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Alpheus Pike campaigned in the eastern theater of the war and, after two years and nine months of service, was captured in May 1864 at a battle near Drewry’s Bluff in the Bermuda Hundred campaign and was sent to a notorious Confederate prison camp.
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Illinois high school basketball teams are grinding through the late parts of their seasons as the state tournament approaches early next month. In this episode of our series McHistory, we learn about the longest-running annual basketball tournament in the state — 112 years and counting.
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Most people know about the letter a little girl wrote to the New York Sun newspaper in 1897 asking whether Santa Claus is real. It prompted the famous response, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus." Bloomington-Normal children encountered their own slightly more intrepid version of that idea a couple decades later.
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The words of a World War II prisoner of war from Normal show a grim situation filled with privation, guard brutality, and occasional diversions. This comes from Robert S. Hall’s wartime journal, recently donated to the McLean County Museum of History.
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It's cliche but children are the future. Bloomington resident Clara Louise Kessler passionately lived that.
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It's said that good writing is the soul of radio. A Bloomington-Normal boy made good exemplifies that adage.
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WGLT's McHistory series features Richard Blue, the first Black person to run for council in Bloomington. He was also a Civil War veteran, activist, member of a literary society, doorman at the state capital, and barber.
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Historians and McLean County officials gathered at West Park north of LeRoy to dedicate a new historic marker that details the history of the Kickapoo tribe in central Illinois.
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Wherever humans gather, there is garbage. And getting rid of it is a challenge. The start of trash removal in Bloomington dates to the start of the 20th century and to a man known in his day as the King of Swedes.
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Wherever humans gather, there is garbage. And getting rid of it is a challenge. The start of trash removal in Bloomington dates to the start of the 20th century and to a man known in his day as the King of Swedes.