Goodbye, ghost sign (a story of good/bad timing)

April 26th, 2011 by Rural_Rose

Last Sunday on the chilly but bright morning, C-Nor (a.k.a. Chris) and I set out for a photo trip, and our journey led us to the town of Roseville, Ill.

Roseville is a town I traveled through countless times as a college student, but haven’t been through in years, ever since the section of four-lane highway between Macomb and Monmouth, IL,  was finished. Roseville, to me, is poetic for that very reason–a self-sufficient town that is now cut off by the long fought-for interstate.

Anyway, as we rolled down Main Street and I tried to remember how many years it’s been since the four-lane was finished, I was surprised to see what appeared to be a magnificent ghost sign appearing in front of me. On the side of what appeared to be an abandoned building on Main Street, just before the four-way stop (at Main Street and Highway 116), the ghost of a Firestone ad/business sign could be detected.

(more, below the photo)

photo of damaged building in Roseville, Illinois

 

Despite my having traveled this very path many times over many years, I never noticed this little piece of the past, probably because

A) another business next door, which has since been torn down to create a gaping spot on Main Street, had been covering it up, and/or

B) I’ve only recently caught the ghost sign bug, and so never stopped to pay attention.

But either way, I certainly noticed it, and when we got out of the car to take a few pictures, I noticed upon a bit of squinting that,  just behind the word “TIRES” in the center, it looked like the ghost of a “Ford” symbol was peaking out, too. (We would discover at little later that we were right. More on that in a minute.) A few guys on tractors with loader buckets were working around us, but didn’t seem to mind us poking around.

But then, when we walked further down the south side of the building, discovering the blue bulldozer parked outside, a guy on a tractor rolled over to us. When he approached me, he pulled his sunglasses to the end of his nose, revealing a set of dark eyes and a suspicious but not entirely unfriendly look. “Where you folks from?” he said.

“Hi, we’re just, uh, amateur photographers, we like old signs,” I said, in one nervous rush. “This okay, okay if we take a picture?”

He was already putting the tractor in reverse, and as he backed up, he called out, “Okay, but we’re about ready to tear it down, so…” And then he went back to work picking up bricks with the loader.

“Wow,” I said to Chris. “Timing, huh?”

(More, below the slideshow)

 

After this, we sat in the park in some of the purest, brightest sunshine I’ve felt in a long time, sharing our picnic lunch and talking about wedding/moving plans and other stuff of life. We stopped at the little antique store on the corner at the 4-way stop,  “Cluckers Corners,” where two white-haired ladies greeted us at the door but seemed less than excited at having customers. We took some more shots around town. One place that caught my eye was a tiny brick building with a ghost sign for a former newspaper and/or printing press on the side. As I was trying to get a picture of it, a guy with shaggy gray hair and a baseball cap emerged.

“I like the sign on the side of your building,” I said, (kind of like “We come in peace.”)  “Okay if we’re taking pictures?”

“Sure,” he said.

And then, small-town girl that I am, having grown up in a Roseville look-alike (Carthage, IL), I started chatting with the guy, telling him how we’d just been down by the old Firestone building and how I thought it was a shame it was being torn down.

“Yeah,” he said, “my great-grandfather had that place built. He was a farmer, came in to town and had the business…”

The guy walked to a work van parked in front of the newspaper building and set something inside. Then he dug a tin of tobacco out of his pocket and took a pinch. He said that his building, and the old Firestone, were expensive to keep up. “The city had been on him,” he said, referring to the owner of Firestone.

We could hear the clangs and backing-up-signal beepin of the cleanup crew tearing the place down, less than a block away. “I don’t get too upset about stuff like that,” he said, and I didn’t know if he meant about city ordinances, or about pieces of his family or town history going by the wayside, so I didn’t know what to say. He gestured toward the newspaper building. “I just use this to store stuff,” he said. “Junk, mostly.”

And we thanked him and walked away.

When we got back to our car, the workers at the old Firestone had broken into that south wall with the ghost sign. It would probably be gone by the end of the day.

 

On a somewhat related note: the Galesburg Register-Mail reported that same day on razing part of Abingdon’s downtown. But hey, if I’m totally depressing you, here is some good news on the local history/landmark beat).

Comments are closed.

Please help me write this ballad.

September 22nd, 2010 by Rural_Rose

Who can tell me anything about this sad cafe—which is apparently now home to a salvage yard and a rather…um, interesting used car business—along Highway 136 between Macomb and Carthage?

I’ve driven past it for years and finally stopped to take a picture on Labor Day Weekend. I was greeted by the property owner who, when I asked how long the cafe had been closed, said, “…’bout 10 years.” I beg to differ, however.

What’s the real story of the Midway Cafe?

You can see more of my photos of local stuff here.

3 Responses to “Please help me write this ballad.”

  1. Fred Iutzi says:

    I have wondered the same thing many times.

  2. Rural_Rose Alison says:

    Thanks, Fred; I’m glad to know some one else has been curious about the place! I think we both need to ask our parents! (?)

  3. Rod says:

    I remember when it was open, 1960′s, also there was another cafe in the bottoms, halfway between Carthage and Colchester. I think there was a reference to the first one in Hallwas’s Bootlegger. Apparently there was a time when you didn’t dare stray too far on the prairie without possibility of food and gas, pun intended.

Leave a Reply

Photos of the former Carthage College/Robert Morris campus now on Flickr

June 6th, 2010 by Rural_Rose

former Carthage College/Robert Morris campus field house

Originally uploaded by Rural Rose

I’ve posted some photos of the current state of the former Carthage College/Robert Morris campus in Carthage, IL on my Flickr page.

Carthage College was the site of the first Circle K club in the U.S., had several prominent alumni, and was home of legendary biology professor Alice Kibbe. But the college eventually was moved to Kenosha, WI, and the former campus in Carthage (my home town)  fell on hard times, including being bought by a mysterious Korean absentee landlord who could not be found for most of the 90′s and 00′s.

Please leave comments if you remember life at Carthage College or Robert Morris and have any details or memories to share.


8 Responses to “Photos of the former Carthage College/Robert Morris campus now on Flickr”

  1. When I ran the Strawberry Strut (June 12), we saw some folks sorting and stacking bricks from a demolished building onto pallets. It looked like construction crews had separated debris into several containers as well.

  2. Nick says:

    Thanks for your account and pictures of the former Carthage College campus. In some ways, abandoned college campuses (and schools) are the saddest of all because college represents the promise of a better future through education.

  3. Rural_Rose Alison says:

    Dear Nick, thanks so much (belatedly) for your comment and encouragement. I haven’t heard much response to my coverage (or attempts to cover) of the downfall, and then attempts to refurbish, the old campus. I’m so glad to know that someone else sees the particular sadness of the ghost-town qualities of the very place that, as you said, once represented such promise.

  4. Beth says:

    Wow…I attended Robert Morris in 1985/86…Had a lot of memories there. I was originally disappointed when they closed the campus and this is just so sad.

  5. Paula says:

    thanks for these wonderful (but sad) pictures!! I attended RMC in 1982 and it is with fond memories that I look back on that time. It’s truly sad that the campus deteriorated so badly and buildings had to be demolished. The campus had character and charm. I’ve thought about taking a road trip back there with my kids- but don’t know if I would want to see it now. The memories I have are so wonderful. Thank you for taking the time to document “the past”. The town of Carthage was just as welcoming to all of the students – and because of that – I never missed home!

  6. Rural_Rose Alison says:

    Paula,
    I’m glad you found the post and commented. Also very glad to hear that you found the town itself to be welcoming. You might be happy to hear that a local businessman from Carthage led the charge to get the auditorium up and running again. It has since been renovated and, as part of a partnership w/ the Carl Sandburg College (community college district in the area) is showing movie series and hosting some other events like musical performances. There is also a large hog-farming operation that has purchased some of the remaining buildings for administrative purposes.
    Once again, thanks so much for leaving a comment. It still bothers me to know that such a historic (or at least nostalgic for so many people) place was allowed to go to shambles. But it is good to see some life going back into the auditorium, at least.

  7. Jerry says:

    Thx for the photos and story. I attended RMC from 1969-1971.Many, many fond memories.I was very saddened to hear about what happened to RMC over the years.It is a shame the school had to be closed.I shall always remember the college , the town, and most of all the many great friends I met during that period.Thx again for everything you have done here.

  8. Richard says:

    I grew up in Carthage (mid 50′s to mid 70′s) and after retiring from the Air Force in 1995 moved back home with my family. I have a lot of memories of the Carthage College/RMC campus, buildings and activities. As a grade schooler in the early 60′s I remember taking a field trip to the college museum before it was purchased by Dr. Kibbe and moved to her home/museum on Scofield St. We had student teachers from Carthage College (3rd grade, I think…just before the move to Kenosha).

    I remember going to football games at the field behind the fieldhouse, both Carthage College Redmen and Carthage High School Blueboy games. As a young teen, I attended many RMC basketball games in the packed fieldhouse and played many pickup games there with my friends on Sunday afternoons as well as pickup football games on the field. The field is now planted with crops and the fieldhouse is beyond repair and will eventually be torn down.

    One of the bright spots of the old campus now is the auditorium. In its early days it hosted the president of Kiwanis International when the first Circle K Club was organized as well as many concerts (Ted Nugent!). When I was in high school I was an Indian in the play Annie Get Your Gun which was performed there. The auditorium fell into the same blighted condition as the rest of the campus but a few years ago the campus was purchased by an ag business who donated the auditorium and attached building to Carl Sandburg. After a great deal of effort, time and money from Carl Sandburg, a local car dealer (Rob Carson), and the community the auditorium has been returned to its former glory.

    Although many of the former campus buildings have been or will be destroyed, several others have been or will be renovated and repurposed. The former dorm across the street from the fieldhouse has been redone and now houses offices and conference rooms for the ag business that bought the property. I believe some work has also been done on the building that housed the student union.

    Dollar General recently purchased the southwest corner of the property and have broken ground for a new store. I’ve heard that it will be unique for a Dollar General in that it will have a brick exterior to blend in with remaining college buildings. Although it’s sad to see some of the places of my childhood disappear, it’s nice to see a connection to the past maintained.

Leave a Reply

A visit to the endangered John Deere home in Moline, IL

May 23rd, 2010 by Rural_Rose

I was intrigued to learn that one of the entries on the recently released list of the “10 Most Endangered” historical sites in Illinois is an old house in Moline.picture of Alison in front of John Deere home

I happened to be in the Quad Cities not long after I read about the home, so I got C-Nor, (a.k.a. my fiancee, Chris), to program the address into his GPS.

We navigated from Davenport (IA) to Moline, (with the British lady on the Garmin directing/annoying us the whole way), until we found the lonely structure that was once owned by John Deere (the man). Read about the history of the house here.

I’m not sure why the house and /or property are called “Red Cliff.” I definitely get the “cliff” part, and you will, too, if you check out the photos I took. But the house is, um, green. The house stands out literally and figuratively; it looks out over Moline from a dramatic little look-out point while the rest of the neighborhood is un-remarkable. Chris and I walked right up to the house and looked in the windows. There are some sawhorses and tools inside, not to mention a sign out front that says “Restoration in progress,” that hint at a promising future. But the “10 Most Endangered” list says the restoration effort has been abandoned and the property is now in foreclosure.

Play the slide show for more details, or view the pictures via Flickr to get all the cutline-y goodness.

P.S. On a related note: Time.com recently published a list of the 11 most endangered national places, on which some of the causes of “danger” are proposed Wal-Marts and condo developments. (I will try to think of something non-depressing for my next post!)

4 Responses to “A visit to the endangered John Deere home in Moline, IL”

  1. Tom Snee says:

    I used to live in a duplex at the base of the hill that the mansion is on. It was a neighborhood in decline then, and the decline has only continuted. When I lived there the Deere place was basically a flop house, divided into a bunch of dumpy apartments, and then eventually became vacant. Years after I moved out, the apartment building across from the house I lived in was shut down because it had basically become a crack house. All of which probably explains in part why it’s been so difficult to renovate the place.

  2. Rural_Rose Alison says:

    @ Tom, that’s really interesting that you lived right by there… and that it was in such flop-house conditions. They left that part out of the description on the state endangered site!

  3. [...] A visit to the endangered John Deere home in Moline, IL « Welcome to Forgotonia [...]

  4. Courtney says:

    I am so upset about this. I found out that it was listed on Ebay in the summer and it was listed for $75,000 and went up to like $184,000 shortly after but I’m not sure if anyone bought it. A guy owned it and was going to make a bed and breakfast out of it and then it got foreclosed on and the bank is who listed it on Ebay. My dad estimates it at about $500-$750,000 to renovate it so I’m pretty sure that’s why no one has done it yet. I also contacted the corporate office of Deere and asked them why they would let John Deere’s home go to waste like this and not fix it up themselves and I never got a response. I also contacted the Moline preservation society and they said they helped the private owner out with buying materials and providing hundreds of hours of volunteer work but the guy ran into finance problems and it’s so expensive to fix that it’s waiting for the right person or organization who can afford it. It’s very sad.

Leave a Reply

Carthage College/Robert Morris campus update & news series

May 23rd, 2010 by Rural_Rose

It’s time for a quick roundup of news about the restoration/re-vamping of the former Carthage College/ Robert Morris campus.

picture of old Bryan Auditorium/ new Charger Center

old Bryan Auditorium/ new Charger Center

I have received a couple of e-mails and/or comments on the blog from CC alumni and area residents who were interested in the old school in my hometown. (Thank you!) For those of you new to the blog, let me explain that I’ve done quite a bit of writing and blogging about the strange saga that surrounded the campus, a quick summary of which you can find here.

With the recent grand (re-)opening of one of the buildings, and an unveiling of the restored/refurbished auditorium coming up on June 2, the Hancock County Journal-Pilot has been running a weekly series about the history of the former campus.

So, for those readers and for the sake of convenience, I offer a compilation of the links:

Articles on the history of Carthage College

Letters to the Editor from Carthage College alumni:

If you’re from Carthage, attended Carthage College or Robert Morris (or one of the strange “international” incarnations of the college in the 90s), or have any memories whatsoever to share about the campus, I would love to hear from you.

Leave a Reply