1. Tharp Family Farm Marker
Site Coordinates: N 40°34'01.4" W 89°38'37.0"
This is one of 10 caches (a hidden container) placed around historic sites in Pekin. These sites along with 10 other sites will provide letters or numbers you'll need to ultimately unscramble a prominent name and year in Pekin's history. Once you've obtained all 20 letters and numbers and unscrambled the name and year, submit your answer to be entered into a drawing for a locally 3-D printed "flat" Everett, $50 in Chamber Checks and other Pekin swag!
Please be courteous and aware of your surroundings (do not disrupt landscaping or destroy anything during your search) and place each cache back how you found it to ensure it remains hidden. All caches are on public property, placed with permission. Permission for this cache placement granted by St. Joseph Parish & Father Andrejek. Please be stealthy & courteous!
Practice CITO (cache-in-trash-out: a way to help keep our environment clean) & happy caching! We hope you enjoy this historic tour of Pekin & participate in other events throughout 2024 to celebrate this milestone.
A special thank you to the United Way of Pekin for sponsoring the cache containers.
If you have any questions, please email us at pekinhistoricadventurequest@gmail.com.
A Bit of History...
The Tharps operated a farm in the area now occupied by St. Joseph’s Catholic Church and School, and a historical marker at the St. Joseph’s Parish Center tells visitors that the Tharp farm was once located there, on the street once called Tharp Place (now St. Joseph Place). Pekin’s original homes were log cabins and wood frame houses, but by the 1830s some settlers began to build brick homes. Tharp's home was one of the first two-storey brick houses in Pekin.
If one were to extend a line from Tharp/St. Joseph Place straight eastward out to 11th Street (currently the location of Schnucks Grocery Store), one would reach the southeast corner of the original Tharp family Burial Ground.
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