Herscher is a hometown that values its history.
Herscher, with a town motto of Small Town America at its Best, has a historical museum.
Operated by the Herscher Area Historical Society, the museum is at 190 S. Main St. It includes items, not only from Herscher, but also from the neighboring towns of Irwin, Cabery, Buckingham, Bonfield, Reddick, Campus, Essex, Limestone, Union Hill, Goodrich and Cardiff.
The museum can be visited from 9-11 a.m. Fridays and from 1-3 p.m. on the first Sunday of each month.
The historical society also maintains the home of Herscher’s first mayor, Andrew Anderson. Located at 161 W. Myrtle, that facility shows life in the early 1900s. It can be toured from 1-3 p.m. the first Sunday of every month and is open by appointment by calling 815-426-2627.
The 1898 building was a funeral home in recent years before being donated to the society by Clancy-Gernon. It was opened to the public in 2017.
Membership in the historical society is $20 a year for individuals and $50 for families and businesses. A lifetime membership costs $200. All memberships include a locally written newsletter, that is done three times a year. There are about 100 members.
The museum itself sits in a downtown building that had served as a number of medical offices over the years. The historical society had started in the basement of the village hall.
The current museum has a wide variety of artifacts, arranged in a series of rooms for: medicine; education; agriculture; veterans; churches; and for the various towns that the museum represents.
“If you are cleaning out,” said volunteer Carol Desch, “let us take a look.”
The result is a museum with a wide variety of material. For a chuckle, there is even a poster with the incorrect spelling of Hersher (no “c”). There are envelopes, resembling first day covers, that have stamps from the 1982 centennial of the village.
The military area includes an actual Bronze Star from the War in Iraq. There are past kitchen tools, too, and an extensive collection of arrowheads. The farm corner has a 1879 Grange Charter. The Grange was a social organization that encouraged farmers to unite.
There is also an assembly of old police badges and a movie projector from 1920, a time when small towns still had their own theaters. The education room reproduces classroom conditions of years gone by, complete with old schoolbooks, a McGuffey’s Reader and vintage yearbooks.
The most poignant display may be the military corner. There is a pickelhaube, the distinctive pointed German helmet worn in the early stages of World War I. It must have been brought back as a souvenir.
There are preserved front pages from The Republican-News, the forerunner of The Daily Journal, announcing the beginning of World War II. “War Declared” was the headline. The edition for VE (Victory in Europe) Day is also present. On that day, the paper published a summary of the service for every soldier, sailor and airman from the area for the conflict.
Other preserved stories tell the tales of a soldier who died early in the Korean War, and Carl Thorson, who had fought Pancho Villa in an expedition across the Mexican border before World War I. There is a story remembering Lester Schlaich, who had a rare feat during World War II. He was a top turret gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress. He shot down three German planes from his machineguns.
The religious corner features a stained-glass window from St. James Church, which was hit by a tornado.
You run across odd stories of Herscher history. There was a family that raised a lion, “Tex,” as a pet. They even had a special barred pickup rigged up so they could take Tex out on the family shopping trips. Tex passed in 1955.
To help spur interest, the museum gives away a DVD, which are scenes gathered by the late Roy Wilcox. Wilcox, born in 1881, died in 1975. He was a farm manager and president of the State Bank of Herscher. His hobby was home movies, shot with a 16mm camera. The DVD is a compilation of some of his area films, including farm life of the 1940s and ‘50s, scenes from the Kankakee County Fair and footage of the 1953 Centennial of Kankakee.
<strong>The overall village</strong>
Shannon Sweeney is in his first term as Herscher mayor, though he has served on the village board since 2013. He ran for office at the urging of his wife of 32 years, Monica, who told him that if you are going to complain, you might as well get involved.
Sweeney is most proud of Herscher’s downtown beautification program. Under way with local funds, the renovation program began in 2022 and concludes this year. Thirteen businesses have benefitted, with exterior repairs. In one case, a historic tile front was uncovered.
Herscher, Mayor Sweeney said, generates about one or two new homes each year.
It is a community, he said, that is a quiet place to live.
“You have to be looking,” he said, “for small town life.” For him, the best part of the mayor’s position is meeting people.
A big plus coming for the community, Sweeney says, is the pending construction of a new $32.7 million school in Herscher for the district’s second through fourth graders. The initial plan was to add to Limestone, before switching to Herscher.
Herscher, Sweeney said, will also see benefits from a coming wind turbine project that will stretch from the Herscher area west to Dwight.
The big annual celebration for Herscher is held on Labor Day. Festivities include a softball tournament, a parade and the Hare and Tortoise 5k race. The main gathering point for the community is the downtown American Legion Post, 102 S. Oak, the scene of many wedding receptions and fish fries over the years.
Herscher has its own police force and runs its own water and sewer department. Sweeney says the village has been approached by Aqua Illinois to sell, but feels that by continuing to own its facilities, it can keep rates low. The fire department is an independent fire protection district.
Sweeney said the village tries to set a good example by keeping up its own property. The first and third Mondays of the month at 7 p.m.