pekin conspirators, but we know Westerman was involved, because, as the TCGHS Monthly’s reprint of an editorial column from the 3 Nov. 1881 Washington Republican informs us, Westerman was “the old head of the Pekin whiskey ring.”

This engraving of Henry P. Westerman was published in the 1873 “Atlas Map of Tazewell County”

This 1872 engraving of Henry P. Westerman’s distillery, the Pekin Alcohol Manufacturing Company, was included in the 1873 “Atlas Map of Tazewell County”

Ben C. Allensworth’s 1905 “History of Tazewell County, Illinois,” page 1083, mentions that John L. Smith (who served as Pekin mayor in 1885 and 1886) sold his distillery to Westerman, which may be how Westerman first got into the distilling business. Westerman’s Pekin Daily Times obituary also mentions that he “was an early resident of this city and for many years was prominent in its affairs. He at one time conducted the old Crown distillery here and was actively engaged in business here for many years.”

Allensworth’s history, page 905, says Westerman was elected Fourth Ward alderman for Pekin in 1861, but he resigned the same year. He later moved to San Francisco, Calif., where he died, his body being brought back to Pekin and buried in Oak Grove Cemetery (now Lakeside Cemetery). As an aside, Oak Grove Cemetery began as Temperance Cemetery, founded by the Pekin Sons of Temperance, so the burial of an old Pekin distiller there makes for something of a humorous irony.

Charles C. Chapman’s 1879 “History of Tazewell County, Illinois,” page 611, includes this short biographical notice of Westerman:

“H. P. Westerman was born, Aug. 25, 1836, in St. Louis, Mo., and is the son of Conrad and Margaretha (Lang) Westerman. His father and his family came to Pekin in 1846, and old Father Westerman died here in 1873. H. P. attended the common schools of Pekin, and then entered Bell’s Commercial College, from where he graduated. In 1848 he embarked in the dry goods business as clerk, and from that time his active business career began. He was united in marriage with Mary L. Gregg, Oct. 13, 1856. Three children were born to them, two of whom are living.”

In fact, Westerman is known to have had four children: a son, Don Heaton Westerman, who died when only 9 months old in August 1866, and three daughters, May Leslie Westerman, who died at age 9 also in August 1866, Alice Breimar Westerman Chain, and Susan Leslie Westerman Brown.

Though Chapman devoted only a single paragraph to Westerman himself, Chapman continued with two pages of a biography – more of a panegyric, perhaps – of Westerman’s wife Mary, who served locally in the Soldiers Aid Society during the Civil War for four years, two as president and two as secretary. Chapman tells of dissension in the Society over how best to spend their donations, which led some local newspapers to denounce Mary Westerman unjustly, accusing her of “striking hands with the Copperheads.” (She was a Democrat, and many Democrats in Pekin during the Civil War were Copperheads, that is, they had Confederate sympathies.)

Besides Chapman’s information, the 1873 “Atlas Map of Tazewell County,” page 38, features a lengthy biography of H. P. Westerman and his wife Mary, while engravings of their mansion and of Henry’s distillery are found on pages 8-9.  Mary Westerman is also important to the history of the Pekin Public Library due to her prominent role in the founding and promotion of the Ladies Library Association, forerunner to the public library.

This engraving of Henry P. Westerman’s mansion on Washington Street at Buena Vista Avenue in Pekin was published in the 1873 “Atlas Map of Tazewell County”

This detail of an 1881 newspaper column in the Washington Republican tells of an altercation between a Pekin alcohol distiller and a prominent Pekin newspaper publisher and printer. IMAGE COURTESY OF THE TAZEWELL COUNTY GENEALOGICAL & HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Given the number of newspaper articles over the years that showed Henry Westerman in a negative light, it’s perhaps understandable that he wouldn’t be on the friendliest of terms with the local press. It’s in that context that the first paragraph of the Washington Republican’s above quoted editorial column of 3 Nov. 1881, may be understood. The Republican editor’s column reprinted a couple items from a recent issue of the Peoria Journal, in which the Journal (and the Washington Republican) enjoyed some jokes at the expense of their Pekin newspaper rivals:

“J. B. Bates, of the Republican, who was threatened at his very domicile by H. P. Westerman, the old head of the Pekin whiskey ring, evidently wished the people to know that he carried no concealed weapons, as he marched from and to his home with the immense Missouri bush-whacker’s rifle over his shoulder. Armed with such a murderous-looking weapon, we are rejoiced to know that he will hereafter walk in the paths of peace.”

The Journal mixed up the initials of the editor of the Tazewell Republican – he was W. H. Bates, while J. B. Irwin was then editor of the Pekin Daily Times. In any case, the Washington Republican’s editorial writer remarked, “Nor is Bates the only Pekin editor who is fearful of being blown into kingdom come. Hoffman, also, sees danger ahead and while he has no fears of the hereafter he don’t propose to take passage across the rolling Jordan until he gets a good ready, and woe be unto him who tackles the Dutchman. See what the same [Peoria Journal] writer says of Jack:

“Jack Hoffman of the Freie Presse, with blood in his eye, and his ears flopping, marched boldly down Court street with a shot gun over his shoulder a la Bates. All the editors here appear to be on the war path. Peace! peace, brethern (sic), let not your angry passions rise, for we think too much of you all, to have even one of you pass out of the world in a hurry, besides you would be missing heaps of fun up here on earth.”

The Washington Republican’s editorial writer then added, using colorful language that would likely result in a libel suit today, “Bates and Hoffman are not alone in this, for Irwin has been in hot water ever since he went to Pekin, and has had more trouble with his neighbors than all the others put together. He fears neither God, hell nor the devil, and, in fact, the nearer he gets to the latter the more he feels at home. The old man will reach for him though some of these days, and then heaven pity the unfortunate imps who must endure his company throughout eternity.”

#benjamin-bristow, #copperheads, #gen-orville-e-babcock, #h-p-westerman, #henry-p-westerman, #mary-l-gregg-westerman, #pekin, #pekin-bicentennial, #pekin-history, #ulysses-s-grant, #whiskey-ring, #william-h-bates

Pekin in the Civil War: the Knights of the Golden Circle vs. Pekin’s Union League

By Jared L. Olar

Local History Program Coordinator

The city of Pekin currently has four Illinois State Historical Society markers highlighting significant events and individuals in Pekin’s history. Those markers are:

1) The marker in Riverfront Park that commemorates the tragic wreck of the Riverboat Columbia on 5 July 1918.

2) The marker on the side of the former Pekin National Bank building at the intersection of Court and Capitol streets commemorating the founding of the Union League at that site on 25 June 1862.

3) and 4) The two markers in Legins-Costley Park dedicated in June 2023 in the 400 block of Court Street, honoring the remarkable lives of Nance Legins-Costley and her son Pvt. William H. Costley of the 29th U.S. Colored Infantry.

As we noted last time, the dedication of a fifth ISHS marker is being planned for this Juneteenth, honoring the 12 African-American men of Pekin and Elm Grove Township who fought for an end to slavery in the 29th U.S. Colored Infantry during the Civil War.

But this week we will turn our attention to the Union League historical marker and to story behind it. As we have recalled before here at “From the History Room,” the founding of the Union League during the Civil War was one of the high points of Pekin’s history. In the initial stages of the Civil War pro-Confederacy and pro-slavery sentiment remained prominent even as far north as Peoria and Pekin (both communities having been founded by slave-owning families, though abolitionists were also present here from the start). Consequently, prior to the formation of the Union League “those who believed in the Union spoke often in whispers in Pekin streets and were wary and often afraid,” says the 1949 Pekin Centenary, because the pro-Confederacy Knights of the Golden Circle (from which the Ku Klux Klan developed after the war) was a menacing force in Pekin.

The idea of establishing a league in Pekin to support the Union cause is credited to the Rev. J. W. N. Vernon, the new minister of Pekin’s First Methodist Church, who had recently come to this community from Tennessee where similar leagues or secret societies had been formed. Besides Rev. Vernon, the founding members of the Union League were Richard Northcroft Cullom, former Illinois state senator; Dr. Daniel A. Cheever, abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor; Charles Turner, Tazewell County state’s attorney; Henry Pratt, Delavan Township supervisor; Alexander Small, Deer Creek Township supervisor; George H. Harlow, Tazewell County circuit clerk; Jonathan Merriam, stock farmer who became a colonel in the Union army; Hart Montgomery, Pekin postmaster; John W. Glassgow, justice of the peace; and Levi F. Garrett, Pekin grocery store owner and baker.

After the Civil War, the Union League became a Republican Party social club, but would carry on its abolitionist legacy through support of civil rights for African-Americans.

The founding of the Union League was first commemorated by a plaque placed on the side of the old Smith Bank building on 7 Dec. 1920. Later the building housed Marty Perlman’s business, the Perlman Furniture Co., which was destroyed by a fire in Oct. 1968. But, as the Pekin Daily Times reported in an article dated 16 Aug. 1975, “Perlman pried the charred plaque off the east wall after the flames had been extinguished, had it reconditioned and saw that it was kept safely until it could be remounted in an appropriate place at a significant time.”

This image of the 1920 historical plaque commemorating the 1862 founding of the Union League in Pekin was published in a pamphlet containing William H. Bates’ address at the plaque’s dedication. The image in the pamphlet has the following caption: “The above bronze tablet has been placed on the west wall of the building at 331 Court street, Pekin, Illinois, to commemorate the birthplace of the first Council of the Union League of America, and as a tribute to the patriotic and loyal people of Tazewell County during the great American Civil War. The Council lodge room was in the third-story of the above named building.”

Shown in this photograph from the 16 Aug. 1975 Pekin Daily Times are Marty Perlman, left, and Gerald Conaghan, right, president of Pekin National Bank, holding a historical plaque commemorating the founding of the Union League. The plaque was first placed on the east wall of the old Smith Bank/Perlman Furniture building at the corner of Court and Capitol in 1920, but in 1975 was remounted in the lobby of the Pekin National Bank, which was built on the same site as the Smith Bank/Perlman Furniture building which burned down in 1968.

That time and place came on Tuesday, 19 Aug. 1975, when the old 1920 plaque was remounted in the lobby of Pekin National Bank (built on the site of the Smith Bank/Perlman Furniture Co. building) on the occasion of President Gerald R. Ford’s visit to Pekin to dedicate the Pekin Public Library and Everett M. Dirksen Center.

But a few days before that, the Illinois State Historical Society marker on the outside of the east wall of the Pekin National Bank had already been mounted. That plaque, donated by the Union League of America and the Illinois State Historical Society, was formally dedicated at the same time as the remounting of the 1920 plaque.

A historical plaque on the outside wall of Pekin National Bank at the corner of Court and Capitol streets in downtown Pekin marks the site where the Union League of America was founded. IMAGE COURTESY OF ILLINOIS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The story of the founding of the Union League in Pekin and their successful challenge to the Knights of the Golden Circle is told in a pamphlet published for the occasion of the 1920 plaque dedication by the old Tazewell County History Society. The pamphlet, entitled “Knights of the Golden Circle versus Union League of America,” contains the full text of the formal dedicatory address that was delivered at the Tazewell County Courthouse by Pekin pioneer historian and Civil War veteran William Henry Bates.

Bates’ address is here subjoined:

BROTHER PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

We have assembled to dedicate the erection of a bronze tablet and pay tribute to the memory of those patriots who organized and were members of the first Council of the Union League of America instituted in the Northern States.

In order to give you a better understanding of the motive that led to the organization of the Union League of America, I feel it my duty, in as brief a manner as possible, to speak of the causes that called the Union-loving adherents of our grand galaxy of States, under the glorious Star and Stripes, to organize and pledge allegiance to the best Government on earth.

According to the report made by Hon. J. Holt, Judge Advocate General of the Bureau of Military Justice, to Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, under date of October 8th, 1864, we learn that about the time of the first conscription of troops, during the war between the slave and free States, northern sympathizers with those in rebellion against the National Government, organized under the following titles: “Mutual Protection Society,” the “Circle of Honor,” or the “Circle,” or “Knights of the Mighty Host,” “Southern League,” “Order of the Sons of Liberty,” “McClellan Minute Guard,” “Order of the American Knights,” etc., but more widely as the “Knights of the Golden Circle.”

The membership of these various societies organized themselves into bodies called “Temples’’ – individually they were often spoken of as “Copperheads.” In the Northern States their membership reached a grand total of 350,000, two-thirds of whom were armed, organized into military units and drilled. According to the secret constitution of its Supreme Council, provision was made that the Supreme Commander – “shall be Commander of all Military forces belonging to the Orders in the various States” when called into actual service.

The oath, which was administered to the members of the K. G. C., prescribed a penalty for its violation, as follows: “A shameful death! and further, that the body of the person guilty of such violation shall be divided into four parts and cast to the four gates of the Temple!”

Not only did the K. G. C. oath enjoin a blind obedience to the commands of the Superiors of the Order, but was required to be held of paramount obligation to any oath which may he administered to any member in a court of justice, or elsewhere.

Through signs, passwords or signals, any K. G. C. member was permitted to pass through the Confederate lines, and was received and entertained as a friend of the secession cause.

A few of the many traitorous principles of the K. G. C., was to harass the families of the Union soldiers, thus causing their desertion so they could come home to protect fathers, mothers, wives, and children. Resist all recruiting for the Union army. To liberate, by force if necessary, all Confederate prisoners confined in northern prisons. Co-operating with Confederate raiders, through the K. G. C. signals and passwords.

Through reliable evidence given to the court over which Judge Holt presided, it was proven that Jeff Davis, as well as many leaders in and out of the Confederate army, were members of one of the several traitorous bodies named above.

THE UNION LEAGUE.

The birth of the Union League was attributable to the loyal men of Tennessee, who, when driven from their homes by their “secesh” neighbors, soon after the opening of the civil war, sought refuge in

inaccessible places and eaves in the mountains of their State, and gathered around improvised altars, covered with “Old Glory” on which lay the open Bible, and with left hand on the Sacred Word of God and their right band raised toward Heaven, took an oath of fealty to the Government of their forefathers and hatred to traitors and all autocratic secessionists and their co-workers.

Thus was born the Union League, which was to have a new birth, with the word America added to its title, at Pekin, Illinois, on the 25th of June. This was the first Council (or Lodge) of the U. L. of A., and its Northern birth took place in the third story of the brick building at 331 Court street, known for many years as the Smith Bank building, and on which we have placed a bronze tablet in commemoration, and as a tribute, to the loyal citizens of Tazewell County.

It is an authenticated fact that the Union League of America received aid and sanction from President Abraham Lincoln.

The first Council was composed of leading Union men of Tazewell County, to-wit: John W. Glassgow, J. P.; Dr. D. A. Cheever, Hart Montgomery, Major R. N. Cullom, Alexander Small, Rev. J. W. M. Vernon, Geo. H. Harlow, Chas. Turner, Jonathan Merriam, Henry Pratt and L. F. Garrett. One of the original eleven was a Tennessee refugee, who introduced the Union mountaineers’ oath, which was accepted pending the reorganization in the North.

The U. L. of A. grew rapidly, and on September 25th, 1862, the first Illinois State Council met at Bloomington, Ill., with representatives from twelve counties. At this meeting the organization was completed and the following officers chosen:

Hon. Mark Bangs, of Marshall County, Grand President; Prof. D. Wilkins, of McLean County, Grand Vice-President; Geo. H. Harlow, of Tazewell County, Grand Secretary; H. S. Austin, of Peoria County, Grand Treasurer; J. R. Gorin, of Macon County, Grand Marshal; A. Gould, of Henry County, Grand Herald; John E. Rosette, of Sangamon County, Grand Sentinel.

The Executive Committee chosen was as follows: Joseph Medill, of Cook County; Dr. A. McFarland, of Morgan County; J. K. Warren, of Macon County; Rev. J. C. Rybolt, of LaSalle County; Hon. Mark Bangs, of Marshall County; Enoch Emery, of Peoria County; John E. Rosette, of Sangamon County. A new constitution and by-laws were adopted and a new ritual prepared at the Bloomington meeting. The Tennessee obligation was condensed, and the initiatory ceremony made more appropriate and impressive. New forms in grips, signs and passwords were adopted, which soon became national.

The second meeting of the Grand Council was held at the Capital of Illinois on January 14th, 1863. Only seven counties were represented, and the meeting proved uneventful, owing, doubtless, to the discouraging news from the battle lines.

The U. L. of A. soon became imbued with new life and zeal. In a few months its membership had increased from 5,000 to 50,000, and in 1864 the order had enrolled 1,300 Councils and 175,000 members in Illinois. On the return of the three-year Union veteran soldiers many soon became members of the U. L. of A.

The next meeting of the Grand Council was held in Chicago on the 25th of March, 1863. Four hundred and four Councils were represented from Illinois alone. The following States were also represented: Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota. At this meeting steps were taken to organize a National Council, which culminated in a call to meet at Cleveland, Ohio, on May 20th, 1863, where the following National officers were elected:

Hon. J. M. Edmunds, National Grand President; Hon. John W. Forney, National Grand Vice-President; Hon. Green Adams, National Grand Vice-President; W. R. Irwin, National Grand Recording-Corresponding Secretary; Rev. Byron Sunderland, National Grand Treasurer; G. F. Brown, National Grand Herald; Geo. W. Kellogg, National Grand Sentinel. The above grand officers were all residents of Washington, D. C.

The Illinois ritual was adopted by the National Grand Council with few changes.

The obligation adopted was as follows:

OBLIGATION:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm), in the presence of God and these witnesses, that I have never voluntarily borne arms against the United States since I have been a citizen thereof; that I will support, protect and defend the Constitution and Government of the United States and the flag thereof, against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will also defend this State against any invasion, insurrection, or rebellion, to the extent of my ability. This I freely pledge without mental reservation or evasion. Furthermore, that I will do all in my power to elect true and reliable Union men and supporters of the Government, and none others, to all offices of profit or trust, from the lowest to the highest—in ward, town, county. State and General Government. And should I ever be called to fill any office, I will faithfully carry out the objects and principles of this Lodge. And further, that I will protect, aid and defend all worthy members of the Union League. And further, I will never make known, in any way or manner, to any person or persons not members of the Union League, any of the signs, passwords, proceedings, debates or plans of this or any other Council under this organization, except when engaged in admitting new members into this Lodge. And with my hand upon the Holy Bible, Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States of America, under the seal of my sacred honor, I acknowledge myself firmly bound and pledged to the faithful performance of this my solemn obligation. So Help Me God.”

Then the members formed in a circle, admitted the new member, or members, and with clasped and uplifted hands, all repeated the following—

“FREEMAN’S PLEDGE:

“To defend and perpetuate Freedom and the Union, I pledge my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor. So Help Me God.”

Then followed the address to the new members, which was quite lengthy, but full of religious and patriotic admonition as to the duties every patriot owed his country, the Constitution and the Flag.

The Pekin Council (or Lodge) increased rapidly in membership, and true to its sworn obligation, very materially aided the Union cause, the needy parents and families of those who had joined the armed hosts, and who were on the line of battle, struggling against the traitorous cohorts.

During 1863 the additions to Pekin Council of the U. L. of A. numbered, among others, William Gaither, William W. Sellers, Hezekiah Naylor, Joshua Wagenseller, Charles Parker, Theodore Wagenseller, William W. Clemens, Isaac Hawley, Columbus R. Cummings, Dr. B. F. Harris and Cornelius Hinsey, Groveland, Jas. W. Robinson, Reuben Bergstresser, William Hawley, Thomas B. Reeves, and others.

Many patriotic ladies of Pekin became members of the U. L. of A., and took part in all open meetings of the Council. Among the more prominent ones were Grandma Harlow, Mrs. Geo. H. Harlow, Miss Emma Wagenseller, Mrs. Kate Goodheart, Mrs. Filener Sleeth-Habberfield, Miss Ophelia McKinney, Miss Melsena Miller, Miss Agnes Rybolt, Mrs. Wm. W. Sellers, Miss Nellie Foster, and many others.

Among the many patriotic women of Pekin, who gave energy, time and money, to alleviate the hardships of our soldiers in the civil war, none did more than Mrs. Mary L. Gregg-Westermann—“always the soldier’s friend.”

The organization of the Sanitary Commission, with headquarters in Pekin, had an able leader in George H. Harlow. He was aided by Columbus R. Cummings and many other patriotic gentlemen and ladies of the U. L. of A. A wigwam was built on an open lot at what is today 317, 319 and 319 1/2 Court street, wherein was held a great Sanitary Fair in October, 1864, at which nearly $5,000 was raised for the Union cause.

We had two patriotic organizations composed of ladies, who rendered valuable aid to the Sanitary Commission: Mrs. Wm. W. Sellers was president of the Union League ladies, and Mrs. Mary L. Westerman presided at the meetings of the Ladies’ Union Aid Society.

On the return of the three-year Union soldiers in the summer and fall of 1864 they were drawn into the U. L. of A., to give the Pekin Council the benefit of their military training. These soldier “boys,” true to the cause they had been fighting for, organized themselves into a secret military body, selected Sergeant Wm. H. Bates as their captain, and pledged themselves to take up arms anew to crush any “copperhead” uprising which might occur. Fully half of their number were Union Douglas Democrats.

Rev. Jas. K. P. Legg, now of Keokee, Lee County, Va., avers that the U. L. of A. lodge, of which he was a member, had a password which represented five capital L 7 s, and stood for “Lincoln, Liberty, Law, Loyal, League.”

During the second inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, Geo. H. Harlow and Dr. D. A. Cheever, of Pekin, and J. A. Jones, of Tremont, represented the Tazewell County U. L. of A., as a part of the secret body guard, to prevent the threatened assassination of the re-elected Abraham Lincoln.

On the disbandment of the Pekin Council, the altar flag, the bust of Lincoln and the gavel were bequeathed to the last President, Dr. D. A. Cheever, which we are informed still remain in possession of his heirs.

We are under obligation to “Patriotism of Illinois,” Vol. 2. by Rev. T. M. Eddy; “The Great Conspiracy,” by Gen. John A. Logan; Miss Mary Gaither, Pekin; Mrs. Filener S. Bates (who was a member of the Pekin Council), Pekin; R. A. Harlow, Helena, Montana; Miss Emily C. Cheever, (daughter of Dr. D. A. Cheever) , the Misses Helen and Elizabeth Bryan, daughters of Alice Cheever and Alonzo H. Bryan, and granddaughters of Dr. Cheever), of Champaign, Ill.; Mrs. Jessie Palmer-Weber, Secretary of the State Historical Society, Springfield, Illinois, et al., for clerical as well as oral aid.

Fraternally yours,

WILLIAM H. BATES

Formerly a member of Co. “H,” 8th Mo. (American Zouaves), 1st Brigade, 2nd Division, 15th Army Corps.

#agnes-rybolt, #alexander-small, #charles-turner, #civil-war, #columbus-r-cummings, #cornelius-hinsey, #dr-b-f-harris, #dr-daniel-a-cheever, #elizabeth-bryan, #emily-c-cheever, #emma-wagenseller, #filener-s-haberfield-bates, #george-h-harlow, #gerald-ford, #hart-montgomery, #helen-bryan, #henry-pratt, #hezekiah-naylor, #illinois-state-historical-society, #isaac-hawley, #j-a-jones, #james-w-n-vernon, #james-w-robinson, #john-w-glassgow, #jonathan-merriam, #joshua-wagenseller, #kate-goodheart, #knights-of-the-golden-circle, #knights-of-the-golden-circle-versus-union-league-of-america, #ku-klux-klan, #levi-f-garrett, #marty-perlman, #mary-l-gregg-westerman, #mary-l-westerman, #melsena-miller, #mrs-filener-sleeth-habberfield, #nellie-foster, #ophelia-mckinney, #pekin-bicentennial, #pekin-history, #perlman-furniture-co, #reuben-bergstresser, #rev-j-w-n-vernon, #rev-james-k-p-legg, #richard-northcroft-cullom, #tazewell-county-historical-society, #theodore-wagenseller, #thomas-b-reeves, #union-league, #union-league-of-america, #william-gaither, #william-h-bates, #william-hawley, #william-w-clemens, #william-w-sellers

Bakeries and barbershops, and local theatre – the story of 407 Court St.

By Jared L. Olar
Local History Program Coordinator

Since the spring of 2022, the historic 407 Court St. building has been the home of Artistic Community Theatre, a local theatre troupe with about four decades of history. ACT was founded in the 1980s in Bartonville as the Campus Players, changing its name to Artistic Community Theatre during the 1990s. ACT formerly had its theatre in the former Pekin Mall and presented plays at the Mineral Springs Park Pavilion and various other locations. In 2022, James and Nona Buster of Reprise Productions Inc. acquired the 407 Court St. building and extensively remodeled it, turning it into a theatre building for ACT.

Artistic Community Theatre’s storefront and sign at 407 Court St. are shown in this recent photograph. The ACT building has been extensively remodeled and refurbished, but in the past has twice housed popular downtown bakeries. PHOTO COURTESY OF NONA BUSTER of REPRISE PRODUCTIONS INC.

Artistic Community Theatre’s storefront at 407 Court St. featuring ACT signage is shown in this Aug. 2022 Google Street View image, but before the installation of the prominent oval ACT sign.

For the greater part of Pekin’s history, however, the address of 407 Court St. has been better known for bakeries and barbershops than for community theatre. Though Artistic Community Theatre’s building has undergone extensive changes throughout its history, the building and the building’s site have a remarkable business history reaching back to the mid-1800s.

“We wanted to save a building in downtown Pekin to renovate and house Artistic Community Theatre before they disbanded after 20 years without a home base. The building is original to the block but through the years things have changed,” said Nona Buster of Reprise Productions Inc.

The most notable change was the removal of the building’s third floor, which seems to have occurred about the mid-1990s. The 407 Court St. building also received a new facade in or about 1994, and that facade, along with the rest of the building, was refurbished about 2015. Extensive repairs were also necessary after the structure’s back wall collapsed by the alley about 2010.

“We decided that ACT deserved a beautiful space to perform in, and Pekin deserved a beautiful space to visit and be entertained,” Buster said. “It took almost a year to do extensive renovations and now we have a theatre designed with Pekin’s river town history in mind.

“We’re small and intimate with cabaret seating for 50, with a stage, snack bar and comfortable lobby to meet friends, enjoy a beverage, and discuss the evening’s performance,” Buster added. “We are coming to the end of our second sold out season, and we are so grateful for all the love and support of our community. My husband and I are so proud to be able to help preserve a part of Pekin’s history and support live theatre in the Art Block of downtown Pekin. Check out our lighted sign after dark!”

It is also very appropriate that the Artistic Community Theatre building has an unexpected and very tangible continuity with the building’s past: Nona Buster’s own godmother belonged to the Nedderman family who previously owned the 407 Court St. building from the late 1800s until the early 1950s.

“Imagine my surprise when I found out that the building my husband and I bought in January of 2022 was the same one my godmother and her sisters’ family owned way back when!” Buster said.

“My godmother’s name was Minnie Nedderman Wiemer. Her husband William (my godfather) owned and operated Noel Funeral Home until his death in the mid 1960s when Mr. Henderson bought it. Aunt Minnie’s two maiden sisters, Emma and Frieda Nedderman, were my sister Karen’s godmothers. They also had brothers, but by the time I was old enough to know the family they were all older. They always talked about the family bakery when we got together. My dad grew up across the street from the Wiemers and they were members of St John’s Lutheran Church in Pekin.

“I was baptized there as an infant and we became members. My grandfather Frankenstein died of influenza in 1918 and the Wiemers helped my grandmother who spoke very little English with her three small children. We always visited the Wiemers on Christmas Eve and Santa came too. The Wiemers and the Neddermans were a big part of our lives. That’s why it thrills me to own their building now. I hope they are proud!”

Before the Nedderman family began their long tenure at 407 Court St., we find that the first Pekin city directory in 1861 shows two businesses that appear to have been located at or very close to today’s 407 Court St. One was a barbershop operated by a German immigrant from Hesse-Darmstadt named John Monath (born about 1834), located on the north side of Court Street three doors east of Fourth. The other was a store that sold dry goods, clothing, and hardware, operated by Abner Seelye and located on the north side of Court Street four doors east of Fourth.

Ten years later, the 1871 Sellers & Bates City Directory of Pekin shows another Hesse-Darmstadt immigrant named Henry Reinhart (born about 1850), barber and hairdresser, located on the north side of Court Street six doors east of Fourth. That appears to be the same site that came to be numbered 509 Court St. (later renumbered 407 Court St.). The 1876 Pekin city directory shows a saloon at “509” Court St. operated by Adam Reinhardt (1824-1886), who lived upstairs above his saloon. It is unknown if Henry and Adam were related, though it’s quite possible. Adam’s will, dated 8 Dec. 1885, says his building was located “on the West part of lot fourteen and on the East half of lot fifteen in Block number Seventy two (72) in the original town now city of Pekin.” That places his building precisely on the site of today’s 407 Court St. building — and a close examination of an 1870s photograph of Adam Reinhardt’s saloon, comparing it to other photos and records, shows that it is the very same building that is now the Artistic Community Theatre building. Adam left his building to his widow Elizabeth.

The area of 407 Court St. is shown in this detail from an 1877 hand-drawn aerial map of Pekin. At that time, the site today known as 407 Court St. was the location of a saloon operated by Adam Reinhardt, but just a few years prior it had been the site of Henry Reinhart’s barbershop.

An 1870s photograph of the saloon of Adam Reinhard (or Reinhardt) at 407 Court St. Despite much remodeling, and the addition and later removal of a third floor, this same building still stands today as the Artistic Community Theatre building.

At the time of the May 1885 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin, the building numbered “509” (i.e. 407) Court St. included Adam Reinhardt’s saloon, a barbershop, and the Moenkemoeller & Schlottmann cigar factory (but the cigar factory was later renumbered 409 Court St.).

The 1885 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin shows a saloon and barbershop at 509 Court St. (todays’ 407 Court). The proprietor of the saloon is unknown, but the barber at the time of the 1885 map was almost certainly Charles Traub (1847-1898), who is listed in the 1887 Pekin city directory as owner of a barbershop at that address. Besides Traub’s barbershop, the 1887 directory also says John Moenkemoeller and Henry Schlottmann had their cigar factory at 509 Court St. – however, that section of the 509 Court St. building was afterwards renumbered as 409 Court, the address that the Moenkemoeller & Schlottmann cigar factory had in later city directories.

The Jan. 1892 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin shows Wessle B. Weimers’ bakery and a barbershop at 407 Court St.

By the time of the 1893 city directory, Wessle B. Wiemers (1854-1897) had established a bakery and confectionary at 407 Court St. In the 1887 directory, Wiemers’ bakery had been at “513” Court, two doors east of “509” (407) Court St. Besides Wiemers’ bakery, the 1892 Sanborn map of Pekin also shows that a barbershop was still located at 407 Court., though the identity of that barber is unknown. Wiemers’ bakery is listed in both the 1893 and 1895 city directories.

In 1896, Wiemers sold his bakery to two men: one of his employees, Edward J. Kunkel (1870-1949), and a former employee of prominent Pekin baker and confectioner Albert Zerwekh (1859-1908) named Reinhardt John Neddermann (1876-1939). They carried on the business under the name Kunkel & Neddermann Bakery, under which name the business is listed in the 1898 Pekin city directory. Besides the bakery, the 1898 directory also shows Charles Lohnes (1869-1906) as a barber at 407 1/2 Court St. After selling his bakery, Wiemers moved in March 1986 to Toulon, Illinois, where he died 28 May 1897. His body was brought back to Pekin and interred in Lakeside Cemetery.

The Kunkel & Neddermann bakery and confectionary at 407 Court St. and Charles Lohnes’ barbershop are shown in this detail from the March 1898 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin.

On 22 March 1899, Reinhardt Neddermann bought out Kunkel, and Reinhardt’s younger brother John Engelbarth Neddermann (1874-1951) came on as partner to found what was originally known as Neddermann Bros. Bakery at 407 Court St., later Neddermann’s Sanitary Bakery, and finally just Neddermann’s Bakery. Following is a brief account of the Neddermann brothers’ bakery from the 1949 Pekin Centenary, page 52:

“Their only machine was one used in making cookies, and the ovens were fired with coke. Neddermann’s bakery is still in the same location, and bakes from some of the same recipes used before the turn of the century. The Pumpernickle bread which is a favorite of customers is prepared from the recipe that delighted purchasers in 1899.

“In the days of the horse and buggy, Neddermann’s was a favorite gathering place of farmers who came to Pekin to shop. Many customers of today are the third generation of their families to enjoy ‘Neddermann’s’ delicacies.”

“Pekin: A Pictorial History” (1998), page 126, also hands on the Pekin old-time memory that Neddermann’s was “famous for aromatic Redskin peanuts and the Neddermann brothers always in starched French cuffs (and the Neddermann sisters in gingham aprons).”

Nedderman’s Sanitary Bakery & Confectionary, 407 Court St., is shown as it appeared about 1910.

The Neddermann brothers are shown in this vintage photograph of the interior of Neddermann’s Sanitary Bakery. Shown at left is Reinhardt J. Neddermann (1876-1939) and at right is his brother John E. Neddermann (1874-1951).

The detail from the Dec. 1903 Sanborn map of Pekin shows the location of Neddermann’s Sanitary Bakery at 407 Court St. and the Fuchs & Zillion barbershop at 407 1/2 Court St.

The Dec. 1909 Sanborn map of Pekin shows Neddermann’s Sanitary Bakery at 407 Court St. and William J. Solomon’s barbershop at 407 1/2 Court St.

Neddermann’s Sanitary Bakery at 407 Court St. and W. M. Beal’s barbershop at 407 1/2 Court St. are shown in this detail from the Oct. 1916 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin.

An advertisement for Neddermann’s Sanitary Bakery, 407 Court St., from the 1924 Pekin city directory.

In this detail from the Sept. 1925 Sanborn map of Pekin, Neddermann’s Sanitary Bakery and Robert England’s barbershop are shown at 407 and 407 1/2 Court St.

Reinhardt lived in an apartment above the bakery at 407 Court St.  When he passed away in Sept. 1939, his younger brother succeeded him as head of the business and also moved into Reinhardt’s residence above the bakery. Their younger sister Emma S. Neddermann (1880-1971) assisted John in running the business. Neddermann’s did not long survive John’s passing on 9 Feb. 1951, however, and the 1952 Pekin city directory listed 407 Court St. as vacant.

A black arrow touches the top of the old Neddermann’s Bakery building a 407 Court St. in this detail from a late 1940s photograph of downtown Pekin.

Meanwhile, the barbershop at 407 1/2 Court St. had seen a long succession of owners. After Lohnes in 1898, the 1904 city directory shows William M. Fuchs and John Zillion as co-owners of the Fuchs & Zillion barbershop. By 1908, Zillion had been replaced by William J. Solomon (or Soloman) in the barber firm of Solomon & Fuchs – but in the 1909 directory it is just Solomon alone. Then in 1913 the barber was Joseph M. Whistler, followed in 1914 by W. M. Beal, then Robert England in 1922 and 1924, Earl E. Champion in 1926 and 1928, Roy L. Bailey in 1930, Arthur E. Bailey in 1932, and William M. Weeks in 1934 and 1937.

The 1939 city directory heralded the arrival of the Boston Barber Shop at 407 1/2 Court, with barber Russell G. C. Beaver. He is again listed as owner of the Boston Barber Shop in the 1941 directory, but Arthur E. Bailey returns as owner of the barbershop in the 1943 directory – because Beaver had sold his business and enlisted in the U.S. Marines to fight for his country during World War II. Bailey continued as barber at 407 1/2 Court until the early 1960s, last appearing there in the 1962 city directory.

After Bailey, in the 1964 directory we find Roy Carr of Creve Coeur as owner of Roy’s Barber Shop at 407 1/2 Court St. Carr sold his business to Mack Simpson, who opened Mack’s Barber Shop at that location, as indicated in the 1965 city directory. Mack’s Barbershop continued until the early 1970s, and is last listed in the 1973 Pekin city directory.

A black arrow indicates the old Neddermann’s Building at 407 Court St. in this detail from an aerial photograph of downtown Pekin taken about 1950.

After Neddermann’s Bakery went out of business in 1951, it was not long before a new business moved into the former Neddermann’s Building. The 1955 Pekin city directory shows that Bard Optical Co. had opened a branch at 407 Court St., operating there until the mid-1960s and lasting appearing at that address in the 1965 city directory. During that time, Pekin’s Bard Optical saw a rapid series of managers: Willard Benson in 1955, then Earl Goin in 1956, then Stuart S. Levine in 1958, then Leonard Greenberg in 1959, and finally Bernard Stern, who is listed as Bard Optical’s manager from the 1961 to the 1965 directories.

The former Neddermann’s Building at 407 Court St. is shown in this March 1958 photograph. At the time, the building was the home of Bard Optical and Arthur E. Bailey’s Boston Barber Shop. Compare the second floor windows here with the second floor windows of Adam Reinhardt’s saloon shown above.

After Bard Optical’s departure from 407 Court St., the 1966 directory does not show a listing for the address, only for Mack’s Barber Shop. In the 1968 directory, however, we find Ferdinand’s Wigs, owned and operated by John F. Hawkins until the time of the 1971 city directory. We then see a quick succession of ephemeral businesses at 407 Court St. In the 1972 directory, none other than Jay Goldberg is listed as trying his hand at a record store in the old Neddermann’s Building, calling his shop Ian’s Music Parlor. Goldberg’s shop was succeeded in 1973 by Kevin Diekhoff’s The Freak Boutique, which was in turn succeeded in 1974 by Ora Logsdon’s Headquarters Boutique beauty shop.

The 1975 Pekin city directory shows 407 Court St. as vacant. This was the start of a long hiatus at 407 Court St., because by the time of the 1978 directory the address had completely disappeared from Pekin’s directories. It did not reappear in city directories until the mid-1990s. It was evidently during that hiatus that the old Neddermann’s Building underwent extensive modifications that included the removal of the building’s third floor and the installation of a very different façade.

The 400 block of Court Street is shown in this detail from a 1988 aerial photograph of downtown Pekin. The site of the former Neddermann’s Building is generally indicated by the black arrow.

The Tazewell County Assessor’s website says the current 407 Court St. building was constructed in 1994. Significantly, the 407 Court St. address reappears in the 1995 Pekin city directory, which lists Larkin’s Home Bakery & Café at that location, owned and operated by John Martin Larkin (1944-2010) and his wife Jeanie Kristin (Sinn) Larkin. The history of Larkin’s Home Bakery long predates this business’ arrival at the former site of Neddermann’s Bakery. The Larkin Bakery got its start in 1909 as Rubart Bros. Bakery, 519 Court St. (later at 526 Court St.), which was purchased in 1926 by Martin Nelson Larkin (1904-1987) and his wife Lillian Darlene (Schuetts) Larkin (1910-1995). They moved the bakery to 1211 Court St. in 1968, but they closed their business and retired in 1975. Then in 1988, their son John reopened the bakery at Eighth Street Plaza, and in 1994 moved the bakery to 407 Court St.

The former Larkin’s Bakery & Cafe stands vacant in this Tazewell County Assessor’s photograph from Feb. 2002, a year after John Larkin had sold the building to MTCO Communications.

John and Jeanie operated Larkin’s Home Bakery & Café until 2000, and sold the 407 Court St. building in Feb. 2001 to MTCO Communications. The address again disappeared from Pekin city directories after 2001, not to reappear until the 2017 directory. It was apparently during 407 Court’s second hiatus from Pekin city directories that the building suffered the collapse of its back wall. But the building was saved by Todd Thompson of 353 Court LLC, who purchased the former bakery building in Jan. 2015 and refurbished it.

The former Larkin’s Bakery building at 407 Court St. is shown in this July 2011 Google Street View image. The building was then vacant.

The former Larkin’s Bakers & Cafe building bears “for sale” signs in this Tazewell County Assessor’s photograph from June 2013. By that time the building had stood vacant for about a decade.

The building next appears in the 2017 directory, which lists Kevin Stark as the owner of Will Harms Office Supplies at 407 Court St. (Will Harms had formerly been located at 345 Court St.). Other recent directory listings for 407 Court St. include Cindy Bonnette’s Vinyl Art Studio (beginning with the 2018 city directory) and The Dewitt HQ Inc., owned by Chris Dewitt, consultant (beginning with the 2019 city directory). Finally, on 7 Jan. 2022, the building was acquired by Reprise Productions Inc., and Artistic Community Theatre moved in that spring.

A Google Street View photograph of 407 Court St. from July 2018, after Todd Thompson of 353 Court LLC had refurbished the building.

#353-court-llc, #407-1-2-court-st, #407-court-st, #act, #adam-reinhard, #adam-reinhards-saloon, #adam-reinhardt, #albert-zerwekh, #albert-zerwekh-baker-confectionary, #arthur-e-bailey, #artistic-community-theatre, #artistic-community-theatre-of-pekin, #bard-optical, #bernard-stern, #boston-barber-shop, #campus-players, #charles-lohnes, #charles-traub, #chris-dewitt, #cindy-bonnette, #earl-e-champion, #earl-goin, #edward-j-kunkel, #elizabeth-reinhardt, #emma-s-neddermann, #ferdinands-wigs, #fuchs-zillion-barbershop, #headquarters-boutique, #henry-reinhart, #henry-schlottmann, #ians-music-parlor, #james-buster, #jay-goldberg, #jeanie-kristin-sinn-larkin, #jeanie-larkin, #john-e-neddermann, #john-engelbarth-neddermann, #john-f-hawkins, #john-m-larkin, #john-martin-larkin, #john-moenkemoeller, #john-monath, #john-zillion, #joseph-m-whistler, #kevin-diekhoff, #kevin-stark, #larkin-bakery, #larkins, #larkins-home-bakery-cafe, #leonard-greenberg, #lillian-darlene-schuetts-larkin, #lillian-larkin, #mack-simpson, #macks-barber-shop, #martin-n-larkin, #martin-nelson-larkin, #moenkemoeller-schlottmann-cigars, #mtco-communications, #neddermann-bros-bakery, #neddermanns-bakery, #neddermanns-sanitary-bakery, #nona-buster, #ora-logsdon, #pekin-barbershops, #pekin-history, #pekin-mall, #reinhardt-j-neddermann, #reinhardt-john-neddermann, #reprise-productions-inc, #robert-england, #roy-carr, #roy-l-bailey, #roys-barber-shop, #rubart-bros-bakery, #russell-g-c-beaver, #stuart-s-levine, #the-dewitt-hq-inc, #the-freak-boutique, #todd-thompson, #vinyl-art-studio, #w-m-beal, #wessle-b-wiemers, #wessle-wiemers, #will-harms-office-supplies, #willard-benson, #william-j-soloman, #william-j-solomon, #william-m-fuchs, #william-m-weeks

The story of the Frings Building, 400-402 Court St.

By Jared L. Olar

Local History Program Coordinator

The historic structure at the southeast corner of Court and Fourth streets in Pekin’s old town – at 400-402 Court St. – is known as the Frings Building, a name that derives from Charles V. Frings (1906-1977), a notable businessman in Pekin’s old town during the 20th century. The Frings Building itself is much older than its namesake, however, having been erected in the mid-1880s.

The Frings Building storefront at 400-402 Court St. is shown in this Aug. 2022 Google Street View image. For about 35 years, the Pekin Area Chamber of Commerce’s offices have been located at 402 Court St., formerly the location of the Princess confectionary.

The 1861 Root’s City Directory of Pekin shows that the brothers John Herget and George Herget then had their J. & G. Herget dry goods store at the southeast corner of Court and Fourth. Ten years later, though, the 1871 Sellers & Bates city directory shows that J. & G. Herget had moved catty-corner to the northwest corner of Court and Fourth. In its place, we find a boarding house and saloon called the Arbeiters Heimath (German for “Workers’ Home”), run by another pair of German immigrants named Louis Zuckweiler and Henry Hoerr (1845-1901).

At the center of this detail from an 1877 hand-drawn aerial map of Pekin is Henry Hoerr’s Arbeiters Heimath (Workers’ Home), a German immigrants’ boarding house at what was then numbered 502-504 Court St., today 400-402 Court. Also at 504 Court at this time was William Lauterbach’s. barbershop. The Arbeiters Heimath structure was replaced in 1885-1887 by the present structure, today known as the Frings Building.

Hoerr again appears a sole proprietor of the Arbeiters Heimath in the 1876 Pekin city directory, at which time the building was numbered 502-504 Court St. Also listed at 504 Court St. (today’s 402 Court) that year was the barbershop of William Lauterbach (1845-1926). The Arbeiters Heimath building can be seen on an 1877 aerial-view map of Pekin.

By the mid-1880s, however, that building was replaced by the current structure, as indicated by the 1885 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin and the 1887 Pekin city directory. What is today known as the Frings Building was built during those years and was originally known as the Keller Building, after its first owner Mrs. Margaret Keller. The first occupants were the German-American National Bank at 400 Court St., which was founded 10 Aug. 1887, and the Albertsen & Koch furniture store at 402 Court St., which opened at that address just nine days earlier. (The 1876 city directory mentions Albertsen & Koch, but unhelpfully fails to provide the business’ address that year!)

The original facade of the German-American National Bank at the southeast corner of Court and Fourth streets, today 400 Court St. in the Frings Buildings. The bank opened its doors on 10 Aug. 1887.

The 1887-88 Bates City Directory of Pekin featured this full page advertisement for the newly opened German-American National Bank. Because a very large part of Pekin’s population (if not the majority) then spoke German as their mother tongue, the bank catered especially to German immigrants and their families — so the advertisement was run in both English and German.

An advertisement for the Albertsen & Koch furniture store from the 1887 Pekin city directory, noting that the business was then preparing to move to 504 Court St. (today known as 402 Court St.)

At the time of the May 1885 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin, the building at the southeast corner of Fourth and Court streets that would house the German American National Bank and Albertsen & Koch Furniture was then under construction. The bank would open in 1887 in the western half of the new building and the furniture store in the eastern half.

Both the bank and the furniture store quickly became prominent landmarks of Pekin’s community life, with the German-American National Bank later becoming First National Bank and Trust Company of Pekin (and later AMCORE Bank). Albertsen & Koch, owned and operated by Albert H. Albertsen (1856-1928) and Henry Louis Koch (1845-1935), was for a time Pekin’s most successful furniture store. Albertsen & Koch continued to operate from the 402 Court St. storefront until about the turn of last century, last being listed at that address in the 1898 city directory. After that, the furniture store moved to 424-428 Court St. German-American National Bank remained at its original address until 1916, when it relocated to 418 Court St. – so the bank and the furniture store were next-door neighbors again.

An advertisement for Albertsen & Koch furniture store from the 1893 Pekin city directory.

The Jan. 1892 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin shows the German American National Bank at 400 Court St., in the western half of the new building. In the eastern half of the building was the popular Albertsen & Koch Furniture Store. Both the bank and Albertsen’s later moved further up the 400 block of Court Street.

The German-American National Bank at 400 Court St. and the Albertsen & Koch furniture store at 402 Court St. are shown in this detail from the March 1898 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin.

The detail from the Dec. 1903 Sanborn map of Pekin shows the location of the German-American National Bank at 400 Court St. and the Mandel & Bower variety store known as The Fair at 402 Court St.

The Dec. 1909 Sanborn map of Pekin was the last Sanborn map to show the German American National Bank at its old location of 400 Court St. The general store shown at 402 Court in this map was Max Bower’s “The Fair.”

In this 1912 view of Fourth Street looking south from Court Street, the German-American National Bank at 400 Court St. can be seen.

The German-American National Bank at 400 Court St. and Max Bower’s store “The Fair” at 402 Court St. are seen in this vintage 1912 photograph of the 400 block of Court St.

In the Oct. 1916 Sanborn map of Pekin, the German American National Bank is shown in its new building at 416-418 Court St. The bank had just moved there that year, leaving its old location vacant. Two years later, the bank dropped the “German” from its name due to hatred of Germans and Germany that had been stoked by World War I political propaganda. Max Bower’s “The Fair” was still at 402 Court St., though.

After the bank’s move, we next find in the 1922 city directory that Louis Wieburg’s auto accessories store had located at 400 Court St. Meanwhile, after the departure of Albersten & Koch for its new home further up the block, Louis Mandel and Max Bower opened a store they called “The Fair” at 402 Court St. Mandel & Bower’s The Fair first appears at that address in the 1904 Pekin city directory. By the 1909 directory, Bower was listed alone as The Fair’s proprietor. Max Bower’s store continues to appear up to the 1914 directory, but by the time of the 1922 Pekin city directory Bower’s The Fair had been succeeded at 402 Court St. by one of the best known downtown businesses of Pekin’s days of old: The Princess!

Storefront of the Princess confectionary at 402 Court St., which was a popular teen hang-out in Pekin’s days of old. This is now the location of the Pekin Area Chamber of Commerce’s offices.

The final Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin in Sept. 1925 shows the American National Bank in its heyday. Its former location at 400 Court St. had become the home of Hackler Bros. drug store, while 402 Court St. was the home of the Princess confectionary.

A photograph of the Princess confectionary from the 1940s.

Another 1940s view of the Princess from the same parade.

The 1974 Pekin Sesquicentennial volume, page 41-42, offers the following five-paragraph history of the Princess confectionary:

“A brief history of ‘The Princess’ – the student hang-out from 1919 to 1950, might best serve to recreate the spirit of the downtown section in which these early stores were located. The Princess was a candy kitchen at 402 Court Street founded and operated by the Beres brothers: Chris (1893-1950), Pete (1896-1968), and Harry (1898-1974) (known as ‘John’ to his student customers). They had migrated to Pekin from Kolinas, Greece.

“It used to be standing-room-only in the Princess on nights of high school football and basketball games. When the 18 booths and fountain area were filled, the door would be locked. Latecomers stood in line outside, entering only as others left. The old, three-digit phone number of the Princess (183) was the most-used in town as parents, awaiting overdue children, would call to summon them home.

“Holidays at the Princess were a Pekin tradition. At Christmas the specialty was candy canes and ribbons, while the Easter feature was chocolate eggs (including a massive 30-pounder). Local schools would bring classes down to observe the candy-making process. (Pete was the resident expert.)

“Other specialties popular with generations of Pekinites were the caramel apples and the ‘pop-eye’ ice cream cups. Pete brought the taffy apple recipe back from a trip to Washington, D.C. in 1920. The Princess introduced it to Pekin (perhaps to the state of Illinois), and it soon became as much of an autumn tradition as football. ‘Pop-eyes,’ introduced in the 1930s, were half-pint ice cream cups sold for 5 cents. They became so popular that the Princess entered into a million-cup contract with a national cup manufacturer.

“In 1927, the Princess added to its popularity by installing a juke box. But that symbol of progress came with an era of mass production and huge confection companies with signaled the end of the Princess and many of her counterparts. The old marble fountain and candy cases disappeared – taking with them another of the personal touches that helped fashion the character of the old home town.”

At the end of the 1940s, the Princess was acquired by Darrell D. McComas (1917-1963) and Jennie B. Glassford (1901-1966), who are listed as proprietors in the 1950 and 1952 city directories. By the time of the 1955 directory, though, the Princess had been acquired by Charles R. “Chuck” Zehren (1920-2009), who changed the store from a candy kitchen to a coffee shop restaurant. But with the close of the 1950s came the end of the Princess.

During the years of The Princess’ reign at 402 Court St., the storefront at 400 Court St. saw a brief succession of businesses. Wieburg’s auto accessories store didn’t last long there, because in the 1924 directory we find Hackler Bros. drug store there – the Hackler brothers being John Byron Hackler (1898-1991) and George Roscoe Hackler (1892-1956). Hackler Bros. operated from that corner until the mid-1930s, when the drug store moved directly across street to 401-403 Court St. (Another Hackler Bros. store was also briefly listed in the Farmers National Bank building at 335 Court St. in the 1930 directory.)

After Hackler Bros. moved, the 1937 Pekin city directory shows 400 Court St. to have been vacant. In the 1939 directory, we find Jacob P. Martin as proprietor of Yvette’s women’s wear, which did not last long. The 1943 directory again shows 400 Court St. as vacant.

Then in the 1946 city directory, we find Raulston Harvey “R. H.” More (1888-1948) as manager of the Firestone Store at 400 Court St. More had come from Pennsylvania to Pekin in 1945. After a brief stint at the Firestone Store, More decided to open a variety store at 400 Court St. that he named, quite simply, More’s Store. Following his death, his children R. H. More Jr. (1913-2000), known by his nickname “Bud,” and Ruth More, along with his widow Lillian, continued to operate More’s Store. About the mid-1950s they even briefly ran a southside branch at 900 Derby St. known as More’s South Side Store.

R. H. “Bud” More Jr. (1913-2000)

Bud More became one of the most prominent and influential pillars of Pekin’s community life, and served as head of the Pekin Chamber of Commerce for nine years. He continued to operate More’s Store until the end of the 1960s, when he retired and closed his shop to become publisher of the Pekin Daily Times. More held the post of Times publisher until his retirement in 1980. The R. H. More Community Room at the Miller Senior Center is named in his honor.

Back-tracking to the closing of the Princess, with the departure of the Princess we next find the Celestial Loan Co. at 402 Court St., operated by Steve P. Budisalich, president and manager, Charles V. “C. V.” Frings, vice-president, and Mrs. Marcella Ruth (Bishop) Aulinskis (1918-2008), secretary. By the mid-1960s the firm’s name was changed slightly to Celestial Credit Plan Inc. By the time of the 1974 city directory, we find that Helen M. Budisalich had replaced Aulinskis as secretary and vice-president.

An advertisement for Celestial Loan Co. from the 1961 Pekin city directory.

Charles V. Frings (1906-1977), from whom the Frings Building derives its name.

Celestial Credit Plan continued at that address until the mid-1980s, when it was succeeded there by Harry D. Willmert’s Personal Finance Co. Inc. – but by the 1988 city directory 402 Court St. was vacant, and remained so until 1990, when the Pekin Area Chamber of Commerce moved into the former premises of the Princess – right next door to the storefront where one of the Chamber’s past leaders had had his store. The Pekin Area Chamber of Commerce’s offices are still located at 402 Court St. to this day.

After More’s Store closed at 400 Court St., that storefront remained vacant until the latter 1970s. In the 1977 city directory, we find Jerry Davis’ Comfort Corner, which was followed in 1978 by Pekin Lighting Inc., operated by Robert L. Westrope, president, Richard W. Baker, vice-president, and Faye E. Westrope, secretary. That business too did not last long, being succeeded by the time of the 1980 directory by Neu Optical Co., Frank G. Taylor, optometrist., which by 1988 had become Weisser Optical Co. (later Weisser American Vision Centers), Henry C. Paweski, optometrist. Weisser closed in the mid-1990s, and 400 Court St. remained vacant until the turn of the millennium.

In the 2000 and 2001 Pekin city directories, we find White Buffalo arts-and-crafts supplies at 400 Court  St. Then in the 2002 directory we find Joe Parkin’s White Buffalo jewelers alongside the B’Ribboned Etc. gift shop, which continued at 400 Court until 2006 when the city directory has no listing for 400 Court at all. From the 2011 to the 2019 directories, Alcohol & Drug Professionals was listed at 400 Court St., but that storefront has remained vacant since then, with the Pekin Area Chamber of Commerce and the Frings Building LLC offices now the lone occupants of the historic and storied Frings Building.

This 2002 photograph from the Tazewell County Assessor’s website shows the Pekin Area Chamber of Commerce at 402 Court and B’Ribboned Etc. at 400 Court.

This 2013 photograph from the Tazewell County Assessor’s website shows the Pekin Area Chamber of Commerce at 402 Court and Alcohol & Drug Professionals at 400 Court.

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Tazewell County and Illinois in the Civil War

By Jared L. Olar
Local History Program Coordinator

As we continue our Pekin Bicentennial series, this week and the next we will consider the role that Pekin, Tazewell County, and the State of Illinois played during the Civil War. Earlier this month, on April 9, marked 159 years since the surrender of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House that brought an end to the war.

Not even two whole generations had elapsed since Illinois’ admission as the 18th state in the Union when America split apart, divided between the industrialized and increasingly anti-slavery northern states of the Union and the agrarian, pro-slavery southern states of the Confederacy.

Leading up to the dreadful conflict was the collapse of the compromises and constitutional balances that had appeased the concerns of the pro-slavery and abolitionist elements. Thus, as we have previously noted, where an earlier generation had crafted the Missouri Compromise of 1820, by the 1850s that compromise had been scrapped, supplanted by the pro-slavery Kansas-Nebraska Act of Illinois Sen. Stephen A. Douglas.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act was preceded by the federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which sought to counter the effectiveness of the Underground Railroad by obliging citizens to assist in the capture of runaway slaves and imposing stiff penalties on those who assisted runaways. While the act itself was a compromise between Southern slave-owners and Northern free-soilers, abolitionists found the law intolerable. Even more outrageous to the abolitionists was the U.S. Supreme Court’s intervention in the controversy with its infamous pro-slavery Dred Scott decision of 1857 – but rather than settle the question, Dred Scott only fanned the embers that soon erupted in the flame of war.

In the presidential election of 1860, the Democrat Party broke apart into pro- and anti-slavery factions, a circumstance that helped make possible the election of the Republican Party’s candidate, a former Illinois Congressman of abolitionist principles named Abraham Lincoln.

Frustrated at their inability to elect a favorable candidate, and expecting Lincoln to curtail slavery, most of the slave-holding states of the South broke away from the Union, starting with South Carolina on Dec. 20, 1860. The states that seceded organized themselves as a separate country, the Confederate States of America, on Feb. 8, 1861, and elected their own president, former Mississippi Congressman and Secretary of War Jefferson F. Davis.

Lincoln was inaugurated as president the following month. Rejecting the legitimacy of the Confederacy, Lincoln insisted that the Union had to be preserved and declared the Confederate states to be in rebellion against the recognized federal government. Hostilities began on 12 April 1861, when the Confederacy, having demanded that the U.S. withdraw all troops and surrender all military posts, attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

So began four long years of bloodshed and sorrow in which Lincoln strove to bring the breakaway southern states back into subjection to the federal government. Usually known as the American Civil War, the conflict has also been called the War Between the States or the War of the Rebellion, while in the South it has been called the War of Northern Aggression. Charles C. Chapman’s 1879 “History of Tazewell County” includes an account of the Civil War, which Chapman called “the War for the Union.”

A lone Union soldier stands watch over the graves of his fallen comrades at Pekin’s Civil War Memorial in Lakeside Cemetery. PHOTO COURTESY OF CANDY REED

The different names indicate the cultural and political disputes over what the war was about. For the Confederacy, it was their Revolutionary War or a failed War of Independence, but Lincoln and Northern leaders at least initially said it was a fight to preserve the Union. As the war dragged on, however, Northerners began to see it as a holy crusade to end slavery in the United States. In his Tazewell County history, Chapman commented, “The house was indeed divided against itself, but [that] it should not fall, nor should it long continue divided, was the hearty, determined response of every loyal heart in the nation. The accursed institution of human slavery was the primary cause for this dissolution of the American Union. Doubtless other agencies served to intensify the hostile feelings which existed between the Northern and Southern portions of our country, but their remote origin could be traced to this great national evil.”

Two days after the Confederacy’s firing on Fort Sumter, Lincoln requested the remaining Union states to provide 75,000 men organized in six regiments. Over the next few months, the president requested additional volunteers and the organization of more regiments, until in July 1861 he made his first request for 500,000 troops. From May to July, a total of 17 infantry regiments and five cavalry regiments were raised, with Illinois alone providing 13 infantry regiments and three cavalry regiments in July.

“At the close of 1861 Illinois had sent to the field nearly 50,000 men, and had 17,000 in camp awaiting marching orders, thus exceeding her full quota by 15,000,” Chapman said. With Illinois having exceeded its quota, many of our state’s young men volunteered with Missouri’s regiments, so eager were they to fight for their country.

The following summer, Lincoln called for the states to provide 600,000 men, of which Illinois’ quota was 52,296. As war casualties increased, the president continued to call for troops. “On the 21st of December, 1864, the last call for troops was made. It was for 300,000 . . . . Illinois put into her one hundred and eight regiments 256,000 men, and into the United States army, through other states, enough to swell the number to 290,000,” Chapman said.

By the time Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, a total of about 620,000 American soldiers had died in combat or from war-related disease. The casualty numbers for the Civil War are vastly greater than any other U.S. war. Illinois alone lost 31,000 men, two-thirds of them from disease. According to the 1949 Pekin Centenary, Pekin alone had sent about 3,000 men off to fight for the Union.

The Pekin Public Library’s Local History Room collection includes a great number of resources on the Civil War and Illinois’ part in it. To name just a few, Chapman’s account of the “War for the Union” is found on pages 125-141 and 336-383 of his Tazewell County history, with rolls of Tazewell County’s Civil War volunteers on pages 351-383. In addition, the Local History Room has three volumes of Illinois regimental and unit histories drawn from the Illinois Adjutant General’s Report. Our Tazewell County cemetery indexes also include a compiled list of all of the Civil War soldiers (whether casualties or veterans) who are buried in Lakeside Cemetery.

Pekin’s Civil War heroes are listed by name on the Tazewell County War Memorial erected on the lawn of the Tazewell County Courthouse. Like vast numbers of cities and towns, Pekin also has a Civil War Memorial. In the years following the end of the Civil War, a monument of a standing Union soldier was erected in Lakeside Cemetery “IN MEMORY OF OUR SOLDIERS OF PEKIN ILL.,” like monuments of the Civil War fallen that may be found throughout the country.

Just as Pekin and Tazewell County celebrated Juneteenth last year with the dedication of Legins-Costley Park and two Illinois State Historical Markers in downtown Pekin, so too this coming June Tazewell County and Pekin will again celebrate Juneteenth with the dedication of a new monument and Illinois State Historical Marker on the Tazewell County Courthouse lawn. This monument will honor the 12 Tazewell County African-American men who volunteered to serve their country during the Civil War in the 29th U.S. Colored Infantry. Several of those men were eyewitnesses and participants in the first Juneteenth on 19 June 1865, when the end of slavery and absolute equality of whites and blacks was proclaimed at Galveston, Texas.

The Butler Medal, shown here, was a silver medal commissioned by Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler and paid for out of his own pocket, given to more than 200 members of the Colored Troops in recognition of their valor at the Battle of Chaffin’s Farm and New Market Heights (29-30 Sept. 1864) during the Siege of Petersburg, Virginia. The Latin motto ‘Ferro iis libertas perveniet‘ means “Freedom Will be Theirs by the Sword.”

A final curiosity regarding Central Illinois in the Civil War: the August 2018 issue of the Tazewell County Genealogical & Historical Society’s Monthly, page 2269, reprints notes from a talk by late local historian Fred Soady, in which Soady observed that “The closest the war came to Tazewell County was the Battle of Lake Peoria, April 16, 1862.” Further information on this obscure and apparently minor battle would be appreciated.

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Illinois State Historical Society ‘Best of Illinois’ Awards 2024

Pekin and Tazewell County were well represented at the 2024 Illinois State Historical Society “Best of Illinois” Awards Luncheon, held Saturday, 20 April 2024 at the Hoogland Center for the Arts in downtown Springfield, Illinois.

Following are the awards bestowed on Saturday that have a Pekin or Tazewell County connection, grouped by award category and including the ISHS judges’ comments. Photographs are courtesy the Illinois State Historical Society, the Peoria Freedom & Remembrance Memorial Team, and the Pekin Public Library.

Special Projects:

“Peoria Freedom and Remembrance Memorial.” Created by Robert Hoffer, David Pittman, Carl Adams, Joe Hutchinson, Jared Olar, and Bill Poorman. Superior Achievement. “This memorial park (featuring three new historical markers) was opened in June 2023 and is the culmination of many years work by a collaboration of private individuals, local government, private business, and state and local historical groups. Great work by a large number of people working together for a common goal. This is a rich project, extremely well planned, executed, and documented. Not only does it represent the best kind of research, it brought together several individuals and organizations. Perhaps most importantly the project can reach anyone anywhere through the superb website that includes all documentation. Every aspect is thorough and professional. This civic project is superior in every way. In fact, it is a model of how to organize and galvanize the efforts of a wide range of stakeholder and city players. What started from simple but profound questions has led to the heroic rediscovery, reclamation, and memorialization of an historic site of city, regional, and national importance. Every constituent in this effort deserves praise from the state of Illinois for their great gift, particularly Peoria historian Bob Hoffer. This work ensures that people passing by this space will notice something unique, and if they pause long enough, they will learn about a Black woman in a quasi-slave state who understood herself to be free even before Mr. Lincoln argued to make her freedom lawful.” Accepting the award were Robert Hoffer, Carl Adams, Jared Olar, and Bill Poorman. (The two other members of this project’s core team, David Pittman and Joseph Hutchinson, were unable to attend.)

Presented an Illinois State Historical Society Best of Illinois award for the Peoria Freedom & Remembrance Memorial Project were (from left to right) Robert Hoffer, Bill Poorman, Jared Olar, and Carl Adams.

Four of the six members of the Peoria Freedom & Remembrance Memorial Project’s core team of volunteers show their award certificates at the Illinois State Historical Society Best of Illinois Awards Banquet. Shown from left to right are Robert Hoffer of the Peoria Historical Society, historian Carl Adams, Pekin Public Library Local History Program Coordinator Jared L. Olar, and Bill Poorman, writer and media producer and Abraham Lincoln enthusiast; along with Libby Tronnes, Illinois State Historical Society board member. The core team members who were unable to attend were David Pittman, Peoria area community activist, and Joseph Hutchinson of the Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War.

Illinois State Historical Society Best of Illinois Award granted Saturday, 20 April 2024, in Springfield, for the Peoria Freedom & Remembrance Memorial Project that created a memorial park honoring those buried at the former Moffatt Cemetery in Peoria.

Nance Legins-Costley historian Carl Adams signs a copy of his book, “Nance,” after the Illinois State Historical Society Best of Illinois Awards on Saturday, 20 April 2024.

“Freedom and Remembrance Memorial Project Promotional Video Team.“ Certificate of Excellence. “This video is excellent in its production, organization, and content delivery. It admirably givers the background history of the Moffatt Cemetery and justifies all the myriad efforts by a wide range of stakeholders and donors to reclaim, recognize, and dedicate it for the city of Peoria. The video is highly watchable and keeps viewers interested from start to finish. Its connection to early Peoria history, to Abraham Lincoln, and to the worthy and hallowed dead there — especially Nance Legins-Costley and her son, William — documents people and stories that absolutely cry out to be told.” Accepting the award were Robert Hoffer and Bill Poorman.

Robert Hoffer and Bill Poorman are presented an ISHS Best of Illinois Award for their Freedom & Remembrance Memorial promotional video.

Freedom & Remembrance Memorial video project volunteers Robert Hoffer (left) and Bill Poorman (middle) show the Illinois State Historical Society Best of Illinois award certificates for their project. At right is Libby Tronnes, ISHS board member.

Illinois State Historical Society Best of Illinois Award granted Saturday, 20 April 2024, in Springfield, for the Peoria Freedom & Remembrance Memorial Project Promotional Video created by Bill Poorman and Robert Hoffer.

“Nance Legins-Costley and William Henry Costley Memorial.” — Legins-Costley Park. By Tazewell County Clerk John Ackerman, the City of Pekin, the Tazewell County Genealogical Society, the Pekin Chamber of Commerce, Pekin Main Street Organization, the YWCA Coalition for Equality, and Pekin historian Jared Olar. Superior Achievement. “A fantastic example of broad-based community collaboration centered on preserving and teaching local history. This memorial project shined light on an important but not widely known local story, a story with wider significance. Creating a public space centered on these memorials is long-term community engagement with local history at its best. Bravo! A sterling example of cooperation among many groups to commemorate important individuals and events in our state’s history.” Accepting the award were John Ackerman, Jared Olar, Susan Rynerson, and Maureen Naughtin.

Legin-Costley Park volunteers and contributors shown are (from left to right) Jared L. Olar, Pekin Public Library Local History Program Coordinator; Tazewell County Clerk John C. Ackerman; Maureen Naughtin, director of the YWCA Coalition for Equality; Susan Rynerson, president of the Tazewell County Genealogical & Historical Society; along with Libby Tronnes, Illinois State Historical Society board member.

Illinois State Historical Society Best of Illinois Award granted Saturday, 20 April 2024, in Springfield, for the Legins-Costley Park Project in downtown Pekin.

“WWII Living Veterans Recognition Program.” Tazewell County Clerk and Tazewell County Veterans Assistance. Certificate of Excellence. “The Tazewell County Clerk and Tazewell County Veteran Assistance program launched an effort to identify and recognize living veterans who served in World War II. The organizers canvased senior living complexes, retirement homes, veterans’ organizations, funeral homes, and media outlets to discover Americans from the ‘Greatest Generation’ still living in Tazewell County. The effort produced a list of 19 individuals, with the youngest at 95 and the two oldest at 105 and 106. This is an admirable project to document surviving WWII veterans in Tazewell County. It honors the veterans today and insures that their stories are preserved for tomorrow and beyond.” Accepting the award was John Ackerman.

Best Website:

“What Nance Means to Us” website. Created by Colleen Kahn and Pekin High School Students. Superior Achievement. “Great effort on the part of the teacher and the students. Strong points include good color contrast and attractiveness of the top page; fine proportions in the layout design, and the storytelling in the video is fine. The website contains information on students’ reactions to Nance Legins-Costley, a woman who played a key role in reinforcing Illinois’ rejection of human bondage. An excellent format for students to react and interact with our state’s history. This effort represents community engagement at its finest.” Accepting the award on Colleen Kahn’s behalf was John Ackerman.

Ongoing Periodicals:

“The Monthly.” Tazewell County Genealogical and Historical Society Newsletter. Superior Achievement. “This entry has been published monthly for 45 years and is a real TREASURE. The information is so varied and would be of interest to people all over the state. There are photographs, including mystery photos seeking identification, old ads, newspaper articles, opinion pieces, announcements of organizational events, publications for sale, old cookbooks, warrants for arrest state political news, obituaries. So very interesting. ‘The Monthly’ is packed with helpful information on genealogy of area residents and local history.” Accepting the award was Susan Rynerson.

Collection Preservation:

“Complete Digitization of all Tazewell County Board Minutes from 1827 to Present.” Tazewell County Clerk’s Office and ArcaSearch. Award of Superior Achievement. “Reliable, searchable public records are key to understanding the past, even events going back to 1827. The County Clerk’s office is to be commended for becoming the first in the state to complete this important task. This project contributes mostly to the preservation of the history of one county but could be useful to researchers in other parts of the state and should serve as a model for other Illinois counties preserving and making governmental records accessible to professionals and the public alike.” Accepting the award was John Ackerman and Tazewell County Chief Deputy Clerk Dan Sullivan.

“Complete Digitization and New Public Website for Tazewell County Military Discharge Records.” Tazewell County Clerk’s Office of Vital Statistics. Accepting the award was John Ackerman.

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Yesterday’s and Herget Bank: the story of 363 Court St.

By Jared L. Olar

Local History Program Coordinator

Since the mid-1990s, the building at 363 Court St. – the northwest corner of Court and Fourth – has been the home of Yesterday’s Bar & Grill, a popular fixture of Pekin’s historic downtown with a pub-like atmosphere.

Yesterday’s Bar & Grill is shown in this photograph taken in March 2024. The downtown eatery has been a fixture of Pekin’s downtown since the mid-1990s, and occupies the same building that once was Herget National Bank from 1910 to 1958. PHOTO BY PEKIN PUBLIC LIBRARY STAFF

The history and prehistory of 363 Court St., however, reaches back long before the 1990s, extending over a period of more than 160 years, and features one of the most prominent and influential families in Pekin’s history, the Hergets.

Before the story of this building begins, we find that the location at or immediately to the west of the northwest corner of Court and Fourth streets has a connection to none other than Abraham Lincoln. N. H. Wilson ran a grocery store at this location in the 1830s, and Seth Wilson worked as a clerk in the store. Seth was called as a witness in the Sept. 1838 case of Crain v. Crain et al., a dispute over a land sale in which Abraham Lincoln was an attorney. James Crain had bought some land from Lewis F. Crain and fully paid him for the land. Lewis Crain died before conveying a deed to James Crain for the land. James Crain then retained Lincoln and sued the heirs of Lewis Crain in an action of specific performance to compel them to convey a deed for the land. James Crain agreed to pay the firm of Stuart & Lincoln $500 if the court granted his claim to possession of the land or $300 if the court granted every claim but the possession of the land. However, James Crain later dismissed his case.

Moving ahead to 1858, that is that year German immigrant George Herget (1833-1914) opened a retail grocery store in downtown Pekin. Two years later, George Herget‘s older brother John Herget (1830-1899) became his partner in a groceries and dry goods business known as J. & G. Herget. This business first appears in the 1861 Pekin city directory, which says the store was then located at the southeast corner of Court and Fourth. In 1870, however, the Hergets built a new building at the northwest corner of Court and Fourth, catty-corner from where their dry goods store had been. Thus, the 1871 Pekin city directory shows J. & G. Herget at that site. (In 1887, the German-American National Bank would open at the same corner where J. & G. Herget once had been.)

The firm of J. & G. Herget was established in 1860 and was duly listed in the 1861 Pekin city directory.

This photograph of George Herget (1833-1914) was preserved in the 1902 Pekin Public Library cornerstone time capsule. Herget donated the land on which the library was built that year.

John Herget (1830-1899)

This dry goods store continued in operation for many years, but it wasn’t long before the Hergets diversified into other ventures, including wholesale liquor, distilling, and pork rectifying. To accommodate these businesses, the Herget brothers relocated their grocery store to 429-431 Court St., while George Herget’s Globe Distilling Co., as well as their dry goods, liquor store, and pork rectifying businesses, occupied what was known as the Herget Block at and near the northwest corner of Court and Fourth. The Herget Block included the storefronts from 357 to 363 Court St., formerly numbered 425-431 Court., which includes today’s Pekin Performing Arts Center Building and Classical Dance Academy (formerly Reuling’s).

An advertisement for the firm of J. & G. Herget from the 1871 Sellers & Bates City Directory of Pekin.

The original Herget Block building is shown in this 1870 photograph.

A drawing of the original Herget Block, built in 1870 at the northwest corner of Court and Fourth streets, which housed the firm of J. & G. Herget. The structure remains intact despite extensive changes and remodeling over the course of its history.

In this detail from the May 1885 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin, J. & G. Herget, which included a dry goods store, wholesale groceries, and wholesale liquors, is shown at 427-431 Court St. (later renumbered 359-363 Court), along with the International Order of Odd Fellows Hall at 425 Court (357 Court). This map dates from 15 years after the construction of the Herget Block.

Depicted in this drawing by Henry Hobart Cole is the Upper 300 block of Court Street — including the old Herget Block, the Odd Fellows Hall, and Planters Hotel — as it appeared during the 1880s and 1890s.

In this detail from the Jan. 1892 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin, the Herget Block and its various businesses are shown, including a pork rectifying operation, wholesale liquor store, Crescent Distilling Co., a grocery store, a dry goods store, a doctor’s office, and storage space.

George Herget’s Globe Distilling Co. and the Herget dry goods, clothing, and grocery stores are shown in the Herget Block, along with the Odd Fellows Hall, in this detail from the March 1898 Sanborn map of Pekin.

Two years before the founding of Herget & Sons Bank, the Herget Block and its businesses, as well as the Odd Fellows Hall, are shown in the detail of the Nov. 1903 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin.

This hand-colored Blenkiron photograph of downtown Pekin from the early 1900s shows the Herget Bank and other businesses in the Upper 300 block of Court Street.

On 17 April 1905, George Herget and his sons William P. Herget (1868-1941) and Henry G. Herget (1862-1943) opened a private bank, called Herget & Sons, at 363 Court St., the east end of the Herget Block, which was extensive remodeled to serve as a bank. Their bank’s original board of directors included George Herget and his sons, along with Flavel Shurtleff (1842-1920), George Ehrlicher (1858-1934), and Henry Birkenbush (1851-1947). Five years later, Herget & Sons Bank obtained a national charter, and became Herget National Bank. At the new national bank’s first board of directors meeting on 4 June 1910, George Herget was elected president, his sons William and Henry were elected vice presidents, Charles H. Turner (1859-1945) was elected cashier, and William A. Stockert (1880-1972) was named assistant cashier. Herget National Bank quickly became one of the chief pillars of Pekin’s economic and community life.

An advertisement for the George Herget & Sons Bank from the 1909 Pekin city directory.

Herget & Sons Bank, Reuling’s, and the Odd Fellows Hall are shown in this detail from the Dec. 1909 Sanborn map of Pekin.

A view of Herget National Bank, Reuling’s, and other businesses in the Upper 300 block of Court St., from a W. Blenkiron photograph taken in 1910.

This advertisement for Herget National Bank appeared on the front cover of the 1913 Pekin city directory.

Herget National Bank, 363 Court St., is show in this detail of the Oct. 1916 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin, along with Reuling’s at 359-361 Court St., and a grocery store and the Odd Fellows Hall at 357 Court St.

A Herget National Bank business card from the first half of the 20th century, following the 1914 death of the bank’s founder George Herget.

A vintage photograph of Herget National Bank, 363 Court St., taken about 1910 or soon after.

An early 20th century photograph of Herget National Bank at 3636 Court St. — today the home of Yesterday’s Bar & Grill.

The teller windows of the original Herget Bank are shown in this undated vintage photograph.

Herget National Bank, 363 Court St., is shown in this detail from the Sept. 1925 Sanborn map of Pekin.

The Herget National Bank Board of Directors during a meeting in a conference room at 363 Court St. Seated from left to right are Mrs. W. P. Herget, A. W. Ehrlicher, George H. Ehrlicher, Paul Reuter, and E. M. Kumpf. Standing from left to right are John E. Velde Jr., C. V. Frings, and E. P. Reinhard.

Shown is the Herget National Bank advertisement from the front cover of the 1959 Pekin city directory. This was the last directory ad to show Herget at 363 Court St., because in 1958 the bank moved to their newly constructed building at 33 S. 4th St.

Herget National Bank flourished in the 363 Court St. building until the late 1950s, by which time it became evident that the bank needed a new and larger facility. In 1958, Herget built a new $500,000 structure at 33 S. Fourth St., and on Monday, 11 Aug. 1958, Herget National Bank left 363 Court St. and moved into its new building. There they remained until Herget’s merger with Busey Bank in March 2015.

After the departure of Herget National Bank from their original home, the 363 Court St. building remained vacant until the mid-1960s. In the 1966 Pekin city directory, however, we find that James M. Unland (1922-2010) and his wife Judith J. (Johnston) Unland (1921-1992) had opened a new business there called Carriage Corner Card & Candy Center. The Unlands continued to operate Carriage Corner until the mid-1970s. In the 1976 directory, we see that the name of the business had been changes to Thoughtfulness Shop card and candy center, but the directory that year still listed the Unlands as proprietors. The following year, though, the city directory shows Virgil R. Lowe and Kathleen Lowe, residents of Lincoln, Illinois, as the owners of Thoughtfulness Shop.

James M. Unland (1922-2010)

The Lowes kept Thoughtfulness Shop running until about 1980 – it was last listed in the 1981 Pekin city directory. After it closed, 363 Court St. remained vacant for the next three years. Then in 1985 directory, we find that Carol D. Graves had opened a women’s apparel shop called Little Red Hen Outlet Inc., and in the year following we find that Graves had also opened the Little Red Hen Tea Room in 363 1/2 Court St. alongside her clothing store. Graves’ women’s clothing store is last listed in the 1987 directory, but Tea Room continued to appear until 1989 directory.

About this same time, the Pekin Area Chamber of Commerce moved into the 363 Court St. building, being listed at that address from 1988 to 1900. It seems fitting that the Chamber of Commerce was based for a while in the former Herget Bank building, because in Oct. 1893 George Herget had been one of the signers of the charter for the Citizens Improvement Association of Pekin, ancestor of the Pekin Area Chamber of Commerce.

The 1988 city directory also lists an ephemeral business at 363 Court St. called Asbestos & Environ-Clean Inc., and asbestos removal service of which Jean E. Eddy was president and Carol D. Graves was secretary. After the departure of the Chamber of Commerce, 363 Court St. again went vacant for about three years. The 1993 directory shows Faith Leininger’s Enviro Care Insurance Agency at this address, but Leininger’s business also did not last long and the building went vacant again.

Finally, the 1996 Pekin city directory heralded the arrival of Yesterday’s Bar & Grill. Jetta Christensen owned and operated Yesterday’s until 27 April 2007, when she sold the building and business to James A. Schramm. The current owners of the business and building include Jim Schramm, Joy C. Schramm, and Joelle C. Schramm.

In this June 2005 photograph by former Pekin Daily Times photographer Josh Bradshaw, Lynn Schumacher of Yesterday’s Bar & Grill shows a former Herget bank vault door in the building’s basement.

Yesterday’s Bar & Grill is shown in the Feb. 2002 photograph from the Tazewell County Assessor’s website.

A June 2013 photograph of Yesterday’s Bar & Grill from the Tazewell County Assessor’s website.

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The railroad arrives in Pekin

By Jared L. Olar

Local History Program Coordinator

The first years of Pekin’s existence coincided with a period when men and goods were transported along the waterways and canals of Illinois using riverboats, whether steamers or packet boats.

But steam-powered rail (invented in Britain in 1804, three years before Robert Fulton’s first steamboat) would soon challenge and then eclipse steamboats as the preferred means of long-distance transportation of good and people. While Illinois’ steamboats were restricted to rivers, railroad tracks could be laid across long stretches of country, crossing rivers and streams and even climbing through mountain passes.

The early rail lines of Tazewell County are highlighted in yellow on this county map from the 1873 “Atlas Map of Tazewell County.” Pekin was once crisscrossed with railroads and had several depots.

The groundwork for the railroad’s eclipse of riverboat transportation in Illinois was laid at a time when river transportation was preeminent. In Tazewell County, interest in laying down a rail line had already arisen by the mid-1830s, but the first attempts to build a railroad in our county were abortive. Here is how those efforts are described on page 732 of Charles C. Chapman’s 1879 “History of Tazewell County” (emphasis added):

“Among the very first charters granted to railroads, perhaps the second one, by the State of Illinois, was the one granted to the Pekin & Tremont Railroad. This company was incorporated by the Legislature, Jan. 13, 1835. Madison Allen, Harlan Hatch, J. L. James, John H. Harris, George W. Brodrick and Aronet Richmond were constituted a body corporate, with capital stock of $50,000, for the purpose of building said road. It ran, according to the charter, from Pekin to Tremont, in this county. The company was given the power ‘to erect and maintain toll houses along the line.’ The road bed was graded and track partially laid, but the hard times of 1837 and the failure of the grand internal improvement scheme of the State put a stop to further progress on the P. & T. road. About a year after the P. & T. road was chartered a grander scheme was undertaken, and the Legislature incorporated the Pekin, Bloomington & Wabash Railroad, Feb. 16, 1836. This was a continuation eastward of the P. & T. road. Considerable enthusiasm was at first manifested in regard to the matter, but, like many other railroad schemes, it was never carried out.”

Pekin’s pioneer historian William H. Bates told of continued efforts to get a railroad line to Pekin in his narrative of Pekin’s early history that was included in the 1870-71 Sellers & Bates Pekin City Directory. The following excerpts from Bates’ narrative demonstrate that Pekin’s city officials were willing to commit great sums of public funds to railroad projects, which were necessarily massive and expensive undertakings.

“On the 3d of June, 1853, the City Council ‘engaged to use its means and credit to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars to co-operate with the city of Canton, Fulton county, to secure the construction of the Mississippi and Wabash Railroad,’ provided said road was located so as to pass through the city of Pekin.” (Bates, page 32)

“On the 8th of September [1856], the Council ‘Resolved, That the city of Pekin, as a stockholder in the Mississippi Railroad Company, give their consent to the consolidation of the Mississippi and Wabash Railroad Company with the Pekin and Bloomington Railroad Company.’ . . . On the 23d of October the city decided by a vote of three hundred and one votes for and five against, to subscribe one hundred thousand dollars to the capital stock of the Illinois River Railroad.” (Bates, page 36)

For all that trouble, it wasn’t until 1859 – less than two years before the Civil War – that Pekin finally saw rails being laid. The city’s leaders thought that was worth celebrating, so Pekin’s Fourth of July celebrations that year included a joyous – and hopeful – inaugural ceremony of the driving of the first spike, as Bates tells:

“On the 4th day of July, 1859, the first rail was laid and the first spike driven on the prospective Illinois River Railroad. This was a gala day, full of momentous events for the future, and the birth-day of unnumbered hopes and anticipations yet to be realized. The leading citizens participated in celebrating the new enterprise on such an auspicious day as the Fourth of July.

“The road was never really completed until it passed into the hands of the present company, when the name was changed, and it is now the flourishing and well-managed Peoria, Pekin and Jacksonville Railroad.” (Bates, page 38)

Not only because it cost so much to build and operate a railroad, but also due to the interruption of the Civil War, most of Tazewell County’s railroad companies did not become fully operational until the latter 1860s. What had begun as the abortive Pekin & Tremont Railroad Company in Jan. 1835 later was taken up as a part of the Indianapolis, Bloomington & Western Railway in Aug. 1869, a road that stretched 202 miles from Indianapolis to Pekin (later being extended to Peoria).

Similarly, the Illinois River Railroad Company, whose first spike in Pekin was driven on 4 July 1859, eventually became the Peoria, Pekin & Jacksonville Railroad Company. Chapman’s Tazewell County history includes historical accounts of that company as well as the Indianapolis, Bloomington & Western Railway and five other railroad companies that had lines through Tazewell County: the Chicago, Alton & St. Louis Railroad, the Pekin, Lincoln & Decatur Railway, the Toledo, Peoria & Warsaw Railroad, the Illinois Midland, and the Chicago, Pekin & Southwestern Railroad.

The investors, directors, and employees of these railroad companies were among the preeminent men of Tazewell County and central Illinois – such as Benjamin S. Prettyman, Teis Smith, John B. Cohrs, James M. James, Gordis R. Cobleigh, or Columbus R. Cummings. A review of the names on the boards of directors of the early railroad companies will, not surprisingly, show many of the same names showing up on the lists of city mayors, aldermen, and successful businessmen and local attorneys.

One of the items in the Tazewell County Genealogical & Historical Society’s William H. Bates collection is a relic from the early period of the Era of the Railroad – a payroll ledger sheet for the Pekin, Lincoln & Decatur Railway.

Bearing the date of October 1870, and browned, creased, and partly crumbling with age, the payroll sheet records the wages paid out on 15 Oct. 1870 to men who worked for the Pekin Railway Construction Company. It’s not clear how this page ended up in the possession of Bates, who was then engaged in the newspaper and printing trades. As indicated above, Charles C. Chapman’s 1879 “History of Tazewell County,” pages 735-740, tells of the founding and construction of the P., L. & D. Railway, but Bates is not named among the men involved in the company, nor do his published biographical essays mention any connection with this railroad. Perhaps he acquired this sheet while compiling Pekin’s history for one of his local publications.

Chapman’s account goes to great lengths to stress how important this particular railroad was to the people of Tazewell County. “No other of the several railroads traversing this county seem so closely identified with the interests and history of Tazewell county as the P., L. & D. It is a road in which every one takes a commendable local pride,” Chapman says. The 1873 Atlas Map of Tazewell County traces the railroad’s route south out of Pekin through Cincinnati Township, then through Sand Prairie Township to the west of the lost town of Circleville, down to Green Valley where the road veered east through Malone Township to Delavan in Delavan Township, finally heading southeast out of Tazewell County on the way to Lincoln and ultimately Decatur.

The company was chartered in 1867, and its founding members were Benjamin S. Prettyman, Teis Smith, Peter Weyhrich, R. B. Latham, A. M. Miller, John Wyatt, M. Wemple, J. F. D. Elliott, S. C. Bean, Henry B. Durfee, and Luber Burrows. Prettyman was the company’s first president. Subsequently, in 1869 — as we noted above — other prominent and wealthy investors joined the venture, including Columbus R. Cummings (founder of the Cummings Estate which donated James Field to Pekin’s public schools), Gordis R. Cobleigh, and John B. Cohrs (a local attorney whose wife was one of the founding members of the Ladies Library Association, predecessor of the Pekin Public Library). Cobleigh became the general superintendent of the P., L. & D Railway.

While Chapman’s account lists the investors and directors of the company whose money and influence made the construction and maintenance of this railroad possible, this payroll ledger sheet provides a list of 26 men who actually did the work of building the railroad, doing the grading work and laying down the ties and steel rails. Most of the workmen were paid at a rate of $1.75 a day or $2 a day, but a few only a dollar a day. The workmen’s names are handwritten, though, and the handwriting is often not easy to make out – not only the names that were written (and often misspelled) by the company staff member who drew up the ledger sheet, but especially the employees’ signatures that testify they had received their wages.

Among the names that are easier to make out are Thomas Doyle, John Leitz, John Coakley, John O’Brien, James Simcack (as spelled by the staff member, though the signature looks more like Simpcott), Ubbo Blompot (signed Bloempott), L. Cramar (signed Cremer), Albert Ubben, and D. Sathoff. The Bloempott and Ubben families were German immigrants who settled in the Pekin area around that time, and long-time Pekin residents will recall Bloompott Florist & Greenhouse at the corner of Hamilton and Eighth streets, which went out of business about 10 years ago and is now the location of Trouble Free Plumbing.

This payroll ledger sheet for the Pekin Railway Construction Company, which built and owned the old Pekin, Lincoln & Decatur Railway, lists 26 men who worked on the construction of the railroad in October 1870. This sheet is a part of the William H. Bates collection at the Tazewell County Genealogical & Historical Society, and this image has been graciously supplied courtesy of the Society.

Showing some damage and age, this photograph of the old Peoria, Pekin & Jacksonville Railroad depot — Pekin’s first railroad depot — was taken about 1868 by George Bacon. The depot was built in or around 1859, and stood at the southeast corner of Third and St. Mary streets, now the location of the parking lot behind the Tazewell County Justice Center. Tracks still run past this spot today.

The old Chicago, Alton & St. Louis Railroad depot, which was moved some years ago to Mineral Springs Park along Broadway, about a half-mile east of its original location near 14th and Broadway. Photo donated Jan. 2017 by Bob Carroll

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