Looking Back – Calhoun County
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25 years ago
December 3, 1997
Illinois hunters harvested a preliminary total of 61,937 deer during the opening weekend of the firearm deer season November 21-23, according to Department of Natural Resources Director Brent Manning.
The official total for Calhoun was 958 for the first season, an increase of 70 deer from last year’s 888 total. Surrounding county goals were Pike 2,662, Jersey 529, Greene 1,017.
Pike County had the highest total in the State of Illinois followed by Adams with 2,154.
The preliminary total from the first three days of the 1997 firearm season represents a four percent increase from the 1996 first season harvest of 59,412.
Eighteen counties reported first season harvests in excess of 1,000, led by Pike County.
The preliminary harvest figure includes only deer taken in county-wide hunts and does not include special hunt areas for which figures are still being compiled.
50 years ago
December 7, 1972
George Carpenter, Calhoun’s Historian, will provide the captions for a series of pictures of Calhoun’s old school houses of yesteryear which will appear in the Calhoun News in future issues. George is seated at his desk in his office on the second floor of the Carpenter’s beautiful and historic home on Front Street in Hardin.
The desk is the one used by the late Judge Ernest Meyer of Deer Plain when he was Calhoun’s first State Representative to the legislature in Springfield.
Separating his desk from the rest of his office is a restored iron grill work from the original Bank of Calhoun County.
The Childs’ home, built by Benjamin Childs in 1848, the first home in the newly incorporated Village of Hardin, has been beautifully and tastefully restored by George and his talented wife, Ethel, and is now one of the show pieces of the Midwest.
The home is replete with many antiques, which have a long history, documented by Historian Carpenter.
George is not only the State’s leading authority in Calhoun’s history, but he is widely known as a raconteur, a student of epicureanism and scholarly synthesis.
75 years ago
December 4, 1947
Mr. John Stumpf of Gilead was in Hardin Monday, and he came in to see us. Mr. Stumpf had walked the seven miles from his home to Hardin to shop, and he intended making the return trip by foot.
This is quite a feat, especially since Mr. Stumpf is 82 years old.
Many of us younger would not think of walking 14 miles in one day. Other things remarkable about Mr. Stumpf is that he and his wife, the former Anna Hobbs of south Calhoun, were married 58 years last Nov. 26. They have 10 children, five boys and five girls. They have lived for 35 years on their present farm, where they have worked hard, long hours to till the soil and cultivate the crops. Mr. Stumpf is a successful farmer, and he attributes his success to hard work, honesty and diligence.
100 years ago
December 7, 1922
Dr. Charles C. Jessee of Chicago, closed a series of lectures Sunday night in the Presbyterian Church at Hardin, and he was greeted with a large audience. Dr. Jessee is one of the state’s best Chautauqua lecturers and his addresses to our people were of the highest type.
The subject Sunday evening, entitled, “Democracy Divine or Devilish,” was handled in a masterly manner and the speaker left with his hearers some wonderful rich food for them to digest.
Dr. Jessee is a scholarly gentleman, well learned not only in the great problems of the day from the human standpoint of observation but from the great spiritual side as well.
He, like other great men who have studied out the perplexing problems of today, has had a peep into the future spiritual life and knows whereof he speaks.
We hope to again hear Dr. Jessee in the near future.
