Pekin Riverfront Park
To create Pekin Riverfront Park, a section of old Front Street (Pekin's "First Street") was closed off and the old Tomen Grain elevators were torn down in the fall of 2004. The new park was dedicated and formally opened on 18 Sept. 2005.This 4-acre park is located just above the Illinois River at 121 Court Street, and offers an aesthetic view of the Illinois River. Riverfront Park features a festival plaza, event meadow, picnic grills, a water play area, water fountains, a large gazebo, a vehicular overlook parking area, three parking lots, the Spirit of Columbia Steamboat playground with the Columbia Disaster Historical Marker, a picnic shelter, horseshoe courts, a walking trail, an overlook viewing pier, along with a large overlook viewing pier that had been built in 2002 and dedicated on 6 July 2002.Prior to the construction of Riverfront Park, the stretch of Front Street on which it was built had long been dominated by towering grain elevators. By the mid-20th century there was little else on that block of Front Street, though the 1955 Pekin City Directory mentions that the International Hod Carriers Union Local No. 231 had its union hall at 110 Front Street. The same directory says the Pekin Farmers Grain Co. elevator was at 209 Front St. Just three private residences were in that block of the street in 1955.
Pekin Riverfront Park Overlook - Elevators and Flooding
The area where the Pekin Riverfront Park Overlook now stands was for a long time the site of riverside grain elevators. In the early 20th century, the Turner-Hudnet grain elevator was located at 15-19 Front Street and the Smith-Hippen Co.'s elevator was located at 107-109 Front Street. The Turner-Hudnut elevator had a capacity of 75,000 bushels. It was destroyed by an arsonist on 23 Oct. 1910, causing $75,000 in damages. The arsonist also attempted to set fire to the Smith-Hippen elevator, but failed. That elevator was demolished several decades later, being replaced about the mid-1960s by new grain elevators that in time came to be operated by Tomen Grain. After Tomen closed its elevators in the early 21st century, their elevators were torn down in the fall of 2004 to make way for Pekin Riverfront Park.Besides the man-made disaster of the Turner-Hudnut arson fire, Pekin's riverfront has been visited several times by natural disasters in the form of unusually severe flooding. It is not at all unusual for the Illinois River to burst its banks after the spring thaw and the arrival of spring rains, but at times flooding is extreme at Pekin. For instance, twice in two years Pekin was hit by very high floodwaters, on 22 April 1922 and again on 6 April 1924. A vintage photograph from one of those two floods shows a mail-delivering Chicago, Peoria, & St. Louis train splashing along the all but submerged Peoria & Pekin Union Railway near Worley Lake just north of Pekin. Another old Pekin Daily Times photograph from 9 March 1985 shows severe flooding of all of Pekin's riverfront grain elevators.More recently, Central Illinois suffered the inundation of the Flood of 2013, when the Illinois River crested at Peoria at a record 29.35 feet on 23 April 2013, beating the 70-year-old previous flood mark by about half a foot.Though its flood record is now surpassed, the Flood of '43 is still remembered by many in Pekin for its severity and destruction. Newspaper accounts mention that the Pekin-Peoria area suffered a month of heavy rains which swelled the Illinois river over its banks and levees on 20 May 1943, and then on 23 May a 99-year highwater record was swept away, with the river reaching a depth of 28.62 feet. (In June 1884 the river reached a depth of 26.1 feet, and on 18 May 1933 the river stood at 25.5 feet, but the Flood of '43 broke the 1884 record.) While this flood caused destruction on a large scale in Central Illinois, Pekin alone saw destruction or extensive damage to hundreds of homes along or near the riverfront and in lower-lying areas of the city. In addition, American Distillery found itself stranded on an island, and work also came to a stop at Standard Brands as well as at the riverfront grain elevators. Riverfront railroad tracks were submerged bring rail traffic there to a halt. The P. & P. U. tracks near Wesley Slough washed out and collapsed from the flood.Floods
Pekin Riverfront Pier
The Pekin riverfront pier was built in 2002. In the past Pekin had several commercial fish markets along its riverfront in this area, both north and south of its bridges. Until excessive pollution of the river made it unsafe to eat river-caught fish, the market owners caught fish from the river and sold their catches to local stores and restaurants, and even shipped by rail to other parts of the country. The last fish market at the foot of court street closed in the mid-20th century -- gone by 1966.Back in the 1910s and 1920s, fish caught in the Illinois River were often transported to Pekin's riverfront to waiting railroad cars on the horse-drawn wagons of Kriegsman Movers, which was founded in Sept. 1913 by P. J. Kriegsman. His son Arthur Kriegsman later would recall of those days, "Twice a week our wagons hauled freight from the river boat 'Bald Eagle' on the Illinois River. The fish business prospered in those days and we hauled many loads from fish markets to the railroads for shipment elsewhere."
Old Pekin Bridges
The first ferry across the Illinois River at Pekin was built in 1829 by William Clark. Later, Benjamin Prettyman was granted ferry rights over the river at Pekin. A ferry also was operated by a settler named Charles Carey, from whom Cooper's Island got its original name of Carey's Island.Pekin's first bridge across the Illinois River was a plank bridge built in 1885. In 1899 the Peoria & Pekin Terminal Railroad swing bridge was built just upriver from the plank wagon bridge. The Terminal Bridge was dynamited and removed in the 1970s. In 1930 the plank bridge was replaced by the Pekin lift bridge, which in turn was replaced by the current John T. McNaughton Bridge in 1982.When the plank bridge was built in 1885, Pekin planned a ceremonial laying of the final planks and first crossing of the bridge. But due to a tiff between the city council and the bridge construction foreman, the night before the ceremony the workers finished the bridge and then, as a prank, Charles Holland drove a horse-drawn wagon over the bridge. The planks were then pulled up so the ceremony could proceed the next day. Later on June 2, 1930, when the lift bridge was dedicated, an elderly Charles Holland rode in Fred Moenkemoeller's car at the head of the parade over the new bridge.The 1930 lift bridge was built with funding that was secured by Rep. Martin B. Lohmann of Pekin, who was also present at the dedication of the 1982 John T. McNaughton Bridge. Lohmann (for whom the Shade-Lohmann Bridge is named) died a few week later.
Coopers Island - Mouth of Pekin Lake
When settlers first came to Pekin in the mid-1820s, a Native American village of Pottawatomi was situated above Pekin Lake along Gravel Ridge (north of the John T. McNaughton Bridge). Now the home of the Pekin Boat Club, Cooper's Island formerly was called Carey's Island after Pekin ferryman Charles Carey. The island was once the property of the Boley Ice Company, whose ice houses once lined the shores of Pekin Lake in the days of the lucrative ice harvesting industry.
Tazewell House - Bemis House
Pekin was first visited by Abraham Lincoln in 1832 immediately after the Black Hawk War, in which Lincoln served as a militia captain, private, and spy. While canoeing alone from northern Illinois back to New Salem, Lincoln's canoe broke at Pekin. Lincoln made himself a new canoe and proceeded on his way.Later in the 1850s, as an attorney Lincoln visited Pekin. When court was in session Lincoln often stayed at the Tazewell House hotel at the corner of Court and Front streets. Later named Bemis House, the hotel was torn down in 1904. After Tazewell House/Bemis House was demolished, its threshold was preserved at the Tazewell County Courthouse, and was inscribed with words commemorating the fact that “Hereon trod the great Abraham Lincoln — Stephen A. Douglas — John A. Logan — Robert G. Ingersoll — David Davis — Edward D. Baker and others.”[Name others . . . .]
Riverboat Columbia Disaster Historical Marker
Although the 1918 Riverboat Columbia disaster is Pekin's worst river disaster, and heralded the end of the Steamboat Age, Pekin had twice before suffered lives lost in large scale riverboat wrecks.Pekin's first riverboat disaster was the wreck of the Prairie State on Sunday, 25 April 1852, a tragedy that occurred at Pekin itself (unlike the later two disasters). Ben Allensworth's 1905 'History of Tazewell County' says, “The two steamers, the ‘Prairie State’ and the ‘Avalanche’ coming from the north, landed almost simultaneously at the Pekin wharf. They were evidently racing as both were carrying a high pressure of steam. The ‘Prairie State’ pulled out of the landing ahead of her competitor, and when nearly opposite our gas works, her boilers exploded with terrific force. This happened on Sunday about the time for the beginning of church services. The people went to the rescue of the injured, and the wreck of the ‘Prairie State’ was towed back to the wharf by the ‘Avalanche.’ Many bodies were recovered and laid side by side under the walnut and oak trees on the bank of the river. The citizens turned their houses into temporary hospitals in which the injured were cared for." Contemporary accounts place the total of the dead at about 20, but later accounts give the exaggerated figure of more than 110 -- but that was probably the total number of passengers, not the total of the dead. Most passengers were not from Pekin, but a number of the survivors decided to settle permanently in PekinPekin's second riverboat disaster was the wreck of the Frankie Folsom. The Pekin excursion ship Frankie Folsom, captained by John C. Losch, was named for the wife of President Grover Cleveland. The boat sank in Peoria Lake when it capsized during a sudden storm on 12 July 1892 with the loss of 12 lives (all from Pekin). The boat, carrying 40 passengers, was on an excursion from Pekin to Peoria for a performance of a pageant, "The Last Days of Pompeii." The boat was later raised and sailed again under Capt. Losch.Finally, on the night of 5 July 1918, while returning from a day's outing at Al Fresco Park in Peoria, the riverboat Columbia hit a sandbar and log that tore a hole in its hull near Wesley City (Creve Coeur), causing the boat to sink and collapse. A total of 87 lives were lost, 57 of whom were from Pekin. The enormity of this tragedy spelled the end of the era of the steamboat pleasure excursions on the Illinois River but throughout the waterways of the U.S. Local historian Ken Zurski has written the definitive work on the disaster, entitled, "The Wreck of the Columbia: A Broken Boat, a Town's Sorrow & the End of the Steamboat Era on the Illiinois River." Among the relics saved from the wreck of the Columbia is one of the boat's U.S. flags, which is preserved in the archives of the Pekin Public Library.
