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

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.
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.
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.
Gable Roof Corn Crib
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)Corn cribs like this were built for more than a hundred years in McLean County and were among the most valuable structures on many farms.
Circus performers on trapeze
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)Trapeze artists fly through the air in Bloomington, Illinois.
Early Moldboard Plow
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)This early moldboard plow was used to open new land for cornfields in spring.
Corn Knife
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)The corn knife, about 18 inches long, was often hammered from available scrap metal.
Concrete Block Machine
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)Concrete block machines like this one were available to make one's own blocks such as the one on the bottom left.
Merna Grain Elevator 1997
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)This Merna grain elevator, photographed in 1997, is no longer in operation.
Heavy Plow
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)This drawing shows a heavy prairie-breaking plow used in early McLean County.
Map, McLean County Railroads in 1860
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)This map shows the path of railroads through McLean County in 1860.
Automatic Vacuum Cleaners Advertisement
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)The Automatic Vacuum Cleaner Company's failure in the early 1910s was a result of competition from nationally marketed brands.
Shocked Corn
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)This field of shocked corn in McLean County was tied up by farmers for drying purposes during the harvest.
Corn Landscape
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)A photograph for a Funk advertisement by James Holbert, one of the main men behind Funk's success. The photo shows a large cornfield in the background and and a farmer with cattle in the foreground. Text on photo reads: Corn. America's contribution to the world's food supply.
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.
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.
McLean County Train Yard
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)Sanborn map of the train yard in McLean County, Illinois, 1901.
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.
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.
Sanborn Map, Grand Opera House, 1896
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)Sanborn map of the Grand Opera House in McLean County, Illinois, 1896. The Opera House is located next to the A. Brockaw (alternate spelling: Brokaw) Plow Factory.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ed Bowen Harness Shop
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)Ed Bowen works in his harness shop in Bloomington, surrounded by dozens of animal harnesses.
Sellman's Blacksmith Shop Advertisement
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)Ralph with Sellman's blacksmith shop was at 107 S. Madison in Bloomington.
Hungarian Roller Mill
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)The Hungarian Roller Mill operated on Bloomington's west side from the 1870s to 1912.
Harvest Time Sketch
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)A harvest scene sketch of a farmer shocking corn, another harvesting it, and bundles of shocked corn scattered throughout the field.
Osborn Bakery Advertisement
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)S.G. Osborn owned a bakery, confectionery, restaurant and oyster saloon at the southwest corner of Center and Grove.
Bloomington Cracker Company Advertisement
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)The Bloomington Cracker Company on East Front Street was also Gerken's Bakery.
Corn Markers Description
Image | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community)A printed description of the use of a corn marker, along with a drawing of a corn marker.

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