200 North Main St | Bloomington, Illinois | 309-827-0428
200 North Main St | Bloomington, Illinois | 309-827-0428
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30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
Much of Bloomington’s old west side was shaped by the Chicago & Alton Railroad. Perry’s Addition, popularly known as “Forty Acres,” was adjacent to the bustling C&A locomotive shops and sprawling freight yard. It first became home to Irish immigrants, attracted by the promise of railroad jobs. German-speaking Hungarians and others followed. This illustrated tour of one of the Twin City’s more colorful neighborhoods includes maps, postcards, and photos dating from the nineteenth century to the present.
Format: PowerPoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
Chautauquas—the popular outdoor gatherings in the late 19th and early 20th century that were part church camp meeting, part civics class, and part county fair—were first staged in the Twin Cities in the early 1890s. Learn all about the local Chautauqua scene and how many of them were staged at Houghton Lake (today State Farm Park), a popular pleasure ground located south of Bloomington.
Format: PowerPoint
30 min to 1 hour Candace Summers Email
Learn about the past characters, burial customs, cemetery history and architecture, and more.
Format: Powerpoint
2 hours Bill Kemp Email
Learn the history of neighborhoods and industry in Bloomington. The walk starts downtown, continues south through the warehouse district, and ends on the west side at the site of the old Chicago & Alton Railroad passenger station.
Format: Tour
30 min to 1 hour BIll Kemp Email
Take an illustrated tour of the Town of Normal’s rich history—from its founding as North Bloomington in 1854 to its emergence in the latter half of the 20th century as a “twin city” of Bloomington. Learn about town founder Jesse Fell, why Normal became home to formerly enslaved Africans Americans, and how it once was a leading center for the importation, breeding, and sale of draft horses—among other noteworthy topics! You’ll come away thinking the history of Normal is anything but ... normal!
Format: PowerPoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
Lou Burk (1845-1914) and Alfred Montgomery (1857-1922) were two of the more important artists who made Bloomington home during the late 1800s and early 1900s. The careers of both men are inextricably linked with the Central Illinois cornbelt�Montgomery primarily painted ear corn and Burk livestock. The rise of folk art as a serious subject matter for scholars and collectors alike has boosted the reputations of both artists.
Format: Powerpoint
30 min to 1 hour Candace Summers Email
Making history has always come naturally to women, and the women of McLean County are no exception. Yet, the stories of these historic women often go untold. This program highlights a variety of McLean County women who shaped our history. From the first woman Illinois State Senator, Florence Fifer Bohrer; to the “Queen of the Flying Trapeze,” Antoinette Concello; and Civil Rights activist Sister Mary Antona Ebo, this illustrated program will explore their lives and recognize their lasting contributions to our community and our world.
Format: PowerPoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
Take an illustrated tour of the area's many and deep connections to the National Pastime. When and where was baseball first played in the Twin Cities? Who among the local sandlotters went on to big league fame? How did racial discrimination shape the game? Even if you’re not a baseball fan, you’ll find this program an illuminating look at local history and American culture.
Format: PowerPoint
45 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
Long before Rivian become one of the hottest electric automakers on the planet, the Twin Cities were center stage for another battery-powered vehicle–the Henney Kilowatt, a project of the National Union Electric Co., a conglomerate whose holdings included Bloomington-based Eureka-Williams Co. The electric propulsion system was designed by Eureka-Williams engineers, and the cars were assembled in Bloomington. Although less than 50 autos were sold during the two-year (1959-1960) manufacturing run, the Henney Kilowatt story is in many ways more essential today than it was 70 years ago. The Museum Archives holds a treasure trove of original Henney Kilowatt papers, and this program will showcase many fascinating photos, promotional materials, correspondence, and engineering documents–many of which have never seen the light day! Bill promises an electrifying, edifying time for all!
Format: PowerPoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
Learn of the struggles and achievements that helped define the local Black experience. This illustrated program will examine topics ranging from Normal’s small but stable Black community, to efforts to combat racial discrimination in the post-World War II-era. You’ll get to know a host of inspiring figures, including Civil War veteran Simon Malone; pioneering librarian of the Harlem Renaissance, Regina Anderson Andrews; farmer Jesse Robert Ward; and many more!
Format: PowerPoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
Is Bloomington-Normal an exemplar of White Bread America? Or is there another, surprising side to Central Illinois? Local struggles against oppression are not new. Learn amazing stories about how BloNo grappled with slavery, racism, women's equality, workers' struggles, and LGBTQ rights.
Format: PowerPoint
45 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
Librarian Bill Kemp leads a mostly light-and-breezy tour of what corn has meant to McLean Country, with his historical narrative enlivened with informative, imaginative, and humorous illustrations and photographs.
Format: PowerPoint
1 hour Candace Summers Email
Enjoying a picnic in a cemetery was not always a taboo activity. Quite the contrary—a graveside lunch was a leisure activity for many. People often dined while visiting their dearly departed, and city residents regularly took advantage of cemeteries for strolls and carriage rides too. In the spirit (pun intended) of the age, enjoy a picnic lunch on the beautiful grounds of Evergreen Memorial Cemetery (one of Bloomington’s oldest cemeteries) and embark on a one-hour guided tour to learn about funerary customs of the Victorian-era, explore the types of monuments that populate the cemetery, and hear stories of some of the McLean County citizens who reside there. After the tour, you can stay and enjoy your own picnic lunch. So grab a blanket, a box lunch from your favorite local restaurant (or from home too!) and enjoy spending some time in the cemetery like days gone by.
Format: Walking Tour and picnic lunch
30 min to 1 hour Candace Summers Email
An introduction to the past and present buildings of historic downtown Bloomington. Come and learn about the architectural designs of some of the historic buildings in Downtown, along with a history of what has been housed in them over the years.
Format: Tour
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
Learn about the first woman to serve in the Illinois State Senate--the courageous, no-nonsense Florence Fifer Bohrer of Bloomington. Elected in 1924, during her two terms in office she advocated for state charitable institutions and helped overhaul child welfare laws. She was also a longtime community leader in the Twin Cities.
Format: PowerPoint
30 min to 1 hour Greg Koos Email
Freedom, Land, and Community: A History of McLean County Illinois, 1730‐1900 tells the story of the diverse peoples and events of this county. Using sources contemporary with the events described, it relates the struggle to shape the land, build community, and secure freedom as these communities knew and defined it. Native peoples, women and men, African Americans, Irish and German immigrants all sought and contested for their freedom. People whose voices have not been heard in previous works about Central Illinois are included here.
Format: Powerpoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) were never large in number in McLean County, but their legacy reverberates today. Hear all about Normal’s Jesse Fell—how his Quaker roots shaped his worldview, and take an illustrated tour of Benjaminville, a historic Friends community east of Bloomington. There are plenty of other stories too in this lavishly illustrated program!
Format: PowerPoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
During the Civil War, Pvt. Cashier spent three years on the march through the South with the 95th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment, all the while participating in some of the bloodiest campaigns of the Western Theater. Though a true tale of war and woe, this remarkable story becomes even more remarkable when one learns that Cashier was actually born as Jennie Hodgers.
Format: Powerpoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
The steam-powered grain elevator is one of the most important, yet least understood, inventions in the history of American agriculture. Learn all about these prairie giants and how they helped transform the Corn Belt. How did early grain elevators work? What purpose did they serve? Learn the answers to these and many other questions. This talk will also highlight the preservation of the timber-constructed J.W. Hawes Elevator in Atlanta, IL.
Format: PowerPoint
45 min Mike Matejka Email
A look at Illinois' working class labor activists who organized unions, fought for better conditions and their middle class allies.
Format: PowerPoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
In 1869, this one-armed Civil War veteran—who was an Illinois Wesleyan instructor and curator of a natural science museum on the Normal University campus—led the first expedition down the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon. After becoming the celebrated “Conqueror of the Grand Canyon,” Powell devoted his life to surveying the arid lands of the West and establishing a national science bureaucracy in the nation’s capital. Learn all about Powell and the role Bloomington-Normal played in shaping his fascinating life and career.
Format: PowerPoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
This illustrated program offers fascinating stories and images of Lake Bloomington’s establishment--from the drawing board to dedication and subsequnt shoreline development. Learn how a 1920 typhoid epidemic spurred the City of Bloomington to construct a municipal reservoir. Completed a decade later, Lake Bloomington markedly improved the quantity, quality, and reliability of Bloomington's water supply, as as such played an indispensable role in the community's long-term health and growth.
Format: PowerPoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
Corn-Farm Boy, a 1954 work of children's literature by celebrated author and illustrator Lois Lenski, offers a strikingly detailed look at farming in the decade after World War II—a time when the Corn Belt experienced rapid change spurred by mechanization, school consolidation, and other technological, economic, and social forces. Illinois State University’s Special Collections at Milner Library holds Lenski's research papers relating to this book, and Bill's talk will make use of this treasure trove—photographs, letters, notes, original illustrations, and newspaper clippings.
Format: PowerPoint
45 min to 1 hour Candace Summers Email
Lucy Orme Morgan was a woman who was passionate about social welfare and was active in numerous philanthropic activities throughout her lifetime. However, her passion (and what would become the most distinguishable effort in her life) was the Girl's Industrial Home. Founded in 1889, the Girl's Industrial Home was a place for dependent children who were neglected or had no one to care for them. It was an institution where girls would be taught useful things to prepare them for a life of independence when they were of age. To Lucy, it was her "hobby" to make it "a home and keep it as far as possible from being an institution." For more than 30 years, the Home flourished under her watchful eye. And because of her service to that institution, the board of the Home honored that service by renaming it as "The Lucy Orme Morgan Home" in 1929.
Format: PowerPoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
Everybody loves barns! Learn about the history of barns in the context of McLean County history�barn styles, construction materials and the ongoing struggle to preserve these silent sentinels of the Cornbelt countryside. This illustrated talk includes plenty of historic images from the mid-19th century to the present.
Format: Powerpoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
Established in 1830, McLean County is nearly two centuries old. Even so, the land that became McLean County was carved by massive ice sheets, roamed by mastodons and mammoths, and then home for centuries to indigenous people. Through fascinating stories and images, explore McLean County before there was a McLean County!
Format: PowerPoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
See and hear how local residents celebrated the holidays from the pioneer era into the mid-20th century. Learn the important role the German community played in popularizing many Christmas traditions, and travel back to a time when downtown Bloomington was a retail wonderland!
Format: PowerPoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
The Great War involved a host of home front activities, including war bond drives, food conservation efforts, shipments of Red Cross supplies, parades, and public gatherings to sing patriotic songs. There was also a dark side to the war, including the suppression of the large local German community.
Format: Powerpoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
Some 7,000 men from McLean County enlisted in the Union Army, and about 700 died during the four-year conflict. In this illustrated talk, learn about the county's role in the Civil War, including its generals, colonels, and enlisted men; leading regiments, campaigns and battles; as well as what happened on the home front.
Format: Powerpoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
From the tallgrass prairie that long ago dominated this stretch of Central Illinois to the street cars that once trundled down the shaded streets of the Twin Cities, this program is a wistful look at the distant and not-so distant past. Come mourn the loss of everything from once-vibrant main streets to old movie houses.
Format: PowerPoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
Learn about some of the more curious chapters of local history, such as the life and times of Leonard "Baby" Bliss, a 500-plus pound Bloomington resident who became a nationally known bicycle showman; the unknown Civil War soldier buried in Saybrook; the 1830-31 "Winter of Deep Snow" that threatened the life and limb of early pioneers; and many others! Think history is boring? Think again!
Format: Powerpoint
45 min Mike Matejka Email
A look back at the working people who shaped McLean County, from cigar makers to candy makers, railroad workers to fire fighters, and their efforts to have a voice through unionization and community involvement. A 20 minute version of this program is also available.
Format: PowerPoint
45 min Mike Matejka Email
How the railroads, public transit, highways, and air service shaped our community and its connections with the world beyond our local borders. A 20 minute version of this program is also available.
Format: PowerPoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
Take an illustrated tour of Bloomington’s iconic Art Deco “skyscraper"—from the 1928 groundbreaking to its 2019 sale and future role in downtown’s rejuvenation. You’ll learn about the building’s architecture, its ties to everything from the sinking of the Titanic to the computer age, and why State Farm’s mail delivery staff were equipped with roller skates!
Format: PowerPoint
30 min to 1 hour Candace Summers Email
Tour the old McLean County Courthouse and learn about its history and architecture. Maximum of 20 people, minimum of 10
Format: Tour
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
Before the coming of the railroads, McLean County Farmers marched livestock to markets as far away as Chicago and Cincinnati. Can you imagine driving 2,000 hogs 120 miles to Chicago in the wind, ice, and snow of November? Isaac Funk and other area livestock farmers lived to tell the tale!.
Format: PowerPoint
1 hour Bill Kemp Email
This program–at turns light-hearted and serious–will delve deep into this fraught issue with case studies of sites both well-known and forgotten. This illustrated program will tell us all about the Kickapoo statue in LeRoy with connections to 19th century spiritualism; the repeatedly misguided attempts to memorialize Abraham Lincoln’s “Lost Speech;” and why there’s a marker in downtown Bloomington celebrating the site of the nation’s first brick street when that’s clearly not true! Be prepared for many more equally fascinating stories in this one-hour talk.
Format: PowerPoint
1 hour Candace Summers Email
A tour of Bloomington's oldest cemetery featuring information about cemetery art and architecture, the evolution of monument styles and materials, and information about Evergreen Memorial Cemetery's long history. The tour will also feature information about individuals who have been featured on the McLean County Museum of History's longest running outreach event, the Evergreen Cemetery Walk. Maximum of 20 persons.
Format: Tour
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
Swedish immigrants came to Bloomington in the early 1870s, lured by the McLean County Coal Co.'s promise of mining jobs. Stevensonville was a coal mining "company town" on the west edge of Bloomington, and it soon became the heart of the local Swedish community. Annexed into the city in 1885, Stevensonville remains a quiet working-class neighborhood true to its roots. Take a tour--past and present--of this fascinating neighborhood!
Format: PowerPoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
On May 29, 1856, Lincoln gave the keynote address at a convention held in downtown Bloomington to establish a new political party opposed to the expansion of slavery—the Republican Party. Learn why this speech became to be known as the “Lost Speech” … and how it’s not really lost!
Format: PowerPoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
Designed by architects William Reeves and John Baille and dedicated in 1903, the McLean County Courthouse (now the McLean County Museum of History) is an iconic local landmark. This program will emphasize how the American Renaissance-style courthouse and surrounding public square speak to the preeminent role downtown Bloomington has played in local history.
Format: PowerPoint
30 min to 1 hour Susan Hartzold Email
Bloomington architect Arthur Pillsbury designed over 800 homes, schools, and businesses in Illinois during his brief, but brilliant career. During this program, participants will learn about his education, career, and his impact on the Bloomington-Normal community.
Format: Powerpoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
From 1901 and continuing for nearly four decades, Bloomington fielded a professional baseball team in the well-regarded Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League. This illustrated program is chock-full of vintage photographs and images detailing the exploits of past Bloomers, such as future Hall-of-Famer Burleigh Grimes and Cuban-born catcher Chico Hernandez.
Format: PowerPoint
30 min Candace Summers Email
Ever wonder what a tree trunk monument means? Or the symbolism behind a lamb engraved on a tombstone? This program will explore the meanings of the large variety of symbols found on cemetery monuments and markers, what types of materials monuments are made out of, and the evolution of the size and style of monuments, using diverse features and monuments found at Evergreen Memorial Cemetery as examples.
Format: Powerpoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
On November 13, 1833, the nighttime heavens lit up like a Fourth of July sparkler as tens of thousands of meteors streaked through the darkened sky. Known as the "Night the Stars Fell," it proved to be the greatest meteor shower in U.S. history. What did McLean County residents make of this fantastic and fearful display? How did this event alter our understanding of meteors and meteor showers? Learn the answer to these and other questions in this out-of-this-world talk!
Format: Powerpoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
This illustrated tour of downtown Bloomington highlights both its rise as a thriving commercial center in the years before the Civil War and its decline as a retail destination beginning in the 1960s. Included will be a series of enchanting photos showcasing the central business district's "golden age." Yet this program is more than an exercise is mere nostalgia! You'll also hear how the economic growth and success of the Twin Cities remain inextricably linked with the future vitality of Bloomington's historic downtown.
Format: PowerPoint
1 hour Rochelle Gridley Email
From 1872 to 1890 the western agency of a New York Orphanage was in Normal, Illinois. Learn about the fate of orphans brought to McLean County by the famed trains over a 60 year period.
Format: Powerpoint
1 hour Candace Summers Email
Bloomington and Normal has been home to a variety of industries throughout its history. One such industry, one which members of this very community may not know about, was that of producing aerialists and circus performers. It could be said that Bloomington-Normal was a factory, churning out internationally renowned performers that would influence and train generations to come. For more than 80 years, spanning the 1870s until the 1950s, countless numbers of individuals left their mark on history. And a significant number of these performers decided to make Bloomington-Normal their final resting place as well. This illustrated program will identify who those individuals are, what cemetery they are buried in, and provide detailed information about the monuments and markers at their final resting place.
Format: Powerpoint
45 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
The Kickapoo, a fiercely independent people, inhabited this stretch of Central Illinois when the first Euro-American settlers arrived in the early 1820s. This talk will include rare 1906 photographs of Kickapoo living in Brown County, Kansas. These photographs were commissioned by Milo Custer, an early curator of the McLean County Historical Society.
Format: Powerpoint
1 hour Candace Summers Email
Clara Louise Kessler was an author, a teacher, and a librarian who had a lifelong interest in books, poetry, songs, and children. She began her career working with children as a kindergarten teacher first, and then embarked on a 33-year long position as the head children's librarian at Withers Public Library (today named Bloomington Public Library). Her mission was not only to present the very best children's literature and encourage its enjoyment, but to create an environment which would stimulate children's imaginations, encourage children to freely express themselves, and help children grow into adults that would help build a better Bloomington. She helped shape the lives of many people, in particular children, in this community through every book she recommended, every poem she encouraged to be written, and every story by her own hand she shared.
Format: Powerpoint
30 min to 1 hour Bill Kemp Email
Before the rise of the automobile, horses were indispensable to urban as well as rural communities. Barns and barn-like structures were commonplace in the Twin Cities and included livery stables, carriage houses, and sale and feed barns. There were also barns used by aerialists and acrobats when this area was a wintering home for circus folk.
Format: Powerpoint
45 min to 1 hour Candace Summers Email
McLean County may not seem like the typical area where bootlegging and rum running flourished in the early 20th century- but it did! This presentation will explore who those law breakers were, how citizens responded to Prohibition, and answer the question why Prohibition ultimately failed.
Format: PowerPoint
45 min Mike Matejka Email
A look at the railroad's impact on the nation's economy, culture, folklore, and children.
Format: PowerPoint
1 hour Rochelle Gridley Email
Dozens of women from McLean County volunteered and enlisted with the U.S. Military during World War II. Women worked all over the United States, in Europe and the Pacific to defend their country in roles that were previously filled by men. Learn about the challenges they faced, the work they performed and where they served in this power point presentation.
Format: PowerPoint