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    Kankakee: 1853-1910
    Kankakee: 1853-1910
    Kankakee: 1853-1910
    Ebook218 pages1 hour

    Kankakee: 1853-1910

    By Norman S. Stevens and The Kankakee County Historical Society

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    Kankakee became the county seat when Kankakee County was established in 1853. The largest city in the county, Kankakee embraced the railroad from its 19th-century beginning, becoming an important railroad hub in Illinois. The Kankakee County Historical Society has long worked to preserve the city’s history and it celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2006, making it one of Illinois’ oldest historical societies. The images in this book come from the society’s large collection and they represent many slices of Kankakee life from 1853 to 1910.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateNov 3, 2004
    ISBN9781439615126
    Kankakee: 1853-1910
    Author

    Norman S. Stevens

    The Kankakee County Museum is home to the historical society and this book is part of their mission of collecting, preserving, interpreting, and displaying the history and rich culture of Kankakee County for its citizens. Norman S. Stevens is the executive director of the Kankakee County Museum. Previously, he has worked as a museum professional for the First Division Museum at Wheaton, Illinois, for Michigan State Historic Parks at Fort Mackinac, Michigan, and for Virginia Military Institute Museum Programs. He has taught college history at a number of academic institutions for 20 years.

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      Book preview

      Kankakee - Norman S. Stevens

      career.

      INTRODUCTION

      We are a great people, damn me if we are not!

      The northeastern portion of Illinois was one of the last areas in Illinois Country to be settled by Americans migrating westward. Long inhabited by the Pottawatomi Indian group and visited occasionally by French traders (a few of whom stayed) it was not until the mid-19th century that the population of the area achieved any significant number of permanent inhabitants dedicated to replicating American society in a rediscovered wilderness. It was the advance of the railroad, that symbol of aggressive 19th-century American materialism, which instigated the creation and drove the organization of Kankakee County. By 1852, there was much national discussion of building a transcontinental railroad system to connect eastern markets to territories, such as California, recently acquired during the successful War with Mexico. There was considerable support for Chicago to be the eastern terminus of such a railway system, which meant building feeder lines to the south and east. As a result, in February 1853 the Illinois State Legislature authorized the creation of Kankakee County, subject to a positive vote from the citizens of Will and Iroquois Counties, from which the new county would be drawn. On May 13, 1853, the first meeting of Kankakee County officials was held and the following month the Village of Kankakee Depot, eventually to become the City of Kankakee, was selected as the county seat. Kankakee Depot was chosen because it was near the center of the county, it was directly on the railroad line, and the Illinois Central Railroad donated $5,000 toward building a court house.

      In 1853, Franklin Pierce, a lawyer from New Hampshire, was the Democratic president of the United States. The nation’s politics were dominated by increasing sectional conflict, which revolved around the rights of individual states, the slavery question, and the extension of the slave system into new territories. Americans even argued over continuing controversies dealing with the very meaning of the Federal Constitution. In economic terms, the Industrial Revolution, King Cotton, and the Transportation Revolution was forcing a general reevaluation of American society, a transformation of the American scene fueled by movements such as the Second Great Awakening, a profusion of utopian experiments, the Cult of Domesticity, and in the end perhaps best characterized by the dynamic general reforming zeal of the mid-19th century that could produce a concept like abolitionism that would have been unheard of at the Republic’s beginning. In 1853, Illinois’ newest county clearly demonstrated all of this in microcosm and certainly the growth of the City of Kankakee symbolized the ongoing development of the nation.

      The images selected for this book are divided into eight sections, each intended to illustrate particular aspects of the City of Kankakee’s development from an antebellum frontier settlement to a stable and vibrant middle-American community at the commencement of the 20th century. Chapter one traces the beginning of Kankakee from its initial association with the railroad and its function as the new county seat, with a look at the area’s earliest businesses and street scenes. It concludes with a brief glimpse of Kankakee’s participation in the Civil War, the great crisis of the Republic. Kankakee area men served in a number of Illinois formations, but it is the 76th Illinois Volunteers and the 113th Illinois Volunteers that are most closely associated with the city. Chapter two considers business activity in the City of Kankakee from the end of the Civil War through first decade of the 20th century, although it should be noted that this section is impressionistic rather than inclusive. It contains some splendid views of Kankakee streets during this period. Chapter three considers the all important place of the Kankakee River in the community’s life, as entertainment and as business, the latter particularly well-illustrated by the once splendid Hotel Riverview. Chapter four contains wonderful images of the Illinois Eastern Hospital for the Insane, which at the end of the 19th century was the second largest such facility in the United States. Chapter five considers the organizations necessary to support a growing community, such as police and fire fighting services, churches, and schools. Chapter six takes the reader on a tour of the most imposing and also of some of the less imposing residences in the City of Kankakee. Chapter seven is a figurative photographic montage of the various types of entertainment engaged in by Kankakee’s citizens, including mundane drives through the country and picnics, as well as the more spectacular circuses, tight rope acts, and parades. This chapter illustrates the growing late 19th-century mania with physical fitness that would eventually produced spectator sports like team cycling, racing, baseball, and football. Finally, chapter eight discusses Kankakee’s movement into the beginning of the 20th century, starting with area participation in the Spanish-American War and concluding with the coming of modernity represented by the telephone, automobile, and the airplane.

      It is hoped that these images taken collectively will comprise a fairly complete view of the first 60 years of the City of Kankakee. They have been selected specifically to be seen in combination. The author bears sole responsibility for any errors of fact or any omission of any elements of Kankakee’s story not represented in the photographs chosen for inclusion in this book. At the middle of the 19th century, photography was a new process that was unfamiliar to many and a mystery to most, yet it is photography that has so well-captured the essence of the American tale now for over 150 years. In January 1853, just as Kankakee County was organizing itself on the Illinois prairie, the eminent Photographic Shadow Artist Matthew Brady published his Gallery of Illustrious Americans, which included images of the notables of the day, people like Henry Clay, John Calhoun, and Daniel Webster. In his introduction Brady said, The magic of photography will help our posterity understand us by searching the faces of those who led us. The images we have left, quietly fading views of what once was, are indeed the best medium, as Mr. Brady observed, for understanding what we were and from where we have come. The images of the City of Kankakee are presented here in that spirit.

      One

      THE ANTEBELLUM ERA THROUGH THE CIVIL WAR

      We have a fair prospect of success

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