Postmark Peoria: Recent Episodes
Steve Tarter
An occasional series on WCBU looking back at the stories and people who brought Greater Peoria to where it is today. Postmark Peoria is a co-production of WCBU, Steve Tarter and Mike Sabol.
While familiar faces were common on Peoria TV stations, media talent would flow through this market—not just at 25 but on other local TV stations.
In 1910 the Young Buffalo troupe staged not one but two parades in Peoria to mark the start of a string of performances. A torchlight street parade was followed by a parade the following morning.
Dr. Richard Olson is a Peoria chiropractor who’s also a pulp magazine fan. Olson has written several books involving Nick Stihl, Private Investigator.
William Engelbrecht says that Elmwood native Nelson Dean Jay may be the best-kept secret in central Illinois.
John Leezer has been selling insurance since 1982 when he joined his father’s independent insurance agency in Toulon, the Stark County town some 40 miles northwest of Peoria.
Goodwill Industries of Central Illinois has seen remarkable growth in recent years. Don Johnson, the organization’s CEO since 2016, says the reason for that is convenience.
Friedan became one of the leaders of the women’s movement, a cause she fought for throughout her life. Friedan died in 2006 at the age of 85.
It doesn't matter if you lived on a farm or not, if you’ve lived in central Illinois for any length of time, you’re probably familiar with Colleen Callahan.
Erik Reader has a thing about downtowns. It doesn’t matter if they’re small or mid-sized or if they’re on a river or surrounded by cornfields, Reader wants to see them get ahead.
Jackie Luebcke can recall her first day on the job at WTVP-TV Channel 47, Peoria’s public television outlet.
As executive director of the Macomb Convention & Visitors Bureau, Hedblade wants to alert the public about the attractions and advantages of a section of the state that, in the past, felt neglected.
Steve Gossard will tell you that Illinois is a circus state. The former curator of special collections—including circus collections—at Milner Library at Illinois State University in Normal has made it his business to research the state’s rich circus history.
What do you do to energize students who might be disenchanted with their rural surroundings? If you’re Joe Brewer, a history teacher at Cuba High School, you develop a website with students to celebrate the accomplishments, past and present, of western Illinois.
Demarkius Medley, 37 lives in Galesburg with his wife and four children, hoping to succeed as an African American farmer despite growing up in the inner city with virtually no experience in the field.
As executive director of the Everett Dirksen Congressional Center in Pekin, Tiffany White believes more people not only need to know more about the center but how government works in the United States.
Downtown Peoria isn’t as lively as it used to be. That’s probably an understatement even for downtown boosters.
Jan Crandell Powers never knew her father, Leonard Crandell, a bomber pilot during WWII, killed in March 1945 over Germany.
Ken Zurski’s new book, “Unremembered 2,” continues the author’s fascination with once-famous individuals who no longer find themselves in the limelight.
If you’re looking for information about the early days of television in central Illinois such as shows like the “Capt. Jinks Show” that entertained Peoria-area children in the 50s, there aren’t many places to turn.
Taylor Pensoneau may not live in Peoria but he likes talking about the town’s past, specifically that period in the 1930s and 1940s when the notorious Shelton Brothers were present.
Ken Gerber retired from Caterpillar Inc. in 1990 after working for the company for 36 years but that didn’t end his time with the firm.
There have been dozens of notable businesses to operate on Peoria’s Main Street over the years but perhaps none as distinctive—or dedicated—as the Costume Trunk.
Describing it as “a wild, collaborative effort,” journalist Bill Knight recently recalled the publication of “Naked Came the Farmer” 25 years ago.
Kevin Harlan may have left his beat as general manager of Peoria’s WMBD-TV Channel 31 but he’s still keeping the beat.
What if Charles Lindbergh had completed the first solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in 1927 in a plane labeled the Spirit of Peoria instead of the Spirit of St. Louis?
Some of the changes wrought by the pandemic—remote work, online classes and entertainment streams—are probably here to stay, said Paul Gullifor, a professor of communications at Bradley University for the past 34 years.
When Lydia Moss Bradley started Bradley Polytechnic Institute in 1896, she enlisted the help of one of the nation’s leading educators in William Rainey Harper.
Like other multinational corporations, Caterpillar Inc. maintains an extensive archive of records and materials that date back to the years before the company was formed in 1925.
James Agbara Bryson is coming off a banner year in 2021 when more people heard about his illustrious ancestor.
R.G. LeTourneau was persuaded to come to Peoria in 1935 by the Caterpillar Tractor Co. because he had developed an attachment that moved the blade on the Caterpillar bulldozer.
An annual display of Peoria history is hot off the presses. The 2022 CityLink historical calendar is now available.
Six months after taking over as executive director of the Peoria Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, J.D. Dalfonso watched the central Illinois hospitality industry shut down, just as it did across the country and around the world.
When Monica Vest Wheeler was let go by the Observer, a Peoria weekly, in 1992, she said that “It turned out that it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
If you take a cruise on the Spirit of Peoria riverboat you’ll hear a recording provided by Brian “Fox” Ellis with background on the Illinois River.
Frederick Douglass, the renowned reformer, writer and orator, was well known in 1870. The former slave was probably the most famous African American of his time and on a cold February morning that year, he found himself in Peoria.