Bill Kemp, The Pantagraph

Bill Kemp

The Pantagraph

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  • The Pantagraph

Past articles by Bill:

'Dusky diamonds' once mined on Bloomington’s west side

Coal was the lifeblood of the Industrial Age, indispensable to railroads, factories, municipalities and households. → Read More

River fords vital, dangerous in Central Illinois' early days

For pioneers, a river crossing sometimes was a matter of life and death → Read More

A Page From Our Past: President Johnson receives ‘stern rebuke’ from locals in 1866

Editor's note: This is an enlarged and revised "Page from Our Past" that originally appeared Sept. 9, 2012. There’s plenty of handwringing these days over the corrosive effects of political polarization. And yes, things are pretty bad today. That said, perhaps we should take solace in the fact that things aren’t as bad right now as they were in 1866, one year after the Civil War. To say… → Read More

A Page From Our Past: Area’s deadliest cholera outbreak in 1855

During the summer of 1855, cholera swept through Bloomington and outlying communities. It was one of the largest outbreaks of this dreaded infectious disease in local history. → Read More

A Page From Our Past: Thrilling World Series captivated nation back in 1926

Football, it’s been clear for several decades now, is the national pastime, having assumed the mantle long held by that most American of games — baseball. An aging, shrinking Major → Read More

A Page From Our Past: Sojourner Truth spoke in Bloomington

One hundred and forty years ago this week, on Sept. 18, 1879, the incomparable Sojourner Truth spoke at Second Presbyterian Church in downtown Bloomington. → Read More

A Page From Our Past: Poor Farm home to society’s friendless and forlorn

Editor's note: This is a revised and enlarged version of a "Page from Our Past" column that first ran Jan. 25, 2009. → Read More

A Page From Our Past: Women’s suffrage debate captivates Twin Cities in 1870

Next year will mark the 100th anniversary of the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the constitutional right to vote. → Read More

A Page From Our Past: Portable Elevator plant closed in 1987

In the spring of 2018, Canadian agricultural equipment manufacturer Brandt Industries began assembling grain augers and belt conveyors at its new facility along Interstate 39 north of Normal. With the → Read More

A Page From Our Past: Arrowsmith once home to small hospital

“It is very seldom that a town of some 350 inhabitants can boast of an up-to-date hospital,” declared a spring 1923 advertisement for Dr. L.M. Johnson Hospital in Arrowsmith. The → Read More

A Page From Our Past: Buck Mann Park hidden west-side gem

Tucked away on Bloomington’s far west side, Buck Mann Park is one of the lovelier, out-of-the-way corners in all the Twin Cities. → Read More

A Page From Our Past: West-side Subway Club earned notoriety in late ’50s

Try as he might, Bloomington Mayor Robert McGraw could not close the Subway Club, an after-hours “set-up” joint on the city’s west side that he once described as a gathering → Read More

A Page From Our Past: ‘Spanish craze’ of 1920s left imprint on area architecture

American residential architecture has long favored dominant English-inspired styles. When most folks conjure up their ideal of an attractive, marketable home, they’re more often than not thinking along the lines → Read More

A Page From Our Past: Springtime once meant return of prairie flowers

Novelist, poet, essayist and farmer Wendell Berry has said that we live in a time of “punishment and ruins.” This is certainly true when one considers the lost landscape of → Read More

A Page From Our Past: Bloomington’s Cliff Carroll 19th century baseball standout

With Major League Baseball’s spring training well underway in the warmer, sunnier climes of Florida and Arizona, thoughts of this writer naturally turn to Bloomington-Normal’s many and deep connections to → Read More

A Page From Our Past: Pre-Civil War Butler House survived into 1920s

On the western edge of downtown, the no-frills, mom-and-pop Butler House was an old friend to the weary traveler and local resident alike. The hotel doubled as an economy boarding → Read More

A Page From Our Past: 'Dr. Mrs. Keck' battled male-dominated medical establishment

Back in the 19th century when miracle pills, plasters, creams, powders and tonics promised to cure all — from mild indigestion to pancreatic cancer —there were few patent medicine entrepreneurs → Read More

A Page From Our Past: ‘I-house’ early Corn Belt architectural style

Along Illinois Route 165 between the rural communities of Cooksville and Colfax in eastern McLean County is a long-abandoned, impeccably weathered farmhouse, old and forlorn but still standing strong, a → Read More

A page from our past: Scrappy Ironmen earned state berth in ’42

Three months after Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into World War II, Normal residents found their attention momentarily turned to an undersized but tough-as-iron Normal Community High School boys’ → Read More

A Page From Our Past: New Year’s once eclipsed Christmas as favorite holiday

In the decades before and after the Civil War, the focal point of the holiday season was not Christmas, but rather New Year’s Day. Before trimming the tree, caroling and → Read More