Illinois History Minutes

It’s October 7th, the day of the fifth Lincoln-Douglas debate in 1858. Some 15-thousand people crowded onto the Knox College campus to hear Senator Stephen Douglas and challenger Abraham Lincoln debate whether the expansion of slavery in new states should be allowed. Douglas continued his argument that the Declaration of Independence was written by and applied only to white men, while Lincoln argued that it was meant for all men --- even though its chief author, Thomas Jefferson, was a slaveholder.

It’s October Sixth. And on this day in 1818, Shadrach Bond was inaugurated as the new state of Illinois’ first governor. Bond had previously served as the Illinois Territory’s non-voting representative in Congress.

It’s October fifth. And on this day in 1868, a huge crowd gathered in Springfield for the laying of the cornerstone for a new Illinois state Capitol building, the one we have now. Construction would take 20 years, and by the time the east wall went up, the inscribed cornerstone was found to be cracked and deteriorated. It was replaced by a new cornerstone with no inscription.

It’s October 4th. And St. John’s College of Nursing in Springfield was founded on this day in 1886. The school started as a training program for religious sisters at Springfield’s St. John’s Hospital, and later expanded into a degree program. St. John’s is the oldest Catholic, hospital-based, school of nursing in the country.

It’s October 3rd, the day in 1955 that the children’s TV show Captain Kangaroo premiered on CBS --- featuring Sandwich Illinois native Hugh Brannum as Mister Green Jeans and other characters. Before beginning his three decade run on Captain Kangaroo, Brannum had performed as “Uncle Lumpy” alongside Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians, and on his own children’s records.

It’s September 30th. And on this day in 1922, corn processor A.E. Staley became the first major company to begin processing soybeans for oil and meal, when it opened a soybean crushing plant in Decatur. 

It’s September 29th, and retired Air Force General  Darren McDew was born in Rantoul on this day in 1960. McDew graduated from Virginia Military Institute in 1982 as the nation’s first African-American regimental commander. He went on to serve as Commander of U.S. Transportation Command at Scott Air Force Base in southwest Illinois.

It’s September 28th, the day that broadcast pioneer William S. Paley was born in Chicago in 1901. Paley bought a small, struggling radio network, and built it into the Columbia Broadcasting System – CBS for short.

It’s September 27th, and Blackstone the Magician was born in Chicago on this day in 1885. Born Henry Boughton, the man who became Harry Blackstone gained fame as a magician and illusionist, not only on stage, but also in comic books, on the radio, and even in TV commercials.
 

It’s September 26th, the day in 1833 that the second Treaty of Chicago was signed by the United States and the Potawatomi and related tribes. It required the Potawatomi to move west to new reservation lands in the Kansas Territory. The actual removal happened five years later, and by this day in 1838, more than 800 Potawatomi members were traveling on what came to be known as the Potawatomi Trail of Death.