Monthly Archives: August 2024

Camp Shuster, 1923-31

Posted on August 28, 2024 by editor

Camp Shuster, on the banks of Lick Creek southwest of Springfield, was a YMCA-operated summer camp. See Edgar Shanklin suicide, 1926.

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Edgar Shanklin suicide, 1926

Posted on August 27, 2024 by editor

Searchers used boats, grappling hooks and dynamite to try to retrieve the body of Edgar M. Shanklin from Lick Creek. But it took more than a month for the icy, swollen stream to relinquish the remains of the Springfield business … Continue reading →

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B&Z Pastry Shop

Posted on August 18, 2024 by editor

Neither Viktor Benesch nor Dan Zeigler stayed in Springfield all that long. But their wedding cakes, cookies, pastries and whipped-cream cakes were local fixtures for 50-plus years. Benesch and Zeigler donated their initials to the B&Z Pastry Shop. More importantly, … Continue reading →

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Quality Dairy

Posted on August 10, 2024 by editor

Quality Dairy opened in 1936 and sold milk and other dairy products for over 40 years in Springfield. It also was the innovator that introduced square milk bottles (“the shape of a bottle housewives have been looking for”) to the … Continue reading →

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First Methodist Church’s electric sign, 1911

Posted on August 8, 2024 by editor

Springfield’s First Methodist Church broke with local tradition in 1911, when it installed an electric sign over the church door. The Illinois State Register took note in a Dec. 19, 1911, article: “Church Has An Electric Sign,” the headline read. … Continue reading →

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