Ashers, Kresge, The Model – the history of the 353 Court St. building

By Jared L. Olar

Local History Program Coordinator

In 2019, Ashley and Russell Spencer opened a bar and grill in Farmington, Illinois, that they named “Ashers,” the restaurant’s name formed from the first half of Ashley’s name and the last two letters of Russell’s surname. Unfortunately, a fire destroyed their restaurant in Nov. 2021, but the following year they reopened in Pekin’s old town in Todd Thompson’s historic 353 Court St. Building, which Thompson had restored and refurbished in 2010. Ashers quickly established itself as one of Pekin’s most popular eateries. (The Spencers’ bar and grill was featured in a restaurant review by William Furry of the Illinois State Historical Society in the March-April 2024 issue of “Illinois Heritage” magazine of which Furry is the editor.)

The historic 353 Court St. building is shown in this photograph taken last month. Ashers Bar & Grill, owned and operated by Ashley and Russell Spencer, opened at 353 Court St. in 2022 and quickly established itself as one of Pekin’s most popular eateries. PHOTO BY PEKIN PUBLIC LIBRARY STAFF

Look back at the history of the 353 Court St. Building, it seems to have been in existence since at least the 1880s, and perhaps even the 1870s. As far as we can tell, the first business that may have existed at the present site of Ashers Bar & Grill could have been Schilling & Bohn, a firm owned by Conrad Schilling (1821-1895) and Andrew Bohn (1821-1891) that sold furniture, beds, mattresses, and coffins. The 1871 Sellers & Bates City Directory of Pekin says Schilling & Bohn’s furniture store was on Court Street across from the courthouse, four doors west of Fourth Street. That would place it either at the site of the Hamm’s Building or the site of the 353 Court St. Building. An 1877 aerial view map of Pekin shows a structure in this block of Court St. that may well be the same one that still stands today at 353 Court St.

This advertisement for Schilling & Bohn’s furniture and undertakers business comes from the 1871 Pekin city directory. Schilling & Bohn seems to have been located either at the site today occupied by the Hamm’s Building or by the 353 Court St. Building, but it is unclear whether it was in the same structure that exists today.

At the left of this 1870 photograph is the building the preceded today’s 353 Court St. Building.

In this detail from an 1877 hand-drawn aerial map of Pekin, the black arrow indicates the location that is today the 353 Court St. building, showing a structure that was then a part of Roos’ Block. It is uncertain whether or not the building indicated by the arrow is the same as today’s building at 353 Court.

The history of this part of Court Street becomes clear in the 1880s, when city directories and maps show a hotel called Planter’s House or Planter’s Hotel, with the Irish immigrant Thomas Donegan Conaghan (1847-1922) as its proprietor. Conaghan previously appears in the 1871 and 1876 Pekin city directories as the proprietor of City Hotel at the northeast corner of Ann Eliza and Third streets. Planter’s Hotel is shown in the 1885 and 1892 Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of Pekin as well as the 1887 and 1893 Pekin city directories.

An advertisement for Thomas D. Conaghan’s Planters Hotel from the 1893 Pekin city directory. Planters Hotel first appears on record in the 1885 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin. Despite expansion and extensive remodeling over the time of its existence, it seems the Planters Hotel building is the same structure that is still there today at 353-355 Court St.

At the time of the first Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin in May 1885, T. D. Conaghan was operating Planters Hotel at what was then numbered 421-423 1/2 Court St. (today 353-355 Court St.).

The Jan. 1892 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin again shows T. D. Conaghan’s Planters Hotel at 353-355 Court St.

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.

This detail from a Henry Hobart Cole photograph taken in the early 1890s shows 353-355 Court St. Note that the facade is almost identical to what may be seen today, apart from a peak and a pole atop the 353 Court St. structure. In the early 1890s, these adjoining buildings were the Planter’s Hotel, Thomas D. Conaghan, proprietor, but by the mid-1890s a number of businesses were sharing the building, including the Schradzki & Sklarek clothing store, Day Carpet & Furniture, and the Knights of Pythias Hall.

By the time of the 1895 city directory, however, the Planter’s Hotel building had been remodeled into business and office space to become the Kuhn Building. The Kuhn Building’s tenants that year included a clothing store operated by Leopold Schradzki (1833-1902) and Joseph Sklarek (1856-1940) at 353 Court St. (the western half of today’s 353 Court St. building), Day Carpet & Furniture operated by Edward O. Deuermeyer (1860-1931) at 355 Court St. (the eastern half of today’s Court St. building), M. Bayne & Son highway bridge builders operated by Milton Bayne (1830-1910) and his son William M. Bayne (1860-1924), and the insurance agencies of Martin J. Heisel (1857-1909) and Rudolph Velde (1875-1947).

Edward O. Deuermeyer (1860-1931), who operated Day Carpet & Furniture at 355 Court St. during the 1890s. Portrait shared at Ancestry.com.

An 1894 portrait shared at Ancestry.com of Illinois bridge builder Milton Bayne (1830-1910) whose firm’s office was in the 353 Court St. Building during the 1890s.

A group of advertisements from the 1895 Pekin city directory for three businesses then located in the Kuhn Building (353-355 Court St.) The firm of Schradzki & Sklarek at 353 Court (the western half of today’s 353 Court St. Building) was succeeded by Salzenstein & Co. clothing, which was in turn succeeded by The Model clothing store.

A full-page advertisement for the Day Carpet & Furniture Company from the 1895 Pekin city directory. This business occupied 355 Court St., which is today the east half of the 353 Court St. Building.

An advertisement for Rudolph Velde’s insurance agency from the 1895 Pekin city directory. Velde’s office was in the Kuhn Building, 353-355 Court St., the building that is today the home of Ashers Bar & Grill.

At the time of the March 1898 Sanborn Map of Pekin, 353-355 Court St. was known as the Kuhn Building or Kuhn Block, which housed the Knights of Pythias Hall on the third floor, the clothing store of Schradzki & Sklarek and the bridge-building firm of M. Bayne & Son on the first floor, and various other offices.

The 1898 Pekin city directory again shows the clothing store of Schradzki & Sklarek and the bridge-building firm of M. Bayne & Son in the Kuhn Building. According to the directory, by this time Milton Bayne was living in Chicago while his son William ran the firm in Pekin. The Kuhn Building in 1898 was also the home of the Knights of Pythias Hall, and also housed the offices of Charles L. Morgan (1868-1965) and his brother Robert Morgan (1866-1935), real estate and merchandise exchange, Dr. Edward F. Pielemeier (1874-1953), physician, and G. A. Pielemeyer, dentist.

The Model clothing store at 353 Court St. is indicated in this hand-colored photograph by W. Blenkiron taken circa 1900.

Around the time of Nov. 1903 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Pekin, the Schradzki & Sklarek clothing store had been succeeded at 353 Court St. by another clothing store called Salzenstein & Co., owned and operated by Albert Salzenstein (1878-1931). The Kuhn Building also housed several other offices and a third-floor Assembly Hall.

Six years later, the 1904 Pekin city directory shows that the Schradzki & Sklarek clothing store had been succeeded at 353 Court St. by another clothing store called Salzenstein & Co., owned and operated by Albert Salzenstein (1878-1931). Also located at 353 Court St. or 353 1/2 Court St. were Tazewell County judge and attorney Jesse Black Jr. (1870-1935), attorney Edward Reardon (1851-1923), and George W. Seibert (1839-1915), justice of the peace. Meanwhile, at 355 Court St. we find the Smith & Frey five-and-dime store, operated by Thomas B. Smith (1866-1946) and Walter U. Frey (1875-1956), Abraham Lincoln “A. L.” Champion (1860-1945), abstract and real estate, Jacob Rapp (1845-1910), justice of the peace, the Prudential Insurance Co. office with Louis Heimbach as assistant superintendent, and an Assembly Hall on the third floor.

An advertisement for the Smith & Frey five-and-dime store from the 1908 Pekin city directory.

The 1908 Pekin city directory heralded the arrival of The Model Clothing Co. at 353 Court St. The Model was one of the prominent fixtures of downtown Pekin during the first decades of the 20th century, operating from 353 Court St. until the end of the 1920s, when it seems to have fallen as one of the early victims of the Great Depression. Curiously, city directories do not identify The Model’s managers until the 1926 directory, when The Model’s listing showed it with a secondary name of “The Nusbaum Co.,” and the manager was listed as Henry Ehrhardt. Then in the 1928 city directory, The Model, a.k.a. The Nusbaum Co., was listed with M. S. Chamberlain as its manager. The Model went out of business after that, and the 1930 Pekin city directory lists 353 Court St. – that is, the western half of today’s 353 Court St. Building – as “vacant.”

Meanwhile, the 1908 city directory again lists the Smith & Frey five-and-dime store at 355 Court St., with A. L. Champion’s office on the second floor of the Kuhn Building, and the Prudential Insurance Co. office (J. F. Mang, superintendent), over 355 Court. The same directory again lists Jesse Black Jr. and Edward Reardon in their offices in the Kuhn Building, along with Dr. R. C. Horner, dentist. Smith & Frey is again listed at 355 Court St. in the 1909 city directory, but in the 1913 and 1914 directories the store is listed as the Smith Department Store. During these years we continue to find anywhere from four to six offices in the 353-355 Court St. building being occupied by attorneys, dentists, etc., including A. L. Champion and the Prudential Insurance Co. The Modern Woodmen Hall is also listed on the building’s third floor in the 1914 and 1922 Pekin city directories.

At the time of the Dec. 1909 Sanborn Map of Pekin, 353 Court St. housed The Model clothing store, while 355 Court St. housed the Smith & Frey five-and-dime.

An advertisement for The Model clothing store at 353-355 Court St. from about 1910.

Another view of The Model store front at 353 Court St., from a W. Blenkiron photograph taken in 1910.

The Oct. 1916 Sanborn Map of Pekin again shows the storefront space of The Model clothing store at 353 Court St. and the Smith Department Store (formerly known as Smith & Frey) at 355 Court.

The sign of The Model clothing store at 353 Court St. is seen in this Christmas-time photograph from the early 1920s. About this time, the east half of the building — 355 Court St. — housed John Walter, jeweler, Pekin Music House, the Prudential Insurance Co. office, and the Modern Woodmen Hall on the third floor.

A Christmas advertisement from The Model clothing store, from the 25 Dec. 1920 edition of the Pekin Daily Times.

In the 1922 city directory, we find that the Smith Department Store had been replaced by John Walter, jeweler, who along with the Prudential Insurance Co. and four other offices occupied rooms at 355 Court St., while The Model occupied 353 Court. After the departure of The Model from 353 Court at the end of the 1920s, the 1930 city directory again shows John Walter, jeweler, at 355 Court St. However, Walter that year shared 355 Court with the S. S. Kresge Co., a five-and-dime that would soon become a successful downtown department store and ancestor of Kmart.

By the time of the 1925 Sanborn Map of Pekin, the Smith Department Store at 355 Court St. had been replaced by John Walter, jeweler, while The Model Clothing store was still at 353 Court St.

The S. S. Kresge department store at 353 Court St. can be seen in this photograph from the late 1940s.

John Walter, jeweler, continues to be listed at 355 Court St. until the 1939 Pekin city directory, but beginning with the 1932 city directory we find S. S. Kresge Co. occupying both 353 and 355 Court St., and after 1939 Kresge is the sole occupant of the building. The Kresge department store thrived at 353-355 Court St. until the late 1960s. Pekin’s city directories show a succession of 10 managers throughout the store’s existence at 353-355 Court St: Elwood F. Harr (1932), Ernest Arfsten (1934), Leslie L. Jones ( 1937, 1939, 1941, 1943, 1946), Ancil M. Scheiderer ( 1948, 1950), Curtis T. Mullen (1952, 1955, 1956, 1958), Russell Hansen (1959), John E. Curtis (1961), Donald J. Schroeder (1962), Warren Larson (1964, 1965, 1966), and Mark D. Heine (1968, 1969). Heine was Kresge’s last manager in downtown Pekin, and at that time the S. S. Kresge Co. nationwide became Kmart, and built a store at 2901 Court St. Kresge disappears from Pekin directories in 1970, then reappears as Kmart in 1971 with Robert P. Matheny as its manager.

Shown is an S. S. Kresge advertisement from the 19 Dec. 1964 Pekin Daily Times.

After Kresge, the next store to occupy the 353 Court St. Building was a 5-cent-to-1-dollar store, or variety store, called The Jupiter, which is listed at that address in the Pekin city directories from 1970 to 1974, changing managers about once a year. Jupiter’s succession was managers was: Robert Ruhl, Richard Swank, Phillip Brandis, Thomas Hallett, and Larry Rutledge.

353 Court St. is shown toward the left of center in this early 1970s photograph of downtown Pekin. The building then housed the Jupiter variety store.

The storefront 353-355 Court St. is shown in this 1977 Pekin Daily Times photograph. At the time, the building housed the S & H Green Stamp Redemption Center, Joyce Dentinger, manager.

Pekin directories show the 353 Court St. Building as “vacant” in 1975 and 1976, but in 1977 we find the S & H Green Stamp Redemption Center there, managed by Joyce Dentinger. She remained as manager of the Redemption Center for as long as it operated from that storefront, with the Redemption Center and Dentinger last appearing in the 1983 Pekin city directory.

The 1984 directory does not have a listing for 353 Court St., but in 1985 we find a restaurant called Coles Open Hearth, operated by John M. Lawson. Coles Open Heart reappears in the 1986 directory, but with Russell Boger as owner. He changed the restaurant into a night club called Bogey’s Emporium, under which name his business appears in the 1987 directory, but the business quickly failed there.

From 1988 to 1992, Pekin directories list 343 Court St. as “vacant.” In 1993’s directory we find a brief and obscure listing for something called “Visions Onie” — a typographical error for “Visions,” a teen hangout that was not there for very long. In 1994 the building is again listed as “vacant.” Then in 1995, we find Gerald W. Adams’ Bangkok Restaurant, which only lasted about a year.

The 1996 directory lists 353 Court St. as the location of Joseph M. and Penny M. Berardi’s Peek-In Ceramics & Gift Shop. The Berardis continued to operate their business there up to and including the 1998 Pekin city directory. That year we also find Wayne Wilton Thompson Jr., retired, and Ruth P. Thompson, occupying and working out of the building alongside the Berardis. The 1999 city directory again shows Peek-In Ceramics & Gifts, with Joseph Berardi, president, along with a business called Ceramic Treasurers, run by Ruth Thompson; with Wilton W. Thompson Jr. listed there as well.

From the 2000 Pekin city directory until the 2009 directory, we find Ceramic Treasurers, owned by Ruth P. Thompson, as the only business in the building, with Wilton W. Thompson Jr. and Ruth P. Thompson also listed apparently as residents. But Ceramic Treasurers disappears from Pekin city directories after 2009. That is because it was in 2010 that Todd Thompson and his partner Steve Foster refurbished the 353 Court St. building – and it is from this building that Todd Thompson’s 353 Court LLC derives its name.

Ruth P. Thompson’s Ceramic Treasures at 353 Court St. is shown in this Feb. 2002 photograph from the Tazewell County Assessor’s website. Ceramic Treasures operated from that location from the late 1990s until 2010, when Todd Thompson and Steve Foster refurbished the building and brought in the Speakeasy Art Center.

This June 2013 photograph from the Tazewell County Assessor’s website shows the Speakeasy Art Center, which was located in the 353 Court St. building from 2010 to 2016.

After restoring the building, Thompson and Foster turned the building in the Speakeasy Art Center, which from 2010 until Fall 2016 was the home of the Pekin Academy of the Fine Arts, directed by Shannon Cox. The art center’s name harks back to tales that the building had once had a speakeasy hidden there during the Prohibition Era. Curiously, the Speakeasy Art Center never appeared in any Pekin city directories, which instead continued to list only Wilton W. Thompson Jr. and Ruth P. Thompson until 2017’s directory. The 353 Court St. building disappeared from city directories in 2018 and 2019, but the directories from 2020 to 2023 list Kindermusik and Ruth P. Thompson as the only occupants of 353 Court St. The most recent directory listings for this address are probably only “ghost” entries, though.

After the Pekin Academy of Fine Arts moved in late 2016 to the old Rupert Mansion on Walnut, Travis Guthman of Lacon, Illinois, owner of Pizza Peel in Lacon, in late 2019 proposed opening a second Pizza Peel in the 353 Court St. Building. However, Guthman’s plans never came to fruition. But with the arrival of Ashers in 2022, this historic structure has again come to life and does much to to draw customers and community activity to Pekin’s old town.

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Tell me about that house . . . . Part Seven

By Jared L. Olar

Local History Specialist

As we continue our exploration of the story of the house at 405 Willow St., this week we turn to one of the most memorable events in the house’s history: the time when bootleggers attacked the elder Judge Reardon and his family, leaving marks on the house that are still visible today.

The 1941 obituary of Judge Reardon twice mentions this incident, in these words:

“Forceful in his enforcement of the law, rugged in prosecution of criminals, stories are told to this day of Attorney Reardon’s activities as prosecutor; and of bullets that were fired at him thru the windows and doors of his home one night. . . Among all the word darts and actual bullets fired at him in his life, none cut him so as did the death of Danny; and it is beside Danny that he will be buried next Monday noon.”

More recently, Rob Clifton spoke to the late Judge William J. Reardon Jr. (1922-2007) about the Reardon family’s years of ownership of and residence in 405 Willow St., and in particular heard the story of how criminals shot up the house in an attempt to kill or at least frighten Judge Reardon Sr. and his family. Clifton then included some of Judge Reardon’s recollections in his book “Pekin History: Then and Now”, as follows:

“In 1915 William Reardon bought the home for his bride, who dreamed of living in the home many years prior to moving in. William prosecuted several cases during the prohibition era. This made him a target for the rogue criminals that didn’t agree. On New Year’s Eve about 1924, a car stopped in front of this home and the riders inside started firing. The next day William Reardon Jr. says someone came back again firing through the east kitchen window just missing him and his mother. William was 18 months old at the time. There is still evidence of the shooting in one of the pillars outside.”

The first of these two attacks on the Reardon family took place in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day, 1 Jan. 1924. The second attack was also on New Year’s Day, taking place during the evening. But the Reardon home was not the only target of the criminals, because they also drove by the home of Judge Reardon’s colleague Judge Jesse Black Jr., who along with Reardon was working as a special counsel investigating and prosecuting organized crime in Tazewell County.

The Pekin Daily Times reported on these attacks on the Reardons and the Blacks on page 8 of the 2 Jan. 1924 edition of the newspaper, as we see here:

Here’s a transcription of the full Daily Times article:

FIENDS FIRE INTO ATTORNEY’S HOMES

Pay Second Visit to Reardon Home Early Last Evening

There appears to be but slight clews to the identity of the fiends, who on Monday night made a dastardly attempt to kill attorneys W. J. Reardon and Jesse Black, and members of their families, and who last night made a second attempt to kill members of the Reardon family.

Five shots were fired at the Reardon home, Monday night about 1 o’clock, striking within a radius of a few feet of the front door of the home. One of these shots passed through a window and inbedded intself (sic) in a pillar in [the] front room of the house, another through a panel of the door. The shots were fired from am automobile, which sped west on Hamilton street, and were heard by many people in the neighborhood. Little attention was however paid to them at the time, people thinking that the shooting was being done by New Year eve celebraters.

The Second Attempt

The three shots fired last night in the second attempt to kill members of the Reardon family, were fired from a car going north on Fourth street and were fired at the rear room or kitchen of the home, where the members of the family were at the time. One shot passed through the sill of a window on the west side of the home and was picked up inside of the room.

The attempt to kill Judge Jesse Black and members of his family, Monday night, occurred at 12:30 o’clock, a short time before the bandits shot up the Reardon home. Judge and Mrs. Black and Mrs. John Fitzgerald were sitting in the dining room of the Black home, where a succession of shots rang out and the crash of breaking glass in the front of the house startled them.

Stood Close To Door

Rushing to the front of the house and turning on the lights Judge and Mrs. Black discovered that two bullets had passed through the glass of the outside door and two through the vestibule. The two shots which punctured the wood of the vestibule door, struck the dining room door at the end of the vestibule, but they had spent their force and did not pass through this door. Another shot tore through the house and loged (sic) in a victrola after shattering plaster and woodwork.

A car was seen pulling away from the Black home and foot tracks in the snow showed that the would-be assassins stood within twenty feet of the door when the shots were fired.

Attorneys Reardon and Judge Black have been employed as special counsel in the cases of hi-jackers and bootleggers and it is thought that the fusilades (sic) of shots fired into their home was the work of some of those persons whom the attorneys have antagonized, during their work as special prosecutors in liquor gang trials in the county and circuit courts.

Repairs to bullet damage is shown in a 2023 photograph of a porch column of 405 Willow St. The inset showing the same column’s unrepaired bullet hole comes from a 2004 photograph by Rob Clifton. When the house was attacked early on New Year’s Day 1924, a bullet struck this column and passed completely through it.

As Clifton noted, there is still evidence of the shooting in one of the pillars of the house’s porch. A comparison of this detail from Clifton’s 2004 photograph of the house to a photograph of the same pillar taken this year shows that the bullet damage has been repaired.

Next week we will tell the story of the other members of the Reardon family who called this house “home” by sharing the obituaries of Judge Reardon Sr.’s widow Marie and their three children Mary Ann, Danny, and Judge Reardon Jr.

Article from the Pekin Daily Times, 2 Jan. 1924, page 8, reporting three incidents when criminals shot up the home of Judge William J. Reardon Sr. at 405 Willow St. and the home of Judge Jesse Black Jr.

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Tell me about that house . . . . Part Six

By Jared L. Olar

Local History Specialist

This week we will begin to tell the story of the Reardon family, who lived at 405 Willow St. from 1915 to 1967.

As we learned in prior installments in this series, the house at 405 Willow St. was built in 1871 or 1872 by Dietrich C. Smith, who lived there with his family until 1907. The next family to own and live in the house were the Bleekers, who lived there from 1911 until January of 1915.

Tazewell County State’s Attorney William John Reardon Sr. (1878-1941) purchased the house from Blanche Bleeker on 30 Jan. 1915. Regarding Reardon’s purchase of the house, in his book “Pekin History: Then and Now,” Rob Clifton wrote, “In 1915 William Reardon bought the home for his bride, who dreamed of living in the home many years prior to moving in.”

His bride was Marie Elizabeth Albertsen (1884-1967), daughter of Ubbo Janssen and Anna Elizabeth Sophia (Koch) Albertsen of Pekin. William and Marie married at the home of her parents on 17 June 1913. Marie’s father Ubbo served in the Illinois General Assembly as a senator, and was partner with John Hinners in the Hinners Organ Co. The Albertsens formerly lived at 612 Henrietta St., which was about three blocks south of the D. C. Smith mansion. Later they lived in a home at the corner of Capitol and Willow streets, about a block east of the Smith mansion. Since the Albertsens and Smiths were both prominent Pekin families from Ostfriesland, they ran in the same circles and Marie must have seen and visited the house at 405 Willow St. innumerable times before her marriage.

While marriages in those days normally took place when a couple was in their late teens or early 20s, William and Marie Reardon did not marry until he was 34 and she was 28, which was highly unusual for first marriages back then. In William’s case the delay was mostly due to his long years of study for the legal profession. Partly due to their marrying late, William and Marie had only three children, a daughter named Mary Ann and two sons named Daniel Albertsen and William John Jr.

Among the records that show the Reardons’ residence at 405 Willow St. is William J. Reardon’s World War I draft registration, which says “William John Reardon,” 40, born 28 June 1878, registered for the draft on 12 Sept. 1918. He listed his permanent home address as 405 Willow St. and gave his wife Marie’s name as that of his nearest relative.

The residence of William J. Reardon and his family at 405 Willow St. also can be traced in U.S. Census records from 1920 to 1950, as follows:

1920: William J. Reardon, 40, Attorney at Law, wife Marie E. Reardon, 35, daughter Mary A. Reardon, 5, son Daniel A. Reardon, 4 years 9 months, all born in Illinois.

1930: William J. Reardon, 51, lawyer, 34 at first marriage, wife Marie E. Reardon, 45, 28 at first marriage, Mary A. Reardon, 15, son Daniel A. Reardon, 14, son William J. Reardon, 7, all born in Illinois. Value of home: $10,000.

1940: William J. Reardon, 61, lawyer, wife Marie Reardon, 55, son William Jo. Reardon, 18, absent, all born in Illinois, all lived in same house in 1935.

1950: Marie E. Reardon, 64, widowed, son William J. Reardon, 27, attorney at law, both born in Illinois.

This portrait of Tazewell County State’s Attorney William J. Reardon Sr. was probably taken by Henry Hobart Cole. PHOTO COURTESY OF KIP SNYDER

In addition to the terms that he served as Tazewell County State’s Attorney, Reardon was a very talented and accomplished local attorney and became a judge in Tazewell County Circuit Court. Among the most notable cases in which he was involved was the successful defense, in partnership with Pekin attorney and judge Jesse Black Jr., of the Tazewell County Sheriff’s deputies who were implicated in the 1932 torture and death of Tazewell County jail inmate Martin Virant.

Reardon and Black had previously served during the 1920s as special counsels investigating and prosecuting cases of bootlegging and kidnapping during the Prohibition Era. Next week we will tell that story in greater detail, for their prosecutions drew the ire of criminals who left their mark on the house at 405 Willow St.

For now, however, we will reproduce the text of Judge Reardon’s lengthy and detailed obituary, which provides an extended account of his life and career. The obituary was published in the Pekin Daily Times on Tuesday, 27 June 1941:

Wm. J. Reardon Taken By Heart Ailment; Ill Week; Funeral Monday

Death claimed one of the picturesque and forceful characters of Tazewell county when a form of asthma of the heart ended the life of former County Judge William John Reardon at 11:30 o’clock last night at the St. Francis hospital in Peoria. He would have been 63 years old tomorrow.

If he had suffered from heart disease, he had never let the family know it. Perhaps he knew too well how the words “heart trouble” would frighten them, for their stalwart son, Danny, had been stricken down in his teens with heart trouble and after long suffering had died of it on July 18, 1932. So Mr. Reardon merely told his family that he wasn’t hungry — didn’t feel like eating. Then a day or two later that “I don’t feel like going to the office today.” That was a week ago today.

Couldn’t Take Oxygen

Monday morning he felt so miserable that Dr. Needham arranged for him to be sent to St. Francis hospital. There air cooling was put in his room and every form of supplying oxygen was tried. But they gave him so little relief that in his semi-conscious condition, Judge Reardon would push the instruments away, brush the tent aside, or seize the mask off his face. Last evening, however, a new medicine seemed to give him relief and he lapsed into a sound sleep.

Family Not Present

“Go home now and get your rest,” the heart specialist said to Mrs. Reardon and son, William. Scarcely were they home, when the call came to hurry back. Speeding to the hospital again, they arrived after death already had come.

William John Reardon was born in Boynton township, near Delavan, June 28, 1878, one of eight sons of good Irish parents. Indeed, his father, Bryan Reardon was born in Tipperary county Ireland, and his mother had come from just over the Comeragh mountains in Waterford county. Immigrants to the new world, they had settled on the rich Boyntown township land. Of those eight sons, half are now gone: Bryan died near the old home in 1904; Edward in Oklahoma City about 1927; and Gerald died in St. Louis the day before Franklin D. Roosevelt was first inaugurated. Living are Michael of Albuquerque, N. M., Neil and C. C. of Delavan, and Clarence of Chicago.

Studies for Law

William went thru Delavan high and was graduated in 1896. A woe of that year to the ardent young democrat was seeing McKinley defeat Bryan. The young student, apt in debate and forceful on the platform, determined to be a lawyer, and went to Nebraska university where he was graduated with the class of ’02. He came back to Illinois and practiced at East St. Louis for a year, then came back to his home county seat and hung out a shingle with a name that was to become widely known in Illinois. Soon after, he was elected state’s attorney, and he celebrated his renomination for the office by wedding Marie Elizabeth Albertsen, June 17, 1913. They were wed in the old U. J. Albertsen home at Capitol and Willow before the same fireplace where a more recent state’s attorney took another attractive Albertsen bride. They made their home close by, at the corner of Willow and N. Fourth, where they lived until this day, and where friends may call to express their sympathy tonight.

Honored Often

Forceful in his enforcement of the law, rugged in prosecution of criminals, stories are told to this day of Attorney Reardon’s activities as prosecutor; and of bullets that were fired at him thru the windows and doors of his home one night.

In later years, Attorney Reardon was elected president of the Pekin Association of Commerce, president of the County Bar association, and from 1924 until 1938 he served as county judge. His law offices were in the Marshall building, just across the street from the south door of the courthouse, and in recent years some of the county’s most important law cases were handled out of that office.

It was during his two terms as states attorney that the present Tazewell county courthouse was built and Mr. Reardon was given much credit for the shrewd financing plan which enabled the county to pay for the building in only a few years.

Daughter at Canal Zone

Beside the widow and son, William John Reardon Jr., there survive a daughter, Mrs. Gerald Simpson, and her child Michael. Mrs. Simpson (Mary, wife of an army officer) had sailed back to their Canal Zone home on May 1 after a visit with her parents. Two telegrams were set to her this morning. Because Mary had no intimation of her father’s illness, they first sent a message saying her father was seriously ill. Later they sent a death message. Of course Mary will be unable to come for the funeral which probably will be held Monday morning at St. Joseph’s Catholic church, with the Rev. Father Sheedy conducting a requiem mass.

Judge Reardon was a member of St. Joseph’s Catholic church, the Holy Name society, the Elks, and other organizations; but his friends knew him best as a man who loved his home and cherished his family. Among all the word darts and actual bullets fired at him in his life, none cut him so as did the death of Danny; and it is beside Danny that he will be buried next Monday noon.

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Jesse Black, pioneer of Sand Prairie

This is a reprint of a “From the Local History Room” column that first appeared in December 2014, before the launch of this weblog.

Jesse Black, pioneer of Sand Prairie

By Jared Olar

Local History Specialist

Locally prominent in the legal profession during the first three-and-a-half decades of the 20th century was Jesse Black Jr., an accomplished attorney and judge in Tazewell County circuit court.

Jesse Black Jr., born 1870 in Green Valley, was one of the key players in the drama of the jail beating and death of Austrian immigrant Martin Virant, which was serially recounted in this column in 2012 and 2013. Black was one of the attorneys who successfully defended the county deputies whom Virant had publicly accused of beating and torturing him.

Prior to the Virant case, Black had served as a judge, and before that he served a single term in the Illinois House of Representatives following his election in 1899. Jesse Black Jr. died Oct. 11, 1935, at age 64.

Though he was a “Jr.,” he was the grandson, not the son, of Jesse Black Sr.  His father was William Black, born 1849 in Pennsylvania, the son of Jesse Black and Mary J. Johns. The elder Jesse Black was one of the prominent pioneer settlers of Tazewell County, though he arrived in a later wave of migration.

This detail from an 1864 plat map of Sand Prairie Township shows the land of Jesse Black Sr. in Section 28, located to the northwest of the present site of Green Valley.

In his 1905 “History of Tazewell County,” pages 980-981, Ben C. Allensworth included biographies of three generations of the Black family – Jesse Sr., William, and Jesse Jr. The biography of the senior Jesse is somewhat lengthy and traces the Black family genealogy to its American founder, Jacob Black, who came to America in 1679. Following are excerpts from Allensworth’s biography of Jesse Black Sr.

“Jesse Black, who must ever be regarded as one of the most liberal-minded and helpful of the pioneers of 1854, and to whom his fellow farmers in Sand Prairie Township are indebted for an example of moderation and well-earned success, is perhaps as well informed concerning the early days of this section as any settler who owes his native allegiance to the State of Pennsylvania. . . .

“When Mr. Black arrived in Tazewell County, the Government land had all been taken up, but a spirit of newness characterized the country, the entire prairie being without a tree of any description and fences being as yet strangers to the landscape. On their way to the nearest trading posts, the settlers took the shortest cut across lots, for established roads were also matters of the future, and ownership seemed to be more in the nature of a selection than of purchase. At that time, Mr. Black was twenty-nine years old, and in a position to appreciate any advantage that life might hold for him.

“The subject of this sketch was born in Huntingdon County, Pa., February 7, 1825, the son of Jacob, and grandson of John Black, both natives of the Quaker State. His great-grandfather, also John, was born in Easton, Pa., and removed to Crawford County, Ohio, where he engaged in farming. At one time he was the owner of the land on which the city of Bucyrus now stands. Going still further back it is learned that Jacob, the founder of the American branch, emigrated to America, on account of religious persecutions, in 1679. Mr. Black’s father, Jacob, was born near Williamsburg, Pa. His mother, formerly Sarah Neikirk, and his maternal grand-father, Abram Neikirk, were also natives of the Keystone State. On October 20, 1846, Mr. Black was married in his native State to Mary J. Johns. She was also born in the Keystone State, on January 28, 1830, and several children had been added to the family ere the overland journey was undertaken in 1854. Very little money remained in the father’s pockets, when he arranged to purchase the first farm of 160 acres, but the indebtedness was entirely met by the proceeds from the first crop of wheat, which far exceeded his expectations, and which was followed by others equally profitable and encouraging. He continued to reside in the same place until 1883, when he purchased several hundred acres with the fruits of his toil, making in all an imposing tract of fertile land. . . .

“For many years Mr. Black has been prominent in the Old Settlers’ Club of Tazewell County. His activity in the Methodist Church covers many years, and was particularly noticeable during the construction of the present church edifice, in which he is a trustee. Eleven children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Black: John W. (deceased), William, Sarah J., Henry (deceased), Almon, Francis M., Newton, George (deceased), Charles, Edward and Jessie May. Mr. Black is a stanch Republican, and though never an office-seeker, has served as Supervisor of his township. He is a noble, upright man, sympathetic and generous, and as he comes and goes in the community of which he is an integral part, enjoys the consciousness of a universal and an abiding good-will.”

Jesse Black Sr. died on Feb. 3, 1907, on his farm in Sand Prairie Township. He and his wife Mary are buried together in Green Valley Cemetery.

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