Ottawa author Hank Walsh gets personal with history of Walsh Park

For Ottawa native and local historian Hank Walsh, his latest book is about more than just the city’s history, it’s a blend of local history, family stories and personal memories.

Walsh’s fifth book tells the story of the land on Ottawa’s north side that once belonged to his family, a former farmstead now known as Walsh Park.

The land was where Walsh spent most of his childhood working alongside his grandfather and father, learning various life lessons through farm labor and a small-town community.

“It gets in your blood,” Walsh said. “I learned to drive tractors there. My first rabbit harvest happened on that land...If you visited my Grandpa, you were going to work. That’s just how it was.”

The book, “A History of Walsh Park," is a follow-up to Walsh’s 2023 fiction release “On the Run.”

Unlike his other books, this one is a larger-format, photo-illustrated book with more than 50 images with many from Walsh’s own family collection.

“I was very fortunate,” he said. “Some of the photos were taken by my mom, my dad, or even my grandma. I even had one of my grandfather’s paychecks in my collection. There’s a lot of history there.”

The book is structured as a series of short stories, mixing his own personal memories with history about Ottawa’s rural development.

Walsh credits local genealogy groups with helping him verify dates and piece together family lineage over the years.

“I’ve been working on family tree stuff for years,” he said. “The genealogy groups in La Salle County have helped me quite a bit.”

As a lifelong lover of local history himself, Walsh said he hopes readers walk away with an appreciation for the city’s past and how it helped shape the present day.

“There are people who go to Walsh Park and say, ‘This is a beautiful park.’ And they ask, ‘What was this before?’ Well, now they’ll know,” Walsh said. “It was our home.”

Short story topics range from trains and tenant farming to stories about hobos who once lived near the railroad trestle.

Walsh said one particularly surprising find came from a set of old photographs.

“My grandfather used to host cockfights. I’d heard stories as a kid, but when I actually found the pictures - it just blew me away...It was legal back then. That’s just how it was.”

Walsh is retired from the Teamsters and previously worked as a pressman and columnist for the Ottawa Times.

He’s also organized several local events, including one of Illinois largest truck shows.

He still lives in the area and continues to write all his books by hand before being transcribed.

“My writing’s all handwritten,” he said. “No computer. That’s just how I do it.”

If interested, Walsh’s new book is available at Prairie Fox Books, 719 La Salle Street, in Ottawa and online through Amazon’s website.