Posts about Agriculture
Tot Tries Tiny Tractor August 1947
Three-year-old Janet Schultze gets comfortable on her father Floyd Schultze’s two-cylinder, nine horsepower tractor. This was no child’...
John Thomas’ new corn crib June 1958
Construction of a corn crib nears completion at the John C. Thomas farm southeast of Bloomington. This crib, with a 5,000 bushel capaci...
4-H Lamb Show June 27, 1951
In late June 1951, the McLean County 4-H market lamb show was held at the Producers Stock Yards, located at East LaFayette Street and t...
Corn farming in McLean County … 800 years ago!
Area farmer Nuel Downs, a lifelong collector of Native American relics, is shown here in mid-July 1972 assisting with an archeological ...
Top hog gets pie January 1947
A.V. Ritchie of Colfax received $225 (or about $2,500 in today’s dollars) for this gilt at a January 22, 1947 Spotted Poland China sale...
WW II Rubber Shortage Shirley Farm, March 1942
Arnold Beatty (left) and Colman Hicks, at the O.V. Douglass farm outside of Shirley, demonstrate patching a worn-out tire after yet ano...
Freitag children, rural Stanford February 1959
Jane and Doug Freitag horse around with a canine friend at their family farm outside of Stanford in Allin Township. They’re standing at...
Grand Champion Poland China ISNU Farm, January 16, 1947
Thelma Thomas and her brother Glenn examine her grand champion gilt at the Illinois State Normal University Farm. In mid-January 1947, ...
Heyworth Area Good Neighbors November 6, 1950
A Corn Belt harvest time tradition involves farmers helping fellow farmers in need. Sixty-six years ago, in early November 1950, friend...
Nation’s Best Corn Huskers November 1939
Into the 1940s, corn was picked not by machine but by hand. Local, state, and national corn husking contests were all the rage in the 1...
Willard and Joel Yordy Heyworth Township, August 1938
Farmer Joel Yordy (right) and his son Willard pose in front of a smartly trimmed Osage orange hedgerow in Heyworth Township during the ...
Grand Champion Gilt McLean County Fair, Aug. 6, 1958
That’s a proud Walter Gottschalk of Danvers at the 1958 McLean County 4-H Club Fair. He’s posing with his grand champion gilt hog, a Sp...
Frank Simpson’s Steers Farmer City, July 1957
Ralph G. Blue (right) and Harold Davis (with clipboard) weigh steers using a scale box. They’re seen here in early July 1957 at Frank S...
‘Golden Gleam’ Grabs Trophy Society Horse Show, Bloomington, 1953
This photo was from the June 20-21, 1953, horse show, held at Fans Field, an old minor league ballpark once located on Bloomington’s so...
Chopping and Blowing Hay Brown Estate, June 1941
Farmers have always been innovators willing to try out new methods and adapt new technologies. Back in June 1941, E.D. Lawrence, who fa...
Society Horse Show Fans Field, Bloomington, 1953
Fans Field, an old minor league ballpark once located on Bloomington’s south side, off Main Street and behind (or east) of the National...
James Moberly Farm Funks Grove Township, May 1936
This photograph was one in a series featured in the May 23, 1936 Pantagraph under the headline “Tractor Power and Tractor Care Growing ...
Bloomington Fire Station No. 2 214 W. Washington St., c. 1883
The south side of the 200 block of West Washington Street is seen here about 1883. That’s the three-story Bloomington Fire Department S...
Randolph from On High Undated Aerial
Central Illinois is dotted with the tiniest of communities that owe their existence to the railroad boom of the nineteenth century. Man...
Improvements Slated for Danvers, 1936
In June 1936, the Danvers Farmers Elevator Association announced plans to upgrade its facilities, a project that included replacement o...
Whoa dude! ‘Hemp for Victory,’ 1942
In late November 1942, during World War II, farm advisers and agriculture officials from Central Illinois gathered in Bloomington to he...
An apple (or bushel) a day … Lilly Orchard, October 1950
In the first half of the 20th century Lilly Orchard, located some sixteen miles west of the Twin Cities, was one of the more popular ar...
Corn Belt Harvest September 1939
In the 76 years since these photographs were taken the Corn Belt countryside has undergone an absolute transformation when it comes to ...
Farm Progress Show Comes to McLean County September 1994
It was arguably the single largest event ever staged in McLean County history. Despite the cancellation of the first day due to muddy f...
Photo of the Week, 129: Reserve Champions Illinois State Fair, August 17, 1949
The Illinois State Fair gets underway today in Springfield and runs through Sunday, August 23. McLean County 4-H youth have an enviab...
McLean County Fairgrounds, 1956
Who remembers the old fairgrounds off Veterans Parkway? Back in 1955, the McLean County Farm Bureau purchased Emile Philip Schandein’s ...
Photo of the Week, 11: Corn Planting, May 1937
This scene shows an unidentified area farmer still making use of an old horse-drawn, two-row planter. Given the wet weather, we won...