CITY BEAT: SOME REFLECTIONS ON ONE OF DOWNTOWN DECATUR’S FORMER ‘SKYSCRAPERS’

     The tall, ornate building pictured on the front page of this week’s Decatur Tribune is the James Millikin Bank Building in downtown Decatur in a 1907 photo.
     I wasn’t around in 1907, and wouldn’t be born until several decades later, but when I started my publishing business in Decatur in 1964, the Millikin Bank Building was still standing and the financial institution was still operating from the structure.
     In fact, my offices were located in the Standard Office Building, located just across the street from the Millikin Bank Building.
     I was in the that bank building many times, first, as a customer of Millikin Bank, and then as the publisher of the Tribune picking up advertising each week from one of the executives on an upper floor.
     After the Millikin Bank moved from that structure in 1969, Richland Community College (RCC) occupied part of the building as it was just getting started in our community. As editor, I covered some of the events and stories about RCC’s activities.
     The building was demolished in 1980 to make way for a parking lot for First National Bank which occupied the other end of the block on North Water Street.

     One of the items that occupies a space on my office today, nearly 45 years after the building was demolished, is a neatly-cut piece of marble from the interior of the building with an RCC logo on it — presented to me 40 years ago by Professor Larry Klugman of Richland Community College. The paperweight is not only a reminder of the beautiful building that stood in downtown Decatur, but also of the man who presented it to me — RCC’s Larry Klug-man, who passed away several years ago.
     Larry, who often appeared on my television program in the 1980s and early 1990s, to talk about politics, was also heavily-involved in my campaign to be elected Decatur’s mayor.
     I was honored to be one of the speakers at a memorial service for Larry which was held at Richland Community College.

     • SOME of you (maybe most of you) will smirk a little at the headline on the front page of the Tribun about the “skyscrapers” in downtown Decatur — past and present.
     With the “now gone” Millikin Bank Building having seven floors, the Citizens building with twelve floors (the tallest) and all the “skyscraper” buildings downtown with number of floors in single digits, I will admit it is a stretch to call our buildings “skyscrapers” when compared to those in Chicago or New York, and many other major cities in our nation.
     However, for a community that is located in the heart of the prairie, these are Decatur’s “skyscrapers” and the views from the upper floors are great.
     Fourteen years ago, when, because of technology we decided to move the offices of this newspaper from the street location on North Park Street to an office building, I looked at offices on the top floor of the Citizens Building.
     It was a commanding view of the downtown area — but it was almost too high up.
     I settled on the fourth floor of the Millikin Court Building at 132 South Water Street and, for me, with all of our windows facing west, it is a great view of Lincoln Square, Main Street and the west end of Decatur.
     Although I don’t spend a lot of time looking out of my office windows, when I do, I like the view with a combination of sky and landscape.
     This is my “skyscraper” view in Decatur — where people walking below are still recognizable as people and not ants, like the perspective from a building with 50 stories or more!

     • I THINK what I miss most about the disappearance of buildings like the Millikin Bank Building, the Carnegie Library and even the (Stephen) Decatur High School building, is the beautiful architecture that graced those structures.
     While newer buildings are also beautiful, they do not have that “classic” look that brought a certain reverence to their existence.
Maybe that’s just me, but, when I walked up those steps and into the Carnegie Library I felt privileged just to be able to go inside!
     I felt “smarter” because of the environment created by the architecture.

     • NEW FACES — There will be several new faces on the Decatur School Board following the April 1, 2025 election.
There are four seats up for election and only one of four incumbents, Jason Dion, is seeking re-election.
     A total of six candidates are seeking the four seats up for election, which means, at the very least, three of the four positions will be filled by those running for the board for the first time.
     Incumbent Dion is joined in the race by Karen Lauritzen, Tony Albertina, Kevin Hale, Christina Tyus and Devon Martinez Joyner.
     There seems to a constant turnover of school board members in recent elections which reduces the overall number of years of board experience needed in making some of the most important decisions impacting our community.
     While I’m always pleased to see new candidates running for local offices, I’m a little concerned about the constant turnover in board members.
     Ideally, there should be a mixture of experience and fresh ideas and views on public bodies like a school board.
     Three new board members were elected in 2023 and, if the lone incumbent is not re-elected in 2025, we will have no one on the board with more than two years experience in the position.
     In all fairness, two of the incumbents are not seeking re-election because of job changes.

     • FINAL —The Decatur Turkey Tournament is underway this week for its 54th year (page 10) and it marks the end of tournament director Mel Roustio’s 23-year run.
     The community owes a debt of gratitude to Mel for all of his efforts in keeping this tournament going over the years — which was not an easy task.
     While the tournament will continue, Mel certainly has left a major mark on its success for the last 23 years.
     Thank you, Mel, for your dedication to this event and the community.

     • IT’S not only difficult to think of the tournament without Mel deeply involved in it, but our late Sports Editor J. Thomas McNamara loved covering it for the Tribune each of the 46 years that he worked for me.
     In fact, as he was fighting serious health issues three years ago, the turkey tournament was the last sporting event he was able to cover in person for the Trib. He thought a lot of Mel and what he did for the tournament. Tom passed away a few months later in January, 2022.
     So, who covered the tournament, the few years it was in existence before Tom took over?
     I think it was the same guy who is now editor of the Decatur Tribune newspaper. (That was one of many hats I wore back then.)

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