History of Pekin

The city of Pekin currently has four Illinois State Historical Society markers highlighting significant events and individuals in Pekin’s history. Those markers are: 1) The marker in Riverfront Park that commemorates the tragic wreck of the Riverboat Columbia on 5 July 1918. 2) The marker on the side of the former Pekin National Bank building at the intersection of Court and Capitol streets commemorating the founding of the Union League at that site on 25 June 1862. 3) and 4) The two markers in Legins-Costley Park dedicated in June 2023 in the 400 block of Court Street, honoring the remarkable lives of Nance Legins-Costley and her son Pvt. William H. Costley of the 29th U.S. Colored Infantry.

As we continue our Pekin Bicentennial series, this week and the next we will consider the role that Pekin, Tazewell County, and the State of Illinois played during the Civil War. Earlier this month, on April 9, marked 159 years since the surrender of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House that brought an end to the war.

The first years of Pekin’s existence coincided with a period when men and goods were transported along the waterways and canals of Illinois using riverboats, whether steamers or packet boats.

But steam-powered rail (invented in Britain in 1804, three years before Robert Fulton’s first steamboat) would soon challenge and then eclipse steamboats as the preferred means of long-distance transportation of good and people.

In our previous installment in our Pekin Bicentennial series we reviewed the story of how Pekin became an incorporated city in 1849. When the residents of Pekin voted to adopt a city charter on 20 Aug. 1849, Pekin opted for a mayor/alderman form of government.

Our Bicentennial series on the history of Pekin continues this week with the account of how Pekin became an incorporated city. In addition to this year being the 200th anniversary of the arrival of Pekin’s first settler Jonathan Tharp, this August will mark 175 years since Pekin’s vote to incorporate as a city under Illinois law in 1849.

Early accounts tell us that Ann Eliza Cromwell , wife of Pekin co-founder Nathan Cromwell, was the one who suggested the name Pekin. As it happens, Mrs. Cromwell is also said to have chosen the names for most of the streets in the “Original Town” of Pekin. History and legend credits her with Pekin’s feminine-named streets.

The first 19 years of Pekin’s history cover the period when our community was a pioneer town — an unincorporated community until 1835 (or 1837), and as a self-governed incorporated Town from the mid-1830s until 1849.

Joshua Carmen Morgan (1804-1849) was one of the most prominent of Pekin’s community leaders in the earliest years of its existence as a pioneer settlement was, and his name appears repeatedly in the early records of Pekin’s history. He was born 15 July 1804 in Xenia, Ohio, eldest son of Isaac and Margaret (Carmen) Morgan, who were natives of Virginia and Kentucky, respectively.

In previous installments of our ongoing Pekin Bicentennial series, we have recalled the earliest years of the pioneer settlement that was formally platted, organized, and named Pekin in 1830. This week we’ll tell of how the settlers in Pekin took action to place their community on a more permanent basis by incorporating as a Town under Illinois state law.

For this third in our series of Pekin Bicentennial Black History Month articles, we’ll highlight a selection of just a few of the many stories of Abraham Lincoln and his ties to Pekin. These stories span Lincoln’s life and career as a prairie lawyer and politician.

The decade of the Sixties was a time of momentous changes in the United States, and the Civil Rights Movement was responsible for many of those changes. The movement’s most historic achievements included the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 that outlawed racial discrimination across the board...

As Pekin’s Bicentennial Year continues and we now find ourselves in Black History Month, it is fitting that we turn our attention now to Pekin’s African-American history. Compared to most other areas of our city’s history, this is an aspect of Pekin’s history that has been little researched...

As Pekin’s Bicentennial Year continues, this week we’ll take a look back over the history of a downtown landmark that has witnessed almost three-fourths of Pekin’s 200 years: the old Farmers National Bank building at 333 Court St., the northeast corner of Capitol and Court.

More than 220 people were there to hear Pekin Mayor Mary Burress during her “State of the City” address on Friday, 19 Jan. 2024, an event that formally inaugurated the city’s calendar of Bicentennial celebrations.

Pekin Mayor Mary Burress will formally inaugurate Pekin’s yearlong calendar of Bicentennial celebrations tomorrow morning, 11:30 a.m. Friday, 19 Jan. 2024, at a special “State of the City” event and luncheon at the Pekin Moose Lodge, 2605 Broadway.

Before the formal platting and surveying of the little pioneer settlement that would be named “Pekin” in January of 1830, the groundwork for Pekin’s founding was laid by an influx of settlers who arrived throughout the 1820s.
The first settler at what would become Pekin was Jonathan Tharp (1794-1844), who left his old home at Urbana, Ohio, looking for new opportunities in Illinois....

As Pekin has now entered its Bicentennial Year, it’s good to recall that 100 years ago the Pekin Daily Times included the words, “This is Pekin’s Centennial Year” in its front page masthead all throughout the year to remind its readers of upcoming Centennial celebrations.
Yet in a kind of tragic irony, during the first weeks of January 1924, immediately beneath those words of anticipation and celebration the newspaper ran banner headlines and daily front page updates on rescue and recovery efforts...

The New Year A.D. 2024 promises to be a memorable one for Pekin, with celebrations and special activities being planned throughout the year to mark our community’s Bicentennial.
One hundred years ago, Pekin put on a multi-day festival and grand parade to celebrate its centennial. That and much more is in the works for Pekin’s bicentennial.

For the first 19 years of its existence, from 1830 to 1849, Pekin was a pioneer town, with much of the character that is associated with the Wild West rather than a modern semi-rural Midwestern city. A Native American village even thrived near the new town until 1833, first located on the ridge above Pekin Lake and later on the south shores of Worley Lake.

The founding pioneer settlers of Pekin believed it was very important to provide youth with a good education. So it was that in 1830, the year of Pekin’s founding, the town’s first school opened. A log cabin built by Thomas Snell, it was located on the west side of Second Street between Elizabeth and St. Mary streets, at the southwest corner of Elizabeth and Second. Snell’s son John was the teacher.

Once upon a time, or beginning in 1898 and apparently ending in the mid-1930’s, Pekin would put on vibrant, very popular street fairs, hosted in the city’s downtown. In 1902, on the day of the parade, 18,000 people attended this event. Two railroad companies from Peoria brought 2,800 people into our fair town.

In the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1860, three independent fire companies were formed: the Independent Hood and Ladder Company No. 1, Rescue Company No. 1, and Defiance Hose Company. Two more volunteer companies were organized: the “Wide Awake” and “Protection.” By 1894 the “Wide Awakes” had a partially paid department.

Sunday this week was the 174th anniversary of Pekin’s vote to incorporate as a City, thereby becoming the 10th incorporated City in Illinois. That significant date in Pekin’s history – 20 Aug. 1849 – came just 14 years after the residents of Pekin voted to incorporate as a Town.

President Abraham Lincoln’s long road to the White House began in his days as a circuit-riding lawyer over the prairies of Illinois, leading him first to the Illinois General Assembly and then to the U.S. Congress. One of the stops on Lincoln’s road was Pekin, where Lincoln was involved in a political pact known as “the Pekin Agreement.”

The firm of Wagenseller & Co. was owned and operated by Joshua Wagenseller (1813-1882), one of Tazewell County’s Old Settlers whom we have spotlighted here twice previously. As we mentioned before, Wagenseller was an ardent abolitionist, a friend of Abraham Lincoln (who was a guest in the Wagenseller home on many a visit to Pekin), and a founding member of the Tazewell County Republican Party.

One of the most prominent of Pekin’s community leaders in the earliest years of its existence as a pioneer settlement was Joshua Carmen Morgan (1804-1849), whose name appears repeatedly in the early records of Pekin’s history. He was born 15 July 1804 in Xenia, Ohio, eldest son of Isaac and Margaret (Carmen) Morgan, who were natives of Virginia and Kentucky, respectively.

After the Tharps other settlers would soon arrive – by 1830, what would become Pekin counted eight settlers. The Tharps and their companions, most of them from Ohio, made plans for a village called Cincinnati, with streets to be laid out on a north-south-east-west grid.

Changes and developments come to a community day by day, week by week. New buildings and homes are erected, old ones are demolished, new businesses come to town while older ones expand or close their doors.

Among the pioneer founders of Pekin was a man named William Haines, who is twice mentioned in the historical essay included in the 1870 Sellers & Bates Pekin City Directory, on page 9. Like many of the original settlers of Pekin, Haines came from Ohio.

For an older generation, the cold and ice of winter can bring to mind a long-defunct industry that once employed hundreds of men in Pekin – the ice industry.

“Citizens of Pekin, here your daily is!” With these words, the Pekin Daily Times made its debut 139 years ago this month. It began as a four-page broadsheet, with five columns to a page, published by Joseph B. Irwin and W. T. Dowdall, and delivered by four newsboys: Ad Merrill, Charley Wagenseller, Benny Irwin, and Johnny Michael.

Modern travelers passing through Pekin or staying for a few days have a few hotels to choose from out on the east end of town, but in the past downtown Pekin had an array of hotels where visitors to “the Celestial City” could find food and a place to lay their heads at night.

The Pekin Park District was established in 1902, but the history of Pekin’s parks in fact begins 20 years earlier, when Mineral Springs Park – called “the jewel in the crown” of the Park District system by “Pekin: A Pictorial History” – was founded as a privately-owned park.

In terms of public transportation in Pekin today, we have the Peoria-based CityLink bus system. But in the past, Pekin was served by its own bus lines — and before that, by street cars. Pekin’s trolley system began as an abortive private venture which was taken over and run by the city.

The first white settlers in Pekin, the Tharps, arrived in 1824 and 1825. “The Tharps had become Methodists before they left Ohio, and so Jacob Tharp welcomed a circuit-riding Methodist minister, Reverend Jesse Walker, into his log cabin in 1826 to conduct Town Site’s first preaching service,” says the 1974 Pekin Sesquicentennial.