Tampico, Illinois' claim to fame, is the birthplace of Ronald Reagan, the 40th President and only President born in Illinois.

Ronald Wilson Reagan - 1911

Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois, on February 6, 1911, in an apartment above a bakery. The First National Bank purchased the bakery in 1919 and continued as a Bank until the 1930s. The apartment where he was born has been refinished to look as it did when he was born there. The bank has been restored to look like a working bank of the early 1900s. The store located to the South of the Bank was originally a grocery store and now houses the gift shop for the Reagan Museum. 

When Ronald was 4 months old, the family moved from the apartment to a house on Glassburn Street. The house is located across the street from Reagan Park (known initially as Railroad or Depot Park).

The Reagan family moved into their apartment at 834 East 57th Street, Chicago, Illinois, in January of 1915. The apartment building was near the University of Chicago. The University bought the building in 2004 and demolished it in 2013.

832-834 East 57th Street, Chicago, Illinois

They'd come to the city from the western Illinois village of Tampico. Jack Reagan, Ronald's father, got a job selling shoes in the Loop. His wife, Nelle, stayed home with the two boys, 6-year-old Neil and little Ron–called "Dutch"–who was going on 4. (Some sources imply the Reagans lived at two different places in Chicago, but most sources just give one Chicago residence for them.)

Ronald Reagan's Birth Place.

Ronald Reagan was born on the 2nd Floor of this Historic Building.

Ronald Reagan's Birth Room.

Reagan's Tampico, Illinois, Boyhood Home.

Ronald and Neil (Ronald's older brother; nicknamed "Moon" derived from the "Moon Mullins" comic strip character. Neil was a director of the hit radio series, "Dr. Christian," with Jean Hersholt for nearly 20 years. He also directed his brother Ronald in the television series "Death Valley Days.") played on a cannon in the park as young children. He referred to the park and the cannon in several of his stories. When he was 4 years old, the Pitney Store, where his father, Jack Reagan, worked, was sold, and the Reagans moved to Chicago, where Mr. Reagan worked for a short time at the Fair Department Store. The family then moved to Galesburg, where Mr. Reagan was employed as a store clerk.

Ronald Reagan's 4th Grade Class photo in 1920 (Ronald is in the second row at the far left with his hand on his chin).

While there, Ronald learned to read at 5 before starting school. He attended Silas Willard School in Galesburg and skipped grade 2. The family then moved to Monmouth for a short time. They were called back to Tampico for Mr. Reagan to work for Mr. Pitney, who had acquired his old store again. The family lived above the Pitney Store until moving to Dixon in December 1920.

HISTORY OF THE VILLAGE OF TAMPICO
Tampico is a village located in Tampico Township, Whiteside County, Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the town had a total population of 790, up from 772 at the 2000 census. The area containing the future Tampico Township was a slough. The first non-aboriginal settlers arrived in 1852. The township of Tampico was established in 1861. In 1863-64, the area was drained. The local railroad went into service in 1871. In June of 1874, a tornado struck and destroyed 27 buildings: 

FROM THE STERLING IL STANDARD NEWSPAPER; Thursday, June 11, 1874.
TAMPICO IN RUINS - During the heavy storm that prevailed here on Saturday evening, about 10 o'clock, a whirlwind passed over a portion of this county, going over Lyndon high in the air, touching Prophetstown slightly, and working ruin in the village of Tampico. As far as we know, most of the town is destroyed or blown from foundations. The two elevators were entirely demolished, and the passenger depot and many dwellings were demolished or lifted from their foundations. Mrs. J. G. Banes had her leg broken in two places. An infant of Mrs. Dow's was reported to have been blown away and not found until morning, when it was discovered in a pile of rubbish, unhurt and fast asleep. Miss Maria Banes had her face bruised and a severe concussion of the brain - severe, recovery doubtful. Mr. J. G. Banes and several other persons were somewhat injured, but none seriously. Mrs. Piersall's shoulder was dislocated, and Mrs. Gates's was the same.

The following buildings are destroyed: one elevator with a capacity of 25,000 bushels, one smaller elevator, and a hay press. Mr. Williams' residence, A. Bastian's house, two houses of Humphrey estate, A. Gurnan's house, J. G. Banes' hotel, M. E. Church, C. Down's house, Gates' Pump Factory, F. Smith's house, G. W. Piersall's house, Haskins' shoe shop, Collins and Maxfield's blacksmith shop. Among some of the injured are Merritt & McGee's store, Geo. Dee's house, E. W. High's house, McMillan's tenement house, Davis', Dee's and Burke's stores, and numerous others we cannot particularize. Total loss is estimated at $25,000 to 30,000. A great many of our citizens went over on Monday and Tuesday. Dr. Anthony reports having visited many of the injured and that all are doing well. With his usual enterprise, James Adams took his photographic apparatus over and obtained several fine views of the ruins, which he has on sale at his gallery.

FROM THE STERLING IL STANDARD NEWSPAPER; Thursday, July 16, 1874
RE-BUILDING - We are pleased to notice that our neighbors of Tampico are putting forth strenuous efforts to replace the buildings torn down and destroyed by the tornado about a month ago. The elevators are being replaced, and new buildings are growing everywhere. The Tampico businessmen possess vim and energy and will undoubtedly succeed. The committee estimated the town's loss by the tornado at $70,000.

The Village of Tampico was incorporated in 1875.

East Side of Main Street  (1905) showing the C. F. Sippel Building before 1910. The Sipple Building is at 107 Main Street on the east side of the street.

East Side Main Street P.H. Likes Grocery Store.

Main Street Looking North J.C. Simpson and Company's Lumber Yard.

West Side Main Street showing the Smith Bros. Hardware is on the left, and McCormick Farm Tools is on the right. These buildings were torn down to make room for the new bank building.

M.S. Whipple Repair Shop.

Hotel Pitney House was located on the northeast corner of Market and Main Streets.

Aldrich Millinery Shop. On the west side of Main Street is the Aldrich Millinery Shop (L.L. Higday owned the Millinery shop until she died in 1895. Miss Ristow bought the inventory).

Ed and Desmonia "Dessie" (Scott ) Winchell and their daughter Lillian are at home.

Cyclone of November 25, 1908 damage.

Main Street 1940s.- (east side) Tampico Theater; Royal Blue Store (now the Historical Society); John Wayne's Clothing Store (west side); Opera House/Billiards Parlor (west side); Cain Drug store (west); Millinery Shop (west), Tinks bar (west).

Main Street  Looking South in the later 1950s. Vera's Lunch Cafe (right) and Tampico Super Market (left).

East Side Main Street 1950s.

FROM THE TAMPICO TORNADO NEWSPAPER; Friday, December 5, 1908

CYCLONE STRIKES TAMPICO - on Wednesday, November 25, 1908, a Twister Goes Through the Eastern Part of the City and Demolishes Several Barns. 

A cyclone struck the eastern edge of Tampico last Wednesday evening at about 7 o'clock and left a mass of wrecked, demolished, scattered barns and outhouses in its wake. Several barns were destroyed entirely, but very fortunately, the storm was not strong enough to ruin any dwellings further than to rack them or tear shingles from them. No one was injured, and no livestock was killed. The total loss will reach about $1500 or $2000, most of which insurance covers.

The storm came without warning other than the terrible roar accompanying twisters. This was heard by several who started for their cellars but could not reach them before it was all over. O. D. Olsson, who happened to be outdoors, saw and heard the funnel-shaped cloud coming and said it made a noise like a hundred trains. He recognized what it was and ran for the house. Others also heard and saw the cloud, which they described as the same.

The storm's course was from the southeast, striking the eastern part of the village in an erratic course. Its first effects were felt at Robert Hellier's farm about a mile south of town, and the last whack it took was in the northeastern part of the village at the residence of Mrs. Annie Peterson, occupied by Fred Wensel.

1936 Farm Ownership Atlas.

Farm & Feed House Museum.

VIDEO

History of Tampico by Hugh Downs of 20/20 Broadcast in 1982.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Maud Slye, M.D., 1923 Nobel Laureate. (1869–1954)

Dr. Maud Slye (1869–1954)

When Maud Slye began her work on the pathology of cancer, very few scientists believed that cancer was a genetic disease. Most experts thought that human cancers were either caused by viruses-like The Rous Sarcoma Virus, which had recently been implicated as the cause behind tumors in chickens, or a side-effect of rapid industrialization. 

Maud Slye, an American pathologist, was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A historian of women and science wrote that Slye "'invented' genetically uniform mice as a research tool." Her work focused on the heritability of cancer in mice. She was also an advocate for the comprehensive archiving of human medical records, believing that proper mate selection would help eradicate cancer. During her career, she received multiple awards and honors, including the gold medal of the American Medical Association in 1914 and the gold medal of the American Radiological Society in 1922.

Slye received her undergraduate training at the University of Chicago and Brown University. While at the University of Chicago, she supported herself as a secretary for University President William Rainey Harper. After a breakdown, she completed her studies at Brown in 1899.

After teaching, she began her postgraduate work in 1908 at the University of Chicago, performing neurological experiments on mice. She would remain at the University of Chicago for the rest of her career. After hearing of a cluster of cattle cancers at a nearby stockyard, she changed the focus of her research to cancer.

Slye raised—and kept pedigrees for—150,000 mice during her career. In 1913 she first presented a paper before the American Society for Cancer Research. In 1919 she was selected as director of the Cancer Laboratory at the University of Chicago. In 1922, she was promoted to assistant professor and became an associate professor in 1926. She retired, as a professor Emeritus of Pathology, in 1945. Her belief that cancer was a recessive trait that could be eliminated through breeding caused clashes with fellow scientists, including C. C. Little.

Not unlike Madame Curie, who worked under adverse conditions to bring untold benefits to the world through the discovery of radium, Dr. Maud Slye, University of Chicago research scientist, has been tracking down methods of controlling cancer, for the past 38 years. Working in barren quarters on a tiny fellowship, Dr. Slye has observed the disease in 150,000 mice, all of them dead now because the doctor did not have the funds to feed them, and planed to apply her findings to humans. But on July 1st Dr. Slye will turn 65, the retirement age for the University's professors, and will be forced to vacate her quarters. "I have proved that cancer can be controlled in mice. All I want now is the time and a place to continue my work, and I want to continue in this place. If I can just be left alone here to go with my work, that is all I ask of life," the doctor says. (1933)

Slye was devoted to her work. A 1937 Time account of her behavior at a science convention described her as "high-spirited" and quoted her as saying: "I breed out breast cancers. I don't think we should feel so hopeless about breeding out other types. Only romance stops us. It is the duty of scientists to ascertain and present facts. If the people prefer romance to taking advantage of these facts, there is nothing we can do about it."  Reluctant to leave her mice to the care of her assistants, she once went twenty-six years without a vacation. She never married and spent her retirement reviewing data from her research.

She is buried in Oak Woods Cemetery. 

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

The Mill Bridge Roller Rink, Lyons, Illinois (ca.1936-1992)

The Mill Bridge Roller Rink at 8027 West Ogden, Lyons, Illinois, opened in the late 1930s when a man named Jachim "Jokes" Fonter and his first wife, Mary, converted an old Hudson Car Dealership and their service center into a popular destination for children, teens and their parents.

Both sets of the couple's parents ran concession stands at the rink and another man known as "Red" held the job of bouncer. Red was so adept on wheels, he skated backward the whole evening, swooping in to help skaters who fell by stomping his skates loudly so people would know to maneuver around them. 

Regulars knew to expect well-dressed crowds and well-behaved skaters. Fonter didn't tolerate mischief in his rink, forcing skaters who broke the rules to sit in a wooden booth cordoned off with a rope and known as the penalty box.

Many skaters had their own indoor skates. They brought their skates to the rink in hard-sided cases. Those who didn't own skates rented them at the rink; white high-tops for the girls, and black, lower-cut styles for the guys.

Unlike many of the former roller rinks that people regularly write in to reminisce about, the Mill Bridge managed to stay open past roller skating's heyday of the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Fonter and his first wife separated, but the rink remained open. He and his second wife, Nancy, lived above the rink with their son.

But by 1990, skating crowds were nowhere near what they once were. Fonter, who struggled with Parkinson's disease, decided to close the rink and put the building up for sale. 

On Mother's Day 1993, the roller rink building caught fire, going up quickly because of all the floor polishes still in its back room. The Fonter's had stopped insuring the building years earlier because they couldn't afford the premium. Fonter died in 1997.

Visit our Souvenir Shop. 

The Lunchtime Theater - The Entire Film from the Full Rigged Ship Sørlandet to the 1933 Century of Progress Expedition.

THE DIGITAL RESEARCH LIBRARY OF ILLINOIS HISTORY JOURNAL™ PRESENTS

THE LUNCHTIME THEATER.

The entire film from the full rigged ship Sørlandet

to the 1933 Century of Progress Expedition. 

[runtime 49:00]

Norway sends her training ship, Sorlandet, a three-masted barque of 577 gross tons. She was accompanied by Capt. Magnus Anderson, who was in comman of the ship which Norway sent to the Fair in 1893.  The Sorlandet was moored at the southern tip of Northerly Island.

Lost Towns of Illinois - Brush Point, Illinois.

Brush Point, Illinois, began as a settlement of small log houses on the western bank of the Kishwaukee river. It was located in Mayfield Township in DeKalb County, Illinois, and was established as far back as 1830.

Dr. Henry Madden, who resided in Brush Point, was elected as Representative to the Illinois State Legislature in 1836.

In June of 1839, the Village of Brush Point was one of three towns under consideration for the county seat. It gained the support of Dr. Madden. Ultimately, after some closed-door, backroom meetings, Brush Point lost out to Sycamore. The reason was given that the village was in low lying land next to the Kishwaukee River and was prone to flooding.

The citizens began moving to Sycamore, which was about 5 miles southeast and Brush Point just disappeared over the next couple of years. 

The Disappearance of Civil Rights Pioneer Lloyd Gaines, last seen in Chicago in 1939, his whereabouts still a mystery.

On a cool, rainy night in March 1939, a handsome, rail-thin graduate student named Lloyd Gaines threw on an overcoat and journeyed into the streets of Chicago's southside. On his way out of the hotel, he told the door attendant that he was on a quick errand to buy some stamps. The 28-year-old Gaines was never seen or heard from again.

Just three months before he vanished, the St. Louis honors student won a pivotal United States Supreme Court decision mandating that the State of Missouri admit him into its university law school or build a separate — and equal — law school for blacks. The lawsuit, Gaines v. Canada, was filed against the University of Missouri's then-registrar, S.W. Canada.

The case helped forge the legal framework for the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1954 decision, Brown v. Board of Education, which banned segregation in public schools.

Friends and relatives recall Gaines as a quiet, headstrong man whose family migrated north from Mississippi in the late 1920s. As a young college student, Gaines walked the neighborhoods of north St. Louis selling magazines to help pay for his education. When his youngest sister finished eighth grade, he scraped together his meager savings to buy her a dress for graduation.

Something of a loner, Gaines was known to stay away from home for nights on end and journey off-campus without telling a soul. Discussing the disappearance years later, one of Lloyd's older brothers told a reporter, "He always kept kind to himself, so we figured he knew what he was doing and whatever he did was his own business."

Days would pass before anyone realized Gaines was missing. It would take another seven months before his disappearance became public. Newspapers across the country carried his photo. Anyone with information about his whereabouts was urged to contact the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. None of those efforts produced any solid leads.

In the weeks and months that followed, rumors circulated that Gaines had fallen into the hands of segregationist marauders — his body disposed of, never to be found. Rumors later placed him in New York, where he's said to have worked as a schoolteacher. Still more reported sightings placed Gaines in Mexico City, where he supposedly fled after taking a lucrative bribe to drop his suit.

Gaines' whereabouts remain a mystery. For generations, Lloyd Gaines was rarely mentioned among his descendants growing up in the family's rambling, three-story home just north of the Central West End.

Likewise, it's only been in recent decades that the University of Missouri has acknowledged its role in Gaines' historic struggle. In 1995 the school established a law scholarship in his honor and later named its Black Culture Center after Gaines and another black student who was denied admission to the university because of their race.

Should Gaines miraculously reappear today, he'd be 96 years old and free to practice law in Missouri. Last year the University of Missouri School of Law presented him with an honorary degree, and the state bar association granted him a posthumous law license.

Oddly, authorities never looked into Gaines' disappearance, and it's unclear whether his family ever went to the police in St. Louis or Chicago to report him missing. "At the time, they probably didn't think it would do any good," rationalizes Gaines' great-niece, St. Louis resident Tracy Berry. "You figure this is a family who migrated from the South where the Ku Klux Klan still dominated the scenery. They weren't likely to rock the boat."

For that matter, the family has never declared Lloyd Gaines legally dead. But that may all soon change.

Last month the NAACP called upon the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate for the first time what became of Gaines. The prospect of a federal examination is once again sparking public interest in Lloyd Gaines, as well as ripping open wounds that have yet to heal among his surviving descendants.

"To my grandmother and Lloyd's other siblings, the story of Lloyd Gaines was significant because their brother disappeared, not because he won a Supreme Court decision," reflects Berry, who in 1991 realized her great-uncle's dream when she received a law degree from Washington University. "The general public looks at his life as this historical tale. For us it's a family tragedy that's yet to be answered."

What — if anything — authorities will discover in their investigation remains to be seen. Of the more than 100 civil-rights-era "cold cases" the NAACP has asked the Justice Department to investigate in recent years, Gaines' disappearance presents one of the toughest challenges. Few people with any firsthand knowledge of the case are still alive, and no corpse or remains have ever been found.

"I welcome the FBI investigation because, in my mind, it's certainly not a done deal," says Lloyd Gaines' 69-year-old nephew, George Gaines. "But given the time frame involved, I don't know if they're going to find anything conclusive. It's been a long time."

A retired Navy captain living in San Diego, George Gaines is one of only two family members remaining who were alive at the time of Lloyd Gaines' disappearance. The other family member declined to talk about the subject of this story.

As tragic as the event must have been to Gaines' mother and siblings, George Gaines confirms that the topic was rarely discussed at family gatherings.

"I was just a babe-in-arms when he disappeared, so I don't know if they talked about it at the time it happened," recalls George Gaines. "But when I was growing up, it was something that wasn't talked about much. When the conversation did come up, Lloyd was always held in high regard as a person who set a positive example and stood up for what was right."

It wasn't until he was in junior high and flipping through Ebony magazine that George Gaines learned the first in-depth details of his uncle's disappearance. Written by reporter Edward T. Clayton, the article published in May 1951 remains the most thorough investigation into Gaines' disappearance. Clayton traced Gaines' path from St. Louis to Kansas City and on to Chicago, where he hoped to find work in the late winter of 1939. The story told the tale of a man who'd grown weary of his role as a civil-rights trailblazer.

In Chicago, Clayton found Gaines' former neighbors from St. Louis, Nancy Page and her daughter Eddie Mae. For several weeks Gaines was a frequent dinner guest at their home. On March 19, 1939, he promised to repay the pair by taking them out to supper. Gaines never arrived for the scheduled meal.

Nancy Page told Clayton that Gaines appeared distressed and worried in the days leading up to his disappearance. "I never thought much about it at the time," recalled Page. "But Gaines did seem to be running away from something. Of course, I didn't dare try to pry into his affairs, but I remember once I did ask him if he was planning to go to the University of Missouri, and I think he even hedged on this. His answer wasn't straightforward, and if I remember correctly, he said something like this: 'If I don't go, I will have at least made it possible for some other boy or girl to go.'"

Although Gaines told Page that he'd found a job at a nearby department store, Clayton discovered Gaines never reported for his first day of work. Meanwhile, fraternity brothers at the Alpha Phi Alpha house (where Gaines briefly stayed after checking out of a Chicago YMCA) provided Clayton with a few additional insights into his disappearance.

The Ebony reporter noted that Gaines was short on money, and the brothers "took up a collection" for him just days before he vanished, leaving behind at the frat house a small duffel bag full of dirty socks, shirts and ties.

Back in St. Louis, Clayton visited with Gaines' mother, Callie, whom he found bedridden and living in the attic of the family's home on Belle Street. Callie claimed to have no knowledge of what became of her son but confirmed rumors of various sightings.

"Of course, we heard a lot of reports about where he was, but none of them meant anything," she told Clayton. "We heard once that he was in Mexico; another time, somebody said he was in New York. But nobody knows any more than we do."

Like Nancy Page in Chicago, Lloyd's mother expressed doubt that her son planned to follow through in attending Mizzou. "We never talked much about the case," Callie said. "But I remember once I asked him if he was going to that school, and he said, 'No.' I told him then that I thought it would be too dangerous, but he didn't say anything else except that he wasn't going, and I knew he wasn't."

Her last contact with her son, she told Clayton, was a letter from Chicago in which she recalled him stating: "Goodbye. If you don't hear from me anymore, you know I'll be all right."

Later, Clayton interviewed Gaines' older brother (and the namesake of his surviving descendant in California) George, who produced the cryptic last letter Lloyd Gaines sent home. Dated March 3, 1939, the letter began: 

"Dear mother, I have come to Chicago hoping to find it possible to make my own way. I hope that by this letter, I shall make very clear the reasons for such a step."

Gaines wrote that he left his job at a filling station in St. Louis after discovering the owner was selling inferior petrol as premium fuel. He then journeyed by train to Kansas City, where he spent a day delivering a speech before the city's chapter of the NAACP and taking a few hours to look for work. Finding no job prospects, he boarded a train to Chicago.

"As for my publicity relative to the university case," Gaines wrote his mother, "I have found that my race still likes to applaud, shake hands, pat me on the back and say how great and noble is the idea: how historical and socially important the case but" — and it ends.

"Off and out of the confines of the publicity columns, I am just a man — not one who has fought and sacrificed to make the case possible: one who is still fighting and sacrificing — almost the 'supreme sacrifice' to see that it is a complete and lasting success for thirteen million Negroes — no! — just another man. Sometimes I wish I were just a plain, ordinary man whose name no one recognized."

He ended the rambling eight-page letter with news that he'd paid for his room in Chicago through March 7. "If nothing turns up by then, I'll have to make other arrangements. Should I forget to write for a time, don't worry about it. I can look after myself OK. As ever, Lloyd."

In addition to the letter, Gaines' brother George provided Clayton with insight into the financial straits that Lloyd endured. As the case dragged its way through the courts, the NAACP paid Gaines' basic expenses to attend business school at the University of Michigan, but it was George who loaned him spending money.

When Clayton interviewed George a dozen years after the disappearance, the older brother still had IOUs from Lloyd, totaling $500. George Gaines also seemed to harbor resentment toward the NAACP.

"He was always writing here asking for money," George Gaines told Clayton. "That organization — the N-A-A-C-P or whatever it was — had him going around here making speeches, but when he got ready to go to Kansas City, I had to let him have $10 so he could get himself a white shirt."

Gaines' NAACP attorney, Sidney Redmond, further acknowledged to Clayton that his client may have felt as though they were being taken advantage of by the civil-rights organization.

"There was a feeling — not commonly discussed, of course — that Gaines seemed to feel that he wasn't getting enough out of being used as a guinea pig and wanted more in a personal sort of way," said Redmond, who described Gaines' family as being reluctant to help the NAACP locate its client.

"The family doesn't seem too much concerned — and never was, as I recall," continued Redmond. "I tried to press them for information at the time we first got word he disappeared, but even then, they didn't seem too interested."

Lloyd Gaines' last surviving sibling, Dorothy Waters, died at the age of 87. Following family tradition, relatives say Gaines' youngest sister seldom mentioned the mysterious disappearance of her brother — perhaps for good reason.

"I've heard that he had death threats against him," says Waters' granddaughter, Tracy Berry. "Considering the era in which this occurred, the people who made those threats probably made similar remarks to the family. That could account for the family not talking about it."

Berry, who possesses the same high cheekbones and light brown skin as her great-uncle Lloyd, says her grandmother referred to her brother Lloyd as "dead" and provided few details about his life. It wasn't until Berry was in middle school that she unearthed the full story. Like her uncle George a generation before her, Berry came across details of the story by chance in a news article.

An assistant U.S. attorney in St. Louis, Berry says people naturally assume that she was inspired to become a lawyer because of Lloyd Gaines — a premise that's not entirely false. "His legacy didn't so much make me want to go to law school," she says. "But I think he did instill the legacy of education in our family. It's expected that you go to college. He started the fight that made it all possible."

Even after growing up in the Gaines household, Berry admits much of her knowledge of Gaines is purely academic. "The question everyone asks is: 'What happened?'" says Berry. "All I can say is that there are historians and reporters who know much more about it than I do."

Born in 1911 in the small Mississippi town of Water Valley, Lloyd Gaines accompanied his mother and siblings — accounts of the number of children in the family range from five to twelve — to St. Louis in 1926.

A few years later, in 1931, Gaines graduated at the top of his class from the old Vashon High School, requiring just three years to earn his high school diploma. He spent the next year studying at the city's black teachers' college, Stowe, before enrolling in Lincoln University in Jefferson City.

Gaines graduated from the state's black liberal arts school in 1935 as an honor student, a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity and president of his class. Upon receiving his diploma, he applied to the University of Missouri School of Law — at the time, the only public law school in the state.

School curators promptly rejected his application on the grounds that it was "contrary to the constitution, laws and public policy of the state to admit a Negro as a student in the University of Missouri." Instead, the state and university offered to pay Gaines' tuition to attend law school in the adjoining states of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois.

Gaines spurned the offer, and in January 1936, he and his NAACP attorneys filed a petition that he be granted enrollment at the University of Missouri law school. It would be nearly three years before Gaines' appeal landed before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Following the arguments of Gaines' NAACP attorneys, Charles Houston and Sidney Redmond, the court ruled 6-2 that Gaines must either be allowed entrance to the University of Missouri law school or the state build a separate law school for blacks.

News of the Supreme Court's decision blanketed newspapers across the country, and Gaines returned to St. Louis a hero and celebrity. Speaking before a packed house at the Pine Street YMCA in January 1939, Gaines told his supporters, "I am ready, willing and able to enroll in the law department at the University of Missouri in September, and I have the fullest intention of doing so."

But beyond the fanfare surrounding his court victory, little had changed in segregated St. Louis. Upon returning from Michigan, where he worked as a clerk in the Works Progress Administration, the only job Gaines could find was as a gas station attendant. Soon he was borrowing money from his brother George and making speeches at churches and community centers for small donations.

It became clear that even after the Supreme Court ruling, Gaines' fight to enter the University of Missouri was far from over. In January 1939, Missouri legislators fast-tracked a bill to provide Lincoln University with $275,000 for the establishment of a black law school. In May of that year, the bill was signed into law, and Lincoln University went about jury-rigging the now-demolished Poro Beauty College in north St. Louis into its law school.

The facility opened its doors on September 21, 1939, under the condemnation of some 200 protesters who formed a picket line around the "Jim Crow" school. A total of 30 students showed up for classes that first day. Lloyd Gaines was not among them.

His NAACP attorneys planned to argue that the hastily thrown-together Lincoln Law School was not equal to the University of Missouri's program. In October, his lawyers began taking depositions, only to realize that Gaines hadn't been heard from in months.

As attorney Sidney Redmond told Ebony magazine: "It wasn't necessary for Gaines to be present at all hearings after we filed his petition, but we were reasonably certain that he was going all the way with the suit. We had checked him pretty close as a student and knew his attitude about such matters. You can imagine how we felt when he failed to show up even after we won."

Today several of Gaines' descendants can't help but think that the NAACP took Lloyd Gaines for granted. If he was truly their star client, they wonder how could they go so long without contacting him?

"Yeah, it appeared to me that they used him as something of a guinea pig," says Paulette Smith-Mosby, another of Gaines' great-nieces in St. Louis. "They used him pretty good."

So what did become of Lloyd Gaines? The answer to that depends on whom you ask.

Perhaps the most intriguing rumor came from University City resident Sid Reedy, a librarian and member of the same Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity chapter to which Lloyd Gaines belonged. Reedy says he became fascinated by the story of Gaines in the late 1970s and ventured to Lincoln University to discuss the case with the longtime instructor and civil-rights leader Lorenzo Greene.

It was Greene, who passed away in 1988, who first encouraged Gaines to apply to the University of Missouri law school. During his hour-long visit with the Lincoln professor, Reedy recalls, Greene told him of a trip he made to Mexico in the late 1940s. While there, Greene claimed, he reached Gaines by telephone. The two were later to meet at a Mexico City restaurant. Gaines never showed up.

"The minute he picked up the phone, he said he recognized it was the voice of Lloyd Gaines," says Reedy. "They talked for a while. Gaines said he had grown tired of the fight and wanted to start over. He had some business in Mexico City and apparently did well financially."

Greene's son, Lorenzo Thomas Greene, confirms the story. A music teacher in Jefferson City, the younger Greene believes his father always held out hope that Gaines would return someday. Greene says his father's civil-rights activism prevented him from reporting his phone call with Gaines to authorities.

"Any information like that he'd have to take to the FBI," says Greene. "There wasn't a lot of trust there. FBI agents had already been to our house to question my mother about my father's involvement in other civil-rights matters. Of course, [former FBI director] J. Edgar Hoover wasn't an ally of the civil rights movement. Even if my father went to them with that information, I really don't think they would have cared."

Today, Paulette Smith-Mosby prefers to accept this version of her great-uncle's disappearance. "I would like to think he died of old age in Mexico," says Smith-Mosby. "It's better than being buried in a basement somewhere — Jimmy Hoffa (Murdered in 1982) style."

Other members of the Gaines family aren't as optimistic. They can't help but believe that Gaines was a victim of foul play.

"Given the battle he fought, it would surprise me that he'd just up and disappear," says Gaines' nephew George. "It's hard for me to believe that he went to Mexico and accepted a big payoff. That's not the same man who presented himself during the trial. I don't believe he would compromise his integrity like that."

Tracy Berry also has a difficult time believing that her great-uncle pulled a vanishing act.

"When you think of those old photos of lynchings and burned bodies, who wouldn't want to think that he lived a full life in Mexico?" asks Berry. "But based on the love my grandmother and great-grandmother had for their brother and son, that's really hard for me to reconcile. If he wanted to walk away, there are easier ways to do it than to sever ties from the entire family."

To date, the FBI remains reluctant to say when — or if — it will follow through on the NAACP's request to review Gaines' disappearance.

In response to a query from the Riverfront Times, FBI supervisory special agent Stephen Kodak tersely replied, "The FBI is aware of this referral by the NAACP, and the case will be evaluated based on its merits for a potential solution along with the other civil-rights era cold case referrals made by our partners with the NAACP, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Urban League. We currently have no other comment at this time on this matter."

Last year the Associated Press obtained FBI records that reveal the agency has twice denied requests to investigate the Gaines case. According to the AP, an internal memo dated May 10, 1940, and signed by FBI Director Hoover states that agents "are conducting no investigation in connection with this matter."

In May 1970 — Hoover denied a similar request from an undisclosed member of the public. "Although I would like to be of assistance in connection with your letter of May 7," wrote Hoover, "the case you mentioned involving Lloyd Gaines was not within the investigative jurisdiction of the FBI."

Berry, who in her capacity as a U.S. attorney often works hand-in-hand with federal agents, hopes this time the FBI will heed the call to examine Gaines' disappearance.

"It would be good to finally end the speculating," says Berry. "It's certainly not going to erase what happened to our family, but by opening this case and others like it, we're admitting that there is still healing to be done. Then I definitely think it's a positive thing — no matter what they may find."

by Chad Garrison
Edited by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

"Aunt Lizzie" Aiken serving Illinois in the Civil War and Beyond.

Her birth name was Eliza N. Atherton. She was born on March 24, 1817 in the town of Auburn, New York.  Her maternal grandfather was John Ward who was related to General Artemus Ward, a leader of the American Revolution. Lizzie joined the Auburn Baptist Church in 1829 at the age of twelve. The family lived in Vermont at various times.

In 1837 when she was twenty, she married Cyrus Aiken of Vermont. The couple honeymooned in Boston and then set out by stage and flat boat along the Erie Canal west toward Chicago. Their purpose was to settle on the Rock River at Grand DeTour, Illinois in Ogle County. The area was a colony of Vermont expatriates including John Deere, the founder of the farm machinery company who was a blacksmith from Rutland, Vermont.

Pioneer life was tough on Lizzie and other women in the area. Tragedy struck in her early years in Brimfield, Illinois in Peoria County when she lost all four of her boys to cholera, then her sister, and finally her husband was incapacitated due to illness and their small estate was lost after a move to Peoria. As the start of the Civil War, she both nursed and performed missionary duties among soldiers in the sick tents near Peoria.

During the Civil War, nurses were called "Angels of the Battlefield." Maryland gave us Clara Barton who years after the war founded the American Red Cross. Another famous nurse of that era hailed from Peoria, Illinois.

Early in 1861, a young widow that soldiers called "Aunt Lizzie" Aiken showed up one day at the headquarters of the Sixth Illinois Cavalry also known as "The Governor Yates Legion" near Peoria. She reported to the head surgeon Major Niglas to offer her services taking care of the wounded, building morale, and doing the hard jobs that then as now define nursing.

She also did missionary work, read the Bible to the soldiers, and wrote or read letters for them. She worked without any pay at first and without a military rank as a volunteer. Even when she entered federal service in 1862, her salary was $12 per month when it was paid. "What shall we call this kind lady?" a soldier asked Dr. Niglas. "Call her 'Aunt Lizzie,' we all just call her Aunt Lizzie."

Aunt Lizzie was asked to go to Cairo but she ignored her own safety and followed the unit to Shawneetown, Illinois. In the severe winter of 1861-1862, she and one other nurse took care of between twenty and eighty patients each day by taking two six-hour shifts each day. In January 1862, she was paid a visit one day by General Ulysses S. Grant and General William T. Sherman who wanted to congratulate her for having saved the lives of four hundred men.

At Shawneetown in early 1862 she wrote to a friend, "Twenty-four nights in succession I have sat up until three in the morning, dealing out medicine. I cannot think of leaving these poor fellows if there's any chance of their living.  I have, for the last month, written ten letters a week. I correspond with four Ladies Aid Societies."

She moved with the regiment to a new assignment in Paducah, Kentucky at St. Mark's Hospital with "Mother Sturgis," the wife of another officer. Finally when the Sixth Illinois Cavalry went further south into Confederate territory, Aunt Lizzie and Mother Sturgis were left to do general nursing work for Union Soldiers at Ovington Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee and were no longer assigned just to one Illinois regiment.

Before the war, the Ovington had been the finest hotel in Memphis. But during the war, it was a hospital run by six Roman Catholic Sisters of the Holy Cross and six Protestant nurses. Aunt Lizzie was in charge of Ward A with one hundred sick and wounded men. Both armies lost more men to disease and delayed treatment of wounds than to direct enemy fire.

One day she received a note that six hundred sick and wounded had arrived at the Jefferson Hospital in the city and that number included her brother Bertrand so she rushed to find him. She did not recognize him but heard a voice say, "Oh Lizzie, how much you look like Mother." She still did not recognize him because his appearance had changed so much over the years. Lizzie took a leave to take her brother Bertrand Atherton to St. Louis to give him to her other brother Ward Atherton who in turn took him home to Hoyleton, Illinois in Washington County near Centralia.

In February 1864 an invasion force of fifteen thousand calvary soldiers from the north left Memphis to a march on Mississippi. The force was led by Lizzie's old regiment, the Sixth Illinois. Soldiers came by the hospital by the hundreds to see her and to ask her to stay in Memphis in case they might be wounded so that she could care for them later. But her own health was declining and she was sent to another hospital. Through all her own struggles and all her work during the war, she never forgot a promise she made to her grandfather as he was dying many years before to always trust in God.

In June 1865 after the war was over, Mother Sturgis helped Lizzie get back to Peoria. Later that year she went to Chicago to stay with a friend and recuperate. She needed a living so applied for various jobs including at a newspaper. For a year or so she worked at a Refuge for men set up by the YMCA. While one editor turned her down for a job, he referred her to the wife of a Baptish pastor who steered Lizzie back to missionary work. Baptists were a very active church in Chicago in the late 1800s and took on the job of raising money and setting up a board for the University of Chicago in 1892.

Lizzie became a missionary at the Second Baptist Church of Chicago in 1867 and made as many as 12,000 visits to sick people in 12 years. She remained with the Second Baptist Church for the rest of her life and died 38 years later in Chicago on January 16, 1906 at the age of 88. Her career in Chicago was almost as well known as her exploits during the Civil War.

There were many other tributes to Lizzie's life and work from the press in 1906 and this one came from a newspaper called The Christian Herald:

"There died recently, in the City of Chicago, a woman whose career was so remarkable for its' heroic self sacrifice and dauntless courage, that she could be ranked as high as the bravest soldier who does battle for his country. Her name was, Mrs. Eliza N. Aiken, but perhaps this would have an unfamiliar sound to the grizzled veterans; but say, 'Aunt Lizzie' the angel of the hospitals of Memphis and Paducah, and they would raise their hands to the salute, out of respect and love to America' s Florence Nightingale."

Free PDF book "The Story of Aunt Lizzie Aiken" published in 1880, in my Digital Research Library of Illinois History®.

Chicago Home for the Incurables, 5555 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.

The Chicago Home for the Incurables was built in 1898 (many wrong references to 1889 on the web) and closed in 1959, the Chicago Home for the Incurables was a long-term hospital complex.

Patients were provided with invalid chairs, which they propelled about their rooms or through the long corridors out upon the wide verandas. There were comfortable seats and inviting hammocks and a perspective of lawn and bright flowers, which meant much to feeble eyes and limbs.

The Chicago Home for the Incurables housed the "John Crerar Library." There was a parlor on every floor, a commodious reading room. The men had a smoking room where they could indulge to their hearts' content in the use of their favorite brands.

The University of Chicago acquired the Chicago Home for the Incurables in 1963 and changed the name to the "Young Memorial Building". Since then, It has functioned as a departmental space for the university's architect, security, housing, and administrative facilities.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Sprague’s Super Service on Route 66, Normal, Illinois.

The first gas stations along Route 66 were simple curbside pumps outside general stores. By the late 1920s, the Mother Road supported stand-alone gas stations--usually two pumps beneath a canopy with a simple office attached. Over time, gas station buildings became more substantial. Sprague’s Super Service in Normal, Illinois, may well represent the apex of this trend.

By 1931, when William Sprague built his station, most of the nation’s gas stations were affiliated with major oil companies such as Pure Oil, Phillip’s Petroleum, or Texaco. Architects for these companies provided functional, standardized station designs.   Drivers could glance at a white building with three green stripes, for example, and know at once that because of the recognizable icon it was a Texaco station.

Like other small entrepreneurs of the time, Sprague took a different approach. A building contractor, he constructed his large, unique, brick, Tudor Revival gas station using high-quality materials and craftsmanship. The result, Sprague’s Super Service, appeared to be part manor house and part gas station, and sold City Service gas.  Steep gables distinguished the broad, red roofline.  Substantial brick peers supported the canopy. Stucco with decorative swirls and contrasting half timbering distinguished the second story.

Distinctiveness was important—just like brand-name operators, independent operators had to create brand loyalty, even if their brand was their individual operation. They also worked to promote their identity as good neighbors and local producers, setting themselves in opposition to corporations, which they defined as large and impersonal. As road construction and automobile use grew, so did a backlash against its commercialism and the “ugliness” of commercial architecture. The Tudor Revival style Sprague chose for his station, with its historical and domestic overtones, helped to both establish a local, homey identity and promote a conservative, rural aesthetic. In the depressed 1930s, when gas far outstripped consumers, independent operators could use this civic persona to help sell their gasoline.

Visitors can easily imagine the 1930s, when Chevrolets, Buicks, and Plymouths pulled up under the canopy, and the station attendant pumped their tanks full of gasoline at 10 cents a gallon. After buying gas, travelers could step inside and eat at Sprague’s restaurant or pull into the bay and have their cars repaired. These enterprises occupied the ground floor of the building.  Upstairs, a spacious apartment, complete with a sun room over the gas pump canopy, housed Sprague and his family.  A second upstairs apartment housed the station attendant.

Throughout the 1930s, most people passing through Bloomington-Normal from north or south traveled Pine Street. Traffic was heavy enough to support both Sprague’s and, just across the street, Snedaker’s Station and Bill’s Cabins, another 1930s service station jointly administered with a lodging operation. Pine Street’s heyday was short lived, though. In 1940, the new four-lane Route 66 opened around the east side of Bloomington, siphoning through-traffic off of East Pine Street. Some traffic still took the Business Route 66 into Normal, so the station remained open, but the property changed hands many times as each new owner sought business opportunities with more appeal for local clientele.

The station was vacant for part of World War II when gasoline and repair parts were scarce. Beginning in 1946, immediately after the war, the owners still sold gas and food, but they added other enterprises as well. Over the years, Joe’s Welding and Boiler Company, Corn Belt Manufacturing, Yellow Cab, and Avis Rent-a-Car occupied space at Sprague’s. So did a bridal store, cake gallery, and catering operation.  Since the 1960s, these other enterprises have supplanted the gas station function of the building; the pumps were removed in 1979. 

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Thunder Mountain Ski Resort, Chicago, Illinois.

Thunder Mountain Ski Resort was the only Chicago ski resort. Its brief life at 2600 North Narragansett Avenue, in the Belmont-Cragin Community, with the Brickyard, Cragin, and Hanson Park neighborhoods, was as short as the longest run down its 285-foot slope.

Located at what was the Brickyard Shopping Mall on the Northwest Side, the grandly named Thunder Mountain was open for one season, the 1967-68 winter. It boasted the longest vertical drop of any place within 200 miles, according to a 1967 Tribune story. The feat was accomplished because skiers started at the top of the man-made hill and ended at the bottom of the clay pit excavated over the decades by the Carey Brick Works. Parking was available for 2,000 cars, and was the only Chicago resort serviced by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA).

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The highest natural point within the city limits is in the Beverly neighborhood at 104th and Leavitt Street at 672 feet. In pioneer days, this hill was called Blue Island, so named because, at a distance, it looked like an island set in a trackless prairie sea.

According to geologists, ages ago this ridge was a real island in Lake Michigan. It was made up almost entirely of alluvial drift and lake deposit, probably left by a melting ice cap during the glacial period. The island rose 10 to 35 feet above the surrounding waters.Eventually the shoreline of Lake Michigan receded to its present location and left a six-mile-long oval ridge in the midst of a low marshy plain.

The Careys launched "Thunder Enterprises" and divided the landscape into three different runs for beginners, intermediates, and experts, all serving the 55 skiable acres by tow ropes.

Robert Carey, the owner of the brickyard on which the resort is located, is also managing director of Hawthorne Race Track in Cicero and is head of Thunder Enterprises, Ltd. 

The former brick kiln was converted into an A-shaped chalet. There were too many fireplaces in the chalet, and several had been bricked up. The chalet at the top offered a snack bar and a lounge, a complete rental shop, restrooms, etc. Two certified ski instructors were hired. Five compressors were used to feed 15 snow guns to provide machine-made snow for the area.

Thunder Mountain was lit for night skiing. The original operating schedule listed hours from 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., seven days a week. Lift charges were $3.50 during the week and $4.00 on Saturday and Sunday. Parking costs $1.00.

Thunder Mountain view looking northeast toward Steinmetz High School.

Carey had big plans for the place, envisioning a five-story chalet on the Diversey Avenue side, toboggan runs, an indoor swimming pool and a hotel. Ski lifts also were planned. 

The Tribune reported that the family had enjoyed the slopes for a few years before deciding to open it to the public. But a March 1968 story blamed a horrible lack of snow and "some growing pains" for a first season that was "hardly a smashing success." 

The ski run never reopened, though the Tribune reported in 1971 that abandoned ski lift poles at the site were used by ham radio operators for a simulated emergency exercise.

Thunder Mountain view looking southeast toward downtown Chicago.

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Carey Brick Works made a fortune for political heavyweight and one-time mayoral candidate Thomas Carey and his family. It was part of a Chicago-area industry producing 300 million Chicago common and street paver bricks yearly. The company was fined for using those clay pits as illegal dumps, ending a protracted battle with neighbors in 1950. Carey Brick Works continued in operation during the ski resort era and beyond. They were the last place in Chicago to make these bricks. The kilns needed to produce these didn't meet modern environmental standards, and Carey closed in 1980. Today, whenever a Chicago brick building is torn down, companies are brought in to salvage the bricks and re-use or sell them.

Oak Park resident Deb Pastors, who grew up near the site, has told people about the ski run for years. She wrote, "People look at me like I have horns growing from my head. The whole brickyard story would be pretty interesting, but the story about the ski hill would be fascinating."

The original Brickyard Mall opened in 1978, and the site's brief fling as a ski resort faded into history. By 2003, the mall was nearly 80 percent vacant, so the city council approved a one-hundred million dollar redevelopment plan to demolish the structure. Opening in its place was a strip mall with Target and Lowe's, along with a relocated Jewel supermarket.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

The Lunchtime Theater - A Journey Through the Geologic History of Illinois in 14 Chapters.

THE DIGITAL RESEARCH LIBRARY OF ILLINOIS HISTORY JOURNAL™ PRESENTS

THE LUNCHTIME THEATER.

A Journey Through the Geologic History of Illinois in 14 Chapters.

Learn the history of Illinois as it changes from ancient tropical seas to towering swamps to a frozen Ice Age landscape.

Chapter 1 - The Ocean of Illinois

Chapter 2 - Early Ocean Life

Chapter 3 - Plate Tectonics

Chapter 4 - Geologic Materials

Chapter 5 - The Great Delta

Chapter 6 - Where Does Coal Come From

Chapter 7 - Geologic Layers of Illinois

Chapter 8 - Were Dinosaurs in Illinois

Chapter 9 - Ancient Rivers and Glaciers

Chapter 10 - The Illinois Glacier

Chapter 11 - The Wisconsin Glacier

Chapter 12 - Artifacts from the Illinois Ice Age

Chapter 13 - Impacts of Glacial Landforms

Chapter 14 - Warmer Climate Prairie Modern Illinois