Program info & archives
Story Subject Category: Folklore
Get Flash to see this video.
Host Alison Davis heads to Petersburg in Menard County, where one of the country’s most influential quarter horses, Peter McCue, was foaled on Samuel Watkin’s farm in 1895. Peter McCue can be found in the lineage of 75 percent of all American quarter horses today, said Davis. “He had a good, but short career as a race horse and then went on to be a stud horse. While in Illinois, he sired three of his most famous sons: Harmon Baker, Hickory Bill and John Wilkins,” she said.
Peter McCue became the first horse ever to be honored with a marker by the American Quarter Horse Association. The marker was erected at the Menard County Fairgrounds in 1995.
Segment duration: 07:01
Producer: Alison Davis Wood
This segment is filed in these categories: Folklore • Illinois Culture/History • Livestock/Animals/Zoology • Sports
back to the main Prairie Fire page
Get Flash to see this video.
Each summer when Glen Davies’ family made a pilgrimage to Chicago’s Riverview Park, he enjoyed the rides at the now defunct amusement mecca. But his fondest memories are of the sideshow where he caught his first glimpses of the Alligator Skinned Girl, Human Pincushion, and Rubber-Skinned Man.
Davies, a University of Illinois assistant professor of art and design, became a devoted sideshow fan. Now he studies sideshow banners, the colorful canvas signs that beckoned passersby to give themselves over to the exotic, the strange and the unknown. Prairie Fire looks at sideshow art through Davies’ eyes. “The sideshow banners became an inspiration for his own art,” said Prairie Fire host Alison Davis. The program also features an interview with Champaign magician Andy Dallas, who talks about how Davies is helping keep sideshow art alive today by painting banners for acts like Dallas’ magic show.
Segment duration: 08:37
Producer: Alison Davis
This segment is filed in these categories: Arts/Culture • Folklore • Illinois Culture/History
back to the main Prairie Fire page
Get Flash to see this video.
Prairie Fire visits Voorhies Castle, a mysterious 14-room, 94-year-old mansion between Decatur and Bement.
Segment duration: 15:10
Producer: Alison Davis Wood
This segment is filed in these categories: Folklore • Illinois Culture/History • Voorhies
back to the main Prairie Fire page
Get Flash to see this video.
Troy Taylor loves to hunt ghosts, and we follow him to the Old Lincoln Theatre, a haunted gym, and other...interesting places.
Segment duration: 22:07
Producer: Alison Davis Wood
This segment is filed in these categories: Folklore • Illinois Culture/History • Decatur • Greenwood • Lincoln
back to the main Prairie Fire page
Get Flash to see this video.
Scary Prairie Fire tells the chilling story of a 12-year-old Watseka girl who became possessed with the spirit of another girl in the 1870s.
Segment duration: 08:29
Producer: Alison Davis Wood
This segment is filed in these categories: Folklore • Illinois Culture/History • Watseka
back to the main Prairie Fire page
Get Flash to see this video.
A special Halloween edition of Prairie Fire delves into central Illinois haunted tales, including the sightings of a ghostly “woman in white” at the mansion at the University of Illinois’ Allerton Park near Monticello. “Two guests staying in the house saw the woman in white. In one case, she was sitting in a chair pulling on a pair of gloves,” said Alison Davis, host and producer of the program. “We talk to Atron Regen, a former night caretaker, who was once awakened by something touching his left hand. He turned around and caught a glimpse of a hand wearing a white glove.”
Segment duration: 10:54
Producer: Alison Davis Wood
This segment is filed in these categories: Folklore • Illinois Culture/History • Monticello
back to the main Prairie Fire page
Get Flash to see this video.
Host Alison Davis visits what she calls “woodhenge,” a ring of giant wooden poles in a field near Bondville. The mystery of the poles is unraveled by U of I professor emeritus George Swanson, who talks about scientific experiments that took place in the field in the 1950s.
Segment duration: 08:06
Producer: Alison Davis
This segment is filed in these categories: Folklore • Landscape • Illinois Culture/History • Military • Champaign County
back to the main Prairie Fire page
Comments: