Lacy S. McDonald manages the Genealogy & Local History Library branch of The Hayner Public Library District in Alton. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Carleton College as well as a master’s degree in Library and Information Science and a Graduate Certificate in Rare Books and Special Collections Librarianship from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
On May 23, 1925, 3-year-old Patricia Helen Jones of 404 Washington Avenue in Alton died after swallowing 10 to 15 pills she thought were candy. The pills were actually a laxative preparation, and according to medical testimony conducted by Coroner W.H. Bauer, each contained a minuscule quantity...
On May 1, 1925, the Cherry Street Baptist Church elected Mrs. Louise Arnold as assistant pastor. She was ordained in the church on Sunday, May 3. Mrs. Arnold did not have the ability to perform marriages but could run the Sunday School, work with church members, and serve as the visiting representative...
On April 26, 1925, Alton’s own Rip Van Winkles baseball team played a game at Sportsmans Park against Negro National League team, the St. Louis Stars (originally the St. Louis Giants). Sportsmans Park was built in the early 1900s on the north side of Broadway, where the Alton Plaza Shopping...
“Billie,” or “Sweet William,” as he was affectionately called by the local schoolchildren, was an Angora goat ram who belonged to Emil Koch of the Koch Brothers Meat Market at 634 E. Broadway in downtown Alton. And Sweet William was a smoker: “the prize cigarette smoke...
ALTON - The first session of the Recreation Institute in Alton (also referred to as the Play Institute) was held Friday evening, March 20, 1925, at the High School gymnasium. Alton Director of Community Recreation John D. MacWherter introduced John A. Martin, recreational specialist, to the assembled...
“On a bright moonlight night in spring time, just as he might have wished it, because Jim Callahan was a very sentimental man, his spirit took flight from the body which had been pain racked for many months.” Poet and newspaperman James T. Callahan Sr. died on April 7, 1925, of jaw...
On March 25, 1925, 5,000 visitors attended the opening of Sessel’s expanded clothing store in their building at Third Street and Piasa Street (219-221 Piasa Street). “The occasion was one of the most notable events of the kind in the business history of Alton.” The celebration...
A March 14, 1925, article in the Alton Evening Telegraph announced that a meeting of Alton sportsmen had been called for the following Tuesday night (March 17) at the Mineral Springs Hotel in order to organize a local chapter of the Izaak Walton League of America. “The Isaac Walton League...
A March 10, 1925, article in the Alton Evening Telegraph titled “Dying Woman Gives Reward to Her Kind Friends” described the contents of the will of Minnie Wells Luly Walters. When she died, Walters willed her property “almost altogether to those who had been kind to her.”...
A March 5, 1925, article in the Alton Evening Telegraph announced that a 1924 graduate of Alton High School, Alonzella Banta, 700 Alby Street, played basketball at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. “Men alone are not the only ones to take advantage of the great indoor game of...
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