Postcards of the day: scenes from Monmouth, Illinois, 100+ years ago

Here's a little visual history, for the local crowd. This is the place where I spent my formative years, the place I consider my hometown. In some ways, it's changed a lot, and in more important ways, it's still the same small community.

Looking down East Broadway, toward the sunrise. I live somewhere down this road and then a couple of blocks to one side, and have done so in every one of the places I've occupied over the years. The half of town east of Main Street is where I roamed, most of my free time. The buildings on the near right are still there, as is the Presbyterian Church (the steeple you can see behind the trees, on the left side of the street). But almost everything else here is changed, since this postcard was mailed in 1912.

East Broadway

During the non-free hours, the majority of my time was spent, as they say, in scholarly pursuits… at, among other places, the "New High School" (postmarked 1911).

By the time I got there, it wasn't new any more, though. They'd expanded, added a big ol' gymnasium along one side of the building long ago, a library, and, several decades later, another "all-purpose room" in which we had half our gym classes (and served as a modest cafeteria, among other things) and then right after I graduated, they did a massive renovation project and stirred up lots of dust and asbestos. Beyond that, I admit to knowing nothing. As I was not particularly happy in my youth, it's better, I think, to let most of those associations vanish from my memories.

New High School

The most recent substantial adjustment was to the entire school district, as it joined with a near neighboring community in our county, became Monmouth-Roseville High School, and still has some extraordinarily gifted students attending there.

Another shift: The National Bank of Monmouth underwent a series of changes after this (1919 postmark) card was published and sent. Around the time of my return to town after too long away, the bank had moved on (to phrase it kindly), and City Hall settled in. The interior is still a grand space, though, in which to attend to bureaucratic concerns.

National Bank

The town, too, is a pretty grand space, all things considered. The roads need repairs, the infrastructure in general hasn't been much seen to since before I was born, but businesses are still functioning, the parks are still free and the people are still family. 

 You can't really ask for better than that.