Items | Digital Collections at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library

Chinch Bug
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)The chinch bug in this drawing -- actual size is 1/16" -- destroyed millions of dollars worth of the corn in the 1930s.
The gun that killed Lincoln
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)On the evening of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth fired this small derringer into the back of Abraham Lincoln’s head, inflicting a mortal wound. Lincoln was attending a play at Ford's Theater. The gun is on exhibit at the Ford’s Theater Museum in Washington D.C., a National Park Service site.
Funk's 90-Day Corn Advertisement
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)This ad for Funk's 90-Day Corn provides photos and descriptions of the company's high yielding corn.
Gas station
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)Gas pumps sit in front of the McLean County Service Company at the northeast corner of Jefferson and East streets. An attendant is shown servicing an automobile.
Cooking class, Bloomington High School, Illinois
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)Girls practice their cooking skills in cooking class at Bloomington High School, Illinois.
Sanborn Map, McLean County Court House, Bloomington, Illinois
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)Sanborn map of the McLean County, Illinois Court House, 1901.
Sanborn Map, Urbana, Illinois
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)Sanborn map of Urbana, Illinois. Shows the area bordered by Broad on the west side and by S. Race on the east side.
Major Nolton Engine
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)A number of men surround the C&A "Major Nolton" Engine. The engine went to Chicago to fight the Great Fire in 1871, and it became nationally known because it reached Chicago in such short time to help fight the fire.
Sanborn Map, Urbana, Illinois
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)Sanborn map of Urbana, Illinois. Shows the area bordered by with Main on the north side, S. Race on the west side, with Elm on the south side, and S. Market on the east side. Includes the Masonic Temple and St. Nicholas Hotel.
Print, Photographic (threshing scene)
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)Threshing scene on the Allen Grant Little farm, Hensley Township, Champaign County, Illinois. Right to left, Allen Grant Little and son Harvey. Charles V. True Jr. (no hat), Wylie True, and Kirker True. A steam thresher hooked to a blower stands in the foreground, on the right-hand side is a single horse buggy next to a wagon. Harvey Little carries a water jug.
Fifth Avenue, Looking north from 40th Street, New York City
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)Black and white stereograph slide showing Fifth Avenue, New York City
Atl-atl weight
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)The atl-atl weight was a spear thrower used by the Archaic Indians for hunting animals. It was made of stone. Archaic Indians also supplemented their food supply by gathering nuts, berries, herbs and roots.
Kickapoo Bear Chief (Mkopahmah)
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)Bear Chief (Mkopahmah) was a Kickapoo Indian living on the Kickapoo reservation in Kansas. He was photographed by Milo Custer, who visited there in 1906 and 1911.
Delaware Village in Federal Land Survey
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)The Federal Land Surveyors recorded a Delaware village near the Mackinaw River. The area west of the village is where John Thompson planted his first crop in 1829.
Stalk Rake
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)This 19th century stalk rake was used to remove stalks in the field from the previous year's corn.
Ox Shoes
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)Ox shoes, such as these, were used to protect oxen hooves when they plowed up prairie land.
Restored Patton Cabin in Lexington
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)The restored Patton cabin in Lexington.
Map of timber landscape in McLean County, Illinois
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)Before McLean County was settled by whites in 1822, eleven percent of McLean County was timber and the remainder was tall prairie grass, as shown in this map.
Kickapoo Dwelling (Bark Hut)
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)After leaving McLean County, the Kickapoo fled westward. This dwelling was photographed in Brown County, Kansas, about 1906.
Silver Cross
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)This silver cross was obtained by the Kickapoo from white traders.
Projectile Point
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)This wide projectile point has two distinct notches on either side. It was used by the Woodland Indians for hunting.
Trade Axe
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)This trade axe was manufactured by white settlers and traded to the Kickapoo.
Kickapoo Grand Village Monument
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)A historical marker was placed at the site of the Grand Village of the Kickapoo in Ellsworth, Illinois, by the McLean County Historical Society in 1905.
Union Depot, Bloomington, Illinois
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)A crowd mingles on the Union Depot platform on West Washington Street, Bloomington, Illinois.
Reward Broadside
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)This notice states: "100 DOLLAR REWARD. Rannaway from the subscriber, on Monday, June 15, a negro woman, NELLY FORREST. She is about 45 years old, chunky built, large pouting mouth, good teeth, high cheekbones, walks pigeon-toed. She is slow in giving a direct answer when questioned
Granger Protest Meeting
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)This sketch shows a protest meeting of Grangers shown in the History of the Grange Movement.
Corn Mortar
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)This corn mortar was used by early McLean County settler John Moore for pounding corn.
First Methodist Church of Bloomington
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)The former First Methodist Church of Bloomington is shown. The building, built in 1839, is covered with advertisements. Two men can be seen sitting in the open door. The Church had been converted to a livery stable.
Kickapoo Band
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)Members of the Kickapoo Band are seated with instruments. The band was at Kickapoo School, Brown County, Kansas.
Weston Depot
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)The small wooden depot served the town of Weston, Illinois. Multiple railroad tracks can be seen in the foreground.
Wreckage of the Bloomington Fire
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)The damaged Bloomington skyline is visible beyond the courthouse square. A streetcar and a crowd of people are visible in the foreground. June 19, 1900, much of the center of Bloomington was destroyed by a fire that started in the Model Laundry. Flames spread rapidly and destroyed many buildings in a four square block area of the city. No businesses failed because of the fir...
McLean County Train Yard
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)Sanborn map of the train yard in McLean County, Illinois, 1901.
Sommer Bros. Float in 1947 Corn Bowl Parade
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)A Sommer Bros. Seed Co. float travels in the 1947 Corn Bowl parade.
Single Row Corn Picker about 1935
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)A single row corn picker machine helps harvest the crop in a McLean County field about 1935.
Portrait of Jacques Marquette
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)This well-known image of Father (Pere) Marquette is from a painting by an unknown artist.
Shirley Corn and Horse Show
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)The entrance to the main tent at the 1912 Shirley Corn and Horse Show was decorated with cornstalks. Hundreds came to celebrate the corn harvest.
Advertisement of Detasselers
Multi-Page Item | 2 pages | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)Advertisement and photograph of detasselers during World War II.
Map, McLean County Railroads in 1900
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)This is a map of McLean County railroads and grain elevators in 1900.
Eugene Funk
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)This is a portrait of Eugene Funk, who began breeding and selling corn seed. He was a noted seedsman who pioneered the use of hybrid corn. He was the son of LaFayette Funk, co-founder and director the Chicago Union Stockyards.
Corn Blotter Advertisement from 1916 Corn Show
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)A blotter from the 1916 Bloomington Cornfest advertises the Corn Palace.

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