Beardstown: I've Never Really Been But I'd Sure Like to Go

VITAL STATS:

Beardstown, IL

Population: 6123 (as of 2010)

Area: 3.5 square miles (0.1 square miles water, 0.00000001 square miles beards)

County: Cass

Cast Members: Doctor Doctorman, Your Intrepid Blogger

Visited On: July 16, 2011

Hey all you Illinois small town enthusiasts! After weeks, neigh, minutes of preparing, I, Doctor Doctorman, am finally ready to reveal and report on the goings-on of rural Illinois. Your Intrepid Blogger has been doing a fine job of pulling the sum weight of this project on his own so far, but I know at least I’m ready to hear from me. So read on, future loyalist!

It was a lovely balls-hot July Saturday when Your Intrepid Blogger and I set out looking for our next town in need of our particular brand of tourism. For this day, we deferred to the heavy suggestions from Mrs. Doctorman’s grandparents, to visit her grandpa’s hometown of Beardstown. I haven’t been deliberately avoiding this one or anything, but until YIB started up this project, it hadn’t been a priority. Now though, I’m making two tacos with one tortilla!

Standing on the east bank of Illinois River, Beardstown is your basic old river town, living in the memory of its former grandeur, but it has a twist! Not content to let Beardstown shrink and shrivel like so many other towns we’ve seen, the Powers That Be have chosen Cass county as the site of a grand battle of mythical proportions.

A challenger appears.

That’s right, like select other towns across Midwest, Beardstown has seen a relatively large influx of Latino/Latina residents. As was explained to me, Cargill, a local slaughterhouse of biblical proportions, has attracted the new residents because it provides jobs in butchery and processing they are ready, willing, and able to perform. As was not explained to me (and deducted on my own), the current generations of Beardstownians weren’t exactly tearing Cargill’s doors down demanding jobs as butchers. Thus, in order to keep those very doors open, the “Meat Solution Corps” (not making that up), found the skilled individuals it needed to get the job done. And as far as YIB and I gathered, from our time there, the integration is going fairly well.

Jesus Cristo, they’re Methodist!

Also there was a cute church fair going on parking lot just off the square.

The Schwan’s Man was even there! Seriously, I thought these guys went extinct in the flood of ’93.

But what would a trip to an old river town be without a bunch of old river history? Dunno, hasn’t happened yet. The museum was built onto the courthouse just off the town square.

Beardstown boasts being the site of the famous Lincoln Almanac Trial. We got a pretty good tour of the museum and courthouse from the local docent who explained that Lincoln took this case only because he personally knew the accused. During the trial he was apparently able to use an almanac to discredit his opponents' witness by showing there was no full moon on the night in question as he had said. He was furthermore able to prove that witness was a witch.

“See? Witch. It says so right here.”

Lincoln sealed the deal with the jury by saying his now infamous quote about his client, “I rocked him in my arms a child.” This is true, and the jury was quite moved by his conviction, ultimately setting Duff Armstrong free. Upon leaving the courtroom, though, Your Intrepid Blogger muttered to me under his breath that was really complete bullshit and would be thrown out of a modern courtroom faster than a kid at a cake buffet.

What is cool and worth noting is this is the only courtroom where Lincoln once practiced that is still in use today. A local judge likes to use it occasionally for filing paperwork and passing minor motions, likely more as a sentimental thing and because he likes stuff like that. Incidentally, YIB said he could see himself doing something like that someday after he gets a robe. I very much approve.

Here are a few random shots from the museum, including the double jail.

Apparently the people of Beardstown liked to feel very secure. This place was used up until the 1990’s!

Anyway, after we had seen enough history, we decided to walk down to the river. When we got there we were met with this site.

A River Look. “Look” being the primary noun here. I guess it beats the Byron Nuclear Power Plant “Touch” or the Effingham Interstate “Listen”. They did have some of those mounted binoculars, though.

Whatever I saw here apparently did not please me.

We did find a fountain to stand in and cool off for a minute on this ridiculously hot day, which was nice. After that we loaded up and went in search of lunch that would really put the T on our Beardstown experience.

We found it.

And a few more random shots around town.

A directive? An ominous warning from the future? You decide.

All in all it was a pretty good trip. We’re still working on the whole “get the people who live there” to talk to us thing but at least we met a nice museum docent. Oh, speaking of the museum again, on our way out we picked up a bumper sticker and this lovely bit of literature. The picture is of Lincoln in a white suit, which is apparently about as rare as the one of him in Mary Todd’s wedding dress.

The Spanish stack was at least twice as tall as the English one.