[OCT. 24, 2001]  Logan County officials are looking for funds to repair 10.3 miles of Fifth Street and have asked Lincoln Mayor Beth Davis to join them in sending a letter to state and federal legislators who might help get money for the project.

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[Joan Crabb]

[OCT. 24, 2001]  Main Street Lincoln received word this week that the restoration of the Indian mother statue is complete, and she will be returning to Lincoln soon. The statue has been in the hands of David Seagraves at his rural Elizabeth, Ill., studio for the last five months.

Seagraves came highly recommended, having completed several works for the Illinois Capital Development Board. He specializes in small sculptures, architectural carvings and carved furniture. Several of his works have won awards at the International Woodcarver’s Congress, the largest show of its kind in the United States.

Seagraves has been using the latest technology on the Indian mother’s restoration. After smoothing out the "wrinkles" and wear from years of exposure, an Alpha electric water-fed grinder with flexible diamond discs was used to define the contours. The missing hand and water jug were carved and attached, using the intact hand and pictures provided by the Art Institute of Chicago as guides.

"The results are incredible," according to Wendy Bell, Main Street Lincoln program manager. Seagraves included pictures of the statue in her restored condition. Laying one next to a before photo shows a dramatic difference. "He has brought her back to life," said Bell.

The statue was originally sculpted by Charles Mulligan from Tennessee pink marble. Mulligan is best known for his works "Law and Knowledge" and "Justice and Power" that stand outside the Illinois Supreme Court Building, as well as the Illinois Memorial at Vicksburg.

The Indian mother statue was featured at the Illinois State Fair before its placement on the Logan County Courthouse grounds in 1906. The Lincoln Woman’s Club contracted for its creation and gathered the funds to pay for it. Its inscription tells the story "of the people, by the people, for the people."

The statue served as a public drinking fountain, and many locals have stories to tell. Gene Baker, who is laying the bricks for the statue’s plaza, remembers "stopping to drink from the fountain often as a boy." Those good memories are his reason for wanting to be involved with the project. The base of the statue also had small pools carved out, where excess water would go and provide drinks for pets that needed refreshment.

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It is believed that, unfortunately, using the statue as a fountain contributed to her demise and the loss of her hand and water jug in the 1940s. No one seems to know where they went, but the Indian mother has had only one hand for more than half a century.

Burnetta DePuy from the Lincoln’s Woman Club took the statue on as a club project more than a decade ago. DePuy partnered with Main Street Lincoln about six years ago.

Since then the restoration has proceeded in slow increments due to lack of photos to go by, lack of materials and lack of funds. After other issues had been resolved, a concerted fund drive began about a year ago.

When the statue returns Thursday afternoon, Oct. 25, she will be placed on the south side of the Logan County Courthouse on a new concrete pad with footings below the frost line. The pad, poured by Mark Gates, is the initial stage in a larger plaza that will include memorial bricks, benches, a plaque telling the story and landscaping. That part will be finished in the spring.

Those who wish to contribute to the project may still purchase bricks through Christmas. They are $25 each, and forms are available at the Main Street Lincoln office, 303 S. Kickapoo, or by calling 732-2929.

The Indian mother’s rededication will take place on Friday, Oct. 26, at 4 p.m., exactly 95 years to the day that she was originally dedicated. The ceremony will be at the statue site or, in case of rain, inside the courthouse.

The rededication is closely following the original ceremony, with a presentation speech by County Board Chairman Dick Logan and the singing of "America" by the Lincoln Community High School choir. Tim McCormick, nephew of the late Judge Donald McCormick, will give a portion of his uncle’s original acceptance speech.

The public is encouraged to attend. A reception in the courthouse rotunda will follow, hosted by the Lincoln Woman’s Club and assisted by the Junior Woman’s Club.

[News release]

Today’s history

Compiled by Dave Francis

296th day of the year

"You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun." — Al Capone (1899-1947)

"Wanted: Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over 18. Must be expert riders willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred. Wages $25 per week." — Pony Express advertisement (1860)

1788 — Sarah Josepha Hale, author ("Mary Had a Little Lamb")

1911 — Clarence M. Kelley, FBI head

1926 — Y.A. Tittle, AAFC-NFL quarterback (Baltimore, San Francisco, N.Y. Giants, MVP 1963)

1930 — Big Bopper [J.P. Richardson], Sabine Pass, Texas, vocalist ("Chantilly Lace")

1948 — Kweisi Mfume, U.S. representative, D-Md., and CEO of the NAACP

1960 — Ian Baker-Finch, Nambour, Queensland, PGA golfer (1991 British Open)

1648 — Treaty of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years War and Holy Roman Empire

1861 — First transcontinental telegram sent, ending Pony Express

1881 — Levi P. Morton, U.S. ambassador to France, drives first rivet in Statue of Liberty

1882 — Dr. Robert Koch discovers germ that causes tuberculosis

1904 — First New York subway opens

1929 — "Black Thursday," start of stock market crash, Dow Jones down 12.8 percent

1931 — Gangster Al Capone is sentenced to 11 years for tax evasion

1957 — Christian Dior, French designer (New Look), dies at 52 in Italy

1962 — In Cuban missile crisis, the U.S. blockade of Cuba begins

1972 — Jackie Robinson, first black baseball player (Brooklyn Dodgers), dies at 53

1973 — Yom Kippur War ends; Israel 65 miles from Cairo, 26 miles from Damascus

1989 — Rev. Jim Bakker is sentenced to 50 years for fraud

1991 — Gene Roddenberry, creator of "Star Trek," dies of cardiac arrest at 70

1996 — Last game at Atlanta County Fulton Stadium. Yanks win record eighth-straight postseason game.

Today’s history

Compiled by Dave Francis

Tuesday, Oct. 23

295th day of the year

Quotes

"Never continue in a job you don’t enjoy. If you’re happy in what you’re doing, you’ll like yourself, you’ll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined." — Johnny Carson

"A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." — Joseph Stalin

1905 — Felix Bloch, U.S. physicist (Nobel, 1952)

1925 — Johnny Carson, Corning, Iowa, comedian ("The Tonight Show," "Who Do You Trust?")

1935 — Chi Chi Rodriguez, golfer (PGA Seniors, 1987)

1956 — Dwight Yoakam, country singer ("If There Was a Way")

1959 — "Weird Al" Yankovic, parody singer ("Eat It," "UHF," "Naked Gun")

1962 — Doug Flute, WFL-NFL quarterback (Generals, Bears, Patriots)

1939 — Zane Grey, U.S. Western writer ("The Spirit of the Border"), dies at 67

1941 — Walt Disney’s "Dumbo" released

1942 — During World War II, Britain launches major offensive at El Alamein, Egypt

1944 — Soviet army invades Hungary

1945 — Jackie Robinson signs Montreal Royal contract

1950 — Al Jolson [Asa Yoelson], singer and actor ("The Jazz Singer"), dies at 64

1983 — Suicide terrorist truck bomb kills 243 U.S. personnel in Beirut

[OCT. 22, 2001]  The city of Lincoln’s Historic Homes and Buildings Committee had its regular meeting on Monday, Oct. 15, in the office of Mayor Beth Davis.

The committee finalized plans for two workshops designed to educate participants on sources of information available for research of properties in Lincoln. "Follow the Information Trail" will be presented at the Lincoln Public Library on Jan. 8, 2002, from 6:30 to 8 p.m.; a repeat of the workshop will be at the library on Jan. 15 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The committee continues to develop a list of criteria for identifying homes and buildings of historic, architectural and cultural significance.

The next meeting of the committee is at 5 p.m. Nov. 19 at City Hall.

[News release]

Today’s history

Compiled by Dave Francis

Monday, Oct. 22

294th day of the year

"Tune in, turn on, drop out." — Dr. Timothy Leary

"Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names." — John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Birthdays

1810 — Henry Bohlen, brigadier general (Union volunteers), died in 1862

1887 — John Reed, journalist who reported on Mexican, Russian revolutions

1920 — Timothy Leary, Harvard professor, LSD taker

Events

1721 — Czar Peter the Great becomes "All-Russian Emperor"

1746 — Princeton University (N.J.) received its charter

1836 — Sam Houston inaugurated as first elected president of Republic of Texas

1934 — Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd shot dead by FBI in Ohio

1938 — First Xerox copy made

1962 — JFK addresses TV about Russian missile bases in Cuba

1962 — JFK imposes naval blockade on Cuba, beginning missile crisis

1981 — U.S. national debt tops $1 trillion

[OCT. 20, 2001]  State Rep. Jonathan Wright, Republican, of the 90th District of Illinois was the guest speaker at this month’s meeting of the Logan County Genealogical and Historical Society, held Monday at their storefront on Chicago Street in Lincoln.

Phyllis Bryson presided over the meeting, and Dorothy Gleason introduced Rep. Wright.

Wright began by briefly telling about his wife, his three daughters and his parents. His father is a retired history teacher, and his mother, who is very interested in genealogy, traced his family back to the American Revolution.

His topic for the evening was the events of Sept. 11, as he said that he did not feel that any speech given now could cover anything else. However, he took a different approach, a challenge.

"I think the challenge is yet before us as a country how it will change us. No question, it will change us. No question, things will be different. But it still lies within our control how we will be changed. We can be changed for the better; we can be changed for the worse. And that decision is not Osama bin Laden’s. That decision is not the decision of the al Qaeda. That decision is not the decision of the Taliban government in Afghanistan. That’s the decision that the American people as a nation have to make."

He then went on to describe how America has already changed. America is different now because we are in a war that is unlike any other war we have ever been in, with different battlefields and different tactics. We are attacking the enemy by freezing their assets, by taking away possible recruits because of the aid we are sending to the civilians in Afghanistan, and by bombing their bases.

"Yes," he said, "there are civilian casualties…But we’d better make sure that we understand that it’s not the fault of the United States of America. We didn’t drive a plane into the World Trade Center. And we didn’t hide the terrorists who did it." And he went on to say that it was those acts that caused this war, and all wars have civilian casualties. And this is a war that could continue for a long time.

Another change he spoke of was a change in our national security. He mentioned the new security measures in airports and how they may extend soon to other forms of mass transportation. He explained the concept of "racial profiling," which he described as not merely stopping someone because of their race ("That’s discrimination"), but combining certain "red flags" with their race gives a person enough reason to investigate further. He told the historical society of a law being discussed that would lessen the restrictions on wiretapping, expanding the time allowed and allowing taps to extend to multiple phones. He also said that there are changes in the economy, including more money spent on national security.

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The third change he addressed was a change in the priorities of the American people. The society is returning to the basic priorities left behind, "love of God, love of family, love of country." People now, instead of spending all of their time in selfish pursuits, are concentrating on what is truly important in life. He made it very clear that this is one way in which the change in American can be positive.

The last change he spoke of was fear. "The greatest battle we have before us is not Afghanistan. It’s not the Taliban government. It’s battling our own fear," he said. The terrorists want us to be afraid. But we cannot be crippled by it.

"The reason we’re battling with fear in this country is because we are looking to ourselves and our own strength for security." No person can guarantee complete safety.

He quoted from Abraham Lincoln’s "Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day" on March 30, 1863:

"We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!"

He said that our greatest challenge is to remember that everything we have as a nation comes from God. "Will we succumb to fear, or will we rise to it…to prove ourselves to be the great nation that I know we are?"

[Gina Sennett]

Today's history

Compiled by Dave Francis

Saturday, Oct. 20

292nd day of the year

"I still lack to a considerable degree that naturally superior kind of manner that I would dearly like to possess." — Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945)

"There’s a sucker born every minute." — P.T. Barnum (1810-1891)

1820 — Benjamin Franklin Cheatham, major general (Confederate Army)

1820 — George Jerrison Stannard, brigadier general of volunteers (Union Army)

1822 — Mansfield Lovell, major general (Confederate Army), died in 1884

1900 — Heinrich Himmler, head of Gestapo

1925 — Art Buchwald, Mount Vernon, N.Y., columnist and author ("Have I Ever Lied to You")

1930 — "Grandpa" Louis M. Jones, Niagara, Ky., country singer and banjoist ("Hee Haw")

1931 — Mickey Mantle, N.Y. Yankee, home run slugger (1956 Triple Crown)

1946 — Connie Chung, Washington, D.C., news anchor (NBC, CBS)

1097 — First Crusaders arrive in Antioch

1803 — U.S. Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase

1864 — Lincoln formally establishes Thanksgiving as a national holiday

1873 — P.T. Barnum Hippodrome featuring "Greatest Show on Earth," opens (New York City)

1944 — U.S. forces under Gen. Douglas MacArthur return to the Philippines

1964 — Herbert Hoover, 31st president of U.S., dies in New York at 90

1968 — Jacqueline Kennedy marries Aristotle Onassis

1983 — IBM-PC DOS Version 2.1 released

Sunday, Oct. 21

293rd day of the year

"I should arise and prepare myself and slay my enemies with their own weapons." — Nat Turner

"Cause the registration of all firearms on some pretext, with the view of confiscating them and leaving the population defenseless." — Vladimir Ilich Lenin

1833 — Alfred Bernhard Nobel, Stockholm, created dynamite and Nobel Peace Prizes

1928 — Edward "Whitey" Ford, Hall of Fame pitcher (N.Y. Yankees)

1949 — Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister

2137 B.C. — First recorded total eclipse of the sun, China

1797 — U.S. Navy frigate Constitution, "Old Ironsides," launched in Boston

1805 — Adm. Horatio Nelson dies in the Battle of Trafalgar

1831 — Nat Turner and associates die by hanging

1879 — Thomas Edison perfects the carbonized cotton filament light bulb

1916 — U.S. Army forms Reserve Officers Training Corps

1917 — First Americans see action on front lines of World War I

1917 — Communist Revolution led by Vladimir Lenin gains control of Russian capital

1975 — Mexico City’s first major subway accident takes 26 lives

1975 — Red Sox Carlton Fisk’s 12th-inning home run beats Reds 7-6 in Game 6 of World Series

1977 — Ronnie Van Zant, singer (Lynyrd Skynyrd Band), killed in plane crash

1977 — Stevie Gaines, guitarist (Lynyrd Skynyrd Band), killed in plane crash

[OCT. 19, 2001]  The city of Lincoln is on a sound fiscal course, City Treasurer Lester Plotner told the City Council members at a recent meeting, after presenting the aldermen with a detailed report for the fiscal year ending April 30, 2001.

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[Joan Crabb]

[OCT. 19, 2001]  A fund-raising effort that began with a moving ceremony on the courthouse lawn ended with an equally moving ceremony in the third-floor courtroom Thursday evening, when about 250 Logan County firefighters, paramedics and police officers saw the unveiling of a check for the families of their New York City "brothers and sisters" who died in the World Trade Center tragedy.

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[Joan Crabb]

[OCT. 18, 2001]  The first set of bids for the new Central School construction will be opened on Nov. 20, and the District 27 board will have a special meeting Nov. 21 to accept the low bids.

Additional Title I grant funds received

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District may ‘lend’ outdated computers

District costs, salaries below state average

Students meet state average on ISAT tests

[Joan Crabb]

As promised, the United States led an attack on Afghanistan. The attack began Sunday, Oct. 7. American and British military forces made 30 hits on air defenses, military airfields and terrorist training camps, destroying aircraft and radar systems. The strike was made targeting only terrorists.

More than 40 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East have pledged their cooperation and support the U.S. initiative.

Online news links

Other countries

Afghanistan

http://www.afghandaily.com/ 

http://www.myafghan.com/  

http://www.afghan-web.com/aop/ 

China

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/

http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/

Germany

http://www.faz.com/

India

http://www.dailypioneer.com/ 

http://www.hindustantimes.com/ 

http://www.timesofindia.com/ 

Israel

http://www.jpost.com/ 

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/ 

England

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/ 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/ 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/

Pakistan

http://www.dawn.com/

http://frontierpost.com.pk/ 

Russia

http://english.pravda.ru/

http://www.sptimesrussia.com/ 

Saudi Arabia

http://www.arabnews.com/ 

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United States

Illinois

http://www.suntimes.com/index/ 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/ 

http://www.pantagraph.com/ 

http://www.qconline.com/ 

http://www.pjstar.com/

http://www.sj-r.com/ 

http://www.herald-review.com/

http://www.southernillinoisan.com/ 

New York

http://www.nypost.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/

Stars and Stripes
(serving the U.S. military community)

http://www.estripes.com/ 

Washington, D.C.

Announcements

[OCT. 12, 2001]  The city landfill on Broadwell Drive will be open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. for leaf and brush disposal, beginning on Oct. 15, according to Donnie Osborne, street superintendent. Plans are to keep the new schedule in place until Dec. 15, he said. 

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