Illinois Trivia & Tidbits - Page 2

Looking for Illinois trivia? Try our list Illinois little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

—A four-eared cat named Yoda found fame after his photo was posted on the Internet last year. Ted and Valerie Rock, of Downers Grove (pop. 48,724), adopted the extra-eared cat in 2006 because they felt sorry for the feline and named him after a character in the movie Star Wars.

first appeared: 1/11/2009

—Eureka (pop. 4,871) is home to Eureka College, the alma mater of President Ronald Reagan, a 1932 graduate, and site of the Ronald Reagan Museum. The museum displays more than 3,000 artifacts given to the college by Reagan himself. It’s the largest collection of Reagan memorabilia outside the Reagan Presidential Library in California.

first appeared: 12/29/2008

—“The Liberty Bell of the West” at the Kaskaskia Bell State Historic Site in Kaskaskia (pop. 9) is older than the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. Cast in 1741, the 650-pound bell was a gift to the Catholic Church from King Louis XV of France.

first appeared: 11/30/2008

—For his Saanen dairy goats, which originated in Switzerland and like to climb and be in the shade, Dave Johnson of Shelbyville (pop. 4,971) built a six-level brick tower with steps that spiral around the outside.

first appeared: 11/16/2008

—Established in 1857, Illinois State University in Normal (pop. 45,386) is the oldest public institution of higher learning in the state. Abraham Lincoln drafted the documents that established the school.

first appeared: 11/2/2008

—The nation’s largest Ohio buckeye tree is in Illinois at Hamburger University, McDonald’s corporate headquarters in Oak Brook (pop. 8,702). The champion tree was named to American Forests’ National Register of Big Trees for 2008-2009. A point total is given based on measurements of the tree’s trunk, height and average crown spread.

first appeared: 10/19/2008

—Built as a monument of peace, the Bald Knob Cross near Alto Pass (pop. 388) stands 111 feet tall with arms that stretch 63 feet across and is the highest landmark in Union County. Since 1937, an Easter sunrise service has been held on Bald Knob and inspired the building of the cross, which was completed in 1963.

first appeared: 10/5/2008

—Palestine (pop. 1,366) earned its biblical name from French explorer John LaMotte, who described the region in 1678 as looking like “the land of milk and honey.”

first appeared: 9/21/2008

—The library at Chicago State University has an ironclad rule: No students allowed to browse the pre-1990 stacks, only robots. Books, CDs and DVDs are tagged with radio-frequency identification chips, which a computer system uses to determine which of the floor-to-ceiling bins holds the items. Then they are fetched by a robotic crane.

first appeared: 9/7/2008

—The nation’s first white-cane ordinance was passed in 1930 in Peoria and granted blind pedestrians protections and the right-of-way while carrying a white cane. The Peoria Lions Club painted canes white with distinctive red bands and distributed them to blind residents.

first appeared: 8/24/2008

—A monument in Alton (pop. 30,496) pays tribute to America’s first martyr to freedom of the press, Elijah Parish Lovejoy, an abolitionist and newspaper editor who continued writing and publishing after three printing presses were destroyed. Lovejoy was killed by a pro-slavery mob in 1837.

first appeared: 8/10/2008

—Lincoln (pop. 15,369) is home to the Railsplitter Covered Wagon, the world’s largest covered wagon, measuring 40 feet long and 24 feet tall. Seated on the wagon is a statue of Abraham Lincoln reading a law book. David Bentley of Pawnee (pop. 2,647) built the oak wagon in 2001.

first appeared: 7/27/2008

—A 48-year-old half-eaten sandwich still holds political memories for Steve Jenne of Springfield. In 1960, Jenne was among Boy Scouts who helped guard Vice President Richard Nixon’s picnic table when he campaigned in Sullivan (pop. 4,326). When Nixon left part of the sandwich, Jenne scooped it up with the paper plate and froze it.

first appeared: 7/13/2008

—The state ranks No. 1 in the number of vanity license plates, with nearly 1.3 million of the nation’s 9.3 million personalized tags purchased by Illinois vehicle owners.

first appeared: 6/29/2008

—The first radio broadcast of the Indianapolis 500 was in 1924 by Chicago-based and Chicago Tribune-owned WGN (World’s Greatest Newspaper) Radio, formerly called WDAP Radio.

first appeared: 6/15/2008

—The 1950s Park Forest House Museum in Park Forest (pop. 23,462) is a red brick “townhome” outfitted with 1950s-era furnishings, including a chrome dinette set, hand-crank ice crusher and black rotary telephone. Park Forest was a planned suburb built during the post-World War II boom.

first appeared: 6/1/2008

—At Southport Lanes and Billiards in Chicago, the bowling pins in the four lanes still are set the traditional way—by hand.

first appeared: 5/18/2008

—Opened in 1915, the family-owned Italo-American Accordion Co. in Oak Lawn (pop. 55,245) buys, sells, repairs and restores the squeezable musical instruments. In its heyday, the company manufactured as many as 25 accordions a week.

first appeared: 5/4/2008

—Some of the nation’s most celebrated awards, including the Oscar given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, are manufactured by R.S. Owens & Co. in Chicago, founded in 1938 by Owen Siegel.

first appeared: 3/9/2008

—The largest city on the Illinois River is Peoria with a population of 112,936. The city serves as the seat of Peoria County.

first appeared: 2/24/2008

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