Downtown Lincoln, Illinois

While there is the typical suburban sprawl on the edge of Lincoln, I was impressed by the overall strength and health of the downtown area of the city. There is little loss of the street wall around the courthouse square, and there is even a little theater district! There are two restored theaters, and rather…

North Union Street and Environs, Lincoln, Illinois

Union Street forms the boundary between the two major street grids of Lincoln; to the east is the diagonal street grid which is oriented to the major train line that stretches between St. Louis and Chicago, and to the west is a street grid which is oriented to the cardinal directions. Union Street is oriented…

Royale Orleans

Either you’ve experienced the St. Louis tradition of the Royale Orleans and its mostaccioli, or you haven’t. Perhaps you’ve even been there numerous times over the decades. One time after a wedding the caterer told us we could take the ice sculpture off the banquet table. That was a really dumb idea and we ended…

Union Illinois Traction Railroad Depot

I’ve written before about the Illinois Terminal or Traction Railroad, which was an electric-powered line that snaked its way around the the Midwest, with St. Louis being a major hub from its underground station at the northeast corner of Washington and Tucker. I featured the well-preserved and occupied station at Mackinaw, Illinois back in September…

Southwest Garden, Part Three

Many of the east-west streets have the same names of their counterparts on the other side of the Botanical Garden in Shaw. This is Flad Avenue, I believe, which is a mix of two- and four-family apartments. I do not know what happened to the building above; there was some sort of fire, obviously. The…

East Peoria

I could probably convince a lot of people that the photo above was taken “at the bottom of the hill” in St. Clair County, where the bluffs come down to the floodplains that stretch to the Mississippi. But this is actually East Peoria, where the bluffs and floodplains are on the east side of the…

Two Apartment Buildings, Cabanne and Hamilton Avenues

Meanwhile, there are two well-maintained apartment buildings on Cabanne and Hamilton avenues. The first one is just to the west and adjacent to the second one yesterday. Designed in a sort of Spanish Revival style, it is in great condition and occupied. There appears to have once been a garage underneath, like many of these…

Wells-Goodfellow, Spring 2021

Update: I went back in the fall of 2021 and January of 2023 (last four photos). I took a look around Wells-Goodfellow to see how things were doing. I had been back in 2018 to revisit places I had seen in the past, and things were looking much the same as when I had looked at…