Now It Is a Parking Lot

Resources are listed in alphabetical order. More information can always be found by using our website search bar, or contacting a member of our staff.

Articles

A small selection of Pages from our Past articles written by Bill Kemp

5 items

Before railroads, stage lines crisscrossed the prairies

One of the more striking modern day conveniences we take for granted is the ease of long distan...

Article

Brown’s delivered white-collar education

Business colleges played an important but often-overlooked role in American education. For the ...

Article

County jail too often destination for troubled souls

On Sept. 25, 1857, John Houseman, a German immigrant “deranged for some months,” committed suic...

Article

Pre-Civil War Butler House survived into 1920s

On the western edge of downtown, the no-frills, mom-and-pop Butler House was an old friend to t...

Article

Turner Hall lost monument to German pride

More than a century ago, Turner Hall was the cultural hub of Bloomington’s large and influentia...

Article

Biographies

1 item

Major, William Trabue

William Trabue Major was born on March 1st, 1790 about three miles from Frankfort, Kentucky. H...

Biography

Blog

5 items

Annual YMCA Circus Downtown Bloomington, March 1938 Part 1

For nearly a century, Bloomington-Normal served as winter training grounds for trapeze artists ...

Blog Post

Annual YMCA Circus Downtown Bloomington, March 1938 Part 2

Seen here are two members of the Billetti Troupe, a nationally touring high-wire act that winte...

Blog Post

Brown’s Business College, 1930 526-530 N. Main St., Bloomington

Brown’s Business College, a chain of schools established by G.W. Brown of Jacksonville, offered...

Blog Post

National Bank of Bloomington Drive-In 400 block East Washington Street, c. 1970

Much of what’s seen here is long gone, lost forever to the wrecking ball. The view is the 400 b...

Blog Post

Tilden-Hall’s Sad Demise February-March 1962

Yesterday we showed the Tilden-Hall Hotel in its 1930s glory. The six-story hotel, located at t...

Blog Post

Finding Aids

1 item

Brown’s Business College

Brown’s Business College (1893-1972) offered training for young men and women entering the work...

Finding Aid

Speakers Bureau

2 items

McLean County Lost: An Illustrated Tour of Vanished Worlds

Speakers Bureau

The 'Lost Speech' Found: Abraham Lincoln and the Founding of the Illinois Republican Party

Speakers Bureau