Corn Kings and One-Horse Thieves
Odds & ends
Illinois past and present, as seen by James Krohe Jr.
The Corn Latitudes
Springfield nature & environment
Assembling this archive left me surprised at how many pieces I'd written about Illinois environmental issues in my years before the mast. Many of them touched on issues of moment to Springfield. This list is comprehensive but not exhaustive; for example, it includes only one of my nearly annual exhortations about leaf-burning in the "Prejudices" years. If you've read one you've read 'em all.
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Cities don’t make floods but they make them worse
"Prejudices" Illinois Times July 21, 1993
Springfield recycles excuses about waste disposal
"Prejudices" Illinois Times July 2, 1992
Soft alternatives to soft-headed flood control
“Prejudices” Illinois Times July 29, 1993
Lake Springfield, etc.
Does water conservation add up for Springfield?
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times February 21, 2014
Springfield builds a lake with no water in it
“Prejudices” Illinois Times June 3, 1977
The Natural History of an Unnatural Lake
Lake Springfield, this is your life
Illinois Times May 27, 1977
Is It Time to Build Lake II?
After 30 years, Springfield still doesn’t know
Illinois Times August 18, 1988
Supply and demand and municipal water
"Prejudices" Illinois Times November 10, 1988
Subdividing Lake Springfield's shorelands
“Prejudices” Illinois Times March 23, 1979
Idealistic Thoughts
Willis Spaulding, Springfield’s “greatest citizen after Lincoln”
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times December 29, 2016
Springfield's Back Yard
Lake Springfield's story is told in a fun new history
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times April 15, 2021
It's Not the Heat, It's the Corn
Are row crops making summers unbearable?
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times July 12, 2011
Is a bad tree worse than no tree at all?
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times July 24, 2014
Re-using resources doesn’t always add up in Sangamon County
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times December 10, 2015
Something There Is That Doesn't Love a Tree
Re-treeing Springfield means transplanting attitudes too
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times June 2, 2016
Seeking the scenic in central Illinois
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times August 19, 2010
Greener Than Thou
Mayor Davlin wants to make Springfield the No. 1 green city
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times September 16, 2010
Springfield City Water, Light & Power
Burning coal in a power plant makes energy production a national environmental issue. Burning coal in city-owned-and-managed power plants makes it a local issue in Springfield.
The newest energy crop from Illinois fields
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times January 21, 2010
It’s Not the Heat But the Stupidity
Summer cooling technologies remain unevolved
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times July 29, 2010
Can CWLP be managed for the people’s benefit?
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times December 20, 2012
Will CWLP not have to clean up its act?
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times October 5, 2017
‘Great Refrigerator Roundup’ Is a Bad Bargain
CWLP’s efficiency rebates are inefficient
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times October 8, 2009
Not all gas emitted by CWLP comes out its chimneys
“Prejudices” Illinois Times October 20, 1983
The dilemmas of public power on a warming planet
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times July 27, 2017
Green Is As Green Does
Can the City of Springfield really reduce energy use in the capital?
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times October 28, 2010
Need Springfield gag on stormwater?
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times August 11, 2011
Springfield as the No. 1 green city
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times September 16, 2010
Carpenter Park
A Park that Needs Protection from People
Springfield’s Carpenter Park under threat
Illinois Times September 15, 1978
Who Is Protecting Carpenter Park?
Against government, nature doesn't stand a chance
Illinois Times August 27, 1981
Conservation, Carpenter, and Cadigan
When foxes run the chicken coop
“Prejudices” Illinois Times March 31, 1983
Pollution from boom cars is confusing Springfield aldermen
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times May 20, 2010
Our feathered friends are trying to tell us something
“Dyspepsiana” Illinois Times January 29, 2015
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SITES
OF
INTEREST
Essential for anyone interested in Illinois history and literature. Hallwas deservedly won the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Illinois State Historical Society.
One of Illinois’s best, and least-known, writers of his generation. Take note in particular of The Distancers and Road to Nowhere.
See Home Page/Learn/
Resources for a marvelous building database, architecture dictionary, even a city planning graphic novel. Handsome, useful—every Illinois culture website should be so good.
The online version of The Encyclopedia of Chicago. Crammed with thousands of topic entries, biographical sketches, maps and images, it is a reference work unmatched in Illinois.
The Illinois chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 2018 selected 200 Great Places in Illinois that illustrate our shared architectural culture across the entire period of human settlement in Illinois.
A nationally accredited, award-winning project of the McLean County Historical Society whose holdings include more than 20,000 objects, more than 15,000 books on local history and genealogy, and boxes and boxes of historical papers and images.
Mr. Lincoln, Route 66, and Other Highlights of Lincoln, Illinois
Every Illinois town ought to have a chronicler like D. Leigh Henson, Ph.D. Not only Lincoln and the Mother road—the author’s curiosity ranges from cattle baron John Dean Gillett to novelist William Maxwell. An Illinois State Historical Society "Best Web Site of the Year."
Created in 2000, the IDA is a repository for the digital collections of the Illinois State Library and other Illinois libraries and cultural institutions. The holdings include photographs, slides, and glass negatives, oral histories, newspapers, maps, and documents from manuscripts and letters to postcards, posters, and videos.
The people's museum is a treasure house of science and the arts. A research institution of national reputation, the museum maintains four facilities across the state. Their collections in anthropology, fine and decorative arts, botany, zoology, geology, and history are described here. A few museum publications can be obtained here.
“Chronicling Illinois” showcases some of the collections—mostly some 6,000 photographs—from the Illinois history holdings of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.
I will leave it to the authors of this interesting site to describe it. "Chicagology is a study of Chicago history with a focus on the period prior to the Second World War. The purpose of the site is to document common and not so common stories about the City of Chicago as they are discovered."
Illinois Labor History Society
The Illinois Labor History Society seeks to encourage the preservation and study of labor history materials of the Illinois region, and to arouse public interest in the profound significance of the past to the present. Offers books reviews, podcasts, research guides, and the like.
Illinois Migration History 1850-2017
The University of Washington’s America’s Great Migrations Project has compiled migration histories (mostly from the published and unpublished work by UW Professor of History James Gregory) for several states, including Illinois. The site also includes maps and charts and essays about the Great Migration of African Americans to the north, in which Illinois figured importantly.
An interesting resource about the history of one of Illinois’s more interesting places, the Fox Valley of Kendall County. History on the Fox is the work of Roger Matile, an amateur historian of the best sort. Matile’s site is a couple of cuts above the typical buff’s blog. (An entry on the French attempt to cash in on the trade in bison pelts runs more than
2,000 words.)
BOOKS
OF INTEREST
Southern Illinois University Press 2017
A work of solid history, entertainingly told.
Michael Burlingame,
author of Abraham
Lincoln: A Life
One of the ten best books on Illinois history I have read in a decade.
Superior Achievement Award citation, ISHS Awards, 2018
A lively and engaging study . . . an enthralling narrative.
James Edstrom
The Annals of Iowa
A book that merits the attention of all Illinois historians
as well as local historians generally.
John Hoffman
Journal of Illinois HIstory
A model for the kind of detailed and honest history other states and regions could use.
Harold Henderson
Midwestern Microhistory
A fine example of a resurgence of Midwest historical scholarship.
Greg Hall
Journal of the Illinois
State Historical Society
Click here
to buy the book
Southern Illinois University Press
SIU Press is one of the four major university publishing houses in Illinois. Its catalog offers much of local interest, including biographies of Illinois political figures, the history (human and natural) and folklore of southern Illinois, the Civil War and Lincoln, and quality reprints in the Shawnee Classics series.
The U of I Press was founded in 1918. A search of the online catalog (Books/Browse by subject/Illinois) will reveal more than 150 Illinois titles, books on history mostly but also butteflies, nature , painting, poetry and fiction, and more. Of particular note are its Prairie State Books, quality new paperback editions of worthy titles about all parts of Illinois, augmented with scholarly introductions.
The U of C publishing operation is the oldest (1891) and largest university press in Illinois. Its reach is international, but it has not neglected its own neighborhood. Any good Illinois library will include dozens of titles about Chicago and Illinois from Fort Dearborn to
Vivian Maier.
Northern Illinois University Press
The newest (1965) and the smallest of the university presses with an interest in Illinois, Northern Illinois University Press gave us important titles such as the standard one-volume history of the state (Biles' Illinois:
A History of the Land and Its People) and contributions to the history of Chicago, Illinois transportation, and the Civil War. Now an imprint of Cornell University Press.
Reviews and significant mentions by James Krohe Jr. of more than 50 Illinois books, arranged in alphabetical order
by book title.
Run by the Illinois State Library, The Center promotes reading, writing and author programs meant to honor the state's rich literary heritage. An affiliate of the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book, the site offers award competitions, a directory of Illinois authors, literary landmarks, and reading programs.
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