City Beat

        The photo on the front page of this week’s Decatur Tribune shows the first steamer of the Decatur Fire Department in the 100 block of West Main in the downtown area. While I find such photos of our city’s history involving early equipment of our fire and police departments interesting, often I’m even more…

     As this week’s “Scrapbook” (pages 4 and 5 of print and online editions) points out, it’s been over a century since the biggest attraction in Decatur was Billy Sunday and his “fight with the devil” on West Eldorado Street.      Thousands gathered to hear Sunday preach a fiery brand of Gospel to the people of Decatur…

     UPDATE ON TRIBUNE WEBSITE RESTORATION — Work is still going on rebuilding all aspects of this website since hackers took it down, along with several other weekly newspapers, on Tuesday.  It is a slow process restoring everything but this site is being rebuilt to make it “hacker-resistent”.  We don’t want to go through everything…

      THIS WEEK’S Scrapbook (pages 4 and 5 of the print and online editions) focuses on the stop in Decatur by President William Howard Taft on Feb. 11, 1911.      Obviously, that was way before my time (honest), and the time of our readers, but I am old enough to remember several presidents, presidential candidates and their…

       • IF THIS week’s “Scrapbook” article about Carl Watson, “The Tamale Man”, on pages 4 and 5 of the print and online editions, looks familiar, every three or four years, by popular request (including my own), I dig out the copy and photos and publish it all over again!      Just like “The Three Little…

     I’ve compiled and written over 2,000 “Scrapbook” features for this newspaper over the last half century-plus and I have more than a few of them that are my favorites. This week’s “Scrapbook” on pages 4 and 5 of the print and online editions, about the Overstake sisters, the “Three Little Maids” is certainly high on…

     Monday evening, the Decatur City Council voted its approval to bring back Tim Gleason as the next city manager.      Mayor Julie Moore Wolfe announced the council’s intention to hire Gleason at a press conference Thursday and initial reaction before the announcement was made, and after the press conference, was positive.      Replacing a city manager is…

     • OFFICIAL MACON COUNTY Historian Mark W. Sorensen has a very interesting feature in this week’s “Scrapbook” on pages 4 and 5 of the print and online editions, about Sculptor Ida McClelland Stout who grew up on Decatur’s near west side.      Some of her work, such as “Goose Girl” pictured at left of this column,…

       By the time you read this column, Tuesday’s General Primary Election will be over and vote totals, along with the percentage of registered voters in Macon County who voted, will be known.      We know that Regan Deering overwhelmed longtime McLean County Board member Chuck Erickson in the Republican primary for the 88th Illinois…