Columnist

Odds and Ends, emphasis on the odd

Published by admin on Mon, 05/11/2026 - 11:45am

When reading a newspaper I often come across “fillers,” small one or two paragraph articles on strange or unusual happenings. It is the same for the old newspapers I read. So here is a small collection of fillers that I found peaked my interest.

Schoolhouses, politics and community

Published by admin on Mon, 05/11/2026 - 11:40am

When I write about the wild, sometimes violent early history of Braidwood, I often think about what affect this had on the children. How could they learn when outside a miners' strike or a drunken brawl was occurring? How did the community feel about their schools given the fact that many children over the age of twelve were working full time in the cold dark tunnels under the ground? Let see what history tells us.

Cholera, scourge of the prairie

Published by admin on Mon, 05/04/2026 - 11:01am

Most all of us remember the Covid years and the repercussions that came with the shut down after. Most of us know of the Spanish Flu during WWI, taken citizens and soldiers alike. Few of us know that in 1854 one of the worst pandemics recorded was the cholera pandemic, and it hit this area hard.

Power to the people, electric power that is

Published by admin on Mon, 05/04/2026 - 10:18am

The history of coal in Braidwood has been and will be fully written and talked to death. But what were people doing with all that coal? Steam engines were the first to use the coal to create power but in the first decade of the 20th century a different kind of power began to be produced - electricity.

New tax increases keeping state afloat

Published by admin on Sun, 05/03/2026 - 6:29pm

More than a year ago, the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget was projecting a $3.2 billion deficit for what is now the current fiscal year.
Part of the problem was that existing revenues were flat while spending was growing, according to the budget office.
This is a recurring problem in Illinois. The previous fiscal year’s projections were also astonishingly poor. The Chicago-based Civic Federation issued a report last week that delves a bit deeper into why it is a recurring problem.

Not what they appear to be

Published by admin on Sun, 04/26/2026 - 10:57am

Starting with the snake in the Garden of Eden, the world has always had con artists. And there can be no doubt that Wilmington has had more than her share, especially during the 1870’s and 1880’s.
We will examine just two months, March and April of 1880, and look at two cons that were luckily exposed before doing too much damage. The first takes place in March in Braidwood. It involves Prof. A.B. James alias A.B. Remington.

Horse thieves and the long arm of the law

Published by admin on Sun, 04/26/2026 - 10:55am

Time was when taking the law into your own hands was not only necessary, but legal. Today we read the story a farmer and his friends from Reed Township (now Custer Township) who took the law, a warrant and a pair of handcuffs into their own hands to catch a horse thief.
From the February 26, 1876 edition of the Wilmington Advocate:

There’s still work to do on the Bears bill

Published by admin on Sat, 04/25/2026 - 3:38pm

“We're almost there” on a Bears stadium bill, Rep. Kam Buckner (D-Chicago) told some sports radio hosts on a Friday morning before theHouse returned to Springfield for three days of session last week.“We're very close.”
Asked if the rumor spread by sports business pundit Marc Ganis earlier that week was true about House Speaker Chris Welch holding up the Bears bill, Buckner, the House's point person on the state megaprojects bill that includes the Arlington Heights Bears stadium complex, flatly denied it.

The rise and fall of the Commercial Bank

Published by admin on Mon, 04/20/2026 - 11:02am

Time was when a bank was a physical thing that you could touch. Whether it was in the shape of a pig or a huge imposing building, they contained money that you could actually touch. Today banking with an app on your device we call a phone, we can handle money without touching anything but a keypad. Today we look at banks and banking as it was “in the day.”

Let me entertain you, please!

Published by admin on Mon, 04/20/2026 - 10:50am

It's a familiar complaint, especially from the younger crowd, “There's nothing to do here!” The question is, was there ever anything to do here? The answer is, yes, sort of. Let's look at the world of entertainment in the coalfields.