Category Archives: Sports and recreation

Cathedral High School basketball champions, 1939

Posted on January 28, 2022 by editor

Springfield’s Cathedral Boys High School won its only Illinois Catholic Conference basketball tournament in 1939. The 16-team event was held at the Illinois State Armory Feb. 24-26. Cathedral’s 285 students (as the name suggests, the school was open only to … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Schools and school districts, Sports and recreation, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Springfield Sallies (professional women’s baseball)

Posted on January 25, 2022 by editor

The Springfield Sallies were one of the least successful, and also shortest-lived, teams in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. The league, whose memory was revived by the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own,” lasted from 1943 to 1954. … Continue reading →

Posted in Amusements, Parks, Prominent figures, Sports and recreation, Women | 2 Comments

Women’s golf, 1899

Posted on November 26, 2021 by editor

“A crowd of young society women in 1899 shocked the conventions of the day by reckless indulgence in a game called golf,” the Illinois State Journal recalled in 1931. Most of that sentence was nonsense. There’s no evidence anyone was … Continue reading →

Posted in Amusements, Media, Parks, Photos and photosets, Prominent figures, Social life, Sports and recreation, Women | Leave a comment

Early ‘base ball’: Libertys lose to Rockford, 101-13 (1869)

Posted on August 11, 2021 by editor

The hometown Liberty Base Ball Club didn’t expect to beat the Rockford Forest Citys when the celebrated Rockford team visited Springfield in 1869. City-versus-city match games were social events as much as athletic contests at the time. But that 1869 … Continue reading →

Posted in Amusements, Social life, Sports and recreation | 1 Comment

Mildred Park bridge collapse, 1905 (photos)

Posted on June 14, 2021 by editor

Somehow, no one was seriously injured when a crowded suspension bridge collapsed into the pond at Mildred Park (today’s Bunn Park) on Aug. 16, 1905. The lead on the Illinois State Journal story: Without the slightest warning, the suspension bridge … Continue reading →

Posted in Amusements, Disasters, Social life, Sports and recreation, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Moonlight Garden

Posted on March 17, 2021 by editor

Moonlight Garden flourished as an open-air dance pavilion and then an indoor roller rink on Wabash Avenue for more than 35 years. Entrepreneur/showman Roy Dexheimer Sr. founded Moonlight Garden as the otherwise nameless “Open Air Dance Pavilion” in June 1927. … Continue reading →

Posted in Amusements, Business, Crime and vice, Social life, Sports and recreation | 6 Comments

Walkathon Derby, 1934

Posted on March 8, 2021 by editor

When Springfield’s Walkathon Derby shut down on May 18, 1934, it left a mountain of unpaid bills and eight groggy couples. The competition, held in a large tent at Second and Mason streets, started May 5 with several dozen pairs … Continue reading →

Posted in Amusements, Spectacles, Sports and recreation, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

The ‘Tournament of the Big Snow’, 1931

Posted on February 19, 2021 by editor

“(W)hen coaches, players or spectators recall 1931 to their grandchildren, they’ll call it the Tournament of the Big Snow,” Illinois State Journal sports editor Bob Drysdale wrote of the 1931 boys district basketball championships. A blizzard – 14 inches of … Continue reading →

Posted in Disasters, Schools and school districts, Sports and recreation, Uncategorized, Weather | Leave a comment

Carl Vandagrift, baseball player/manager

Posted on December 20, 2020 by editor

Carl Vandagrift, the only Cantrall native to play major-league baseball, played for or managed at least 10 minor-league teams before he died at age 37. Vandagrift’s big-league career amounted to only 43 games in the short-lived Federal League, which challenged … Continue reading →

Posted in Amusements, Sports and recreation | 4 Comments

First hunting license (1903)

Posted on November 21, 2020 by editor

The first hunting license ever issued in Sangamon County went to the father of Illinois’ hunting license law, railroad executive Horace S. Rearden. Illinois had regulated hunting since 1853, when the state made it unlawful “for any person to kill … Continue reading →

Posted in Amusements, Animals, Prominent figures, Sports and recreation | 1 Comment