The next meeting of the Tazewell County Genealogical and Historical Society will be Tuesday, September 10th at 7pm when Dr. Victoria Loberg will discuss “Joseph Greenhut and the Whiskey Trust.”  Many locals know that this area was once the Whiskey Capitol of the World but it was also the home of one of the nation’s largest Trusts. The public is invited. 

We are excited to be celebrating Pekin’s Bicentennial this year and we are participating on the bicentennial planning committee. The Pekin Bicentennial Pictorial should go on sale any day now. Watch for it. 

All history is local until it is woven together with other stories to become part of the National fabric and there is no aspect of National history that doesn’t touch Tazewell County, including Arcades, Catalog stores, and more.

My earliest memory of the Arcade was picking up packages at the Spiegel Catalog Store at 9 S. Capitol. In those days my family didn’t shop a lot in stores but received several catalogs in the mail. The big companies put out three catalogs a year. First came the Spring & Summer issue then the Fall & Winter issue. Finally, the most important of all to a child, the Christmas catalogs arrived!

I remember searching every page, circling the items that appealed to me, and later filling out the order form to be called into the Pekin store. The items would arrive at the catalog store in Pekin then we would drive in and pick them up.

Montgomery Ward had an order office at 514 Court St. Sears, Roebuck & Co. had an order office at 411 Court St. and Spiegel’s was in the Arcade.

I do recall finding a parking space on Court Street was difficult, especially at Christmas time.

Every generation has a different memory of what was special about a particular area and an explanation as to why. My memories of the catalog stores were from circa 1970. However, it’s fun to hear about the earlier years.

Almost two years ago your columnist had an interesting chat with a TCGHS customer. He had come in because he’d heard the Arcade building was being torn down soon and he wondered if we had any photos of the building from the 1940s that depicted the old Popcorn stand that was once there.

Turns out that when this gentleman was about 9 years old he had shined shoes for someone at that location. A quick check of the 1941 City Directory showed the Thomas Declot Shoe Shine shop was in the lobby of the Arcade.

Thomas Declot was a Greek immigrant, listed as an alien in the 1940 census. He was born 15 July 1879 in Zante, Greece. His shoeshine shop was listed in the city directories from about 1930 to 1950 then he just disappeared. I don’t know if he relocated elsewhere in the U.S. or returned to Greece but Thomas was not in the 1950 census so I suspect he left around that time.

Also located in the Arcade was Gomel Korn Shop & Confectionary run by Glen Hayes, Sr. I knew his son, Glen Hayes, Jr. 

Glen Hayes, Sr. (1910-1987) was born in Spring Lake Township and married Dorothy Eye. Together they operated the Karmel Korn Shop in the Arcade building for many years. He was employed as a Pekin Constable for 33 years and was a member of the Pekin Lodge AF & AM.

The customer’s little brother, Dave, was a backdoor neighbor to my brother for many years. They lived just a block or so from TCGHS, on the other side of Garfield School.

Next, he mentioned he was retired from CILCO so I asked if he knew Lish & Louise Davis, which of course he did. Lish worked at CILCO for decades and Louise worked at Pekin High School for just as long. 

Lish L Davis (1910-1995) lived in Pekin, served in WWII, and worked at the CILCO office in Pekin. He was a son of Roy & Mabel J Brownlee Davis who were previously of San Jose, Mason Co., IL. Lish married R Louise Trumpy after the war and they lived in Pekin ever after.

Louise (1916-2009) worked in the Registrar’s office at Pekin High School over 30 years. Her father, R. Fletcher Trumpy (1891-1961) worked for the C. & I. M. railroad in Pekin. Fletcher had also been a musician in Trumpy’s band since childhood. They played numerous events around Havana, Pekin, and Peoria. He spent an entire summer on the G. W. Hill, a riverboat, that ran about the Illinois and Mississippi rivers. He was on the Majestic when it sank at St Louis!

As a result of all of that, I was prompted to dig out some old scrapbooks that recorded the life and times of Lish, Louise, and her father, Fletcher. I pulled out two for this article.

One of the photos is this month’s mystery pic, the other is Fletcher at work at the C & I. M. There will also be a picture of the C. & I. M. depot in the Pictorial.

Mystery Photos:
We have many photos that are unidentified so we feature them on our website in hopes of finding someone that can recognize the individuals. One of those photos is included in this article. Please let us know if you recognize the lady with the shopping cart. The others are Virgil Vogel, Lish Davis, and Jean Johnson.