Decatur genealogy museum traces African-American roots

Evelyn Hood of Decatur began researching her family history some years ago, realizing how hard it is for African-Americans because landowners usually did not include surnames of their slaves in their

Remembering Everett Dirksen

Pekin’s Dirksen Center celebrates a colorful character

The colorful and raspy-voiced U. S. Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen died in 1969, but his memory lives on at the Dirksen Congressional Center in Pekin, near Peoria. This is a research center,

Visit Postville, where Lincoln argued cases

Courthouse replica offers a feel for 19th century justice

Despite local opposition, in 1929 Henry Ford bought and dismantled the courthouse in Postville and had it set up again at his Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Mich. The courthouse

Voices of the people

Ambitious oral-history project seeks to capture a disappearing Illinois

Voices of the people

Ambitious oral-history project seeks to capture a disappearing Illinois

Untitled Document Ray Ackerman, who farmed in Tazewell County as a young man, talks on video about his early farming days: “No one wants to go back to the hard work they di

Take a ride

New tourist trolley connects Petersburg’s attractions

Untitled Document Adlai Stevenson, vice president under Grover Cleveland, once visited the Old Salem Chautauqua just south of Petersburg. So did populist lawyer William Jennings

Where there’s a Mill, there’s a way

Plans to turn landmark restaurant into a museum move forward

Untitled Document Turning a dilapidated old restaurant into a historical museum takes a lot of time and work — especially when you start out with no money.

Timely message

Shelbyville to memorialize Lincoln's 1856 debate with local attorney

School of hard knocks

More poor and homeless kids strain the public-education system

Of Dragons and Indians