Along the Fox River, Batavia

Posted on February 13, 2023 by admin

We’re having a few days of faux spring. I ate lunch on the deck today, and noticed that the croci in the back yard are just beginning to push upward. That’s in contrast to last year, when that happened well into March, and no there were blooms until early April.

Temps were in the upper 40s on Saturday, and there was no threat of rain, so we took a walk along the Fox River in Batavia, Illinois.

Not so warm that there still isn’t a film of ice. Faux spring, after all, is still winter.

We walked along a peninsula that juts into the river. It’s partly parkland, with an easy trail near the edge of the water all the way around.

At the northern tip of the peninsula is a gazebo. Called a “pavilion” on the signs, but I know a gazebo when I see one.

The Challenge Dam.

There’s been a dam of some kind on the site since the 1830s, originally providing water power for various small factories along the river (flour, ice, lumber, paper, stone), a function long relegated to the past. The current concrete dam is a bit more than 100 years old, taking its name from the Challenge Wind Mill and Feed Mill Co., whose building was next to the dam. More prosaically, it’s also called Batavia Dam, and there seem to be long-term plans in the works to remove it.

The former wind mill (and feed mill) building.

I didn’t take a closer look, but the Batavia Historical Society says the building is in use even now, “partially filled with various, small companies.”

The city of Batavia has a building on the peninsula.

And a bulldog statue.

The Bulldogs are the local high school mascot, and 15 painted bulldogs were to be found in Batavia in the warm months of 2018.

Ned Brown Forest Preserve (Busse Lake) ’23

Posted on February 6, 2023 by admin

We’ve been to Ned Brown Forest Preserve more recently than February 2012, but I can’t remember when, so it’s been a while. With temps above freezing and the sun shining as brightly as it can in February, we decided to take a walk there on Sunday.

Good thing we weren’t in the mood for a picnic.

Plenty of people had been there before us.

But no bicycles. That’s the best thing about these trails in winter. In warmer weather, especially on a weekend, you play dodge ’em with the two wheelers if you’re a mere pedestrian.

Ice fishing is at your own risk on Busse Lake. Does it look like a good day for it?

Apparently it was, at least on a small sliver of the surface. Of course, we’ve had some deep cold recently, so I guess that’s what kept these people from dropping into the icy drink.

Fun for some. For our part, we walked around to the dam that forms Busse Lake by blocking Salt Creek. This is the view from the dam toward the lake.

Toward the spillway.

We decided not to take the nearby Salt Creek Trail, though we have before.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and we —

We took the one more traveled by,

And that has made no difference at all.

Groundhog Day Without Groundhogs

Posted on February 5, 2023 by admin

Last Thursday temps were around freezing during the day, which is pretty good in Illinois for that oddity of an occasion, Groundhog Day.

The day shares more than one might think with Christmas, though of course it isn’t an all-consuming religious and cultural event in much of the world, just a relatively minor one. Still, it has pagan taproots connected to astronomical lore in northern Europe, an association with a Christian holiday (Candlemass), folklore imported from German-speaking lands, Victorians putting it in its modern form, a universal appearance on North American calendars (Canadians take note of the day too), and famed representations in mass media in the 20th century (e.g., Groundhog Day).

The closest show-marmot event to where we live seems to be the one involving Woodstock Willie, whose effigy I saw in the warmer month of July. We weren’t inclined to trudge all the way to exurban Woodstock on Thursday for the event, however.

Rather, we loaded ourselves and the dog in the car for the less than 10-minute drive to Schaumburg Town Square for a walkabout, after certain other errands. We knew that Friday was to be bitterly cold, so wanted to get out in the tolerable temps (still around freezing) before that happened.

No festivities going on there. In fact, no one else was there at all. Still plenty of ice on the pond and snow on the ground.

A Polar Trac stands ready to deal with more snow.

No venturing out onto the ice. Of course. I didn’t need a red flag to tell me that.

Hard to believe, but this patch of ground, a garden —

— is going to have an entirely different character –

— in only about four months.

Two Bloomington Churches

Posted on February 2, 2023 by admin

Before leaving Bloomington on Sunday, I took a quick look at a couple of churches. Holy Trinity is an imposing brick edifice at Main and Chestnut not far from downtown. Walkable distance, in fact, except on a cold day, so I drove from near the former courthouse and parked across the street for my look.

Closed on Sunday afternoon, so I didn’t see the inside.

It’s a 1930s art deco replacement for a 19th-century structure that burned down early on the morning of March 8, 1932. I found a digitized book, History of Holy Trinity Parish by the Rt. Rev. Msgr. S.N. Moore (1952), that describes the event.

“It would be hard to say how the fire started, but there were suspicious circumstances,” he wrote, then mentioning other fires in town all within a few days of the burning of the church, including ones at a dance pavilion and another at a grade school.

“At this time, because of the depression, the Communists were very active in Bloomington. The fires in Bloomington did follow a certain pattern – the church, the school, both of which of necessity be soon replaced.”

Reds, huh? Well, maybe. Insurance paid for the current building, designed by A.F. Moratz, a busy local architect, according to the always informative Pantagraph.

Less than a mile to the west is Historic Saint Patrick’s, dating from the late 19th century and not the site of a fire that I know of, communist-set or otherwise. I assume the church was originally built for the area’s Irish population.

I went inside. A mass was in progress, so I didn’t take pictures. A fellow named Kevin did, and it’s a nice collection.

Not the First Street Paved With Bricks

Posted on February 1, 2023 by admin

One more thing caught my attention near the former McLean County Courthouse on Sunday: a plaque set in bricks.

Center Street

Site

First brick pavement in the United States

Innovation to modern highways

Installed 1877 by Napoleon B. Heafer

This plaque set in original paving brick and

presented to the city of Bloomington May 11, 1968

By Bloomington Junior High School students

Their participation in Illinois

sesquicentennial observance.

A small thing of note, if true. A small amount of investigation reveals, however, that it isn’t true, at least according to Bill Kemp of the McLean County Museum of History, and I’m inclined to believe him rather than a class of junior high kids from 50+ years ago (and I’ve cited Kemp before).

“This stubborn, well-worn myth has been around for nearly a century, if not longer, though as often is the case with local legends and lore, there is some truth to the story,” the Pentagraph reported in 2012 in an article by Kemp. “The plaque correctly states that Napoleon B. Heafer ‘installed’ a stretch of brick pavement in 1877, and it’s mostly correct in that this represented an ‘innovation to modern highways’ (though ‘streets’ would be a more appropriate word choice than ‘highways’).

“The first U.S. patent for brick paving dates to 1868, and some claim Charleston, W. Va., laid the nation’s first brick street in 1873.”

Just another example of origination folklore, looks like. In the same category as the first hamburger or the invention of baseball. I’d say the story of Napoleon B. Heafer himself is much more interesting than the assertion that he did the first brick paving of a street (he’s pictured to the right, image borrowed from the museum).

A failed prospector out west, Heafer’s one of those 19th-century businessmen that came out of nowhere and by dint of imagination and his own hard work – or luck and the toil of his employees, take your pick – made a fortune supplying something urgently needed right then by the growing nation.

“In 1861, Heafer and James McGregor established a brick yard at the corner of Hannah Street and Croxton Avenue [in Bloomington],” the museum explains. “Over the next 23 years, N.B. Heafer and Co. expanded to include seven acres of ground and multiple brick yards as well as a large pond that was often used for swimming parties. By 1883 Heafer claimed that it was the largest clay tile factory in the United States.

“In the late 1880s, the brick and tile industry peaked due to an incredibly high demand from farmers needing a way to drain their swampy fields… after much experimentation, Heafer made his first brick tile pipe in 1879. It was a round tile with a diameter of about 3 inches. Later he made them as large as 24-30 inches in diameter, which was more effective. Eventually nearly every farm in the county was drained to some extent, employing clay tiles.”

The Former McLean County Courthouse

Posted on January 31, 2023 by admin

Now we’re in the pit of winter. Temps last night and into the morning dipped below zero Fahrenheit for some hours and didn’t rise much higher than positive single digits afterward. As of posting time, it’s 3 degrees F. hereabouts. But at least the roads aren’t iced over, as they are in parts of the South.

As far as I’m concerned, zero Fahrenheit is the gold standard for cold, as 100 F. is for heat. Thus demonstrating the genius of Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit when it came to thermometry, though I don’t disparage those other men of science, Anders Celsius or William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin or even William Rankine.

Temps (F) weren’t quite as cold when I took Ann back to Normal on Sunday, and there was no snow, so the traveling along I-55 was easy enough. Once I’d dropped her off, I took note of the fact that it was still light. So I headed to downtown Bloomington, where I’ve spent some wintertime moments, and took a look at the former McLean County Courthouse, now home to the McLean County Museum of History.

Impressive. Design credit is given to a Peoria firm, Reeves and Baillie, who were busy in their time, it seems.

This is the third – or fourth – building on the site, depending on whether you count the restoration following a major fire 1900 (the small image is post-fire). Whatever the count, the building took its current form in the first years of the 20th century, and remained an actual courthouse until 1976.

For the last 30 years or so, the museum has occupied all four floors of the place. Ann told me she and some friends went there one day earlier this semester and found it worth the visit. I would have gone in, but it’s closed on Sundays. So I had to content myself with the sights to be seen circumambulating the building.

Such as war memorials.

It took considerably longer to get around to this one.

In Illinois, Lincoln Was Here plaques are plentiful.

Looks like Lincoln is still in Bloomington. Bronze Lincoln anyway, and those are plentiful in the Land of Lincoln too. Of course they are.

By local artist Rick Harney and dedicated in 2000. That’s the bearded, presidential Lincoln, so one that never actually would have made an appearance in Bloomington, but never mind. Lincoln is Lincoln.

Rubble on Lunt Avenue

Posted on January 23, 2023 by admin

Less than two weeks ago, we got word of a fire in Schaumburg, in a part of the village populated mostly by light industrial, vehicle repair shops and the like. This nondescript building, seen in 2019 by a Google imaging vehicle, had burned.

This weekend, just out of idle curiosity, we drove by to take a look at the site.

I don’t want to be pessimistic about this, but it looks like a total loss to me.

Ty Warner Park

Posted on January 22, 2023 by admin

As Januaries go, this one has been fairly mild so far. Some days of rain, though we got a little snow early this morning that partly melted during the day. No blast of cold air is predicted for tomorrow, but there will be a deeper chill soon enough.

Two years ago, we took a walk in Bemis Woods, which displayed more snow then than it would this year. On the way home, we stopped at Ty Warner Park in Westmont. I can’t remember why. Just feeling nostalgic, I guess, since we used to take small children to play there, and in more recent years, return for the July 4 fireworks.

Ty Warner, as in the Beanie Baby billionaire, who once had his HQ in Westmont and who made a sizable donation to help create the park.

Our personal nostalgia really kicked in at the spray park and the play trains. The girls enjoyed both, though typically in the summer.

I’d forgotten the gazebo.

Shows you how old I’m getting. How could I forget the gazebo?

The Bronze Giraffe

Posted on January 18, 2023 by admin

Took Ann back to school on Sunday. Mostly a straightforward shot down to Normal and back, with one small detour. A stop to see Maybelline and Charley.

At least, that’s what paper signs taped to their necks called them. They can be found at the Bronze Giraffe Antiques.

The shop is in a grocery-anchored strip center just off I-55 in Normal, next to the grocery store in fact. Ann needed a few items for her room, so we stopped at the grocery. Then we took a peek at the antique store.

I liked the place. Not only stuff in profusion, some neatly arrayed on shelves and tables between partitions – as you often see at antique malls – but some spots as cluttered as an old-timer’s garage. Was there ever any mention of a garage on Fibber McGee & Molly? It surely would have shared some jumbled characteristics with the famed closet.

To be fair, most of the cubicles were less cluttered. But whatever the organization, there were oddities to see. For instance, a bath toy of some vintage.

The bartender in Hell.

“Horseshoe ornaments.”

A Nativity set with a few additional characters.

And Whiz Kids. It was a publication I’d never heard off.

In a rack of third-string titles? I don’t know comics well enough to know for sure, but I have my suspicions.

TV Tropes has a short description of Whiz Kids.

“The Tandy Computer Whiz Kids series was a series of promotional comics published by Radio Shack from 1980 to 1991, and produced initially by DC Comics, then later by Archie Comics. In them, the two titular Whiz Kids, Alec and Shanna, teach their class (and by extension, the audience) about Tandy computer products and occasionally other topics (substance abuse, child kidnappers, environmentalism, etc.).

“They [the Whiz Kids] love school and learning, spend their summer vacations doing charity work and/or something educational, and help the police catch criminals out of a sense of civic duty.

“Alec and Shanna seem more interested in the educational software for the computers they promote than any video games that the computers may have.”

Well, that sounds bad. Nothing I saw in my quick look at the issue made me think otherwise.

Just before we left, I asked the clerk about the bronze giraffes, which are prominently placed at the front of the store. A whim of the previous owner, she said. If you don’t have some whimsy at your antique store, you might as well hang it up.

Buffalo Rock State Park

Posted on January 17, 2023 by admin

This what ChatGPT had to say about Buffalo Rock State Park in LaSalle County, Illinois, in answer to my question, which was, “What can one see at Buffalo Rock State Park in Illinois?”

Buffalo Rock State Park is located in Illinois, USA. It is a historic site that features a large bluff that is shaped like a buffalo, hence the name. The park offers a variety of activities and attractions, including:

Hiking: There are several hiking trails that offer beautiful views of the Illinois River and the surrounding landscape.
Nature watching: The park is home to a diverse array of wildlife, including birds, deer, and other animals. It is also a great spot for bird watching.
Rock Climbing: The park offers several climbing routes on the bluff and is a popular spot for rock climbing.
Camping: The park has a campground with modern amenities, including showers and electrical hookups.
Fishing: The Illinois River is a popular spot for fishing, and the park offers easy access to the water.
Picnicking: There are several picnic areas throughout the park with tables and grills, which is a great place to relax and enjoy the scenery.
History: The park also has a small museum that highlights the history and geology of the area, including the ancient civilizations that once lived in the area.
A playground and a shelter house is also available for visitors.

Overall, Buffalo Rock State Park offers visitors a chance to explore nature, enjoy outdoor activities, and learn about the area’s rich history and geology.

There’s almost nothing distinctive about the writing, and it includes some errors, such as the fact the campground doesn’t have many amenities at all, and there is no small museum. Of course, the system is in beta and presumably will improve in that regard, and the site does warn you that errors are entirely possible. Nay, likely.

More difficult for the generative AI brains to correct, I suspect, will be writing that is so generic as to be almost useless: “The park is home to a diverse array of wildlife, including birds, deer, and other animals. It is also a great spot for bird watching.”

Here’s a human (me) writing the same thing: “A diversity of wildlife calls the park home, including native and migratory birds, foraging deer and other animals. Careful visitors can spot these animals, either as they seek scarce wintertime food or in the flush of spring and summer foliage, but be quiet, since like most wild animals, they shy away from people.”

That, too, is actually generic, but nevertheless a much more readable snippet, if I say so myself, and I do.

Then again, maybe ChatGPT isn’t supposed to function as a replacement for online sources like Wikipedia, or in this case, descriptive information published by the Illinois DNR. Or, for that matter, for a human being who visits a place, sees it with his own eyes, and writes an account of it. Maybe robots will be able to do that someday, but we aren’t there yet.

We went to Buffalo Rock SP on the last day of 2022, which was cold but above freezing. The weather had been dry enough for a few days such that the trails were soggy only in a few spots. The park is indeed a large bluff overlooking the Illinois River, and on the opposite banks from Starved Rock SP, whose views are actually better.

Still, Buffalo Rock isn’t bad at all when it comes to river views.

Two short trails wind through the grassland and copses.

The site has a history that goes back to prehistory, involving various native tribes and the explorer LaSalle, but in the 20th century, it was strip mined. One of the unusual aspects of its remediation, which began in the 1980s, is the Effigy Tumuli earthworks. I read about them before going to the park, and figured it would be cool to see them myself.

It wasn’t. But it was cool to read about the project.

“The Effigy Tumuli earthwork consists of five geometrically abstracted animal forms, created on old mining land along the Illinois River…” said the Center for Land Use Interpretation at some point in the past. “It is one of the largest artworks in the country, and the shapes are so large that they can only be discerned from the air. On the ground, one experiences mounded earth, paths, interpretive signs, drainage control gullies, and patches of grass, shrubbery and exposed earth.

“Michael Heizer was commissioned to make the sculpture in 1983 by the president of the Ottawa Silica Co., who had an interest in art and whose company owned the site. The property had been strip-mined for coal, and was a polluted and eroded barren landscape, with highly acidic soil.

“For this ‘reclamation art’ project, instead of drawing on his vocabulary of abstract forms, Heizer used figurative forms, creating mounds shaped like animals native to the region. There is a snake, catfish, turtle, frog, and a water strider. He considered these figures to be evocative of the Indian mounds that can be found throughout the Midwest.”

Forty years after the commission, the Effigy Tumuli are – what’s the word? – invisible. At least from the ground. I think this was one of them. The long hillock in the background, that is. But I can’t be sure.

The posts holding up the interpretive signs are still scattered here and there, but the signs themselves are not. Completely effaced, as far as I could tell. So if I hadn’t read about the artwork beforehand, I’d have had no idea it was there. Maybe that was the artist’s intention — for the work to merge, eventually, with its surroundings.

Never mind, we found something more interesting just before we left. Buffalo.

Unlike the tumuli, I had no idea there were actual buffalo at Buffalo Rock, but there they were. Three of the creatures, fenced in, each with a body contour just like the image on the former nickel. No signs to explain, but apparently the state maintains them.

The fence means you can practically stand next to the animals, something that would be ill-advised without a barrier. Majestic beasts, for sure, but with an epic smell.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Been There