Pork was free for a few minutes on the Public Square of Marion, Illinois, as George G. Champ, Marion farmer, kept his promise to give away 18 little pigs which he said he could no longer feed because of the government’s corn freeze order. One police chief and 17 youngsters, each with a pig in a sack, were the lucky ones in a crowd of 500 to get a shoat (a young, weaned pig) apiece. Continue reading
Category Archives: Public Square
This photo was submitted to the Marion Living Magazine by Geneva Stahlhut and was dated 1939. Since the photo was taken in front of the F.W. Woolworth store on the square and includes the store manager of the time, Virgil A. Jones, I can presume that all of these ladies are Woolworth employees posing for a group photo during the Williamson County Centennial celebration in 1939. Especially, since they are all in period costume, which was common for store employees and normal citizens during the celebration held August 26, 1939 through September 1, 1939. Continue reading
This photo compilation was found in the Marion, Illinois, Opportunity City booklet published in 1913. No date was given on the photos but I set the date between 1907 and 1913 due to the presence of the Fire Department on E. … Continue reading
1922 crowd awaiting Herrin Mine Grand Jury on Public Square, Marion, Illinois
In 1922, a crowd on the public square in Marion, Illinois anxiously awaits the outcome of a Grand Jury to hand down verdicts related to the Herrin Mine massacres which occured earlier in the year. Scab mine workers who had been called in to work the mines during strikes at a mine just outside Herrin, Illinois had been brutally murdered and tortured.
(Photo from the Williamson County Historical Society)
