USA > Illinois > Peoria County > Peoria > Peoria city and county, Illinois; a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Vol. I > Part 63
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NUMBER SECURING TEACHERS' CERTIFICATES
1905-6
1906-7
1907-8
1908-9
1909-10
1910-11
Mannal Training
2
4
·
1
1
5
2
7
15
4 19
7 5 12
10 2 12
Domestic Science
. .
4
4
. .
5
5
1
1
8 8 . . 14 14
. .
15 15
Totals.
6
8
. .
6/ 6
3
8 15
12|27 719 26
10 17 27
TOTALS
Men
Women
Total
Engineering
42
42
Science
52
23
75
Classics
17
19
36
Literature
16
84
100
Mechanic Arts
3
..
3
Totals
130
126
256
Manual Training
39
16
55
Domestic Science
. .
47
47
Totals
39
63
102
.
. .
. .
.
6
6
8
.
8
7
7
9
9
Engineering
4
2
. ·
. .
.
·
· .
.
.
Classics.
.
1
.
. .
. .
·
.
. .
. .
..
1
. .
1
.
. .
.
.
. .
.
1
1
.
. .
. .
.
. ·
.
4
2 LO CO H- .
10 .
. .
. .
. 394
HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY
1897-8
1898-9
1899-0
1900-1
1901-2
1902-3
1903-4
1904-5
1905-6
1906-7
1907-8
1908-9
1909-10
1910-11
Lower Academy
Men
Women
20
70
78 106
98 88
88 90
71 102 90 89
96
76
78 88 92 114 105
92
82
Total
102 210 207 216 186 178 161 191 164 168 192 193 184
Higher Academy
Men
19
31
42
57
56
41
55
62
75 63
69 48
58 43
55
54
73
Total
30
42
84 111 107 100 119 123 138
College
Men
16
19
16
23
31
25
27
39
39
49
66
60
Women
11
19
21
31
42
28
42
42
55
51
65
93
66 114
Total
27
38
37
54
73
53
69
81
94
100
131
153
180
Unclassified Special
Men
1
1
1
3
4
1
3
4
3
3
18
Women
11
12
17 8
3
5
7
4
13
42
33
36
27
Total
12
13
18/
11
3
9
8
4
16
46
36
39
45
. . . .
Graduate
Men
1
1
3
2
1
2 3
7
6
1
11
Total
2
3
4
2 3
3
10
3
7
4
14
Total School of Arts
and Science
Men
102 188 191 187 177 166 153 192 213 191 189 220 233
224
Women
42 104 156 190 176 198 190 198 189 244 243 267 267
280
Total
144 292 347 377 353 364 343 390
402
435 432
487 500
504
Evening School
Men
85
42
Women
35
22
Total
120
64
Summer School
Men
29
38
50 30
50 48
55 43
47
45
66
Total
55
70
80
98
98 126 136
174
Horological School
Men
92
98 113 116
93 134,194
Women
1
2
2
4
2
4
.
Total
93
98 115
118
296
Deduct counted twice
1
4
7 5
9
10
17
20
32
62
60
64
Women
11
11
42
54
51
59
64
61
117
101
117
114
3
3
Women
1
1 . . .
3
1
1
79
91
108
Women
26
32
97 136 198 281 310 320
. ..
..
260 292 347 470 451 479 512 550 613 722 801 906 936 1006
Grand Totals
82 140 129 110
92
91
68
173
137
.
Lincoln School
Harrison School
White School
Irving School
GROUP OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BUILDINGS
395
HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY
Bradley Park. Its location and its natural beauty render this one of the finest parks in the country, a gift which will prove of increasing value to the city of Peoria.
The last and most important of her benefactions was the founding of Bradley Polytechnic Institute in 1897. This she endowed with her entire estate. This is one of the most notable gifts to education in the history of education in America, and one which will bring inestimable benefits to the city which has been fortunate enough to receive it.
Mrs. Bradley was an ideal benefactor. When once she had made her gift, communicating with it her intent and wishes, she left the execution of her plans to others whom she had chosen to carry them out and whose training and ex- perience had especially fitted them for it. For eleven years after the founding of the institute she lived to enjoy the results of her beneficence. She was a fre- quent visitor in its halls and took an active interest in all of its work. It was a common remark among her friends that the institute had made her young again : life had taken on a new meaning as the plan so long cherished and labored for took visible form before her eyes.
No one who knew Mrs. Bradley could fail to be impressed with her intellectual qualities. Like most girls at that early period, she had only an elementary school training, but she possessed a mind of extraordinary clearness and strength. Her judgment in regard to politics, religion and social questions was remarkably sane and her conversation full of shrewd, epigrammatic, well-balanced comments gave constant proof of her strong. wholesome common sense. Her remarkable business ability and practical wisdom were proved in her successful management of her large estate. Her great wealth, however, had no power to disturb her principles or conduct ; applause and flattery never for a moment turned her head. She manifested that confidence in her chosen agents and representatives which only a strong mind can maintain. The city of Peoria and surrounding commu- nity will realize more and more as years advance, the debt which they owe to Mrs. Lydia Moss Bradley.
PEORIA PUBLIC LIBRARY
BY
ERASTUS S. WILCOX, LIBRARIAN
The Peoria Public Library traces its genealogy back fifty-six years, to the autumn of 1855, when two rival libraries were started here at the same time-the Mercantile Library and the Peoria Library. The Rev. J. R. McFarland was the moving spirit of the first, and the Rev. J. W. Cracraft of the second.
Prominent in the organization of this first Mercantile Library were B. L. T. Bourland. Onslow Peters, A. P. Bartlett, A. J. Hodges, D. M. Cummings, G. F. Harding. C. C. Bonney, Dr. J. D. Arnold, Isaac Underhill, Timothy Lynch, Philo Holland, G. W. Fridley and E. B. Elwood ; and in the Peoria Library. A. G. Tyng. George T. Metcalfe, A. G. Curtenius, E. N. Powell, H. B. Hopkins, George C. Bestor, N. B. Curtiss. Jacob Gale. Dr. R. Rouse, Dr. J. C. Frye, Wellington Loucks and J. P. Hotchkiss ; the two libraries embracing thus in their organization nearly all of the leading men of the city at that time.
One naturally inquires why two separate libraries were started here at the same time. It was a question, I am told, between the so-called "liberals" and the "orthodox," incited by the Evil One himself, we might suppose, but mark how-
"There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will."
I doubt if the most cunning ingenuity could have contrived a more effective plan for starting a library in a small town, as Peoria then was, than by fanning just such a hot rivalry between opposing theological forces. The whole town
396
HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY
was stirred from end to end; everybody took sides and joined in: everybody brought books or money to his favorite library ; and, as a consequence, when, a year later, the two libraries were very sensibly consolidated under the name of the Peoria City Library, they had as choice a collection of some 1,500 volumes as probably any young library ever had in a city of our then size.
When I first became a director in the City Library, in January, 1865, the initiation fee was $2, the annual dues were $2, and the membership considerably less than 200. It was a good, well-selected library for the time and the place. I think I enjoyed access to those few choice books-some 2,000 of them-as much as I do to our 75,000 now, for you cannot very well master more than 2,000 standard books in ten years.
In the spring of 1865 a new board of younger men seized the reins, and a fresh impetus was given to the library by incorporating it as the Peoria Mer- cantile Library Association. The charter was obtained by our then member of the legislature, Alexander McCoy, and the charter members were Tobias S. Bradley. John L. Griswold, Lewis Howell, D. C. Farrell, Matthew Griswold, Lorin Grant Pratt, H. G. Anderson, Asahel A. Stevens, John Boyd Smith and E. S. Willcox, only two of whom are still living here.
While the charter was on its passage through the legislature, meetings were held and a subscription started to raise funds, and, largely through the personal solicitation of L. G. Pratt, ably seconded by the entire board, the very handsome sum of $13.202.50 was secttred, with $10,000 of which the John L. Griswold property, corner of Main street and Jefferson avenue was bought.
It was a splendid showing for those days. It laid the foundation for all the success which may attend our public library in the future. Peoria owes her new Library building originally to one hundred and forty-five different individuals and firms from among her own hard-working and public-spirited professional and business men, contributing in comparatively small sums, according to their several means. She does not owe it to any one millionaire, eager to seize so rare an opportunity for perpetuating his family name. There is no name carved over our door but the one name which belongs to us all-PEORIA.
After the purchase of the Griswold property, our library had its rooms free of rent, but received very little help from rents of offices in the building, which went toward paying for the new building erected on the same spot in 1868. For an income it was still dependent on the meagre sums derived from member- ship dues and miscellaneous entertainments. Our friends. David Mckinney, Eliot Callender, J. C. Hansel, John S. Stevens, John Birks, Dr. I. W. Johnson and E. W. Coy (now of Cincinnati), will not soon forget the hard work we did, running lecture courses, concerts, spelling bees, "Drummer Boy of Shiloh." etc., in order to eke out our small income of four dollars apiece from about two hun- dred and fifty subscribers, in the days when that estimable lady, Mrs. Sarah B. Armstrong, constituted our entire library staff. It is enough to say, that it was our experience here in this Peoria library, of the utter inadequacy of a sub- scription library, to provide for the literary wants of the people, that first sug- gested the idea of supporting public libraries, like public schools, by public taxation, and which resulted in placing on the statute book of our state in 1872, our present Free Library law-the first comprehensive and vitalizing law of the kind in any state of our Union. Under this law, in 1880. Colonel John Warner, then mayor of our city. started our present public library by nominating the first board of directors.
The first librarian in our public library was Fred J. Soldan. He began without a book on his shelves, in a bare room over a store on Adams street. He planned and brought into good running order all the multifarious details so necessary to the smooth working of the modern public library, and, at his untimely death in 1891, left a well selected and well organized library of 40,000 volumes and a well trained corps of assistants. He was succeeded by the present librarian.
THE CARNEGIE LIBRARY IN LINCOLN SQUARE
PEORLA PUBLIC LIBRARY
JOHN S. LEE First President of the Peoria Public Library
THE NEW W PUB DO LIUFOR
ENI X AND 1
--- -
١
397
HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY
April 19, 1881, the German library gave its fine collection of 1,900 volumes to the Public Library, and, in the spring of 1882, the Mercantile Library Association turned over, as a gift to the Public Library, its entire collection of some 12,000 volumes, and leased its rooms to the same for a term of years.
Early in 1894 the over-crowded condition of the library had become so press- ingly noticeable that an agitation was begun to purchase another site and erect a new building exclusively for library purposes. The conditions were favorable. The Mercantile Library Association owned valuable property, which, with the growth of the city and by careful management, had risen in value from $10,000 to $75,000, less a debt of $11,000 to $12,000, which yet remained to be ex- tinguished, and the Public Library owned 50,000 books. There was no good reason why the two should not now unite in the common object of giving Peoria a great library to be proud of, provided some method could be devised for effect- ing the union satisfactorily to all parties.
A proposition to this effect was made by the directors of the Mercantile Li- brary to the city council, and was met with immediate and hearty approval by Mayor Miles and the entire council. This proposition was, that if the city would buy the lots, the Mercantile Library Association would would sell its property, corner of Main and Jefferson streets, and devote the proceeds to the erecting of a building.
In June, 1894, the directors of the Public Library, supported by the action of the city council, purchased for $16,000, three lots on Monroe street, nearly oppo- site the government building, 108 feet front by 171 feet deep, and on December 24, 1894, the directors of the Mercantile Library sold their property at the corner of Main and Jefferson streets, for $75.000. On July 10, 1895, the contract for the erection of the new library building was let.
The building is 78 feet front, 135 feet deep, three stories high, the stack room five stories, and will accommodate some 200,000 volumes. The total cost of the building, not including land, for which the city paid $16,000, nor counting such im- provements as paving, etc .- that is, the cost of the building proper-was $67,- 856.34, and this amount was paid entirely by the Peoria Mercantile Library Asso- ciation from the proceeds of the sale of their property.
The library was finally closed for removal, January 25, 1897, and the entire collection of 60,000 volumes was transferred a distance of three blocks and put ini order in the new building in six days by two men, seven high-school boys and one team, at a total cost of $221.91, or less than three-eighths of a cent per volume.
The building is on Monroe street, nearly opposite the postoffice, half way be . tween Main and Hamilton streets. It was not placed on a corner lot for the reason that corner lots cost much more than inside lots, and a public edifice on a corner would require at least two architecturally finished fronts instead of one. This would have involved an additional cost in land and building of not less than $20,000, which, in their circumstances, the committee felt bound to take into con- sideration.
But there was another weighty reason, besides that of economy, for choosing the site they did. Business men do not plan and locate their workshops and warehouses with a view to an imposing architectural effect on strangers visiting the city, but rather with the more practical object of best serving their purpose as workshops and warehouses. Now, a library is preeminently, and more so than most public buildings, a warehouse and a workshop.
As a warehouse, its function is to store books conveniently and safely ; as a workshop, it is a place for quiet reading and study ; and for both purposes it requires, above all things, protection from noise and dust of street traffic. These objects are better secured on an inside lot than on a corner lot; and if, as in our case, ample space for light and air is provided on both sides of the building, it would seem that, for Peoria at least, no better choice of location could have been made.
398
HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY
The annual report for the fiscal year ending May 31, 1912, shows a member- ship of 9,470-all memberships expiring at the end of two years.
The number of volumes in the library in active circulation is 110,779, besides duplicates and pamphlets, 21,331-a grand total of 132,110.
Number of volumes issued during the year, 213,351. Of this amount 127,150 volumes were issued from the main library, 42,761 from the children's room, 37,902 from the Lincoln branch on Lincoln avenue, and 5,538 from school libraries.
This new Lincoln branch in the lower part of the city was opened July I, 1911, in an attractive building, costing $10,000, the gift of Andrew Carnegie.
The bindery, located in the main library building, employs five persons the year round. The library service consists of a librarian and twelve assistants.
E. S. Willcox, the venerable custodian and librarian of the Peoria library, adds color and vigor to a word picture of Peoria, which is deemed a fit setting to the array of plain facts heretofore displayed in these pages. His description of the city and its surroundings is not overdrawn but on the contrary true to the life, and for that reason it is made a part of this chapter and follows below :
"Peoria, the second city of the state in population, is in two, not uninmportant particulars, easily the first-in the beauty of its name and the beauty of its loca- tion. It would be difficult to find among all the names of cities, American or European, a happier union of vowels and liquids than go to form the names, which we, who make this city our home, have the privilege of writing on our cards and letter heads-Peoria, Illinois. Both names are of pure Indian origin molded by the facile lips of the early French explorers into their present har- monious form.
"But if the name is one agreeable to the ear, no less is the location of the city a delight to the eye. The great river which lends its name to the state, here broadened into a lake, sweeps by in a gentle, outward curve seven miles long, from the narrows above to the converging and wood-crowned heights below. Between these two points of entrance and exit, the lake in front and a wall of commanding bluffs behind, lies the broad plateau, a smiling meadow of wild flowers and native grasses when the white man saw it first more than two hundred years ago, and evidently designed by nature as the seat of a great and prosperous city. There are few more charming landscapes on the earth than that which greets the eye from the brow of these high bluffs.
"Below is the busy city extending far up and down between bluffs and river, its shaded homes, its stores and shops and public buildings, its broad streets full of stirring life, its street cars gliding like a weaver's shuttle in and out, its great mills and factories along the river bank, its moving railroad trains, its steamboats at the landing, the silent expanse of lake and the still more silent wooded bluffs on the farther shore-all these offer to him who takes delight in the works of nature and of man and especially to one who first emerges upon the scene from the level prairie land behind, a landscape of quiet beauty that can never be forgotten.
"And there is yet another view hardly less fascinating which is needed to complete the picture-to look back at the bluffs from the city below, to let the eye wander for miles along their magnificent fronts now crowned with noble residences with all their appointments of shade trees and garden plats.
"A famous traveler, familiar with many cities and many lands, when he first beheld this scene some years ago, exclaimed: 'It is the finest site for a city I ever saw! "
PEORIA PARK SYSTEM
The citizens of Peoria take a great pride and extract untold pleasures from their parks, and the system adopted by those in authority is becoming more developed as the years go by. The following facts relating to these beauty and pleasure spots have been gathered through the courtesy of W. J. Murray, sec- retary of the park board :
399
HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY
The Peoria park system dates from the year 1893. At that time a number of prominent citizens began the agitation of a park system and the result was that petitions were circulated asking S. D. Wead, then county judge, to call a special election for the purpose of allowing the people to vote on the question of establishing a park district. The project proved popular and a number of meet- ings were held. The petitions were filed with the county court on February 6, 1894. On the 14th of the same month Judge Wead called a special election and set the date for March 13.
The vote cast was not as large as might have been expected considering the extraordinary interest in the proposition. When the ballots had been counted it was found that 2,672 persons had voted for the establishment of the park system and I,IIo had voted against it.
Events then moved forward with considerable rapidity. Mayor Miles was then in office and a meeting was arranged for between the mayor of South Peoria. Averyville, North Peoria and the committee on public grounds and city property of the city council of the city of Peoria. The park caucuses were set for Wednesday, April II, and the convention for the following night at Rouse's Hall, at that time the only available place for holding such a convention in the city.
The question of nominations was left to the committee named above, the mayors of Peoria and suburbs and the committee of aldermen as follows: For the city, E. S. Easton, acting mayor; for the village of Averyville, R. P. Stitt; for the village of South Peoria, William Inman; for the village of North Peoria, Oliver J. Bailey ; for the city council, Charles J. Off, J. E. F. Fischer and Frank- lin Dudley.
The convention made O. J. Bailey chairman and John Warner nominated the late John H. Francis for president. The following nominations were made unanimously for trustees : H. H. Fahnestock, Henry Triebel, John D. McClure, B. F. Cartwright and William Seibold. It will thus be seen that Cartwright, whose subsequent fate is known to our readers, became identified with the park system at its very inception and it may be added that he never let go until he was pried loose and sent to the penitentiary.
The election was set for the 15th of May and was, of course, a merely per- functory proceeding, the candidates being unopposed. The first meeting of the trustees was held in the office of I. C. Pinkney. The board organized for busi- ness. Mr. Francis was chosen president, Ben Cartwright was made secretary, H. H. Fahnestock, treasurer, and I. C. Pinkney, temporary attorney. The board then engaged quarters in rooms 218-21 Woolner building and on May 29th announced itself as ready for business.
The first official step was to engage Herman & Evans to make a map of the district and the next was to fix the beginning of the fiscal year as June I. The board then advertised for park sites and was immediately overwhelmed with them. The first offer came from W. E. Stone and W. H. Binnian, who offered one hundred and eight acres of the tract now known as Madison park for $50,000. Later, as it proved, this was the first park purchased, for on September 6, 1894, the board took over a fraction more than eighty-six acres and the park system of Peoria may be said to have been under way.
Then in rapid succession the board received offers from Dr. G. A. Zeller, who offered a tract above Al Fresco park; the Prospect Heights Land Associa- tion offered the tract along the brow of the bluff and still later offered the site of the present village of l'eoria Heights. William Giles and G. W. H. Gilbert had sites and so did Mrs. Caroline Gibson, who offered one hundred and fifty acres for $60,000. Jacob Woolner offered his Keller station farm for $15,000; W. Darst offered thirty-four acres; Thomas Purtscher offered a tract in Richwoods township and so did Bourland & Bailey.
The Birketts then came forward with an offer of what is now Glen Oak park, which had for fifty years been known as Birkett's Hollow. They offered seventy
400
HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY
acres more or less for $100,000 and offered to give the park district twenty years' time in which to pay for it at a suitable rate of interest. This tract excited the acute interest of the trustees and the public from the first, but everyone agreed that the price was too high. Then followed a long period of "dickering" and on October Ist it was announced that the board had purchased a trifle more than seventy-two acres for $60,000 cash. On December 5th of the same year the board purchased from D. S. Brown and J. S. Starr fourteen and five-tenths acres for $20,000. Sixteen years later the board purchased ten acres adjoining from the German estate for $13,150, a remarkably cheap price, or else the price paid in 1894 was too high.
On the 5th of May in the year following the board purchased from the Flem- ing estate five acres for $8,000. South Park was purchased from the late Mathew Griswold, September 29, 1894, for $7,500. This was therefore the second park bought.
Laura Bradley Park, the largest in the Peoria system, was the gift of the late Lydia Bradley and is named after her daughter, who died many years ago. When Mrs. Bradley came to cast about as to the best manner in which to dispose of her immense fortune two plans presented themselves-the establishment of a school and presenting the city with a park. The park idea is said to have been the result of a sudden inspiration one day when the general subject of parks was under discussion. She owned most of the land now known as West Bluff, and realized, with the thrift that enabled her to accumulate millions, that the establishment of a city park, in the hills and hollows through which the stream known as Dry Run winds its way, would be of benefit to the property adjoining it owned by the estate. It would, moreover perpetuate the name of Bradley and give joy to untold thousands in the future.
Mrs. Bradley summoned some of the park trustees and through her agent, W. W. Hammond, informed them of her desire. The only condition imposed upon the park district was that at least $5,000 a year should be spent in improving the park. The trustees readily assented to this and the transfer was made soon after. In two different tracts Mrs. Bradley presented the city with some one hundred and forty acres of land and it was named after her deceased daughter. This was about the year 1901 and completed the present magnificent chain of parks and gave to the city of Peoria a system of driveways and pleasure grounds unequalled in the west. There now remained but one thing to make it compare favorably with the finest in the United States and that was the acquisition of what is now known as Grand View drive. For a distance of more than two miles along the hills overlooking the upper lake the vista is said to be, with the single exception of the Hudson river valley viewed from the Catskills, the finest rural scene in the United States. And many enthusiastic easterners have declared that the view from the point overlooking Al Fresco Park is not excelled anywhere on the Hudson.
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