FEATURE image: Capt. A. Lincoln, Illinois Volunteer Militia, Black Hawk War, 1832, bronze, 1930. by Leonard Crunelle (1872-1944), Dixon, Illinois. The large bronze statue was the first prominent public depiction of the 16th U.S. president as a young adult man. Author’s photograph, 6/2017 4.70mb.
Young Lincoln was stationed in Dixon, Illinois, at Fort Dixon on the Rock River in today’s Lee County where the statue stands. “Rock River Fall_03” by markellis_1964 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.Capt. A. Lincoln looking onto the Rock River in Dixon, Illinois. Young Lincoln enlisted in the Illinois Volunteers on April 21, 1832 and, following more enlistments, finally mustered out of military service on July 10, 1832. Author’s photograph, 6/2017 8.26mb.
Illinois in the early 1830s was the edge of the American frontier and virtually wilderness. The Native American tribes were being expelled from the northern tier of the state established in 1818 by ceding their lands to the U.S Federal Government. Most of the Native Americans were pushed out of the state by treaty by the end of the 1820s. This quickly changed the landscape of a rapidly growing Illinois by way of new arrivals of settlers from the East in the 1840s and 1850s. Settlers were accompanied by ambitious commercial projects such as transportation canals and, even more impressive, the railroads, all of which worked to open up the Middle West of the United States to global markets and industrial prosperity.
Abraham Lincoln, born in a Kentucky log cabin in 1809, was 21 years old when he arrived into Illinois in 1830 with his family from Indiana. During the 1832 Black Hawk War, the 23-year-old Abe Lincoln lived in New Salem, Illinois, and was elected captain in the Illinois National Guard. The bronze statue, cast in 1930, of Lincoln in Dixon, Illinois, depicts for the first time a yet untapped aspect of the 16th president’s life and career for his ever-expanding public iconology – that of the youthful adult Lincoln starting out in his career.
Lincoln enlisted in the Illinois Volunteers on April 21, 1832 near Richland Creek in Sangamon County which was located about halfway between New Salem and Springfield, Illinois. The next day, Lincoln mustered into state service at Beardstown, Illinois, about 40 miles to the west on the Illinois River.
The 6-foot-4-inch Lincoln was elected captain, a position he said he was both surprised and proud to receive.
Lincoln mustered into U.S. service near Janesville, Wisconsin on May 3, 1832. He mustered out on May 27, 1832 in Ottawa, Wisconsin. Lincoln never fired a shot.
On that same day of May 27, 1832 Lincoln re-enlisted as a private in Captain Iles’ company. When that enlistment expired, Lincoln re-enlisted again in Captain Early’s company.
Lincoln finally mustered out of military service on July 10, 1832 at Whitewater, Wisconsin.
Young Lincoln was stationed in Dixon, Illinois, at Fort Dixon on the Rock River where this statue — unveiled in late September 1930 — stands. The sculptor is French-born Leonard Crunelle (1872-1944).
The artist leonard Crunelle (1872-1944) with the head of his heroic-sized Lincoln the Debater completed in 1929. Fair Use. The following year he completed Capt. A. Lincoln in Dixon, Illinois, which was another heroic-sized statue of an even much younger Lincoln
Crunelle’s immigrant family arrived in Illinois in 1889 and settled in Decatur, about 40 miles east of Springfield, Lincoln’s hometown. When Crunelle worked in the local mines, he started making fired clay sculptures. His work was brought to the attention of prominent American sculptor and teacher Lorado Taft (1860-1936) who brought young Crunelle to Chicago to study at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. At the same time, Crunelle began to do decorative work for the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.
Lorado Taft made his Black Hawk statue monument in 1911 in Oregon, Illinois, also on the Rock River about 16 miles upstream from Dixon, Illinois. It is all part of the area that saw action during the Black Hawk War in 1832 and led to the complete surrender and expulsion of the last Native American group in Illinois. “Black Hawk (aka ‘The Eternal Indian’)” by Dan Brekke is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.
The bronze sculpture of Lincoln – who later as a lawyer and politician expressed pride in his brief military service – is one of the first attempts to depict the Great Emancipator in his youth. Though Crunelle had made a statue called Lincoln the Debater for display in a park in Freeport, Illinois, in 1929 the slightly later Capt. A. Lincoln in Dixon, Illinois, depicted Lincoln more than half the great debater’s age.
Plaque. Author’s photograph, 6/2017 9mb. Capt. A. Lincoln 1832. Dixon, Illinois. The 6-foot-4-inch Lincoln was elected captain, a position he said he was both surprised and proud to receive. Author’s photograph, 6/2017 6.87mb. “Rock River Fall_49” by markellis_1964 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.Reconstruction of log structure typical for the early 1830’s in Illinois when young Abraham Lincoln served at Fort Dixon on the Rock River in Dixon, Illinois, in the Illinois National Guard. Author’s photograph, 6/2017 6.75 mb.
Herrick Lake, Wheaton, IL 7/2016 6.08 mb7/2015 1.96 mbOak Street Beach, Chicago, IL. 7/2016 4.74 mb North Avenue Beach, Chicago, IL 5/2015 3.25 mbSilver Lake, Warrenville, IL. 7/2021 3.74 mbLincoln Park. Chicago, IL 8/2015 3.64 mbJenner, CA. 6/1987 868 kb Black-crowned-night-heron. Salt Creek, Oakbrook, IL. 7/2015 2.32 mbSonoma Co., CA. 6/1987 205kbChicago. 7/2014 1.80 mb. (10)Chicago. 7/2014 1.72 mb8/2017 3.55 mbChicago, IL. 8/2015 2.47 mbChicago, IL. 8/2017 2.05 mbOak Street beach, Chicago, IL 7/2014 1.97mb Lake Katherine, Palos Heights, IL. 7/2016 5.71 mb Crete, IL. 8/2016 2.20 mbWheaton, IL. 7/2016 3.57 mbChicago. 7/2014 3.83 mbLowell Park. Dixon, IL. 6/2017 596kb 45%. (20)Chicago. 8/2016 392 kb 40%Whalon Lake, Bolingbrook/Naperville IL. 7/2022 7.04 mb July 2022Chicago. 7/2014 452 kb 40%Chicago. 8/2014 380 kb 35%Pewaukee Lake, Wisconsin. 6/2017 488 kb 50%Silver Lake. Wheaton, IL. 7/2021 7.79 mb 91%Chicago. 8/2021 7.96 mb 88%Oakbrook, IL. 6/2022.Downers Grove, IL. 8/2022 636 kb 28%Lake Katherine. Palos Heights, IL. 7/2016 2.56 mbFoster Avenue Beach. Chicago. 6/2022 6.79 mb 99%Glacier National Park (Montana). 6/1994 60%Rapidan River near Chancellorsville (Virginia), 6/2001 75%. The Rapidan River is the largest tributary of the Rappahannock River. These two rivers in the state of Virginia converge just west of the city of Fredericksburg, VA. The Rapidan River was the scene of severe and significant fighting in the Civil War including at Ely’s Ford (August 1862 and April-May 1863), Kelly’s Ford (March 1863), Chancellorsville (May 1863), Brandy Station (June 1863), and the Battle of the Wilderness (May 1864). Montaña de Oro State Park. San Luis Obispo/Los Osos, CA. 9/1994 80%Washington Pass (Diablo Lake) Washington. 9/1993 60%. A popular spot, Diablo Lake is one of the scenic bodies of water in Washington Pass which, at over one mile above sea level, is the highest point on the North Cascades Highway in Washington State. On either side of the pass are glacier-carved valleys whose creeks eventually drain into the Columbia River. According to the Pacific Northwest National Parks and Forest Association and the U.S.D.A. Forest Service (Pacific Northwest Region), when the North Cascades Highway opened in 1972 more people could easily access the highest and wildest mountains in the state than ever before. Before 1972 Native Americans, prospectors, trappers, mountaineers and some hearty backpackers were the only ones who explored a region that took about four days to cross on horseback. Diablo Lake’s distinctive color is caused by fine rock particles, or “glacial flour,” which refracts light. These particles are created as rocks erode and pour into the lake by wind and glacial streams. Washington Pass, State Route 20, WA. 9/1993 65%. State Route 20, or the North Cascades Highway (above), cuts through mountain wilderness at Washington Pass. The highway is Washington State’s longest, winding its way over 400 miles traveling from U.S. Route 101 at Discovery Bay on the Olympic Peninsula to the state border with Idaho.Washington Pass, Liberty Bell (7720 ft / 2353 m), North Cascades National Park. 9/1993 80%Washington Pass, Pyramid Peak (7182 ft/2189 m), North Cascades National Park. 9/1993 60%Bandon OR 6/1992 65%. Bandon is a city in Coos County, Oregon. It was named by George Bennet, an Irish peer, who settled nearby in 1873 and named the town after Bandon in Ireland, his hometown.Chicago. 8/2015 7.37 mb7/2023 6.50 mb 99%Herrick Lake, Wheaton, IL 7/2023 6.63 mbRiverfront Park. North Aurora, IL 6/2021 7.29mb 99%Downers Grove IL. 8/2023 7.95mb 73%8/2023 30%8/2023 7.78 mb 97%Farmer’s market. Downers Grove, IL. 7/2021 7.90 mb 79%9/2023 7.90 mb 79%9/2023 7.73 mb 80%
Dell Rhea’s Chicken Basket (above in 2016) is 22 miles southwest of downtown Chicago. Its address is 645 Joliet Road, Willowbrook, Illinois.
The Chicken Basket is a mandatory dine-in or carry-out stop on a “Midwest Roads” visit. Vintage roadhouse decor and family-oriented service is joined to the menu which features fresh, succulent fried chicken cooked-to-order.
Opened in 1926
The business first opened in 1926 as a gas station and lunch counter on the brand-new Route 66. U.S. Route 66 traveled from Chicago to Los Angeles, California —a distance of more than 2,000 miles.
In 1939, fried chicken was served for the first time by its original owner, Irv Kolarik.
In 1946 the present one-story brick commercial building was designed and built by architect Eugene F. Stoyke (1912-1993) next to the original building. It was during the post-World-War-II travel (and baby) boom that it became a full-service restaurant.
Original windows and signage
Dell Rhea’s bay of 9 single-light-glass-and-wood-canted windows is original where an immense fireplace anchored the dining area’s north wall. The neon-and-metal sign in the photograph was original when this photograph was taken. It was replaced in 2017 with an exact replica. In 1956, a cocktail lounge was added to the south.
Bluebird Bus stop to St. Louis
In 1962 Interstate 55 opened—the major expressway connecting Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans—and effectively retired U.S. Route 66 in this part of Illinois.
In front of the restaurant there was a Bluebird Bus stop (founded in 1927) which people could take to St. Louis or use to send packages across country.
New Owners
In 1963 the Chicken Basket was bought by Chicago businessman Delbert Francis “Dell” Rhea (1907-1992) who knew how to invigorate the eatery while maintaining its tradition for a new era.
The popular Chicken Basket was owned and managed by the Rhea family until 2019. The Lombardi family took over with the promise to keep intact the original recipe which is unchanged since 1946 and continue the same Chicken Basket tradition.
“(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66” is a popular rhythm & blues standard composed in 1946 by American songwriter Bobby Troup (1918-1999). It was a hit that same year for Nat King Cole who, with the King Cole Trio, first recorded the song. Troup got the idea for the song when taking a ten-day cross country trip with his wife in a Buick from Pennsylvania to California on U.S. Routes 40 and 66. The lyrics include some of the popular cities and towns on the route. Troup, who later became a film and television actor, certainly drove by what is today Dell Rhea’s Chicken Basket on that historic road trip.
INTRODUCTION.
These are some of my photographs featuring people, places, and things I have met and seen along today’s American Midwest roads.
I have a personal affinity and affection for the American Midwest. I grew up in Chicago and its suburbs, and went to school here and live here today. My family has been in Illinois since at least the 1830s.
Growing up in the Midwest, my experiences included family, friends, diverse outings, engaging jobs, and being married here. I love to explore this vast region that’s rightly called “The Heart of America.”
Memories of the Middle West — its sights, sounds, smells, and tastes — and mostly in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan — are the mother’s milk of my life. In steamy summers, multi-colored autumns, ice-bitten winters, and flowering, reawakening springs to get outside to walk and ride on Midwest roads are pure adventure, then and now.
The American Midwest is filled with human stories and diverse and awesome natural beauty. There is timeless nostalgia, and, if such things don’t entice for the moment, unexpected curiosities.
For those who love it, the Midwest terrain carries all Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950) spoke on in his last major book, The Sangamon. There is “magic in that soil, in the plains, the borders of forest, the oak trees on the hills,” the poet wrote. Masters was sure that “if you should drive through (this region)…strange dreams would come to you, and moreover those dreams would tally with mine.”
The region continues to offer the sightseer magical things. This includes its primordial aspects, such as animals, birds, natural outcroppings and waterways, as well as impressive remnants of Native American mound-building culture from the Midwest’s southern to northern reaches.
Edgar Lee Masters understood that it is the Midwest’s people – often defined as individualistic, hospitable, diverse, industrious, good-willed, courageous and independent – who imbue the region its greatest distinction. It is a populace and setting that, despite various economic setbacks and pockets of unfortunate decline, build and display what is often photographed on Midwest roads: historic canals, roads, barns and farms, houses. In the 21st century new things of interest can be seen on Midwest roads such as cellphone towers and wind turbines as older things, like barns and even some towns, decay or disappear.
Many famous American and international figures have lived and traveled on Midwest roads such as U.S. presidents, writers, actors, artists, business people, etc. This includes James Monroe (in 1785), Charles Dickens (1842), John Muir (1849), Henry David Thoreau (1861), Antonín Dvořák (1893), Winston Churchill (1946). Midwest natives include Carl Sandburg, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Edison, Edgar Lee Masters, Walt Disney, Mark Twain, Jane Addams, Harry S Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Barack and Michelle Obama, Frank Lloyd Wright, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., John Wayne, Wyatt Earp, “Wild Bill” Hickok, Jesse James, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Dinah Washington (“Queen of the Blues”), and many, many more.
But It is Abraham Lincoln whose memory is most famously linked to Midwest Roads. Riding on his horse, “Old Bob,” Lincoln loved to travel the Eighth Judicial Circuit in central Illinois as a defense lawyer. It is to the 16th U.S. president and a Midwestern spirit he manifested to whom this photographic essay is dedicated.
SOURCES: E.L. Masters quotes from The Sangamon by Edgar Lee Masters with Introduction by Charles E. Burgess, University of Illinois Press, Urbana & Chicago, 1988 (first published 1942), p.6.
The Ronald Reagan Trail (IL-26) is a route in Illinois that follows sites of interest associated with the 40th president of The United States. Reagan grew up in Dixon, Illinois.
Originally Route 26 ran north-south for about 25 miles from Freeport, Illinois to Polo, Illinois.
In 1937, IL-26 was extended about 15 miles north to the Illinois-Wisconsin state line and about 15 miles south to Dixon, Illinois.
In 1969, IL-26 was extended almost 100 miles from Dixon south to East Peoria, Illinois.
Lee Co. Dixon, IL, Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home. 6/2017Walworth Co., WI. 6/2017DeKalb Co., IL. 1992 Case IH 7150 10/2016 3.53mb Grundy Co., IL. 9/2016Kendall Co., IL, 9/2016Grundy Co., IL. 9/2016LaSalle Co., IL, 8/2016 Tazewell Co., IL. 9/2016 LaSalle Co., IL. 9/2016 LaSalle Co., IL. 8/2016Grundy Co., IL. 8/2016Ottawa, IL. LaSalle Co. Bi-centennial mural (detail). 9/2016Lake Co. Wauconda, IL. 8/2016 DeKalb Co., IL. 9/2016 3.48 mbKendall Co., Oswego, IL. 4/2016 Iroquois Co., Watseka, IL. 8/2017 LaSalle/Grundy Cos. Seneca, IL. 2016 DuPage Co. Downers Grove, IL. 4/2018 DuPage Co. Wheaton, IL. 4/2018 DuPage Co. Wheaton, IL. 2016McHenry Co. Near Coral, IL. U.S Grant Memorial Highway (U.S. 20). 5/2017
U.S. Route 20 is the longest road in the country. It stretches east to west from Boston, Massachusetts to Newport, Oregon– about 3,100 miles.
Route 20 began on the East coast in the early to mid1920’s. The road reached Illinois in 1938 and is mostly unchanged since that time.
In 1955 the Illinois General Assembly designated the length of U.S. 20 in Illinois the U.S. Grant Memorial Highway. The sign in htis photograph was produced in late 2006.
Walworth Co. Lake Geneva WI, 5/2017Cook Co. Des Plaines, IL. Santuario de Guadalupe. 5/2018Winnebago Co., Rockford, IL, 7/2017 DuPage Co., IL. 6/2020 McDonough Co. Uptown, Macomb, IL, 5/2006Winnebago Co. Rockford, IL, Anderson Japanese Gardens, 7/2017
The Anderson Japanese Gardens in Rockford, IL, is a popular 12-acre Japanese garden established in 1978. The gardens are on lands surrounding Rockford businessman John Anderson’s home. Anderson was inspired by gardens he visited in japan and other Japanese gardens in the U.S.
Under the guidance of Hoichi Kurisu, renowned master craftsman and landscape designer, the Andersons’ land along Rockford’s Spring Creek was transformed into an outdoor space of water, wood, stone, and flora representative of 1,000 years of Japanese horticultural tradition.
Iroquois Co., Watseka, IL. Corn for sale. 8/2017Lee Co., IL. 6/2017Kane Co., IL. Fox River. 8/2014Kendall Co.. IL. 9/2016.
DuPage Co., IL. 8/2015 DuPage Co., IL. 10/2017 DuPage Co. Converted barn house. 8/2017 Will Co. Romeoville, IL, White Fence Farm. 5/2017
White Fence Farm was established in the 1920s by Stuyvesant “Jack” Peabody (1888-1926), the son of a wealthy coal baron. Jack Peabody opened the restaurant to feed his guests who visited his nearly 500-acre horse farm on the opposite side of a newly-opened U.S. Route 66.
In the mid1930s Peabody started to promote the domestic wine industry by featuring California wines at the restaurant.
Since 1954, the Hastert family has owned and operated White Fence Farm. Advertising itself as the “World’s Greatest Chicken,” the restaurant building has been expanded many times under the Hasterts. Within a country farm manor ambience, the popular restaurant boasts several dining rooms that can seat over 1,000 diners.
White Fence Farm continues to offer some of freshest and best-tasting fried chicken in and around historic U.S. Route 66. The restaurant is a perennially popular destination, especially on weekends and during the warm weather months, where people in the area as well as tourists arrive in droves.
The two children of coal magnate F.S. Peabody (1859-1922) – May Henderson Peabody Osborne (1891-1936) and Stuyvesant “Jack” Peabody (1888-1946) in a photograph from around 1910, When May died at 44 years in 1936 her estate was valued at around $500,000 (or $10 million in 2021). Their father, F.S. Peabody, the largest coal producer in the U.S., died in 1922 at 63 years old when he suffered a fatal heart attack at a party he was hosting in Oakbrook, Illinois, to celebrate the completion of his new mansion there.
DuPage Co. Downers Grove, IL. Farmer’s Market (cheese seller). 9/2017 Newton Co. Goodland, IN, 8/2017 DuPage Co., IL. 1/2021 Dane Co., WI 6/2017 5.69 mbDuPage Co., IL. Kline Creek Farm. 5/2016 Ozaukee County, WI. Cedarburg Wi 6/2018 DuPage County, IL. Downers Grove IL. 6/2023 7.13mb 99%DuPage County, IL. Downers Grove IL 7/2023 7.93 mb 93%LaSalle Co., IL. 7/2017 Ozaukee County, WI. 6/2018 7.69 mbMcHenry Co., IL. Barn. 5/2017 Kane Co, West Dundee, IL. 8/2014
DuPage Co. Downers Grove, IL. Farmer’s Market. 7/2021 Dane Co., WI. Barn. 6/2017 4.48 mbWill Co. Joliet, IL. 5/2021.
In the early 1950’s, Alfred, Jr. (Mitch) and Norma Mitchell opened a small grocery store on the corner of Raynor and Curtis Avenues. In 1957, it was expanded to the present location adjacent to the original building. A short time later, Harley Mitchell joined his brother.
Ronald Reagan, 40th president of the U.S. (1981-1989), is the only U.S. president who was born, grew up and received his education in the state of Illinois. Reagan was a Eureka College graduate, class of 1932.
LaSalle Co., Ottawa, IL. 8/2016 2.46 mbWoodford Co., Metamora, IL 9/2016 6.46 mbLaSalle Co., Ottawa, IL. 8/2016 4.13 mb In honor of ABRAHAM LINCOLN Who practiced law from 1851 to 1859 Before the Supreme Court of Illinois At its sessions then held in the old La Salle County Court House on this site Erected by the Illini Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution 1922Waukesha Co., WI. 6/2017 7.37 mbMcHenry Co., IL Marengo IL 5/2017 4.60 mbIroquois Co., IL 8/2017 3.16 mbDuPage Co., IL Downers Grove IL 5/2023 7.95mb 97%DuPage Co., 6/2023 7.84 mb 73%DuPage Co., 7/2023 7.93mb 79%DuPage Co., 8/2023 5.89mbDuPage Co., Wheaton, IL 6/2021 7.93mb 94%DuPage Co., Downers Grove, IL 8/2023 7.74mb 80%Iroquois Co., 8/2017 6.43 mb10/2023 6.83mb 99%
