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A Touch of Glass
Terry Garbe established “A Touch of Glass” in 1974 in Bloomington. He moved the business to Normal in 1984 and continued in Normal unti...
American Foundry and Furnace Company Collection (Soper Foundry)
Soper Foundry (then known as Flagg Foundry) began in Bloomington in 1874, producing gray iron casting on a jobbing basis, cast iron bri...
Amtrak Timetables
Amtrak schedules for routes around the country, including Illinois and surrounding states....
Arthur Pillsbury Collection
Arthur L. Pillsbury designed schools, churches, businesses, and homes, in the early 20th century. His buildings represent some of the ...
Auth Family
The Auth family opened a grocery in Bloomington around 1931 and operated it for many years at 1401 W. Market Street, Bloomington. They ...
Bach, William
William R. Bach, son of William and Sophia (Koehler) Bach, was born December 10, 1871 in Bloomington, Illinois. He was an attorney in M...
Baldini, John
The parents of John Baldini emigrated from Italy to the United States during the major influx of Southern and Eastern Europeans. The f...
Beich Collection
Born in Wehlau, East Prussia in 1864, Paul Frank Beich received his early education at Culm where his father was headm...
Bieber Family / General Telephone Company
The Schwiemann family is traced from 1878 to Charles Schwiemann’s death in 1945, and is linked through marriage to the Bieber family in...
Bloomington Business and Professional Women’s Club Collection
During World War I, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker sent out an urgent call to make women more active in the war effort. The War Work ...
Bloomington Cemetery Association
The Bloomington Cemetery Association (BCA) was a private stock corporation that operated the Bloomington Cemetery from 1857 through 196...
Bloomington Club
The Bloomington Club was formed on September 13, 1886. The Club was the idea of a young lawyer, William H. Beaver, who was new to Bloom...
Bloomington Fire Collection
Just after midnight on June 19, 1900, a great fire began sweeping through much of the city's downtown. By 8 a.m. the next morning,...
Bloomington Fire Department Collection
This collection consists of photocopied newspaper articles, a few original artifacts, and a CD-ROM of digital images of a scrapbook kep...
Bloomington Trades and Labor Assembly
Bloomington labor unions banded together on October 18, 1891, to establish the Bloomington Trades and Labor Assembly. Union organizatio...
Bloomington-Normal Black History Project
In 1970 Marge Smith and others began to organize local African Americans to discuss their history. This group (Margaret Esposito, Joe M...
Blotters Collection
Before the age of the ballpoint pen, Americans wrote with fountain pens dipped in ink. In the first half of the 20th century, clerks an...
Bridgestone Firestone
Firestone Tire and Rubber Company became Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire in 1995. The plant in Normal, Illinois, manufacture...
Brokaw Hospital Newsletter
The establishment of Brokaw Hospital in Normal, IL dates to 1896. In 1981, Brokaw Hospital merged with Mennonite Hospital in Bloomingto...
Brokaw Hospital Nursing Alumni Association
This collection contains alumni association directories, newsletters, meeting programs, and information about alumni service in the mil...
Brokaw/Mennonite/BroMenn Hospitals
This collection includes written materials concerning three interrelated Bloomington-Normal hospitals: Brokaw Hospital, Mennonite Hospi...
Brown’s Business College
Brown’s Business College (1893-1972) offered training for young men and women entering the workforce. This chain of schools, establishe...
Butler, Harry Collection
Harry Butler (1868-1931) lived his life in Bloomington. He attended Bloomington schools then opened his sheet metal and roofing busines...
Calendar Collection
This collection includes calendars from 1888 to present, most with connections to McLean County. Most calendars are promotional from l...
Capen Insurance / Capen Family
The Capen family emigrated from Dorchester, Dorset, England in 1630 and settled in New England. Henry Capen (1832-1906) was a businessm...
Carius, Larry
Washington, IL, native, Larry Carius worked for the McLean County Health Department (MCHD) for over forty years from 1968-2008. As food...
Carlock, W. B.
William B. Carlock was a prominent Bloomington attorney, member of the Free Masons and member of the McLean County Historical Society. ...
Carlton Collection
Box 1 includes items from family members including newspaper articles, a Civil War muster roll, G.A.R. booklets and event programs, Car...
Castle Theater
The Castle Theater opened on Nov. 21st, 1904 in Bloomington, Illinois. During its initial run, the Castle featured Vaudeville shows and...
Chicago & Alton Railroad Miscellaneous
The coming of the Illinois Central and the Chicago and Alton Railroads in the 1850s changed Bloomington-Normal forever. The railroads ...
Childers, James Railroad
James H. Childers (1903-65) was born in Tennessee and according to the census achieved a fourth grade education. He joined the GM&...
Circus
Circuses had been visiting the area for many years when around 1875 a small wagon circus came to Bloomington and inspired two local bro...
Corn Belt Bank
The Corn Belt Bank was organized December 2, 1891 by General John McNulta, J.T. Snell, and A. S. Eddy. The bank was incorporated in 189...
CornBelters
The Normal CornBelters are a professional baseball team. They began play in May 2010 as a member of the Frontier League, which is not a...
Cornett, Roseanna Eureka Williams
The Eureka Vacuum Cleaner Company was started in 1909 by John Wardell and located in Detroit, MI. The company merged with Williams-Oil-...
Dairies Collection
Bloomington-Normal has been home to family dairies that delivered milk to customers since the mid-1800s. In 1920, McLean County boasted...
Dietrich, George
George Dietrich (1816-1900) was born in Bevidere, New Jersey, to Pennsylvania parents of German descent. The seventh of nine children,...
Dietrich, Julius
Julius Dietrich was a well-liked, prominent resident of Bloomington for almost two decades. He was probably best known for being the ow...
Ensenberger Building
G.A. Ensenberger and Sons had become a successful retail furniture store in Bloomington. Although the founder died in 1917, sons Frank...
Ensenberger Furniture Store
The Ensenberger Furniture Store Collection sheds light on the activities of this Bloomington company from its initial founding in 1879 ...
Ensign, Preston Poster
Preston Ensign, 1912 - 2006, graduated from University High School and Illinois State Normal University. He began his career in 1935 ma...
Espey (Pharmacy)
The small, brick building at the northeast corner of Main and Front streets is one of the earliest brick buildings constructed in Bloom...
Euleo Puppets
Sisters Eunice Speer and Leona S. Pitzer organized a puppet theatre in the late 1960s and named it “Euleo” from their own first names. ...
Eureka Williams Electrolux
Charles U. Williams came to Bloomington in the late nineteenth century. He was an itinerant photographer who decided to relocate to the...
Evans, J. Harwood
John Harwood Evans (1899-1976) was born in McLean County and grew up in Bloomington. Born of Welsh immigrants, John W. Evans came to B...
Evans, Joseph Orme
Joseph Orme Evans (December 22, 1923-March 5, 2007) was a native of Bloomington, Illinois. He received a bachelor’s degree from the Un...
Exhibit: Made in McLean County
The McLean County Museum of History presented this exhibit in 1999. This collection contains the reference materials gathered by the ex...
Family Circle (Pantagraph Employee Newsletter)
The collection includes both loose and bound copies of the Family Circle, a Pantagraph Employee Newsletter “Issued For and By Members o...
Farmers Grain Dealers Association of Illinois Collection
In February 1903, seventeen farmers’ cooperative grain elevator companies met to form the Farmers Grain Dealers Association of Illinois...
Fell Family
Jesse W. Fell was a Bloomington, IL businessman and landowner. He is also known for founding of Illinois State University as well as ma...
Fenelon, Dr. J. H.
Dr. J.H. Fenelon was a physician who practiced for more than 45 years in McLean County. During his time of practice in Bloomington, Dr....
First National Bank of Normal
John W. Aldrich founded and became the first president of the First National Bank of Normal in October 1893. The By-Laws were adopted a...
Funk Bros Seed Company
The Funk family arrived in McLean County from Ohio in 1824. Over the years Isaac Funk acquired 22,000 acres of farmland and upon his d...
Game Designers' Workshop
The Game Designers' Workshop Collection contains material about the war-games and science fiction games industry, with particular ...
Garst, Elmer Record Book
A grocer and amateur historian from Stanford, Elmer Garst compiled information about local births and deaths, ministers of local church...
Gaunt, John
This collection contains papers relating to the details of a Dry Goods business partnership in Hadensville, Ky., Burton & Gaunt (R....
General Electric
General Electric opened in Bloomington in 1955 at 1601 GE Road in then-rural east Bloomington. The plant, which employed some 1,000 in...
Geneva, William B. & Carolyn Schertz
Carolyn Mabel Schertz was born October 13, 1892 in Hudson, Illinois, the daughter of David Schertz and Carrie Kaufman. The Schertz fami...
Gossard, Steve Railroad
Born in Galesburg in 1949, Steve Gossard moved to Normal to study at Illinois State University where he eventually earned a masters in ...
Goudy, Frederic W.
Frederic W. Goudy was born in Bloomington in 1865. Goudy spent his early years in Bloomington where he became interested in the arts, e...
Grain Elevators
Grain Storage Facilities play an important role in the process of agricultural production in McLean County. The earliest record contain...
Grand Opera House
The Grand Opera House was built 1890-1891 and stood at 106-110 E. Market Street in Bloomington under the management of Charles E. Perry...
Greeting Card
The collection includes greeting cards and postcards from 1893 to the present, social calling cards, wedding invitations, and invitatio...
Haxel Railroading
Delmar Haxel, born in Bloomington in 1920, worked for the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad for thirty eight years. He served as supervis...
Helm, Grover C. (National Bank of Bloomington)
This collection consists of a series of scrapbooks put together by Grover C. Helm, who wrote most of the newspaper advertisements and b...
Higgins-Jung-Kleinau Co
Hamer J. Higgins (1840-1902) began apprenticing as a marble cutter at Haldeman’s Marble Works on East Front Street in downtown Blooming...
Hilton and Schwoerer Farms
Guy Hilton bought a 160-acre tract next to his father’s farm in Section 11 of Dry Grove Township, and established a dairy herd in 1917....
Hubbard Roycrofters Book
Elbert Green Hubbard (June 19, 1856 – May 7, 1915) was an American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher. Raised in Hudson, Illino...
IAA & FS Service, Inc. Relocation
The State of Illinois headquarters for IAA & FS Services, Inc. was moved to Bloomington/Normal in the early 1960’s. A packet was gi...
Illinois Central Railroad
The Illinois Central was a major carrier of passengers on its Chicago to New Orleans line and between Chicago and St. Louis. The IC re...
Illinois Traction Terminal
The Bloomington-to-Peoria interurban line was one of the more charming railroad jaunts in all of Central Illinois. In the first half of...
Illinois Tractor
The Illinois Tractor Company was in business in Bloomington for a brief period, likely between 1913 and 1924. Super-Drive tractors wer...
International Tapetronics Corp
Formed in 1969 in Bloomington, Illinois the International Tapetronics Corporation (ITC) tasked itself with the: design, production, and...
Irvin, Clarence E.
Clarence Edgar Irvin owned and operated several Bloomington theaters. He was the founder of Irvin Amusement Inc. In 1914 he built the...
Irvin, Lawrence
Lawrence E. Irvin, son of Patrick and Mary Irvin, was born May 27, 1911 at Lake Bloomington, Illinois. He attended Trinity High School ...
Iseminger Family
The collection includes newspaper articles, receipts, prescriptions, recipes, bank checks, tax bills, legal papers, land deeds, US and ...
Iseminger Ford
Floyd Iseminger (1879-1980) was born and lived his entire life in Bloomington. He quit high school out of lack of interest in what they...
IWU Marketing Class Papers
Associate Professor of Business Administration Fred Hoyt has long asked his students to each study the marketing of a local business. E...
Jung Family
Jacob Phillip Jung was born in Nauvoo, Illinois, the son of Christian and Elizabeth Brandenburger Jung, natives of Germany. In 1869 he...
Kirkpatrick Collection
Jonathon H. Kirkpatrick was born in North Liberty, Ohio in 1844. He moved to Bloomington with his widowed mother and seven siblings. ...
Klemm, C.W. Family
The C. W. Klemm collection contains a variety of genealogical information about the Klemm, Howard, Gehrmann and Brown Families, newspap...
Klemm’s Department Store
C. W. Klemm came to Bloomington in 1873 after having spent five years in Springfield, IL in the employ of the C.A. Gehrman Company, whi...
Labor Fatalities Collection
List of on-the-job fatalities in McLean County....
Livingston Family Collection
In 1927, a writer in the Pantagraph opined, “Probably no other family in Bloomington has played such a prominent part in the mercantile...
Lundeen, Edgar and Rachael
This collection includes Hundreds of letters, genealogical work for the families of Edgar and Rachael Lundeen, newspaper articles, exce...
Mandel-Cohn Collection
This collection covers multiple generations of the Mandel-Cohn family and includes personal correspondence; wills and estate documents;...
Mark & Margaret Kalahar Hayes
Mark Bruno Hayes (1889-1959) was born in Bloomington, Illinois and earned a pharmacy certificate from the Illinois School of Pharmacy i...
McEwen Brothers Blacksmith Shop
According to an article in The Pantagraph of July 17, 1942, John and William McEwen established their blacksmith shop in Cheno...
McKnight & McKnight Publishing Company
William W. McKnight was born in 1874. His father was a physician in Granville, Illinois. The family purchased a home on W. Locust Stree...
McLean County Bank Building
In 1853 the original McLean County Bank was founded as the first bank in Bloomington. It was eventually dissolved, and the new bank was...
McLean County Chamber of Commerce
This collection contains annual reports; contact lists; work program packets; brochures; pamphlets; documents and correspondence relate...
McLean County Coal Company
The largest and most successful coal mine in McLean County was the McLean County Coal Co., located on Bloomington’s west side, north of...
McLean County Ethnographies
Illinois State University anthropology professor Dr. Rob Dirks collected essays from his students on an array of ethnographic topics....
McLean County Medical Society Minutes
In March 1854, fourteen local physicians met to organize a medical society. The Society was for the mutual improvement of its members.”...
McLean County Telephone Co.
The McLean County Telephone Co. was organized in spring 1898 with F.Y. Hamilton as its manager. The company held its first annual shar...
Meadows Manufacturing Company
John Rocke had the idea to build a grain elevator to improve the slow and laborious method of scooping grain and corn into bins. Thus, ...
Mendoza, Manuel State Farm
This collection is largely business correspondence and office information from the years Mendoza worked for State Farm Insurance, 1958-...
Mennonite Hospital Newsletter
The establishment of Bloomington's Mennonite Hospital dates to 1919. By 1940, the hospital operated a nursing home and a nursing c...
Mennonite Hospital Nursing
The Mennonite School of Nursing was established as the Mennonite Sanitarium Training School in 1919, with the first commencement in 192...
Mitsubishi Motors
This collection contains material related to the Mitsubishi Motors Company as well as the Diamond Star Motors joint venture that was fo...
Moratz, Paul O.
This collection contains a miscellany of items, such as newspaper articles, building specifications, correspondence, Paul Moratz public...
Multiple Listing Service
Multiple listing service (MLS) is a set of services that real estate brokers use determine how their fees are split among brokers and s...
Murray & Carmody Funeral Home
Frederick E. Murray, undertaker, opened his funeral or memorial home at 914 N. Main Street, Bloomington, Illinois, in 1932. According t...
Normal Theater
The Normal Theater was built by Sylvan and Ruth Kupfer, who owned the 209 North Street lot where the movie house went up. The grand ope...
Pantagraph
The first newspaper in the area was the weekly Bloomington Observer and McLean County Advocate begun by Jesse Fell in 1837. The paper ...
Pantagraph Comics
The Pantagraph added a locally developed "Wilson and Phyllis" cartoon to their Sunday comics section in 1984. These child-ori...
Pantagraph Printing
The Pantagraph Printing and Stationery Company originated as the printing department of the Daily Pantagraph, which was founded in 1846...
Parker Bros. Coal Co.
Founded in Bloomington in 1868, Parker Brothers continued under Parker family ownership for over one hundred years. Although the family...
People’s Bank
The Peoples Bank was first incorporated in March 22, 1869, with George W. Parks as President and had its operations at Center and Washi...
Phoenix Family and Nursery
Materials in the Phoenix collection cover the history of the Phoenix family and its nurseries in Bloomington-Normal. The collection co...
Phonograph and Audio
The history of McLean County has been recorded and captured on vinyl covering a variety of subjects in a variety of ways. From the spee...
Portable Elevator
The company was started in 1898, located at the corner of Grove and McClun streets in Bloomington. The White-Evans Manufacturing Compan...
Railroad Books—Miscellaneous
The collection includes assorted books of labor agreements, wage schedules, rules books, manuals for operators and engineers, and more....
Railroad Fatalities
The collection includes copies of newspaper articles and obituaries of individuals killed in railway accidents. These include individua...
Railroad Time Books
Railroad foremen used time books to record workers’ names, hours, wages and specifics of projects undertaken. Train engineers and fire...
Reeder, Ida
Most of this collection consists of loose items from a travel scrapbook from Ida Reeder, a long time nurse with State Farm. The scrapbo...
Reiner - Bennett
Bloomington-born William C. Reiner (1882-1945) worked as an upholsterer for the Alton Railroad for 40 years, also running his own uphol...
Restaurant Menu
This collection includes menus, placemats, and materials relating to the history of many current and former restaurants in Bloomington/...
Salch, David State Farm
David Salch was an insurance salesman who grew up in Bloomington, Illinois. His parents were helped establish the western branch of Sta...
Scharf, Emmett Electric Co.
Emmett – Scharf Electric Co. opened for business on April 20, 1922 with Fred Emmett as the electrical manager and Ed Scharf the bookkee...
Smith, Sidney
Robert Sidney "Sid" Smith (1873-1935) was born in Bloomington, Illinois, on February 13, 1873. His father Thomas H. Smith was...
State Farm Building
The State Farm Building in downtown Bloomington, the tallest building in the downtown area, has long been a local landmark. Desi...
Steak N Shake
Steak n Shake was founded by Gus Belt in Normal in 1934. He converted a gas station / chicken restaurant into the first Steak n Shake ...
Stern Family
The Stern family moved to Bloomington about 1905, where Jacob Stern opened Stern’s Furniture Co. The firm was located at 504-06 North M...
Stevenson, J.B. Letter Book
J.B. (James Bell) Stevenson (1838-1890) was the third of at least seven children of John Turner Stevenson (1808-1857) and Eliza Ann Ewi...
Stickrod’s Drug Store
According to Bloomington-Normal city directory listings, Elmer H. Stickrod established a drug store at 213 W. Washington St. sometime i...
Tick, Irving Family
Irving “Irv” Tick (1928-2011) and Joan “Jobie” Marie (Sayler) Tick (1929-2021) were both longtime residents of Bloomington, engaged in ...
Tyner Farm Collection
This collection contains documents relating to the Stubblefield and Tyner families as well as the Tyner family farm....
Union Asbestos & Rubber Company (UNARCO)
In 1950, Chicago-based Union Asbestos & Rubber Company (UNARCO) established a manufacturing plant on Bloomington’s west side, on th...
Vanderwater, Leon Musical Program
Leon “Vandy” Vanderwater (1898-1998) was raised in Kankakee, IL and moved to Bloomington, IL in 1921 to work for the Cable Piano Compan...
Vogel, Steve WJBC
Steve Vogel worked at WJBC/WBNQ Radio in Bloomington beginning in 1972 in the news department, eventually becoming News Director. He ho...
Vrooman Mansion - Theora Stark
The collection includes an array of materials relating to Mansion and to the Vrooman family. It is organized according to the history o...
W. O. Davis Tributes Collection
William Osbourne Davis was the son of a Quaker farmer from Pennsylvania and began his career as a teacher and farmer. Jesse Fell asked ...
Wallace, Glen / Diamond-Star Motors / Mitsubishi Motors
Glen Wallace was an employee of Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc. (MMNA) for more than twenty-five years. Wallace moved to Normal i...
WIHN
This collection spans from 1970 to 1977. The collection contains balance sheets, newspaper clippings, correspondence, FCC applications...
Wilcox Tile Factory
An Ohio native, John Wilcox (1858-1920) came to McLean County as a child. During adulthood he ran a sawmill and later a successful til...
Williams Oil-o-Matic
Charles U. Williams came to Bloomington in the late nineteenth century. He was an itinerant photographer who decided to relocate to th...
Williamson, Doug WJBC Forum
Doug Williamson, born in Bloomington 8-8-1943, lived in Bloomington-Normal most of his life and taught in District 87 for 30 years. Hi...
WJBC Radio
The WJBC Radio Collection consists of eight boxes and 41 folders containing materials ranging from 1924 to 2000. Items in the collectio...
Wolcott, J.L.
The J.L. Wolcott Collection contains photocopies of newspaper articles and advertisements for Wolcott’s undertaking business, his diari...