August 30 Illinois History Minute

It’s August 30th, the day that Burgomeister won the nearly 300-thousand dollar Hambletonian Stakes in 1980. That was the last year the annual harness race for three-year-old trotting horses was held at the Du Quoin State Fair in southern Illinois. Now, the Hambletonian is held at the Meadowlands in New Jersey.
Actor Fred MacMurray was born in Kankakee on this day in 1908. MacMurray acted in romantic and family comedies and the TV sitcom “My Three Sons”, but he also played a murderer in the film noir classic “Double Indemnity”.

When cartoonist C.C. Beck created Shazam, the comic book hero originally known as Captain Marvel, his initial model was Fred MacMurray.