Do you know the way to Bean Town?

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

Do you know the way to Bean Town?

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

The city of Pekin has seen vast changes since its birth as a pioneer town in 1830 and its incorporation as a city in 1849. Old maps and atlases show the city’s growth, as it spread out to the east, south and north from the original town (now the old downtown area of Pekin) and new sections and streets were laid out.

The maps give the names of the new subdivisions – Cincinnati Addition, Broadway Addition, Colts Addition, Leonard Addition, Edds Addition, Casey’s Addition, etc. However, there is one part of Pekin that had a unique name which does not appear on the old maps, because it wasn’t an “official” name.

That section was popularly known as “Bean Town.” It was the old northeast quarter of Pekin, bounded on the south by Broadway and on the north by Willow, with George Street (today called Eighth Street) as its western boundary. In the days when “Bean Town” got its name, the neighborhoods north of Willow and east of 14th Street did not yet exist.

Shown is a detail from the map of Pekin found in the 1873 “Atlas Map of Tazewell County.” The northeast quarter of Pekin, indicated by the box, and areas adjacent to it were heavily settled by German immigrants beginning about the mid-1800s. Because the Germans living there usually maintained gardens in which they grew beans, the quarter came to be known as “Bean Town” (“Bohnen Fertel”).

Why was Pekin’s old northeast quarter called “Bean Town”? It got its name as a result of the very great numbers of German immigrants who arrived in Pekin during the middle and latter half of the 1800s. “Bean Town” was Pekin’s German quarter. It was in that quarter, at 1100 Hamilton St., where the parents of U.S Senator Everett M. Dirksen lived, and where Dirsken and his twin brother Thomas lived as children.

“An indication of the heavy immigration could be seen when there was an ice jam in the river at Cairo in January of 1854. It held up 14 steam boats loaded with some 2,000 German immigrants,” says the 1949 Pekin Centenary on page 15.

Continuing, the Centenary says, “The Germans built neat homes, and were enthusiastic gardeners. They located in large numbers in the northeast part of Pekin. Their gardens gave that part of the city a character all its own, and it came to be called ‘Bohnen Fertel’ in German, later called ‘Bean Town’, for the same reason; and with the passage of years ‘Bohnen Fertel’ became corrupted into Bonshe-fiddle.

“Though the gardens are long since gone, Pekinites still refer to ‘bonshe-fiddle’ and ‘bean town’ in speaking of that part of the city.”

As the Centenary says, “Bohnen” is the German word for “beans.” The word “Fertel” is an old variant form of the German word “viertel,” meaning a fourth or a quarter. (“Fertl” also means “quarter” in Yiddish.) Because the German immigrants liked to plant their gardens with beans, the neighborhood came to be called Bean Town.

For a while in the latter 1800s, the majority of Pekin residents were German, and the German language could be heard here almost as commonly as English. With World War I, however, came a reaction against all things German. As a result, the children of German immigrants hastened to assimilate into American culture, and Pekin businesses began to take down their “Wir sprechen hier Deutsch” signs.

The name “Bohnen Fertel” or “Bean Town” has long since fallen into disuse. The only visible trace of that place-name today is in the name of Bean Town Antiques, a former market at the corner of 14th and Catherine streets.

Bean Town Antiques, a structure that formerly was a market at the corner of 14th and Catherine streets, is shown in this Google Street View image from 2011.

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A Second Reformed Church retrospective

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

As announced in the Pekin Daily Times last month, Pekin’s historic Second Reformed Church will hold its last worship service this Sunday, Nov. 24, due to dwindling membership. This week’s “From the Local History Room” will look into the standard works on Pekin’s past for a retrospective on the church’s history.

Starting out 145 years ago, in the 20th century Second Reformed Church became known as “the Dirksen church” because Pekin’s hometown U.S. Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen and his family were members. Though Second Reformed’s church building, at 600 State St., has had numerous renovations, remodelings, and additions, the original church building of 1876 remains intact.

Founded early in the heyday of Pekin’s German “Bean Town,” the church was born from the great influx of German immigrants who arrived in Pekin about the third quarter of the 19th century. While most Germans are Lutheran or Catholic, the Dutch Reformed (Calvinist) religion gained a foothold along the North Sea coasts of Germany – the area known as Ostfriesland, “land of the East Frisians.” The Dutch people are akin to the neighboring Ostfriesland Germans, and many of Second Reformed’s families, such as the Dirksens, have been descendants of immigrants from Ostfriesland.

Second Reformed Church was founded early enough in Pekin’s history that it merited a paragraph in Charles C. Chapman’s 1879 “History of Tazewell County,” pages 592-593. This is how Chapman summarized the church’s first few years:

“Second Dutch Reformed Church was organized July 26, 1876 (sic – 1874), by Revs. K. B. Wieland, John Miller, and E. P. Livingston, with fifteen members. The building was erected the same year. It is a good frame, 35 by 55 feet in size, and cost $2,500. It was dedicated the first Sunday in October, 1876, and since has made great advances, and the pastorate of Rev. P. F. Schuelke, the present pastor, has been especially blessed, and the membership increased to 80. Rev. K. B. Wieland preceded Rev. Schuelke, who came in May, 1876, and was the first pastor. The Elders are U. B. Johnson, and W. Dickman. Deacons; D. Greon, and D. Klok. The Sunday-school was organized with two teachers and twelve scholars. It now numbers 125 to 150 scholars in attendance, Henry Ploepot, Superintendent. Contribution, $75 per year. Salary of pastor, $700.”

Chapman’s account misstates the year of the church’s organization, probably mistaking the year of Schuelke’s arrival and the construction of the church building for the year of organization. The church’s official website also states that Second Reformed Church began with 56 charter members, not 15. In the two years prior to the construction of the church, the members under Rev. Klaus Wieland’s pastoral care met in various homes and buildings.

This 19th century photograph from the Pekin Public Library’s Local History Room collection shows Second Reformed Church of Pekin as the structure appeared during the first two or three decades of its existence. The church building remains to this day, but now has wooden siding and some additions on the west side, and the steeple has been removed.

Ben C. Allensworth’s updated 1905 “History of Tazewell County,” page 921, adds the comment that Rev. Schuelke “filled the pastorate for eighteen years, being succeeded in 1903 by Rev. John De Beer, the present pastor. The church is in a highly prosperous condition. The church membership consists of fifty families and the Sunday school has 140 members.”

The 1974 Pekin Sesquicentennial volume, pages 16-17, offered this account of the church:

“This year marks the 100th anniversary of Pekin’s Second Reformed Church, organized July 26, 1874, by a group of German immigrants. The first and only building for this congregation was constructed on the corner of State and Sixth Streets in 1876. Faced with the decision of whether to remodel or construct a new building, the congregation has recently undertaken a major renovation of the old church, thus preserving one of Pekin’s oldest landmarks.

“To many Pekin residents, Second Reformed is known as the Dirksen Church, because the late Senator Everett M. Dirksen attended its services during his youth. His twin brother Tom recalls that when he and Everett were about 16, it was their responsibility to pump up the air for the organ and also stoke the two coal stoves that stood on either side of the sanctuary. The stoves are gone now, and the organ has been replaced, but the congregation of 230, led by Reverend Ralph Cordes, still meets in the same building.”

The Sesquicentennial also includes this caption under a recent photograph of the church: “The Second Reformed Church celebrated its 100th anniversary this year with a major renovation of the building which was constructed in 1876.”

Second Reformed Church of Pekin as shown in a photograph reproduced in the 1974 Pekin Sesquicentennial volume.

Finally, “Pekin: A Pictorial History” (1998, 2004), page 183, provides these details:

“Conceptualized by a committee of three, organized for low and high German immigrants, Second Reformed Church of Pekin built its first building in 1876 after two years of meeting in homes and small buildings.

“Initial early improvements consisted of oil stoves replaced by a gas heating plant and kerosene lights replaced by electric ones.

“More current improvements include the Hinners’ pipe organ replaced by a new organ, augmented with an electronic keyboard and updating of the building interior and exterior.

“The church facility has modernized with additions of an annex and educational wing. The first parsonage was sold in 1973 and replaced with a newly constructed four-bedroom home to the west of the church.

“Things have been changed, but the message is the same: Jesus Christ is Lord and this is His House.

“The church building has been remodeled several times, most recently in 1978, but the original bell with its German inscription, ‘THE LORD IS SUN AND SHIELD’ still peals from the new bell tower regularly.”

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