Annexations Big 1974 Marion Story
Marion may have overreached in its last effort, but 1974 was still a big year in annexations pushing the city limits outward.
About 125 residents in an area westward from Interstate 57 to and including the Boswell Addition voted 30 to 5 on July 23 to be annexed into the city.
A 4.5 acre subdivision in which 10 homes will be built in Moore Park west of the Marion limits was annexed into the city on September 23. Continue reading
According to available records, Martin K. Davis was born in Marion, Illinois on March 12, 1843. It is believed that Davis was orphaned at an early age. At age 19, he joined the 116th Illinois Infantry in August 1862 at Stonington, Christian Co., Illinois as a Private.
On May 22, 1863, General Ulysses S. Grant ordered an assault on the Confederate heights at Vicksburg, Mississippi. The plan called for a storming party of volunteers to build a bridge across a moat and plant scaling ladders against the enemy embankment in advance of the main attack. Continue reading
The road leading to Carbondale from Marion that we now know as new Route 13 is a far cry from what or where it was in the early days when it was no more than a trail. Before Crab Orchard Lake was constructed around 1939, and a section of Route 13 was re-located around it, there was old Route 13, a narrow road extending out West Main Street in Marion and running almost straight, dead west to Carbondale, joining East Walnut in Carbondale, about a half mile south of where new Route 13 now intersects Giant City Road. Continue reading
1973 was a light and dark year for Marion citizens. On the light side, the property tax, often a staple of city financing, was eliminated in this year. The city annexed three parcels of real estate, including Scotsboro, for a total of almost 400 additional acres. One of the commercial annexes, included property that was part of the city’s first industrial park off N. Carbon Street, and would serve as a location for Marion’s third bank, the Peoples Bank of Marion. Ray Fosse Day was held November 27th to celebrate a visit by Fosse after playing with the Oakland Athletics in the World Series. Continue reading
When the heat wave of July 1980 was still in force, this article appeared in the Marion Daily Republican notating previous heat waves in the area’s past.
Mercury Hit 115 in 1901
While the present heat wave in Southern Illinois has some aspects that put it into the running as the worst ever, it has not yet topped the record for the hottest day. That distinction, according to old files of the Daily Republican, goes to a day in July, 1901 when the official reading at a weather station in Centralia was 115 degrees. Continue reading