Breaking ground, and unsealing a time capsule

By Jared Olar

Library Assistant

Up to this point in our series on the history of the Pekin Public Library, we have related the steps that were taken to design a new library building that would include a Dirksen Congressional Research Center, up to the moment on June 20, 1972, when the Pekin library board accepted the bid of Del Construction Co. of Washington, Ill., to build the new 32,500-sq.-ft. library and Dirksen Center for $1,111,780.

In the month following, a special ground-breaking ceremony took place adjacent to the Pekin Carnegie library to initiate the actual construction of the new building. The ground was broken on July 18, 1972, by George Stolley, library board vice-president and chairman of the building committee, along with library director Richard Peck and library board president Miss Josephine Jubain.

While workers dug up the ground, poured concrete, and the new structure rose from the ground, the library’s staff occupied its time in a major project by which the old bookcard index filing system that had been in use, with few significant modifications, since the early 1900s, was replaced by a microfilm circulation system. This switch-over took place in February of 1973.

About three months after that, construction work paused momentarily so workers could pry the Carnegie library’s cornerstone free, enabling access to the time capsule that had been sealed in the cornerstone on Aug. 19, 1902. The ceremonial opening of the time capsule took place on May 31, 1973, and it was found that the collection of 34 preserved mementos were all in excellent condition despite being confined in the capsule for almost 71 years.

The Pekin Daily Times news report on the opening of the time capsule describes the event in these words:

“A small black metal box, well preserved in its chiseled-out niche in the cornerstone of Pekin Public Library, today yielded a surprisingly varied view of the community nearly 71 years ago.

“Installed by the Masonic Fraternity on Aug. 19, 1902, the box was pried from its mooring this morning in bright sunlight at the corner of Broadway and S. Fourth streets, after an earlier postponement because of rain. Only a small group of curious persons, who happened on the scene, and a cluster of newspeople witnessed the opening, after the box was lifted from the 900-pound stone. Because of the dimensions of the container – about five by five by nine inches – some of the contents had been trimmed to fit. A border slicing had been performed on some old city directories, for instance.

“After construction workers handed the box down from the corner of the soon-to-be-demolished building, Pekin Mayor William Waldmeier, Library Board President Josephine Jubain and Librarian Richard N. Peck revealed the items enclosed – ranging from a photograph of and letter from Andrew Carnegie and a warranty deed to the real estate occupied by the building to a 1902 copy of the Pekin Daily Times and issues of other local newspapers of the day. A catalog of products of the Smith Wagon Co. was among the items, as were several lists of Masonic members and officers, who had raised the money for the laying of the cornerstone.”

This scene from the opening of the 1902 Pekin Carnegie library’s cornerstone time capsule was published in the Pekin Daily Times on May 31, 1973. Shown in the foreground from left to right are Pekin Mayor William Waldmeier, Library Board President Josephine Jubain, and Pekin Library Director Richard Peck. In the background are Robert Mott, Ray Frank Jr., and Lou Fischer, the construction workers who pried the cornerstone loose and retrieved the time capsule.

After the time capsule was opened, the copper box and its contents were preserved in the vault of Herget Bank, but about 20 years ago they were transferred to the library’s own historical archives. Photocopies of the items are kept in a vertical file in the library’s Local History Room.

In our ongoing library history series, we have previously described the contents of the 1902 cornerstone, and have been illustrating these columns with photographs and digital scans of documents and relics from the cornerstone.

Shown here in a photograph from earlier in 2021 is the old copper time capsule that was embedded in the cornerstone of the Pekin Carnegie library from 1902 to 1973. Etched on the bottom of the copper box is the name “Louis Zinger Jr.,” who is known to have fashioned several Illinois time capsules around the early 20th century.

The Pekin Public Library is currently exhibiting many of the cornerstone time capsule mementos in two display cases in the library’s Local History Room and in a third display case located under the stairway to the library’s second floor. The Local History Room exhibit will remain on display through the end of the year. The Local History Room is open during the library’s regular hours.

Next time we will tell of one of the most memorable events in the history of the library, and of Pekin itself – the visit of U.S. President Richard Nixon to dedicate the cornerstone of the new library and Dirksen Congressional Research Center.

With the 1902 Pekin Carnegie library behind them, Pekin Library Director Richard Peck, Library Board member George Stolley (chairman of the library’s building committee, wielding the shovel), and Library Board President Josephine Jubain break ground for the planned new Pekin Public Library and Dirksen Congressional Center at 2 p.m. Tuesday, July 18, 1972.

#del-construction-co, #george-stolley, #herget-bank, #josephine-jubain, #lou-fischer, #louis-zinger-jr, #miss-josephine-jubain, #pekin-library-cornerstone-time-capsule, #pekin-public-library, #pekin-public-library-history, #ray-frank-jr, #richard-n-peck, #robert-mott, #william-waldmeier

Pekin Public Library exhibits mementos of its past

As a part of the ongoing celebration of is 125th anniversary, the Pekin Public Library this year is exhibiting a selection of mementos, artifacts, and papers from its early history. The exhibit is displayed in the library’s Local History Room, and will remain on display through the end of the year.

The exhibit includes artifacts and papers that reach back to November of 1866, when the Ladies Library Association of Pekin, predecessor of Pekin Public Library, was organized by the leading ladies of Pekin society. Other items in the display include original blueprints of Pekin’s 1902 Carnegie library, a copy of an old photo of one of the early pre-1902 buildings that housed the library during the 19th century, portrait photographs and copies of letters of the “parents” of Pekin’s Carnegie library (Miss Mary E. Gaither, Andrew Carnegie, and George Herget), and a large number of artifacts that were preserved in the Carnegie library’s cornerstone time capsule.

The public is invited to examine the exhibited materials during regular library hours. Photographs of the exhibit, by Emily Lambe, public information and programming manager for the Pekin Public Library, are shown below.

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#andrew-carnegie, #carnegie-library, #george-herget, #ladies-library-association, #mary-gaither, #miss-gaither, #miss-mary-e-gaither, #pekin-carnegie-library, #pekin-library-association, #pekin-library-cornerstone-time-capsule, #pekin-public-library, #pekin-public-library-history

Pekin Public Library spotlights 125+ years of history at ‘Business After Hours’

After a hiatus of about a year, the Pekin Area Chamber of Commerce resumed its popular “Business After Hours” events on Thursday evening, April 8, 2021, when leaders of local business and community life attended a social gathering in the second-floor Community Room of the Pekin Public Library. Pekin Public Library Director Jeff Brooks took the occasion of its hosting “Business After Hours” to display a large number of its mementos and artifacts which illustrated the Pekin Public Library’s vital place in Pekin’s community life reaching back to 1866, when the prominent ladies of Pekin society organized the Ladies Library Association of Pekin, forerunner of the Pekin Public Library. The library’s local historian and researcher on staff, Jared Olar, also spoke for about 25 minutes, giving an overview of the library’s history from 1866 to the present. Throughout the event, a video highlighting the library’s history, prepared by Emily Lambe, public information and programming manager, was played.

“Business After Hours” at the Pekin Public Library is just one of the ways the library has been celebrating the 125th anniversary of the library’s existence (counting from February 1896, when the Pekin Library Association became a department of Pekin city government). Additional events will appear on the library’s program calendar throughout 2021.

Below are photographs from the April 8 “Business After Hours,” all taken by director Jeff Brooks.

Pekin Public Library’s local history specialist Jared Olar, who oversees the library’s Local History collection, spoke for about 25 minutes giving an overview of the history of the library from 1866 to the present.

Among the mementos exhibited at Business After Hours on April 8 were photographs of Miss Mary Gaither, Andrew Carnegie, and George Herget, and copies of Carnegie’s and Herget’s letters to Miss Gaither. These photos and letters, which tell of the preparations to build a Carnegie library in Pekin, were preserved in the 1902 Carnegie library cornerstone time capsule.

Among the items displayed during Business After Hours at the Pekin Public Library on April 8 were surviving blueprints of the 1902 Carnegie library, along with catalogues of the materials that were held by the Ladies Library Association and the Pekin Library Association, predecessors of the Pekin Public Library.

The library artifacts exhibited during Business After Hours included the charter of incorporation granted to the Pekin Library Association in April of 1883. The charter was preserved in the 1902 library cornerstone time capsule.

This metal container is the 1902 time capsule that held many of the artifacts and mementos that were displayed when the library hosted the Pekin Area Chamber of Commerce’s Business After Hours on Thursday evening, April 8, 2021. The 1902 time capsule was enclosed in the cornerstone of the Pekin Carnegie library, and was opened May 31, 1973, prior to the demolition of the Carnegie library.

On one end of the exhibit at Business After Hours were two of the library board’s old official seal stamps.

Donna the Kangaroo, an orange plastic children’s rocking chair in the shape of a beloved character of an older generation of Australian children’s literature, is well-remembered by Pekinites for her many years in the Pekin Public Library’s Youth Services Department. Donna usually is kept safely in storage these days, but she came out the greet the attendees of the Pekin Chamber of Commerce’s Business After Hours on the library’s second floor Thursday evening, April 8, 2021. As part of the library’s 125th anniversary celebrations this year, the library will provide opportunities for photographs with Donna at 5 p.m. Tuesday, June 22, and again at 11 a.m. Saturday, June 26.

#andrew-carnegie, #business-after-hours, #donna-the-kangaroo, #george-herget, #jared-olar, #jeff-brooks, #kangaroo-chair, #ladies-library-association, #mary-gaither, #miss-gaither, #pekin-area-chamber-of-commerce, #pekin-carnegie-library, #pekin-library-association, #pekin-library-cornerstone-time-capsule, #pekin-public-library, #pekin-public-library-history

The ‘Pekin Public Library’ comes on the scene

By Jared Olar
Library Assistant

As we continue the story of the early history of Pekin’s library, this week we will learn how “Pekin Library Association Inc.” became the Pekin Public Library.

As we recalled last week, it was on April 5, 1883, that the Ladies Library Association of Pekin was formally incorporated under the laws of the State of Illinois under the new name of “Pekin Library Association” (a name the association had begun to use by 1882). In this way, the library ceased its existence as a local service club.

The decision to incorporate was taken with an eye toward possibly reestablishing the library association as a free community service that would be owned and provided by Pekin’s city government. Thus, Miss Mary Gaither’s history tells:

“In June, 1883, a committee called upon the City Council with a proposition to make the Library a free city Library, but the Council committee, to whom was referred the request, reported adversely.”

With that, the idea of turning the library into a department of city government was to lay dormant for another decade.

Three years later, Gaither’s history notes that the Library Association employed Miss Agnes Alexander was employed as librarian at a salary of $8 per month. The library cards that the association issued to its patrons had to be renewed every three months.

This 1883 Pekin Library Association library card was among the items preserved in the 1902 Pekin Carnegie library cornerstone time capsule. The card belonged to one of the daughters of Pekin’s pioneer historian William H. Bates, a local printer and journalist.

The library in those days continued to operate from the second floor of downtown Pekin buildings along Court Street. The 1888 Bates City Directory of Pekin says the Pekin Library Association then had its Library Room at 411 Court St., with its entrance between 413 and 414 Court. The library’s hours were, “Open every Tuesday evening and on Saturdays from 3 to 5 and from 7 to 9 p.m.,” the directory says.

According to Gaither’s history of the library, in the Spring of 1889, the library association relocated from the Frederick Building on Court Street to Pekin’s old city hall and firehouse at the corner of Fourth and Margaret streets.

In 1892, the library board approved a resolution that the Pekin Library Association should seek to become a municipal library operated by the Pekin city government. On Feb. 6, 1893, the association formally submitted a petition to the city government asking that the library and its collection be transferred to the city’s ownership.

The work to bring this transfer to completion took about three more years. It was through the efforts of Mrs. George Rider, library board president, and Miss Emily Weyrich, board secretary, that transfer of ownership to the city was accomplished, thereby converting library into a department of the city, called “the Pekin Public Library.” The library then had 2,449 books in its collection, 341 library card holders, and weekly circulation was 600 books.

Under city ownership, the library board’s first president was Mr. Henry M. Ehrlicher, and the secretary was Mr. Ben P. Schenck – men who would continue to play important roles in the library’s history in the coming years, as we shall see.

Most interestingly, although it wasn’t until mid-February of 1896 that the city assumed full ownership of the library, the Pekin Library Association began using the new name “Pekin Public Library” as early as 1893, the year the association submitted its petition to the city.

Thus, the Bates City Directories of Pekin for the years 1893 and 1895 both list the library as “Pekin Public Library, junction Court and Broadway” (i.e. Seventh and Court). The library was then operating out of a building at 616 Court St., which is now the parking lot of First Federal Savings of Pekin, and it would remain at that spot until 1899.

Next time we will tell of the Pekin Public Library’s early years as a city-run library.

#ben-p-schenck, #first-federal-savings-of-pekin, #henry-ehrlicher, #ida-bates, #ladies-library-association, #miss-agnes-alexander, #miss-emily-weyrich, #mrs-george-rider, #pekin-library-association, #pekin-library-cornerstone-time-capsule, #pekin-public-library, #pekin-public-library-history, #william-h-bates

Looking back over 155 years of Pekin library history

By Jared Olar
Library Assistant

This month the Pekin Public Library marks an important anniversary in its history: it has been 125 years since the library became a branch of Pekin’s city government. It was in Feb. 1896 that the city of Pekin formally assumed the ownership and management of the old Pekin Library Association, a private corporation that was first organized in Nov. 1866.

So, while the library itself will turn 155 this November, the institution known as “Pekin Public Library” is now 125 years old. This anniversary provides a good occasion to take a look back over the library’s history. In today’s column, we’ll run through a general overview of the history of the library and the library building. In columns over the next few weeks and months, we’ll take close looks at specific aspects and episodes of the library’s history.

As both longtime residents of Pekin and attentive visitors to the library know, the current Pekin Public Library building is not the first one to be erected on its site. Prior to the construction of the current library in 1972, Pekin’s readers were served by a smaller structure that stood at the corner of Fourth Street and Broadway. When the old library was demolished, its former site became a sunken plaza, but since the 2015 remodel and expansion of the library, the old sunken plaza is no more, replaced by a quiet reading room and a grove of trees with water drainage.

That earlier library structure – one of the nation’s many Carnegie libraries, built in 1902 under the patronage of famous American industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie – was the first building constructed in Pekin to serve specifically as a public library. In 1900, Miss Mary Elizabeth Gaither (1852-1945) had written to both Carnegie and to Pekin banker George Herget, seeking their support for the construction of a library building. Carnegie agreed to provide funds, and Herget donated land to the city to provide a site for the new library, and Bloomington architect Paul O. Moratz was hired to design it.

Shown in this clipping from a 1901 edition of the Pekin Daily Times is Bloomington architect Paul O. Moratz’s sketch of his proposed design for the 1902 Pekin Carnegie Library. It has been 125 years since the city of Pekin assumed ownership of the Pekin Public Library.

To celebrate this milestone in Pekin’s history, a formal dedication ceremony took place on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 1902. On that occasion, the library’s cornerstone was laid – and within the cornerstone was placed a time capsule containing an assortment of documents and relics pertaining chiefly to the history of the plans and preparations leading up to the construction of Pekin’s Carnegie library.

The time capsule remained sealed for 70 years. When the old library was replaced with a new, expanded facility in 1972, the cornerstone was opened and the contents of the time capsule were found to be in a very good state of preservation. For many years after that, the cornerstone materials were stored at Herget Bank, later being transferred to the Pekin Public Library’s own historical archives, where they are stored and preserved today.

Among the items that had been placed in the 1902 time capsule were two local newspapers from February 1896 – a copy of the Pekin Daily Tribune and a copy of the Pekin Daily Evening Post, both of 13 Feb. 1896. They were selected for the time capsule because that date was close to the day that the library became a municipal body of Pekin’s city government.

Shown here is part of the front page of the Feb. 13, 1896, Pekin Daily Tribune, one of the newspapers that was preserved in the 1902 Pekin Public Library cornerstone time capsule.

Miss Gaither, whose actions and advocacy were responsible for the construction of our Carnegie library, prepared a historical report for the Library of Congress in 1903, in which she related the story of the library from 1866 to 1903. (Her historical account had previously been included in the 1902 time capsule.) Her “History of the Pekin Public Library” says:

“On November 24th, 1866, a large number of the ladies of Pekin met to organize what was for many years known as the ‘Ladies Library Association.’” Also included in the cornerstone time capsule was one of the handwritten invitations to that meeting.

On March 5, 1883, the Pekin Library Association formally incorporated under the laws of the State of Illinois – the original, sealed articles of incorporation from 1883 also were included in the cornerstone time capsule.

Ten years later, on Feb. 6, 1893, the Library Association petitioned the city to have the library and its collection handed over to the city’s ownership. The process of transferring the library from private to public control was completed three years later.

Pekin’s Carnegie Library served the community for seven decades, after which construction began on an entirely new library in 1972 – the one still in use today. The new facility was also the home of the Dirksen Congressional Center for 28 years, and in June 1973, President Richard Nixon came to Pekin to dedicate the Dirksen Center. Two years later, in August 1975, President Gerald Ford returned to dedicate the new library building.

Since then, the Pekin Public Library has benefited from advances in technology and some remodeling. The most significant changes came in 2014 and 2015 thanks to a $6 million remodel and expansion that included a new entrance, community and conference rooms, study rooms and a quiet reading room, and a fresher, brighter, and lighter look within and without.

#andrew-carnegie, #carnegie-library, #dirksen-center, #dirksen-congressional-research-center, #george-herget, #gerald-ford, #herget-bank, #ladies-library-association, #library-cornerstone, #mary-elizabeth-gaither, #mary-gaither, #miss-gaither, #paul-o-moratz, #pekin-daily-evening-post, #pekin-daily-tribune, #pekin-library-association, #pekin-library-cornerstone-time-capsule, #pekin-public-library, #pekin-public-library-history, #presidents-in-pekin, #richard-nixon

Some pre-1914 obituaries from Tazewell County

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

Some pre-1914 obituaries from Tazewell County

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

Of the resources available in the Pekin Public Library’s Local History Room, perhaps it is the online obituary index that gets the most use, since obituaries are excellent sources of information for genealogists. The library’s index covers obituaries published in the Pekin Daily Times from Oct. 3, 1914 to the present year – but also includes a handful of obituaries from the Daily Times and other Tazewell County newspapers from prior to 1914.

Until a few years ago, the library’s obituary index was a large file of typed index cards, but the index has been completely digitized and is accessible on the internet through the library’s homepage, at www.pekinpubliclibrary.org, under the “Research” tab, on “Local History Room” page.

The obituary index entries provide the date that each obituary was published in the Pekin Daily Times, along with the page and column numbers. Using that information, an obituary can then be retrieved from the library’s microfilm reels of the Pekin Daily Times.

As said above, the Daily Times microfilm collection begins with the issue published on Oct. 3, 1914, and continues to the present year. The index, however, is even more current, as the library updates it almost daily, whereas the microfilms are current up to the end of 2018 (when all microfilming ceased worldwide). Print editions of the Pekin Daily Times may be consulted for obituaries published since the end of February.

Sadly, there is little recourse for those looking for obituaries that were published in the Pekin Daily Times prior to Oct. 3, 1914. Most copies of Pekin Daily Times issues prior to that date have perished, many having been destroyed in a fire at the newspaper building about a century ago, while other bound volumes of the paper reportedly “disappeared” during and soon after the years in the early 1920s when the newspaper was owned by three members of the Ku Klux Klan.

However, a number of stray issues of the Daily Times from prior to Oct. 3, 1914, have survived, and in fact the library has one of them – the Aug. 16, 1902, edition of the Pekin Daily Times that was preserved in the cornerstone time capsule of the former Pekin Carnegie Library that was built in 1902. Also included in the time capsule were copies of an 1896 Pekin Daily Evening Post, an 1896 Pekin Daily Tribune, and a 1902 Pekin Daily Post-Tribune.

Besides those pre-1914 newspapers, the library archives also include a single issue of the April 13, 1860 edition of the Tazewell Republican, which was donated to the library a few years ago by Timothy Williams of Pekin. There are no formal obituaries in that newspaper, because the custom of publishing biographical tributes of “ordinary” community members who had died was only then starting to catch on. The only thing even remotely like an obituary or death notice in the April 13, 1860 Tazewell Republican was the following short paragraph on page 2:

“The body of the man drowned off the steamer Gaty, something like a month ago, was found on the banks of Spring Lake yesterday or the day previous. The body was identified by the hands, the forefinger of one having been cut off. – Peoria Union.”

The April 13, 1860 edition of the Tazewell Republican newspaper ran this advertisement for the steamboat Sam Gaty on page 3. On the facing page of the same edition was a news brief on the recovery of the body of a Sam Gaty passenger who had fallen overboard and drowned.

On page 3 of the same newspaper is an advertisement that lists the schedule of the trips that the steamboat “Sam Gaty” made between Pekin and Peoria – but while we know the steamer’s full name, the newspaper doesn’t breathe of word of the name of the drowned man. His name probably had appeared in previous issues of the paper, and so the editor, seeking to economize on space on the page, must have decided it wasn’t necessary to repeat the victim’s name.

Unlike the 1860 copy of the Tazewell Republican, the time capsule’s 1896 and 1902 newspapers do include a few obituaries and death or funeral notices, which were added to the library’s online obituary index for the benefit of genealogical researchers in 2014. To each of these index entries have been added research notes indicating that they were printed in newspapers from the Library Cornerstone.

The library’s reference staff will assist genealogists who would like to obtain copies of these pre-1914 obituaries and death and funeral notices, which are listed below. (Note that three individuals had their obituaries published in more than one newspaper.)

Franklin E. Myers, 28, of rural Green Valley, died Feb. 12, 1896 in Pekin, in the Feb. 13, 1896 Pekin Daily Evening Post
Frank Myers, 28, of rural Green Valley, died Feb. 12, 1896 in Pekin, in the Feb. 13, 1896 Pekin Daily Tribune
William Schaumleffel of Pekin, died Feb. 1896, burial Feb. 13, 1896, in the Feb. 13, 1896 Pekin Daily Evening Post
William Schaumleffle of Pekin, died Feb. 1896, burial Feb. 13, 1896, in the Feb. 13, 1896 Pekin Daily Tribune
Samuel Russell, 74, of Pekin, died Aug. 17, 1902, in the Aug. 18, 1902 Pekin Daily Post-Tribune
Bryan George, 6, of Pekin, died Aug. 18, 1902 in Pekin, in the Aug. 18, 1902 Pekin Daily Post-Tribune
George J. Breaden, died Aug. 1902, in the Aug. 18, 1902 Pekin Daily Post-Tribune
George Joseph Breaden, died Aug. 16, 1902 in Pekin, in the Aug. 16, 1902 Pekin Daily Times
Mrs. George H. Youngman, 26, died Aug. 13, 1902, in the Aug. 16, 1902 Pekin Daily Times

A brief genealogical note about this last death notice – according to the Find-A-Grave website, “Mrs. George H. Youngman” was Cora A. (Buck) Youngman, born July 18, 1876, daughter of Oliver and Hannah (Hammitt) Buck, married George H. Youngman on June 7, 1899, and buried in McLean Cemetery, McLean, Ill.

#bryan-george, #cora-a-buck, #cora-a-youngman, #franklin-e-myers, #george-joseph-breaden, #ku-klux-klan, #mrs-george-h-youngman, #pekin-daily-evening-post, #pekin-daily-post-tribune, #pekin-daily-times, #pekin-daily-tribune, #pekin-library-cornerstone-time-capsule, #pekin-public-library-obituary-index, #preblog-columns, #sam-gaty, #samuel-russell, #tazewell-republican, #timothy-williams, #william-schaumleffel

The Pekin Public Library’s early history: A glimpse inside a time capsule

This is a reprint of a “From the Local History Room” column that first appeared in March 2013 before the launch of this weblog.

A glimpse inside a time capsule

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

Each week this column delves into the Pekin Public Library’s Local History Room collection to see what we can learn about various aspects, anecdotes and artifacts of Pekin and Tazewell County history. This week we’ll turn our attention toward the history the Pekin Public Library itself, by taking look at a few of the contents of the library’s Cornerstone Time Capsule collection.

As both longtime residents of Pekin and attentive visitors to the library know, the current library building is not the first one to be erected on it site. Prior to the construction of the current library in 1972, Pekin’s readers were served by a smaller structure that stood at the corner of Fourth Street and Broadway, where the library’s sunken plaza is located today. [NB: Since the 2015 remodel and expansion of the library, the old sunken plaza is no more, replaced by a quiet reading room and a grove of trees with water drainage.]

That earlier structure – one of the nation’s many Carnegie libraries, built in 1902 under the patronage of famous American industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie – was the first building constructed in Pekin to serve specifically as a public library. To celebrate that milestone in Pekin’s history, a formal dedication ceremony took place on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 1902.

On that occasion, the library’s cornerstone was laid – and within the cornerstone was placed a time capsule containing an assortment of documents and relics pertaining chiefly to the history of the plans and preparations leading up to the construction of Pekin’s Carnegie library.

The time capsule remained sealed for 70 years. When the old library was replaced with a new, expanded facility in 1972, the cornerstone was opened and the contents of the time capsule were found to be in a very good state of preservation. For many years after that, the cornerstone materials were stored at Herget Bank, later being transferred to the Pekin Public Library’s own historical archives.

Placed in the cornerstone time capsule were five local newspapers, three of them from August 1902 and two of them from February 1896. The reason for including three August 1902 newspapers is obvious – they are issues with dates that are close to the day of the cornerstone laying: the Pekin Daily Post-Tribune of Aug. 18, 1902, the Pekin Daily Times of Aug. 16, 1902, and the Pekin Freie Presse of Aug. 14, 1902. (Pekin formerly had a German language newspaper due to the heavy influx of German immigrants to Pekin in the mid- to late 1800s.)

The reason for including the two newspapers from February 1896 is probably not obvious to anyone not well versed in the library’s history, however. Those newspapers – the Pekin Daily Tribune and the Pekin Daily Evening Post, both of 13 Feb. 1896 – were chosen because that date was close to the day that the library became a municipal body of Pekin’s city government.

The library’s history did not begin in 1902, but in fact reaches back to 1866, as we read in one of the documents placed in the 1902 cornerstone: a “History of the Pekin Public Library” written by Miss Mary Gaither. “On November 24th, 1866, a large number of the ladies of Pekin met to organize what was for many years known as the ‘Ladies Library Association,’” Gaither wrote. Also included in the cornerstone was one of the handwritten invitations to that meeting.

On March 5, 1883, the Pekin Library Association formally incorporated under the laws of the State of Illinois – the original, sealed articles of incorporation from 1883 also were included in the cornerstone time capsule.

Ten years later, on Feb. 6, 1893, the Library Association petitioned the city to have the library and its collection handed over to the city’s ownership. The process of transferring the library from private to public control was completed three years later, in 1896.

Shown here is part of the front page of the Feb. 13, 1896, Pekin Daily Tribune, one of the newspapers that was preserved in the 1902 Pekin Public Library cornerstone time capsule.

Shown here is the top front of the outer sleve of the Feb. 13, 1896, Pekin Daily Tribune, one of the newspapers that was preserved in the 1902 Pekin Public Library cornerstone time capsule.

#andrew-carnegie, #carnegie-library, #ladies-library-association, #library-cornerstone, #mary-gaither, #pekin-daily-evening-post, #pekin-daily-times, #pekin-daily-tribune, #pekin-freie-presse, #pekin-library-association, #pekin-library-cornerstone-time-capsule, #preblog-columns

A brief history of Pekin’s street fairs

This is a revised and expanded version of a “From the Local History Room” column that first appeared in June 2011 before the launch of this weblog.

A brief history of Pekin’s street fairs

By Linda Mace, Library assistant (retired),
and Jared Olar, Library assistant

This photograph from the Pekin Public Library’s Local History Room collection shows the booth of Central Book & Toy Store at the 1935 Pekin Street Fair.

Once upon a time, or beginning in 1898 and apparently ending in the mid-1930’s, Pekin would put on vibrant, very popular street fairs, hosted in the city’s downtown.

In 1902, on the day of the parade, 18,000 people attended this event. Two railroad companies from Peoria brought 2,800 people into our fair town. This was quite the event, with officers and committees and a whole list of rules and regulations.

This is from the official brochure and program for the 1902 fair:

“The many favorable comments upon the originality and beauty of the FREE STREET FAIRS given by Pekin during the years 1898 and 1899, and the clean and praiseworthy manner in which they were conducted, has resulted in a unanimous desire on the part of our wide-awake business men and citizens to out-do all previous Street Fairs, therefore the Association has selected October 15, 16, 17 & 18, 1902, as the dates on which Pekin will again offer free entertainment to the assemble multitudes. THE MOST FASTIDIOUS TASTES of the visitor and his family will find only pleasure and instruction in the beautiful array of VARIEGATED BOOTHS and MUSICAL and DESCRIPTIVE ENTERTAINMENTS WHICH WILL BE GIVEN DAY AND NIGHT! THE FACT THAT PEKIN, in her former exhibits, MORE THAN FILLED HER PROMISES to the public, should, and we believe will, be encouraged in giving her third street fair, by an almost universal visit from the citizens of Central Illinois.”

The brochure went on to describe the “great parade” and emphasized “new features every day.” The fair of 1898 had contained 80 booths, running down the middle of the street and on either side, corresponding to the front footage of the stores erecting them. Downtown Pekin was the place to be in those days!

Shown here is the front cover of the 1899 Pekin Street Fair official program and souvenir. The Pekin Public Library’s copy of the program was preserved in the 1902 library cornerstone time capsule.

This page from the 1899 Pekin Street Fair official program and souvenir features a photograph of the Cole’s Studio booth. Cole’s Studio was the photography business of Pekin’s pioneer photographer Henry Hobart Cole.

The old tradition of Pekin’s street fairs continues in new forms even today, with the popular annual Marigold Festival and downtown events organized and promoted by Pekin Main Street. Pekin also put on an old-fashioned street fair on and near the premises of the Tazewell County Courthouse on Aug. 7, 1999, as part of the major celebrations of the 175th anniversary of Pekin’s settlement and the 150th anniversary of Pekin’s incorporation as a city.

Festivities at the 1999 street fair were literally dampened by a summer thunderstorm, but the celebrations went on as planned. “As black clouds poured rain and thunder bellowed, Mayor Dave Tebben and pioneering Tharp family descendant Norman Tharp led about 100 people as they sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Pekin,” the Pekin Daily Times reported.

Shown are a commemorative plate and a special section of the Pekin Daily Times marking the celebration of Pekin’s 175th birthday. Both items are in the Pekin Public Library’s Local History Room collection.

Hopefully the city’s bicentennial celebrations five years from now also won’t be rained out, even if rained on.

Included in the Pekin Public Library’s Local History Room archives are copies of the 1899 and 1902 Pekin Street Fair brochure and a 1999 Pekin Terquasquicentennial commemorative plat embossed with the official logo of the 1999 Pekin 175th Anniversary.

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A succession of county courthouses

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

The Tazewell County Courthouse in downtown Pekin celebrated its 100th birthday just last month. Serving the county for as long as it has, the courthouse is neither the first such structure in Tazewell County history nor the first courthouse to be built at that location.
As told in Charles C. Chapman’s 1879 “History of Tazewell County,” the first Tazewell County Courthouse was located in Mackinaw, which was originally the county seat, being located in the county’s center. The first courthouse, a log house 24 feet long and 18 feet wide, was built at a cost of $125 in the summer of 1827 on lot 1 of block 11. Improvements were made to the simple structure in 1830, but in the summer of 1831 the court relocated to the old Doolittle School at the corner of Elizabeth and Second streets in Pekin.

Pekin historian William H. Bates drew this representation of the first Tazewell County Courthouse, located in Mackinaw, for the “Historical Souvenir” that Bates published for the dedication of the new courthouse in 1916.

The court was relocated to Pekin because in Dec. 1830 the Illinois General Assembly had created McLean County out of the eastern portion of Tazewell County, which originally was much larger than it is today. With the redrawing of the border, Mackinaw was now toward the eastern edge of the county, and many county officials thought the new town of Pekin would make a better county seat than Mackinaw.
For the next few years, Pekin would function as the de facto county seat even though it had not been established as such by law. But in 1835 the state legislature appointed a commission to permanently fix Tazewell County’s seat, and the commission opted for Tremont rather than Pekin, because Tremont was close to the center of the county. The court moved to Tremont on June 6, 1836, and a temporary courthouse was promptly erected there at the cost of $1,150. Then in 1837 construction began on a permanent brick courthouse in Tremont for $14,450. That structure was completed in 1839 – the same year that the residents of Pekin formally began efforts to have the county seat transferred back to their town.

William H. Bates reproduced this photograph of the old Tazewell County Courthouse in Tremont for the 1916 “Historical Souvenir” that he published for the dedication of the new courthouse.

The contentious rivalry between Pekin and Tremont continued throughout the 1840s, and Chapman relates that, in their efforts to retain the county seat and to slow or halt Pekin’s growing prosperity, Tremont is said to have lobbied the General Assembly several times to have portions of Tazewell County sliced off and assigned to neighboring counties. After the election of May 1843, Chapman writes, “a stop [was] made to this dividing up and cutting off of Tazewell’s territory. Had they continued it much longer there would have been nothing left of the county but Pekin and Tremont. Then, we doubt not, a division would have been made and both towns have at least gained a county-seat.”
Further on, Chapman comments, “During these twenty years of local war, of course bitterness of feeling was intense, and great injury was done to all parts of the county. Many of the older citizens attribute very largely the prosperity and commercial advantages by Peoria over Pekin to the bitter feuds engendered during this long and eventful strife.”
The conflict ended in 1849, when the citizens of Tazewell County voted to move the county seat to Pekin, where it has remained ever since. A new courthouse was then built in Pekin in 1850, at the site of the present courthouse. “The question [of the county seat’s location] having been finally and definitely decided the courthouse was immediately erected by the citizens of Pekin, in fulfillment of their promise. The last meeting of the Board of Supervisors . . . that was held at Tremont was Aug. 26, 1850, when it moved in a body to their new and more commodious quarters, and on the same day dedicated the edifice by holding therein their first meeting in Pekin,” Chapman writes.
The old Tremont courthouse remained in use as a high school for several years, later being used as a community center and dance hall, until at last the ground level was used as tenements before the dilapidated structure was razed around 1895. The old county histories note that Abraham Lincoln practiced law in both the Tremont courthouse and the 1850 courthouse in Pekin.
“Pekin: A Pictorial History” notes that for the construction of the Pekin courthouse, “Gideon Rupert (his residence is the current homesite of the Noel-Henderson Funeral Home) contributed $600 and with others’ generosity, raised the needed funds for the building. The cost was $8,000. Local products of sandstone, quarried five miles northeast of Pekin, and bricks, fired at the Jansen and Zoeller Brickyard on the East Bluff, were used.” The building also had white marble columns.

The layout of the Tazewell County Courthouse Block in November 1903 is shown in this detail from a Sanborn fire insurance map of downtown Pekin. In addition to the courthouse, the block also encompassed a band stand, the county jail and Sheriff’s dwelling, and the county offices building. The courthouse, band stand, and offices building were demolished in 1914 to make way for a larger, even more grand courthouse.

Also helping to defray construction costs were prominent local landowners David and Elijah Mark, who each gave $500. The heirs of the Mark estate would eventually donate the land that would become James Field in Pekin.
The 1974 Pekin Sesquicentennial records the tradition that, “Older Pekinites claim that the columns of the old County Court House were painted black up to the height of the first floor doors because the white marble was marred by the hand and fingerprints of the loungers who leaned against them.”
The 1850 courthouse remained in use until 1914, when it was razed to make way for a new and larger edifice – the current structure, which was built over the next two years at a cost of $212,964.
“Wide marble steps and Italian-imported white marble banisters graced the ‘architecturally noteworthy’ interior of the courthouse dedicated on June 21, 1916,” according to “Pekin: A Pictorial History.”
“Thousands attended the dedication services with Illinois congressman and candidate for governor, W.E. Williams, as the featured speaker. According to the Pekin Daily Times, Congressman Williams, ‘spoke for an hour and fifteen minutes . . . .’”

his vintage photograph shows the laying of the new Tazewell County Courthouse’s cornerstone in 1914. Standing next to scaffolding in the foreground is William H. Bates displaying the time capsule to the crowd before it was sealed in the cornerstone.

Shown is a key to the old 1850 Tazewell County Courthouse that was preserved in the 1902 Pekin Library Cornerstone time capsule. Another key to the old courthouse was included in the 1914 courthouse cornerstone time capsule.

Though the old 1850 courthouse is long gone, some of the marble was claimed by Pekin’s pioneer photographer Henry Hobart Cole for use in the home he built in Tuscarora Heights in Peoria County.
Other surviving mementos of the 1850 structure are two courthouse keys. One was placed in a cornerstone time capsule at the construction the old Pekin Public Library in 1902. That time capsule was opened when the old library was razed in 1972, and that courthouse key and the other contents of the cornerstone, which were found to be in a very good state of preservation, are kept in the library’s historical archives. Another courthouse key was found in the recently opened 1916 courthouse time capsule.

The layout of the Tazewell County Courthouse Block in September 1925 is shown in this detail of a Sanborn fire insurance map of downtown Pekin. The courthouse’s cornerstone was laid in 1914.

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