Olney Area High School - Olnean Yearbook (Olney, IL)

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made an lncorporated vtllage Thts was done and Mr henry Sprmg became the Presldent of the V1llage Board lohn M VV1lson wno was later Mayor and Clty Attorney was my Vlllage Clerk Twenty years later l had grown so rapldly that 1t was thought well to 1ncorporate me as a Ctty and 11'1 1867 l became a full fledged Clly government and have remalned so ever smce Mr lohn M Wtlson became my f1rst Mayor SINCE 1916 1 have been governed by the Comm1ss1on form of government and one of these days they are llkely to put me under thls new tangled Clty Manager plan but I should worry I ha Je gone along wtth whatever they gave me and made the most of xt lt 1snt so much the klnd of government as the krnd ol men who are ln charge of 1t that counts anyway l have had plenty of good bad and mdtfferent men partxct larly the la ter Dr Fntschle has been at the helm most of the t1me durtng the last twenty four years and v1h1le l may not have broken any speed records under Doc s gtndance as have some of h1s famous race horses 1 havent any quarrel w1th Doc We ve gotten along and have made good steady progre s Nh1le some of our more ambltlous nelghbors may soon be feellng l1ke the morn1ng after the mght before Chnstlan Porter IS my present boss as h1s father was before h1m and I th1nk Chrls and I w1ll h1t 1t off 111 fme style 1 have always been Justly proud of my reputat1on as a bus1ness center ot thls part ol the state and Justly so My reta1l d1str1ct has always been far ln advance of any nelghborlng c1ty of approxlmate S1 e and IS even more so today than formerly lf you dont belleve me look me over and compare me wlth some others Then you w1ll se that no mtstake was made when 1 was chosen mstead of Watertown Fransonla or Fatrvlew Pray look at them now and then take a prolonged sgumt at me Watertown and Fransoma are no more although there IS st1ll a school house by the latter name FGITVIGW st1ll remalns but that name IS gone and 1t 1S now Calhoun and wrth the exceptlon of a basketball tournament a number of years ago has never been a ser1ous r1val My early merchants Havtllah Gunn Henry Sprmg and Wm Newell not only d1d a blg reta1l busmess but engaged 1n pork pack1ng Wlth the exceptton of Mr Sprmg they shlpped thetr p1ckled and salted pork down Fox from Watertown durmg the sprmg flood tage to New Orleans and that brlngs us to our next 1Op1C Now hold on to your seats w1'h both hands whlle 1 back up about ten years But what 1 ten years tn a century? Certatnly noth1ng to worry about About 1850 I began to hear rumbllngs and grumblmgs that I was stuck ln the mud and wouldnt get any place unttl l got a ra1lroad Ra1lroads were all the style then as concrete hlghways and atrports became n uch later As ludge Shaw came to my rescue ln the begmmng so agarn a w1se and uprtght Iudge was responslble for my gett1ng the ruch needed ra1lroad ludge Alfred Kttchell who owned about ha11 of n y south half dedtcated h1msel' to the task of gett1ng a ra1lroad He he pea organtze ard fmance the OhlO and MISQISSIDDI Ra1lroad and when tney probablv w1th mahce aforethouuht planned to run the road a couple ot mtles south ludae Kttchell 1 ent down 1n h1s own pocket and pa1d them several tho sands t dollars to con e through T enty sur , . . 1 . 1 . 1 . , , ., .. 1 1. . . 1 , . 1 f s . . 1 1 . . 1 . 1 V 1 . 1 Q Q . I , , A . .1 1 .1 . . . 1 D Y 1 1 , 1 1 . . , , 1 1 1 1 ,S ' , . . . 1 1 ' I , . . . .Z . 1 . . , 1 ' ' Q ' - . V 1 c, , . 1 , . . I 1 1 1 - 1 - 1 . . 0 . ' Q ' . .F . 1 1 . .J . .. . . Y . 1 1 . . 1 . . 1 V 1 . . . . V . 1 1 , . , 1 Y . . 1 , 1 . , 1 . . 1 1 1 1 1 . 1 1 1 1 A - 1 , 4 , , . lv . , , 4 1 1 1 l l ll 4 w 1 c.. ., C 1 1 VAV , ' 1.

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Rowlands were of thts early Englrsh and lrlsh stock many of whorn ha I9 lned w1th me for the century and have been promment ln my htstory Now for the Court House The flrst County Cornmtsstoners rn l84l Lot Basden Amos Bullard and Hugh Calhoun held thetr ftrst meetmg rn the log cabln of Bentamtn Bogard wht h stood on the present stte of the Charlte Harpster place on East Maln Street Thls may be located by those who do not know the Harpster place by the fuzzy old aroup of trees near the c1ty l1m1ts on tne north srde of East Maln In 1842 the Commrsstoners agreed wtth the Trustees of the newly organlzed Methodtst Church to erect a comblned Court House lvlethodrst Church and School House at a cost of not to exceed S200 Thrs noble butldrng was con structed of logs elght rounds hlgh The Methodlsts burlt 1t and the contract called for nrne rounds hrgh but when 1t was flnlshed 1t only counted up to erght Thrs means that there were only erght logs htgh mstead of nme and that any srx foot plussers who h1t the1r heads on the low rafters were sure to blame the Methodrsts for not l1v1ng up to tl'e1r contract Thts bu1ld1ng was located on Lot 4 of Lllley s addttron and stood for many years Just across the street west from the present lllmots Central depot In 1843 the second court house was erected on the present stte and was a commodrus two story structure costrng over S3 OOO It bankrupted the con tractors Asa Bearrd and W H Reed out was fmrshed by the help of Henry Sprrng three story monument of archttecture costmg over S25 OOO Whrch was destroyed by flre catchlng from a locomottve IH the brrds nests rn the belfry The present very fme butldlng was constructed IH 1916 at a cost of about S100 U00 and should be good for many years There IS only one thrng that I do not llke about the present court house and that IS the clock The clock ltself IS all rtght but the old school bell that was taken from the old Central School bulldmg burlt 1n 1867 doesnt always agree wlth a 1916 clock The clock was donated by Mr Iames E Wharf one of the former mayors and son Eugene Wharf and other rnterested CIIIZGHS and IS a good clock but oh' that bell' A few years ago rt got some very embar rassrng publrcrty by gotng on a strrke which would make one of our modern C I O strlkes look amateurrsh That clock struck over three hundred ttmes vrthout tollrng a breath and IS sald to ha I9 created a world s record for strrkes and was my face red? If they hadn t got the d rned thtng stopped I d have been 200 by now I lrke to dote on those early years as all old folks love to do I was known far and w1de as the pamted town Most early towns were largely log cab1ns llke Watertown Eransonla and Eatrvrew Not so Olney From the very flrst, rrost of the houses were made wtth real clap boards and were pamted whmte and as today I am noted for my whlte squtrrels so a century ago I was noted for my whlte houses Whlte has always been my predomlnant color Whtte houses whrte people and whrte squrrrels I have gone to consrderable detall to grve you the flrst few years of my ltfe From now on I must of necesstty htt only the hrgh places By 1847 I had grown to where I was gettlng to be a problem so tt was suggested that I be Twenty frve . , . , v The second court house served until 1874 when it was replaced by a , . I I K I I Y I I ,,-. . ' e ' , ' A , . .

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hrs land rn my south sectton Thts ts the present B ci O Rarlroad The f1fSl tram came through on luly 4th 1855 and was one ot the brg experrences ln my hlstory People came from mlles and mtles to get a flrst peek at the rron horse and most of therr own horses w1th1n cn quarter of a mtle stampeded when the monster came snorttng tn and there vtere so many runaways that they got ln each others way From the number ot buggres and wagons IH trees and other such unexpected places tt looked hke the morntng after the ntght before ot an old tashtoned Halloween The commg of the ratlroad dtd have an enormous lntluence lt gave the tarrrters a ready means of marketmg thetr products and my populatlon 1n creased by leaps and bounds t dtd however nearly rtun one ot my blggest tndustrres the aforementloned pork packlng trade lt became cheaper to shlp the hogs to the C1lY market on the hoof and my btggest early lndustry decllned although Wm Newell stuck to rt for many years afterward Now that I had an east and west rallroad 1t was dectded that to be the real trade center of th1s sectton l ought to have one golng north and south It was not unt1l twenty years after th O G M that the Grayvllle and Mattoon Ftallroad was organtzed The County Board of Supervlsors went wtld and donated ftfty thousand dollars and eventually trted to get out of 1t and nearly bankrupted the county IH extended lawsutts that went clear to the Supreme Court ot the Untted States and was decrded agatnst them Thts and other law surts held up the bulldtng of the road and 1t was not completed untll 1880 It Was known as the P D G E tPeor1a Decatur and Dvansvlllel At present 1t IS lt dtd some good and some harm It certa1nly d1d not lmprove my looks as they unw1sely let lt go almost through my mtddle Ptght down Kttchell Avenue past the Court House Nflethodr t Church now the Elks Home and the old publlc school Wouldnt 1t make you a ltttle sore to have someone run a ratlroad rrght through your m1ddle'? lt certa1nly d1d me and l am st1ll sore about lt but what could I do? People were rarlroad crazv rn those days and l ought to be thankful that they dtdnt run one rtght down Matn Street Not sattsfted wtth two ra1lroads some of my enterprtstng c1t1zens pornted to the tact that Lawrencevllle and Flora had two ra1lroads so that l ought to have at least three Accordtngly the Danvtlle Olney and Oh1o Ratlroad was organ tzed but It never got to Danvllle and rt never got to the Ohlo lt dtd get to Olney but only got half Way through lt went down Camp Avenue to the B G O and that 1S as tar as rt ever got to the south lt dtd get as far north as S1dell about twenty mlles south ot Danvrlle lt started operattng tr' 1881 and went out of buslness when taken over by the Government durlng tne World W'ar twenty ttve years ago It changed 1ts name oftener than a lnollvwood movre actress ln addltron to tts or1g1nal name tt was the l D ci W more or less humorously deslgnated as lngraham Dundas and West Ltberty although tt stood for somethtng else but not much more logrcal It was also the C G O and C H G D It had no ballast and tn sprtng thaws the cars would move up and down hke a scentc rarlroad They otter got stuck tn the mud and I wouldnt be surpnsed 1t there arent a few trams bur1ed along the old route yet Twenty seven II 1 n 1 l 1 ' ' r , , . . . l , , . , ' e . . ' . . . ' , A.. 1 ,. I I the Illinois Central. n . h I t , 1 - S f 1 . , . , . . . , ' 1 - ' . , . . . l A . .