Illinois Trivia (Chicago, Peoria, Springfield: 2014, home, promotional)

[linicx]

I think trivia falls in four categories: Historical, Informational, Fun, or Useless. In any case I don't believe everyone is aware of everything. Feel free to add to the list

In 2011 Batavia, IL was voted as one of 100 Best Places to live in America.

Scientists in an abandoned mine SE of Danville recovered evidence of very ancient plant growth.

The Cify of Lacon, IL spans the Illinois River and is located in Stark and Marshall Counties.

The airport at Peoria has the longest runway in the state outside of Chicago. Peoria is the only port city in central Illinois which is also a "port of entry" that is served by large wide-bodied cargo planes.

The largest Inland Wetlands Refuge in America is located in Fulton and Mason Counties.

One of the two oldest zoological parks in Illinois is Miller Park at Bloomington. The other is Lincoln Park. The designation was based on population.

[sunnyandcloudydays]

Illininois geographical center is located in Logan County, IL

28 Miles NE of Springfield, IL


Nickname Prarie state - Algonquin for "Tribe of superior men"
Peoria is the oldest Community in the state.

The word Illinois is translated from the Indian word "iliniwok", meaning "warriors".

[Granny Sue]

BRAILLE TYPEWRITER
The Hall Braille typewriter (also called a Braillewriter or Brailler) was invented in 1892 by Frank Haven Hall. Hall was the Superintendent of the Illinois Institution for the Blind. The Hall Braille typewriter was manufactured by the Harrison & Seifried company in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Hall introduced his invention on May 27, 1892, at Jacksonville, Illinois. It types letters as raised Braille dots onto paper

[Drover]

According to popular Beatles lore, Washington DC radio station WWDC was the first American radio station to broadcast a Beatles song “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in December 1963. In truth, the first documented American broadcast of the Beatles occurred in February 1963 by WLS in Chicago when Dick Biondi spun “Please Please Me.” The Beatles had just started their meteoric rise in Britain, but EMI Records’ U.S. arm had refused to carry them here. So the EMI struck a deal with Chicago-based Vee-Jay Records to distribute Beatles singles in the U.S. WLS was doing their best to support a local record company, but it would come to naught – audience reception was lukewarm and WLS quietly dropped “Please Please Me” from its rotation.

But the Illinois/Beatles connection hardly ends there. The Beatles finally broke big in the U.S. in early 1964 thanks to aggressive promotional support by WINS in New York and the aforementioned WWDC in Washington, and of course their fateful appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. But by that time, another Illinois radio station had already been playing a handful Beatles tunes in its rotation for 8 months. Not only that, but this station was the first U.S. media outlet to interview a Beatle. But it was neither WLS nor its main rival WJJD that landed the honor; nor was it a connected industry insider or a big-name journalist or influential pop-culture mogul in a major media market. Rather, it was 17-year old deejay Marcia Shafer, whose father owned a small-time radio station in the small downstate town of West Frankfort.

So how did a 17-year-old girl in rural Illinois scoop Walter Cronkite, Jack Paar, and Ed Sullivan? The answer lies with a woman named Lou Caldwell. Lou lived just down the highway from West Frankfort in the neighboring town of Benton. Scottish mining engineer Gordon Caldwell had come to Benton by way of Canada to help manage downstate coal mining operations. Gordon’s wife Lou was an English woman whose maiden name was….

…. Harrison. In a modest home in an unassuming town in downstate Illinois, Louise Harrison Caldwell was living an erstwhile anonymous life that wouldn’t stay anonymous for much longer. For soon the whole world would become acquainted with four lads from her home country, her brother George among the four. While the Beatles had hit it big in Britain and other parts of Europe (particularly Germany) by 1963, they were still virtually unknown in America. George and Lou’s mom had mailed Lou the latest Beatles single from England. Lou was anxious to get any exposure she could for her brother’s band, so she took the record to the radio station in neighboring West Frankfort and asked if they would play it.

The manager at WFRX, AM 1300, wasn’t too interested. But his teenage daughter had her own Saturday morning rock & roll program and she was keen to have new material for her program rotation. And in June of 1963, Marcia Shafer put one Lou Caldwell’s records on the turntable and quietly made history when “From Me To You” and its B-side “Ask Me Why” were broadcast in America for the first time on a 1,000-watt AM signal across a tiny, sparsely populated swath of America’s heartland.

Shafer’s brush with history would become more intriguing in September 1963 when the Beatles, exhausted from a non-stop schedule of recording, touring and promotion, took a much-needed break. Paul and John used their downtime to visit Paris with Beatle manager Brian Epstein. Ringo hit the sun and beaches of Greece. But George, anxious for the solitude and anonymity he could no longer find in much of Europe, decided to visit his sister in Benton Illinois.

While he was there, Lou brought George over to the radio station to meet Marcia. After the initial meeting, George agreed to speak with Marcia on the air about the success of his band in Britain and their dreams of cracking the U.S. market. George presented Marcia with a signed copy of “She Loves You” and again she was the first to broadcast it in America, one day before its official and unsuccessful U.S. release on the tiny Philadelphia-based Swan label. (EMI’s U.S. arm, Capitol Records, would later re-release it with much better results once the label finally agreed to carry and properly promote the Beatles’ catalog.)

All told, George would spend two weeks unwinding in southern Illinois. While there he sat in on two sets with a local band called The Four Vests: one at the Bocce Ball Club in Benton and another at the VFW in Eldarado. He became particularly enamored of the guitar he was lent by the band's guitarist. George offered to buy it, but the band member could not bring himself to part with it. So George set off on a mission find his own, a mission that was ultimately successful. For the next several years George would be seen with a souvenir from this nearly forgotten piece of Beatle history, posing and playing onstage all over the world with his custom-finished white and ebony Rickenbacker dual-pickup electric guitar purchased at a music shop in Mount Vernon Illinois.

And now you know…. the rest of the story.

[linicx]

Drover, you did an outstanding job! So here's a little something to add to it.

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/rft...e_harrison.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles
http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1...0.beatles.html
http://www.beatlesinterviews.org
Look for this date: Wednesday March 18, 2009 : http://onthebluehighway.blogspot.com
http://beatles.wikia.com/wiki/Yesterday

[Granny Sue]

The ice cream "sundae" was named in Evanston. The piety of the town resented the dissipating influences of the soda fountain on Sunday and the good town fathers, yielding to this churchly influence, passed an ordinance prohibiting the retailing of ice cream sodas on Sunday. Ingenious confectioners and drug store operators obeying the law, served ice cream with the syrup of your choice without the soda. Objections then was made to christening a dish after the Sabbath. So the spelling of "sunday" was changed. It became an established dish and an established word and finally the "sundae".


The Chicago River is known as the river that flows backward because it flowed into Lake Michigan until 1900, when engineers reversed the flow by completing the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. The river now flows from the lake. The flow of the Chicago River was reversed to control the waste waters entering Lake Michigan.

And back when I was a wee lass, I delievered papers to Richard Pryor's grandmother in Peoria and to Ken Norton(boxer) in Jacksonville.

The "Leader of the Band"-Dan Fogelberg's father, Lawrence P. Fogelberg, was my band director.

[sunnyandcloudydays]

Originally Posted by Granny Sue

The ice cream "sundae" was named in Evanston. The piety of the town resented the dissipating influences of the soda fountain on Sunday and the good town fathers, yielding to this churchly influence, passed an ordinance prohibiting the retailing of ice cream sodas on Sunday. Ingenious confectioners and drug store operators obeying the law, served ice cream with the syrup of your choice without the soda. Objections then was made to christening a dish after the Sabbath. So the spelling of "sunday" was changed. It became an established dish and an established word and finally the "sundae".


The Chicago River is known as the river that flows backward because it flowed into Lake Michigan until 1900, when engineers reversed the flow by completing the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. The river now flows from the lake. The flow of the Chicago River was reversed to control the waste waters entering Lake Michigan.

And back when I was a wee lass, I delievered papers to Richard Pryor's grandmother in Peoria and to Ken Norton(boxer) in Jacksonville.

The "Leader of the Band"-Dan Fogelberg's father, Lawrence P. Fogelberg, was my band director.

Interesting GrannySue, That is something to tell people (fogelberg)

[Drover]

Originally Posted by Drover

. . . George set off on a mission find his own [Rickenbacker guitar], a mission that was ultimately successful. For the next several years George would be seen with a souvenir from this nearly forgotten piece of Beatle history, posing and playing onstage all over the world with his custom-finished white and ebony Rickenbacker dual-pickup electric guitar purchased at a music shop in Mount Vernon Illinois.

And now you know…. the rest of the story.

That guitar will be going up for auction next weekend, expected to fetch around half a million:

Guitar bought by Beatle at discount in Illinois could fetch $600K at auction - chicagotribune.com

[karlsch]

Originally Posted by Drover

According to popular Beatles lore, Washington DC radio station WWDC was the first American radio station to broadcast a Beatles song “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in December 1963. In truth, the first documented American broadcast of the Beatles occurred in February 1963 by WLS in Chicago when Dick Biondi spun “Please Please Me.” .................

First Beatles Broadcast? Dick Biondi Show ,WLS Chicago Feb. 1963 - YouTube

However, my favorite DJ back in the day was Larry Lujack.

[MPowering1]

Fun thread! I could have sworn though that WLS's biggest competition was WCFL and not WJJD. The mind does go, though.

Mercy Hospital was the first hospital in Illinois.
Abraham Lincoln's first government job was as Postmaster in New Salem, IL.
Ahlgrim's Funeral Home in Palatine contains a miniature golf course in the basement.
Before the state capital was Springfield, it was held in two different cities - Kaskaskia and Vandalia.