Harrisburg () is a city in and the
county seat
A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US st ...
of
Saline County, Illinois
Saline County is a county in Southern Illinois. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 23,768. The largest city and county seat is Harrisburg. This area of Southern Illinois is known locally as " Little Egypt".
Three major towns in Saline ...
, United States.
It is located about southwest of
Evansville, Indiana
Evansville is a city in, and the county seat of, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. The population was 118,414 at the 2020 census, making it the state's third-most populous city after Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, the largest city in ...
, and southeast of
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...
. Its 2020 population was 8,219, and the surrounding
Harrisburg Township had a population of 10,037, including the city residents. Harrisburg is included in the
Illinois–Indiana–Kentucky tri-state area
The Illinois–Indiana–Kentucky tri-state area is a tri-state area where the U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky intersect. The area is defined mainly by the television viewing area and consists of ten Illinois counties, eleven Ind ...
and is the principal city in the Harrisburg
micropolitan statistical area with a combined population of 24,913.
Located at the
concurrency of
U.S. Route 45
U.S. Route 45 (US 45) is a major north-south United States highway and a border-to-border route, from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico. A sign at the highway's northern terminus notes the total distance as .
US 45 is notable for incorporatin ...
,
Illinois Route 13
Illinois Route 13 (IL 13) is a major east–west state route in southern Illinois. Illinois 13 has its western terminus at Centreville at Illinois Route 157 and its eastern terminus at the Kentucky state line and the Ohio River, at Kentuck ...
,
Illinois Route 145
Illinois Route 145 is a north–south state road in southern Illinois. It splits off from U.S. Route 45 near Metropolis (across the Ohio River from Paducah, Kentucky) and runs north, rejoining U.S. 45 in Harrisburg. This is a distance of .
...
, and
Illinois Route 34
Illinois Route 34 (IL 34) is a north–south state road in southern Illinois. It runs from a former ferry crossing to Kentucky Route 297 across the Ohio River in Rosiclare to Illinois Routes 14/ 37 in Benton. This is a distance of .
Rou ...
, Harrisburg is known as the "Gateway to the
Shawnee National Forest
The Shawnee National Forest is a United States National Forest located in the Ozark and Shawnee Hills of Southern Illinois, United States. Administered by the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, it consists of approximately 280,000 acres (1,100 km²) ...
",
and is also known for the
Ohio River flood of 1937
The Ohio River flood of 1937 took place in late January and February 1937. With damage stretching from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois, 385 people died, one million people were left homeless and property losses reached $500 million ($10.2 billion ...
, the old
Crenshaw House (also known as the Old Slave House), the
Tuttle Bottoms Monster The Tuttle Bottoms Monster is a legendary creature said to inhabit a swampy area, north of Harrisburg, Illinois, on the Saline River watershed, usually described as ape-like and hairy with a long snout similar to an anteater
Anteater is a com ...
, prohibition-era gangster
Charlie Birger, and the
2012 EF4 tornado. A
Cairo and Vincennes Railroad
The Cairo and Vincennes Railroad was a 19th-century American railroad that connected Cairo, Illinois, with Vincennes, Indiana. It was chartered by the state of Illinois in 1867 through the efforts of former American Civil War General Green B. Raum ...
boomtown
A boomtown is a community that undergoes sudden and rapid population and economic growth, or that is started from scratch. The growth is normally attributed to the nearby discovery of a precious resource such as gold, silver, or oil, although ...
, the city was one of the leading
bituminous
Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term a ...
coal-mining distribution hubs of the
American Midwest
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...
between 1900 and 1937.
At its peak, Harrisburg's population reached 16,000 by the early 1930s. The city had one of the largest downtown districts in
Southern Illinois
Southern Illinois, also known as Little Egypt, is the southern third of Illinois, principally along and south of Interstate 64. Although part of a Midwestern state, this region is aligned in culture more with that of the Upland South than the Mi ...
.
The city was the 20th-most populated city in Illinois outside the Chicago metropolitan srea and the most-populous city in Southern Illinois outside the
Metro East
Metro East is a region in southern Illinois that contains eastern and northern suburbs and exurbs of St. Louis, Missouri, United States. It encompasses five Southern Illinois counties (and parts of three others) in the St. Louis Metropolitan Stati ...
in 1930. However, the city has seen an economic decline due to the decreased demand for high-sulfur coal, the removal of the
New York Central railroad, and tributary lowlands leaving, much area around the city unfit for growth due to flood risks.
History
Pioneer and native coexistence
At the beginning of recorded American history, the Harrisburg area was inhabited by several
Algonquian tribes, including the
Shawnee
The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...
and
Piankashaw
The Piankeshaw, Piankashaw or Pianguichia were members of the Miami tribe who lived apart from the rest of the Miami nation, therefore they were known as Peeyankihšiaki ("splitting off" from the others, Sing.: ''Peeyankihšia'' - "Piankeshaw Pers ...
, who lived in the dense inland forests. Prior to the arrival of European settlers, the Piankashaw tribe was driven out by the more aggressive Shawnee. European settlement in Illinois began with the French from 1690 and reached its peak about 1750, mainly along the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
. American settlers arrived in 1790. The French came as merchants and missionaries, with farming supplementing the need for trade. The result had benefited both the settlers and the Native Americans. The American migration, however, followed treaties which resulted in land being distributed through
American Law
The law of the United States comprises many levels of codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the most important is the nation's Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the federal government of the United States, as well as va ...
, ignoring previous indigenous rights. Encroachment ensued and caused hard feelings between the Indians and the settlers who moved into the interior and along migration routes. Many of the Indians allied themselves with the British to resist, though trade with the Americans was an important reason why the Native Americans remained largely peaceful.
The town of Harrisburg was platted a few miles south of the junction of the
Goshen and
Shawneetown–Kaskaskia Trail, two of the first pioneer trade routes in the state. Prior to the
War of 1812
The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It bega ...
, most of the population of today's Saline County lived in cabins clustered around
blockhouse
A blockhouse is a small fortification, usually consisting of one or more rooms with loopholes, allowing its defenders to fire in various directions. It is usually an isolated fort in the form of a single building, serving as a defensive stro ...
s to protect against Indian attack and dangerous wildlife such as
cougar
The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large Felidae, cat native to the Americas. Its Species distribution, range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mamm ...
s and
bears
Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Nor ...
. Permanent settlements in the forested area were inevitable with the influx of more settlers, and the first land entry was made in 1814 by John Wren and Hankerson Rude. By 1840 the settlers outnumbered the Native Americans, and most of the black bear population of the county had been killed off by 1845.
Founding
Harrisburg was plotted shortly after Saline County was established in 1847 from part of
Gallatin County. The city was named for James Alexander Harris, who had built a farmhouse and planted a corn field in a clearing in the area of the current city square around 1820.
Harris along with John Pankey, James P. Yandell, and John X. Cain, donated land for the first additions of the town to a special committee at Liberty Baptist Church in 1852, after complaints that the county seat should be centralized in the county. The county seat then was in
Raleigh
Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Southeas ...
. The county's two main population centers were divided by the Saline River and of
thicket
A thicket is a very dense stand of trees or tall shrubs, often dominated by only one or a few species, to the exclusion of all others. They may be formed by species that shed large numbers of highly viable seeds that are able to germinate in t ...
. There were no roads in the county and many residents from the areas of
Carrier Mills and
Stonefort became lost when traveling to the northern settlements of
Raleigh
Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Southeas ...
,
Galatia
Galatia (; grc, Γαλατία, ''Galatía'', "Gaul") was an ancient area in the highlands of central Anatolia, roughly corresponding to the provinces of Ankara and Eskişehir, in modern Turkey. Galatia was named after the Gauls from Thrace (c ...
, and
Eldorado
El Dorado (, ; Spanish for "the golden"), originally ''El Hombre Dorado'' ("The Golden Man") or ''El Rey Dorado'' ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to describe a mythical tribal chief (''zipa'') or king o ...
. The designated town plat was considered due to its aesthetic properties, a sandstone
bluff
Bluff or The Bluff may refer to:
Places Australia
* Bluff, Queensland, Australia, a town
* The Bluff, Queensland (Ipswich), a rural locality in the city of Ipswich
* The Bluff, Queensland (Toowoomba Region), a rural locality
* Bluff River (New ...
overlooking the
Saline River valley called "Crusoe's Island". Although it was heavily timbered with oak and hickory with an impenetrable hazel underbrush, the site was at the geographical center of the county. A major legal battle took place within the county government because of voter fraud accusations by the people of Raleigh.
Nevertheless, Harrisburg was plotted as a village on in 1853 and became the county seat in 1859.
Industrial origins
Between 1860 and 1865 southern cotton became unavailable during the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
, Harrisburg was one of the few cities in the
Upland South
The Upland South and Upper South are two overlapping cultural and geographic subregions in the inland part of the Southern and lower Midwestern United States. They differ from the Deep South and Atlantic coastal plain by terrain, history, econom ...
during this time to have woolen mills, making the town an industrial asset early on to
Southern Illinois
Southern Illinois, also known as Little Egypt, is the southern third of Illinois, principally along and south of Interstate 64. Although part of a Midwestern state, this region is aligned in culture more with that of the Upland South than the Mi ...
. Several
planing mills and flour mills also dotted the city.
The
Cairo and Vincennes Railroad
The Cairo and Vincennes Railroad was a 19th-century American railroad that connected Cairo, Illinois, with Vincennes, Indiana. It was chartered by the state of Illinois in 1867 through the efforts of former American Civil War General Green B. Raum ...
was completed in 1872 by
Ambrose Burnside
Ambrose Everett Burnside (May 23, 1824 – September 13, 1881) was an American army officer and politician who became a senior Union general in the Civil War and three times Governor of Rhode Island, as well as being a successful inventor ...
, and
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
,
Union Army
During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union (American Civil War), Union of the collective U.S. st ...
,
brigadier general
Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointed ...
Green Berry Raum
Green Berry Raum (December 3, 1829 – December 18, 1909) was a lawyer, author, and U.S. Representative from Illinois, as well as a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He served in the Western Theater, seeing acti ...
, who was living in Harrisburg at that time.
Robert King, an early proprietor, opened a brick and tile factory at the southern terminus of Main Street in 1896 with the capacity of carrying out 15,000 bricks every 10 hours. Harrisburg also saw the opening of several saw mills. The Snellbaker and Company Saw Mill and Lumber Yard opened in 1895, as well did J.B Ford Harrisburg Planing Mill the same year. The mill had the capacity of producing of lumber every 10 hours. The Barnes Lumber Company in Harrisburg started as a sawmill operation in 1899. Since 1904 it has retailed a complete line of lumber and building materials and is the oldest, currently active mill in the city.
![Harrisburg, IL West Side of Square](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Harrisburg%2C_IL_West_Side_of_Square.jpg)
The Woolcott Milling Company, operated by J.H Woolcott and J.C Wilson built a flour mill in 1874, on the now defunct south Woolcott Street, with
rail spur
A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line.
Industrial spur
An indust ...
, behind the current Parker Plaza, that had 23
grain elevators
A grain elevator is a facility designed to stockpile or store grain. In the grain trade, the term "grain elevator" also describes a tower containing a bucket elevator or a pneumatic conveyor, which scoops up grain from a lower level and deposi ...
and the capacity of carrying out 200 barrels of flour in a 24-hour period and up to 400 by 1907, with a new tower. The exchange market was located in
Carrier Mills.
Located on Commercial Street across the tracks from the train depot, The Southern Illinois Milling & Elevator Company was incorporated on July 29, 1891, by Philip H. Eisenmayer, with a capital stock of $50,000. The company had two elevators, erected at a cost of $125,000, one of which had a capacity of and the other a capacity of 100,000 bushels. Their milling capacity was six hundred barrels per day. Twenty-five men were employed in the operations of the mill and elevators, in addition to a force of from six to eight men regularly employed in the cooperage department.
During the
Reconstruction Era
The Reconstruction era was a period in American history following the American Civil War (1861–1865) and lasting until approximately the Compromise of 1877. During Reconstruction, attempts were made to rebuild the country after the bloo ...
, when economic conditions made impractical the growing of cotton, lumbering and tobacco growing (which pioneers found profitable commercially), grain farming by crop rotation, dairying, reforestation, merchandising and manufacturing, and Coal mining especially, began to occupy the city. In 1889, with a population of 1,500, Harrisburg became a city, with an aldermanic form of government. It adopted the commission form in 1915.
Despite these early industrial advantages over other cities in the region, the
Sanborn Map Company
Sanborn maps are detailed maps of U.S. cities and towns in the 19th and 20th centuries. Originally published by The Sanborn Map Company (Sanborn), the maps were created to allow fire insurance companies to assess their total liability in urbaniz ...
still referred to the water facilities and road conditions within the city limits, "Not good, and not paved" up to 1900.
Coal and rail era
First slope mine operations began in 1854 southeast of Harrisburg. During the early years, the coal was transported by wagon to local homes and businesses for heating. Coal Mining became an important industry for the post-
Antebellum
Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to:
United States history
* Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern United States
** Antebellum Georgia
** Antebellum South Carolina
** Antebellum Virginia
* Antebellum ...
, now
Gilded Age
In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Weste ...
city.
The
Cairo and Vincennes Railroad
The Cairo and Vincennes Railroad was a 19th-century American railroad that connected Cairo, Illinois, with Vincennes, Indiana. It was chartered by the state of Illinois in 1867 through the efforts of former American Civil War General Green B. Raum ...
was completed in 1872 and provided transportation for coal and the miners who tired away underground.
After a series of corporate transactions brought the
Cairo and Vincennes Railroad
The Cairo and Vincennes Railroad was a 19th-century American railroad that connected Cairo, Illinois, with Vincennes, Indiana. It was chartered by the state of Illinois in 1867 through the efforts of former American Civil War General Green B. Raum ...
into the hands of the
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway around 1890, with Illinois state representative Charles P Skaggs as mayor,
Harrisburg evolved into one of the leading
coal-mining
Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...
centers of the Midwest.
Harrisburg was a strategic spot on the railroad route with a large hump yard, making it the focal point for the most productive coal field operations. Some of the most profitable coal companies that operated around Harrisburg were Big Creek Coal, Harrisburg Coal and O'Gara Coal. Each one with their own sizable rail yards.
O'gara was a
Progressive Era
The Progressive Era (late 1890s – late 1910s) was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States focused on defeating corruption, monopoly, waste and inefficiency. The main themes ended during Am ...
coal company owned by Thomas J. O'gara of Chicago. He purchased and annexed 23 privately owned mines in the Harrisburg coal field which equaled of land.
The Company based its headquarters in Harrisburg in 1905. O'gara only owned 12 operating mines, all in Saline County, but they had an annual output of 7,000,000 tons. 6,000 men were employed in a field capacity and the pay roll disbursement was $150,000 per month. The company paid $10,000 monthly royalty. H. Thomas was the company's general manager of mines, Ed Ghent its chief engineer and D. B. McGehee the assistant general manager.
By 1905, several small slope mines and 15 shaft mines operated in the county. Most were along the railroad line. Large numbers of immigrants from England, Wales, and eastern Europe, looking for work, detrained at the Harrisburg Train Depot; crowding around quickly expanding mining villages directly outside the city, such as
Muddy,
Wasson
Wasson (c. 1730 – c. 1790s) was an Ojibwa chief during the siege of Fort Detroit in Pontiac's War.
Wasson led around 200 warriors, who joined Pontiac's forces on May 31, 1763, remaining as part of the siege until it was abandoned in the autu ...
,
Harco and
Ledford. The city's population quickly expanded from 5,000 to 10,000 in a few years.
By 1906, the
Big four/CCC&STL Railroad became the
New York Central,
and Saline County was producing more than 500,000 tons of coal annually with more than 5000 miners at work.
In 1915 the
Ringling Brothers Circus
Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows is a circus founded in Baraboo, Wisconsin, United States in 1884 by five of the seven Ringling brothers: Albert, August, Otto, Alfred T., Charles, John, and Henry. The Ringling brothers were sons of a Ge ...
made an appearance in Harrisburg.
[DeNeal, Gary, interview (2003). "The Legend of Charlie Birger". WSIU-TV.] In 1913, the Southern Illinois Railway and Power Company operated an
interurban
The Interurban (or radial railway in Europe and Canada) is a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars which run within and between cities or towns. They were very prevalent in North America between 1900 a ...
trolley line, that ran from downtown
Eldorado
El Dorado (, ; Spanish for "the golden"), originally ''El Hombre Dorado'' ("The Golden Man") or ''El Rey Dorado'' ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to describe a mythical tribal chief (''zipa'') or king o ...
, into
Muddy, Wasson, Beulah Heights, through downtown Harrisburg, Dorrisville,
Ledford and into downtown
Carrier Mills, all of which had larger residential areas than present.
In 1917 there were plans to extend the line westward to
Marion Marion may refer to:
People
*Marion (given name)
*Marion (surname)
*Marion Silva Fernandes, Brazilian footballer known simply as "Marion"
*Marion (singer), Filipino singer-songwriter and pianist Marion Aunor (born 1992)
Places Antarctica
* Mario ...
and
Carbondale to connect to the Coal Belt Co. line, and then run it towards St. Louis.
The trolley wire through the county was high.
It was an off branch of the
Cairo and Vincennes Railroad
The Cairo and Vincennes Railroad was a 19th-century American railroad that connected Cairo, Illinois, with Vincennes, Indiana. It was chartered by the state of Illinois in 1867 through the efforts of former American Civil War General Green B. Raum ...
. The corporation erected the first electrical generating plant in
Muddy, Illinois.
The
Central Illinois Public Service Company purchased the Muddy Power Station in 1916. It had a generating capacity of 7,500 kilowatts. After removing an original 2,500-kilowatt unit, the company added two 5,000-kilowatt turbine-generators and one 10,000 kilowatt unit, bringing the stations total capacity to 25,000 kilowatts in 1922. Electricity generated at the station was distributed over 66-kv, double circuit steel tower transmission lines extending to
West Frankfort to the west, the
Ohio River
The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...
to the east, and
Olney to the north. The plant had two impounding reservoirs which covered and held 320 million gallons of water.
![First Trust and Savings Bank, Harrisburg, Illinois](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/First_Trust_and_Savings_Bank%2C_Harrisburg%2C_Illinois.jpg)
The community benefited from the prosperity of the
Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties, sometimes stylized as Roaring '20s, refers to the 1920s decade in music and fashion, as it happened in Western society and Western culture. It was a period of economic prosperity with a distinctive cultural edge in the U ...
, flaunting the most extravagant displays of wealth in the city's history. The
neon
Neon is a chemical element with the symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is a noble gas. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with about two-thirds the density of air. It was discovered (along with krypton ...
red tower belonging to the WEBQ-A.M. radio station was the tallest structure in the city and could be seen for miles.
Harrisburg had just finished the new three-story Horning Hotel around 1920, and two new theaters with a combined total of 1,600 seats: the Orpheum and the Grand the same year. The eight-story Harrisburg National Bank building, the O'Gara Coal Headquarters, the Cummins Office building, and the four-story Harrisburg Hospital were all built in 1923. The new four-story
Harrisburg City Hall
The Harrisburg City Hall, located at 110 E. Locust St., is the city hall serving Harrisburg, Illinois. Built in 1926–27, the building is the city's second city hall. The architectural firm of Harry E. Boyle and Co. designed the building in the Cl ...
building was constructed in 1927, and a complex highway system was constructed through the city, with
Illinois Route 13
Illinois Route 13 (IL 13) is a major east–west state route in southern Illinois. Illinois 13 has its western terminus at Centreville at Illinois Route 157 and its eastern terminus at the Kentucky state line and the Ohio River, at Kentuck ...
and
Illinois Route 34
Illinois Route 34 (IL 34) is a north–south state road in southern Illinois. It runs from a former ferry crossing to Kentucky Route 297 across the Ohio River in Rosiclare to Illinois Routes 14/ 37 in Benton. This is a distance of .
Rou ...
constructed in 1918;
U.S. Route 45
U.S. Route 45 (US 45) is a major north-south United States highway and a border-to-border route, from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico. A sign at the highway's northern terminus notes the total distance as .
US 45 is notable for incorporatin ...
and
Illinois Route 145
Illinois Route 145 is a north–south state road in southern Illinois. It splits off from U.S. Route 45 near Metropolis (across the Ohio River from Paducah, Kentucky) and runs north, rejoining U.S. 45 in Harrisburg. This is a distance of .
...
constructed in 1925–1926. During this time the city expanded to 15,000 people. The annexation of Dorrisville and Dorris Heights created blue collar, multiple, and single family homes filling in between.
On Vine Street south of the town square was "Wiskey Chute", a saloon
vice district
A red-light district or pleasure district is a part of an urban area where a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, and adult theaters, are found. In most cases, red-light districts are parti ...
for local miners.
It was also during this time that the town was home to
prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...
-era bootlegger
Charles Birger
Charles "Charlie" Birger (born Shachna Itzak Birger, February 5, 1881 – April 19, 1928) was an American bootlegger during the Prohibition period in southern Illinois.
Early life
Charles Birger was born to a Jewish family in the Russian Empir ...
, whose gang was said to have protected local business owners better than the law enforcement. For a time, the gangster's prized
Tommy gun
The Thompson submachine gun (also known as the "Tommy Gun", "Chicago Typewriter", "Chicago Piano", “Trench Sweeper” or "Trench Broom") is a blowback-operated, air-cooled, magazine-fed selective-fire submachine gun, invented by United Sta ...
was displayed in a glass case in the City Hall.
The geography around Harrisburg changed indefinitely, with coal areas producing a
surface mining
Surface mining, including strip mining, open-pit mining and mountaintop removal mining, is a broad category of mining in which soil and rock overlying the mineral deposit (the overburden) are removed, in contrast to underground mining, in which ...
landscape the size of
San Jose, California
San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popul ...
, roughly , aptly named the Harrisburg Coal Field. The field completely encased the towns of Carrier Mills and Harrisburg, while creating partial borders to Stonefort, Galatia, and Raleigh. Near the mines were gob piles that spontaneously combusted. The horizon around the city for many years flickered with burning
coal refuse
Coal refuse (also described as coal waste, rock, slag, coal tailings, waste material, rock bank, culm, boney, or gob) is the material left over from coal mining, usually as tailings piles or spoil tips. For every tonne of hard coal generated by m ...
.
Slow economic decline
Harrisburg reached its peak population of 15,659 in 1930, making it the 20th most populated city outside the
Chicago Metropolitan Area
The Chicago metropolitan area, also colloquially referred to as Chicagoland, is a metropolitan area in the Midwestern United States. Encompassing 10,286 sq mi (28,120 km2), the metropolitan area includes the city of Chicago, its suburbs and hi ...
, in Illinois, and the most populous city in Southern Illinois outside the metro-east. If the city combined the service communities bordering Harrisburg such as
Ledford and
Muddy, the population would have been even greater at 26,000, and Saline County as a whole reached nearly 40,000 people. Even with the economic downturn during the
Great depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, with business owners and industrial firms closing shop, the city continued to thrive due to its enormous coal industry. On June 17, 1936,
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt () (October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four ...
visited Harrisburg to observe work of the WPA and delivered a speech in the packed high school gymnasium. The heyday ended quickly when the
Ohio River flood of 1937
The Ohio River flood of 1937 took place in late January and February 1937. With damage stretching from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois, 385 people died, one million people were left homeless and property losses reached $500 million ($10.2 billion ...
left 4,000 within the city homeless and 80% of the city inundated.
[''The Pittsburgh Press'', page 50. United Press, January 29, 1937.] Many flooded mines were deemed condemned which left the local economy crippled. In 1938, the state of Illinois had completed one of the largest operations of its kind ever attempted in the United States, the removal of more than two and a half billion gallons of flood water from Sahara mine No. 3.
Soon the Southern Illinois Railway and Power company was bought by the
Central Illinois Public Service Company. The inter-urban line was abandoned in 1933 after 20 years of service.
After the decommission of the Interurban line, Harrisburg opened the Harrisburg-Dorrisville Bus Co., which was a private predecessor bus company to the current Rides Mass Transit District which was opened in 1980.
Between 1930 and 1940 the city lost 27% of its overall population.
Immediately after World War II new coal companies,
Peabody, Bluebird, and Sahara, started mining within the city. The war created a great demand for energy, which was satisfied by expanded strip mining operations throughout the Harrisburg Coal Fields. Shortly after World War II, it became clear that coal was losing favor to other energy sources such as oil and natural gas. In contrast to other cities in the United States that prospered in the post-war boom, the fortunes of Saline County began to quickly diminish.
Harry Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...
stopped briefly in Harrisburg during his
whistlestop
In public transport, a request stop, flag stop, or whistle stop is a stop or station at which buses or trains, respectively, stop only on request; that is, only if there are passengers or freight to be picked up or dropped off. In this way, st ...
tour on September 30, 1948, giving some hope for economic recovery for the region. Without hesitating, the long parade of police, buses, and accompanying cars sped through town.
Poplar Street, at that time the main drag through town, was crowded with multitudes of persons for its entire length. It was reported by the ''Daily Register'' newspaper that cars were lined along Route 13 all the way from
Marion Marion may refer to:
People
*Marion (given name)
*Marion (surname)
*Marion Silva Fernandes, Brazilian footballer known simply as "Marion"
*Marion (singer), Filipino singer-songwriter and pianist Marion Aunor (born 1992)
Places Antarctica
* Mario ...
and on to
Eldorado
El Dorado (, ; Spanish for "the golden"), originally ''El Hombre Dorado'' ("The Golden Man") or ''El Rey Dorado'' ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to describe a mythical tribal chief (''zipa'') or king o ...
on Route 45.
In 1950 Illinois Assistant State Attorney General
George N. Leighton represented parents in a proceeding which desegregated the public schools of Harrisburg. On December 1, 1953,
WSIL-TV
WSIL-TV (channel 3) is a television station licensed to Harrisburg, Illinois, United States, serving as the ABC affiliate for Southern Illinois, Southeast Missouri, the Purchase area of Western Kentucky, and Northwest Tennessee. Owned by All ...
3 was founded and based out of the city. The station built the 503 ft (153.4m), WSIL tower in downtown which was one of the tallest television towers in the state at the time and is still the tallest structure in the city.
By 1957, the Egyptian was the last passenger train to travel through the city.
Between 1940 and 1960 Harrisburg lost another 20% of its population due to economic standstill.
With only 9100 people left in the city that once had 16,000, then Senator
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
made a campaign stop on October 3, 1960. Speaking at the Saline County Court House he said
"This district, which is built on the land and which has been nourished by the land, personifies the kind of problems which I think the United States is going to face in the 1960s. This district has depended in the main for its resources, its growth, its wealth, upon the minerals underground and upon the food that is grown on the ground. And those are those industries that have faced serious problems in the 1950s."
Later during the same speech, after addressing agriculture, Senator Kennedy stated:
"Farmers could farm and work in the cities and towns, but this year we have the highest unemployment that we have had in any months of August and September, the three Augusts and Septembers preceding the recession of 1949, 1954, and 1958, and this district knows this problem well, because this district has lost 60,000 people in the last 10 years."
By 1968, with hopes of bringing a new influx of coal mining into the city, Sahara Coal Company ordered the
Bucyrus-Erie
Bucyrus-Erie was an American surface and underground mining equipment company. It was founded as Bucyrus Foundry and Manufacturing Company in Bucyrus, Ohio, in 1880. Bucyrus moved its headquarters to South Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1893. In 1927, B ...
"
GEM of Egypt" strip mine shovel, one of the largest in the world at 8 stories high and weighing 1,000 tons.
It took three men to operate it, and its bucket capacity was 30 cubic yards. Even with such great efforts coal mining continued to dwindle within the community. The train depot was razed in 1972 and all coal freight was ordered out of the Harrisburg Hump Yard by 1973. During the 1970s and 1980s, many of the city-square storefronts and mini-plazas became vacant and were slowly abandoned as large
chain stores
A chain store or retail chain is a retail outlet in which several locations share a brand, central management and standardized business practices. They have come to dominate the retail and dining markets and many service categories, in many pa ...
and
strip malls
A strip mall, strip center or strip plaza is a type of shopping center common in North America where the stores are arranged in a row, with a sidewalk in front. Strip malls are typically developed as a unit and have large parking lots in front. ...
on
Commercial Street became the dominant venues for shopping and entertainment, hoping to bring an influx of travelers from the main highway.
The
Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990
The Clean Air Act (CAA) is the United States' primary federal air quality law, intended to reduce and control air pollution nationwide. Initially enacted in 1963 and amended many times since, it is one of the United States' first and most infl ...
legislation forced many utility companies in the United States to switch to low-sulfur coal. In response Harrisburg's already waning economy took a severe downturn. The freight yard had closed in 1982; Sahara Coal Company shut down operations in 1993, and 865 jobs were lost in the county that year.
This ended the reign of big coal in Harrisburg, a way of life for residents for over 100 years.
The
Cairo and Vincennes Railroad
The Cairo and Vincennes Railroad was a 19th-century American railroad that connected Cairo, Illinois, with Vincennes, Indiana. It was chartered by the state of Illinois in 1867 through the efforts of former American Civil War General Green B. Raum ...
/
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway system tracks were taken up in the late 1980s and replaced by the
Tunnel Hill State Trail in 1996.
Post-coal economy
Soon Pioneer history was showcased at the Saline County Area Historical Museum on the city's southern edge. The site includes the three-story high Old Pauper Home, which was once part of the county's
poor farm
A poorhouse or workhouse is a government-run (usually by a county or municipality) facility to support and provide housing for the dependent or needy.
Workhouses
In England, Wales and Ireland (but not in Scotland), ‘workhouse’ has been th ...
, built in 1877. The site also features a variety of cabins, a one-room school house, a small church and other historic buildings that have been acquired, moved to the site and restored.
![HBurgILDowntown7](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/HBurgILDowntown7.jpg)
The Harrisburg-Raleigh Airport is located approximately four miles north of Harrisburg on Highway 34. The Harrisburg-Raleigh Airport Authority operates the airport. The Airport has two runways–32/14 and 6/24. Runway 24 includes a extension, bringing the runway to with a GPS-RNAV approach.
![Hburg Illinois Walmart 2008](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Hburg_Illinois_Walmart_2008.jpg)
Two industrial zones were set up within the township in 1974 by the Saline County Industrial Development Co., one located in Dorrisville, and the other located near the Harrisburg-Raleigh Airport. The one in Dorrisville had the advantage of rail spur prior to the removal of the New York Central tracks. A Tax Increment Finance district was built on the property of the old rail yard north of the city where the Harrisburg Professional Park was built.
The 2000s saw a slight economic boom to the city. The industrial base within the city, while most were not coal-related, gave opportunity to a number of city residents. American Coal and Arclar, the only two coal mines in the county were producing low
sulfur
Sulfur (or sulphur in British English) is a chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with a chemical formula ...
coal as an energy resource.
Kerr-McGee
The Kerr-McGee Corporation, founded in 1929, was an American energy company involved in oil exploration, production of crude oil, natural gas, perchlorate and uranium mining and milling in various countries. On June 23, 2006, Anadarko Petroleum ...
Coal Corporation's Galatia Complex was purchased by the American Coal Company in 1998. American Coal employed about 580 workers, while Arclar employed 175 persons. Nationwide Glove Factory employed 225 persons, and American Needle was the second-largest non-coal company with 125 workers. Southern Truss and Harrisburg Truss companies employed together 100 employees manufacturing building components.
In 2008 construction on the Harrisburg
Wal-Mart
Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...
Supercenter was completed. Wal-Mart will give $21,950 in grants to the Anna Bixby Women's Center, Bridge Medical Clinic, CASA of Saline County, Harrisburg District Library, Harrisburg Police Department, Harvest Deliverance Center Food Pantry, Regional Superintendent of Schools, Saline County Senior Citizens Council and Saline County Sheriff's Department. The building is and added 150 new jobs to the county. The Supercenter became the second-largest employer in the city, with 340 employees on its payroll. A new strip mall was completed on the south side of town, and Parker Plaza, the oldest shopping center in town was renovated with a new facade to promote commercial growth in the city.
Things slowly took a turn for the worse when former Illinois Governor
Rod Blagojevich
Rod Blagojevich ( , born December 10, 1956), often referred to by his nicknames "Blago" or "B-Rod", is an American former politician, political commentator, and convicted felon who served as the 40th governor of Illinois from 2003 to 2009, when ...
's decision to move a division of
I-DOT to
Southern Illinois
Southern Illinois, also known as Little Egypt, is the southern third of Illinois, principally along and south of Interstate 64. Although part of a Midwestern state, this region is aligned in culture more with that of the Upland South than the Mi ...
was overturned by his successor
Pat Quinn. Blagojevich's decision outraged lawmakers in
Springfield. A lawsuit was filed to stop the move to Harrisburg. Matters were exacerbated when videos of the new home for the IDOT traffic safety division being surrounded by water surfaced on YouTube in late 2007.
The early 2010s saw a series of unfortunate economic events for the city. In December 2010, Harrisburg's
AMC
AMC may refer to:
Film and television
* AMC Theatres, an American movie theater chain
* AMC Networks, an American entertainment company
** AMC (TV channel)
** AMC+, streaming service
** AMC Networks International, an entertainment company
*** ...
, formerly Kerasotes' Cinema 4 theater, closed. This was the first time Harrisburg had been without a cinema since 1920. After release of the 2010 census, in February 2011, the city learned that its population had dropped to a low of 9,017 people, an 8.5 percent decrease. It was the lowest population since the pre-coal boom of 1900. Harrisburg also suffered from numerous scandals involving the school district and police department. In 2011, the Chief Deputy of the Saline County Sheriffs Department was sentenced to prison for sexually abusing a high school student who was working as an intern. The biggest hit was in late February 2012, an EF4 tornado hit Harrisburg during the
2012 Leap Day tornado outbreak. The southern part of the city was heavily damaged, with houses and businesses destroyed, many of which were completely leveled. Eight people were killed and 110 were injured by that tornado.
In November 2012 a decision was made to close Willow Lake Mine, one of the last remaining mines in Saline County, putting 400 employees out of work.
In 2016, Harrisburg opened a new movie theater. In 2018
Mason Ramsey
Mason Ramsey (born November 16, 2006) is an American singer. In March 2018, after gaining Internet fame from a viral video of him yodeling " Lovesick Blues" by Hank Williams at a Walmart, Ramsey was signed to Big Loud. He is known for his singl ...
, a boy from
Golconda
Fort (Telugu: గోల్కొండ, romanized: ''Gōlkōnḍa'') is a historic fortress and ruined city located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. It was originally called Mankal. The fort was originally built by Kakatiya ruler Pratāparu ...
, went
viral after yodeling his rendition of
Hank Williams
Hank Williams (born Hiram Williams; September 17, 1923 – January 1, 1953) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician. Regarded as one of the most significant and influential American singers and songwriters of the 20th century, he reco ...
' "
Lovesick Blues
"Lovesick Blues" is a Tin Pan Alley song, composed by Cliff Friend, with lyrics by Irving Mills. It first appeared in the 1922 musical "Oh, Ernest", and was recorded that year by Elsie Clark and Jack Shea. Emmett Miller recorded it in 1925 and ...
" in the Harrisburg Walmart. Within a few days videos of his performance collectively garnered over 25 million views and he became a viral sensation and Internet meme.
Harrisburg continues to be the retail hub of
Saline County. It holds the nearest shopping centers, restaurants, churches, gas stations, banks, and other commerce within miles.
However, industrial jobs are scarce.
Demographics
According to the 2010 census,
there were 9,017 people living within the city limits. Of the 8,765 persons who identified with one race, 7,983 (88.5%) were white, 589 (6.5%) were black or African-American, 45 (0.5%) American Indian, 74 (0.8%) Asian, 8 (0.1%) Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islanders, and 66 (0.8%) who claimed some other race. The Hispanic population was 209 (2.3%). There were 4,193 total housing units; 3,753 (89.5%) were occupied and 440 (10.5%) vacant.
Geography and cityscape
Harrisburg is located at (37.733765, −88.545873).
According to the 2010 census, Harrisburg has a total area of , of which (or 96.91%) is land and (or 3.09%) is water.
The square in the center of town, as well as Dorrisville and Gaskins City, stand on top of a series of
sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...
bluffs that were once islands rising above natural lowlands, above sea level, dredged by the middle fork of the
Saline River.
The Saline River was a navigable river used by early settlers for transportation to and from Salt Works just east of Harrisburg. The Saline flowed towards the
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
and flooded every spring in events called
Freshet
The term ''freshet'' is most commonly used to describe a spring thaw resulting from snow and ice melt in rivers located in upper North America. A spring freshet can sometimes last several weeks on large river systems, resulting in significant in ...
s. The locals called the island "Crusoe's Island". When the area was drained, homes and businesses were built in the floodplain, and it became prone to serious flooding for years to come.
The town square in the center of town is a
sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...
bluff
Bluff or The Bluff may refer to:
Places Australia
* Bluff, Queensland, Australia, a town
* The Bluff, Queensland (Ipswich), a rural locality in the city of Ipswich
* The Bluff, Queensland (Toowoomba Region), a rural locality
* Bluff River (New ...
above sea level, one of the first that start the
Shawnee Hills
The Shawnee Hills is a region of southern Illinois that rests mainly in an east-west arc roughly following the outline of the southern end of the Illinois Basin. Whereas Mississippian and Pennsylvania Age rock layers are deep beneath the soil su ...
to the south. Topographic maps show the bluffs that rise from the Saline River that wraps the northeast part of the city. Harrisburg is located at the ending point of the
Laurentide Ice Sheet
The Laurentide Ice Sheet was a massive sheet of ice that covered millions of square miles, including most of Canada and a large portion of the Northern United States, multiple times during the Quaternary glacial epochs, from 2.58 million years a ...
, which covered about 85 percent of Illinois. The edge of Illinoian ice sheet(s) lay further south than the southernmost extent, i.e.
Douglas County, Kansas
Douglas County (county code DG) is located in the U.S. state of Kansas. As of the 2020 census, the county population was 118,785, making it the fifth-most populous county in Kansas. Its county seat and most populous city is Lawrence.
Histor ...
, of any of the Pre-Illinoian ice sheets.
[Stiff, B. J., and A.K. Hansel, 2004, ''Quaternary glaciations in Illinois.'' in Ehlers, J., and P.L. Gibbard, eds., pp. 71–82, ''Quaternary Glaciations: Extent and Chronology 2: Part II North America'', Elsevier, Amsterdam. ]
Cottage Grove Fault System
![New Madrid and Wabash seizmic zones-USGS mod](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/New_Madrid_and_Wabash_seizmic_zones-USGS_mod.png)
After the 5.5
Richter Scale
The Richter scale —also called the Richter magnitude scale, Richter's magnitude scale, and the Gutenberg–Richter scale—is a measure of the strength of earthquakes, developed by Charles Francis Richter and presented in his landmark 1935 ...
magnitude
1968 Illinois earthquake
The 1968 Illinois earthquake (a New Madrid event) was the largest recorded earthquake in the U.S. Midwestern state of Illinois. Striking at 11:02 am on November 9, it measured 5.4 on the Richter scale. Although no fatalities occurred, t ...
, scientists realized that there was a previously unknown fault under Saline County, just north of
Eldorado
El Dorado (, ; Spanish for "the golden"), originally ''El Hombre Dorado'' ("The Golden Man") or ''El Rey Dorado'' ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to describe a mythical tribal chief (''zipa'') or king o ...
near Harrisburg. This fault is called the Cottage Grove Fault, a small tear in the Earth's rock running west–east, in the Southern Illinois Basin. The fault is connected to the north–south trending
Wabash Valley Fault System
The Wabash Valley Seismic Zone (also known as the Wabash Valley Fault System or Zone) is a tectonic region located in the Midwest of the United States, centered on the valley of the Lower Wabash River, along the state line between southeastern Illi ...
at its eastern end.
Seismographic mapping completed by geologists reveal that
monoclines,
anticline
In structural geology, an anticline is a type of fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest beds at its core, whereas a syncline is the inverse of an anticline. A typical anticline is convex up in which the hinge or crest is the ...
s, and
syncline
In structural geology, a syncline is a fold with younger layers closer to the center of the structure, whereas an anticline is the inverse of a syncline. A synclinorium (plural synclinoriums or synclinoria) is a large syncline with superimpose ...
s are present within the region; these signs suggest deformation during the
Paleozoic era
The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon.
The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838
by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ' ...
coincident to
strike-slip faulting
In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic ...
nearby.
A
focal mechanism solution of the earthquake confirmed two nodal planes both striking north–south and dipping approximately 45 degrees to the east and to the west. This faulting suggests
dip-slip reverse motion, and to a horizontal east–west axis of confining stress.
The rupture also occurred partially on the
New Madrid Fault
The New Madrid Seismic Zone (), sometimes called the New Madrid Fault Line, is a major seismic zone and a prolific source of intraplate earthquakes (earthquakes within a tectonic plate) in the Southern and Midwestern United States, stretching to ...
, responsible for the great
New Madrid earthquakes
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
in 1812, consisting of the most powerful earthquakes to hit the
contiguous United States
The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...
.
Cityscape
During the early 20th century, urbanization of the city due to the geographical feature of "Cruesoe's Island" and surrounding coal mining property created a density not seen in many cities of its size. The city at the time with a population nearing 10,000 was forced to tightly cram homes and businesses upon the sandstone outcropping less than a square mile in diameter leading many to build their buildings with multiple stories around the town square. The
Saline County courthouse and square have gone through many transformations within the past 100 years. In the 19th century, the town had dirt streets with a large
Greek Revival
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...
courthouse with
Doric columns
The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of col ...
built by Swiss-born, Evansville, Indiana Architect J. K. Frick & Co in 1861. The courthouse was replaced in 1906 with a larger building designed by then well-known architect
John W. Gaddis
John W. Gaddis (December 2, 1858 - September 5, 1931) was a noted architect of Vincennes, Indiana. He designed numerous buildings that are preserved and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
His works include:
*Natchez Institute, N ...
of
Vincennes, Indiana
Vincennes is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Indiana, Knox County, Indiana, United States. It is located on the lower Wabash River in the Southwestern Indiana, southwestern part of the state, nearly halfway between Evansville, Indi ...
. The structure was an identical model to the Perry County Courthouse at
Perryville, Missouri
Perryville is a city in Perry County, Missouri, United States. The population was 8,555 at the 2020 United States census. Perryville is the county seat of Perry County.
History
Perryville was selected the county seat of Perry County by Robert ...
, both built the same year. A smaller version of the central clock tower of the courthouse, including the original clock, manufactured by the
Howard Clock Company, of Boston Massachusetts in 1904 was recreated in 1996, and placed in a small lot behind the
Clearwave Building's parking lot. The Howard clock company was notable for manufacturing large clocks in such buildings as the
Wrigley Building
The Wrigley Building is a skyscraper located at 400–410 North Michigan Avenue on Chicago's Near North Side. It is located on the Magnificent Mile directly across Michigan Avenue from the Tribune Tower. Its two towers in an elaborate style wer ...
in Chicago, and the
Ferry Building in San Francisco, California. The town square was completely surrounded by brick streets in 1906.
Harrisburg had of brick streets,
but now only a few blocks are left.
Harrisburg has not yet begun a National Trust for Historic Preservation,
Main Street historical preservation program. Saline County is within a recognized historical district, the "Ohio River Route Where Illinois Began". Two buildings in Harrisburg are currently listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
, those being the City Hall and the Saline County Poor Farm.
The square itself held an array of coal mining offices, privately owned business, grocery and department stores, pharmacies and bars. During the closing of the coal mining era, most of the businesses left the square and moved to the main drag of
Rt. 45, constructed in 1926. The courthouse built by
John W. Gaddis
John W. Gaddis (December 2, 1858 - September 5, 1931) was a noted architect of Vincennes, Indiana. He designed numerous buildings that are preserved and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
His works include:
*Natchez Institute, N ...
was replaced with a modern, more efficient building in 1967 after the older building was condemned.
Over the years, the architecture that graced Harrisburg square has slowly turned to rotting older structures mixed in with a hodge-podge of newer updated buildings. Currently there are a few privately owned downtown renovation projects in progress on and around the square.
The
Harrisburg Mitchell-Carnegie Library, located on Church Street south of the square and built with a grant from
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...
, was built in 1908 and opened to the public in 1909. The building served the community until 2000 when the library was moved to a new building on north Main Street. During the
1937 flood, the library was used as a makeshift hospital until the water boiler burst. The building now serves as a church.
Harrisburg has three city parks. Memorial Park, Gaskins City Park, and Dorris Heights Park. Memorial Park, on the west end of town, is the largest
with the city park pool and a large lagoon snaking through the center,
founded in 1935.
The
Sunset Lawn Cemetery is the largest in the county, founded in 1880, connected to the west edge of the city. The cemetery contains ornate tombstones and crypts, within which are the remains of most of the city's original founders and prominent residents. Sunset Lawn contained the 90-year-old Sunset Mausoleum. The crypt had marble floors, with 75 persons buried inside. The structure was condemned in 2008 and there were plans of removal of the bodies and reburial within the cemetery, but due to problems finding many of the family members, has not came to fruition.
In May 2010, on 301 N. Granger Street, the 1895 home of city bricklayer and early proprietor Robert King was set to be demolished. The homeowners donated it to Saline County
Habitat for Humanity
Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI), generally referred to as Habitat for Humanity or Habitat, is a US non-governmental, and nonprofit organization which was founded in 1976 by couple Millard and Linda Fuller. Habitat for Humanity is a Ch ...
last year hoping that the organization might be able to restore it. The home was considered "unrestorable". In 2012, Harrisburg High School was placed on the Landmark Illinois endangered buildings list. Two seniors at Harrisburg High School were preparing a nomination of the building for listing in the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
, and they helped to distribute a petition through social media to help save the school.
Harrisburg neighborhoods
Harrisburg is split up into several small neighborhoods that were annexed into the city limits over time, from north to south.
* Dorris Heights – A subdivision established in 1923 on land owned by W.S. and Bertha Dorris. Annexed in 1979. Sits to the direct north of Harrisburg with the Dorris Heights Street being the main road through the area. The Saline County Fair Grounds sits to between Dorris Heights St. and the Levee to the north. Small Street heads east from Dorris Heights towards the Arrow Head Point shopping center.
* Buena Vista – Situated to the south and north of Route 13 (Poplar Street), and west of the main village. It holds the newer town water tower and several homes. It is bordered by Liberty to the south.
* Wilmoth Addition – Is an area of prominently African American residents north of Old Harrisburg, and just south of Dorris Heights. A good portion of the Wilmoth Addition was slowly abandoned and torn down when the Rt. 13 bypass was built in 2008.
* Old Harrisburg Village – The streets that surround the town square. It includes everything on Main street north and south, and Poplar street from the levee to the east and the town park to the west. It also includes the High School, the old Junior High, West and East Side schools, the Courthouse, the town park and cemetery to the west, and the main shopping strip on Route 45. This part of the city is the oldest, and is recognized mainly by the densely packed gilded age houses and structures lined on narrow brick streets. Most of this area is located on "Crusoe's Island", and was built during a pre-automobile-centric Harrisburg.
* Gaskins City – Includes a small village annexed in 1905, named for the Gaskins family of Harrisburg, prominent business owners and coal entrepreneurs of the Egyptian Coal Company, later sold to O'Gara. Gaskins City is a series of several blocks that exists to the east of the Harrisburg Levee and Route 45. Sloan Street crosses Route 45, runs straight into the center of Gaskins City and terminates at the Harrisburg Medical Center. It contains Gaskins City Baptist Church, Shawnee Hills Country Club, and is an upper-class neighborhood. It used to have its own school at one time.
A large part of Gaskins City was obliterated by the 2012 EF4 Tornado. Part of Harrisburg Medical Center was also heavily damaged.
* Garden Heights – Slightly south of Gaskins City. Connects it with Route 34 and Pankyville.
[
* Dorrisville – Straight south of Harrisburg, and established in 1905 with a post office, and annexed by the city in 1923. Dorrisville holds the Dorrisville Baptist Church, the Saline County Area Historical Museum, and "Pauper Farm Crossing", which is on the crossroads of Feazel Street and Route 45. Most people recognize Dorrisville as the first 5–6 blocks north, west, and east of the Feazel Street and Barnett Street 4-way stop.] A large part of Dorrisville along the Barnett Street corridor and south of Main Street was destroyed in the tornado. Many houses were destroyed or had lost their roofs.
* Liberty
Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom.
In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...
– Was a smaller rural community to the far southwest of Harrisburg along Liberty Road. It included Liberty Church and cemetery. In 1873, designer of the Cairo and Vincennes Railroad, Green Berry Raum
Green Berry Raum (December 3, 1829 – December 18, 1909) was a lawyer, author, and U.S. Representative from Illinois, as well as a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He served in the Western Theater, seeing acti ...
of Harrisburg, opened a slope mine on the south side of the rails near Liberty. It became the first in the county to ship coal by rail-car. The mine was called Ledford Slope, and the spot was called Liberty Crossing. Liberty is bordered by the old mining community of Ledford south of Harrisburg, Dorrisville to the west, and Buena Vista to the north. Liberty holds the new Junior High building.
* Ledford – Ledford had been a complete town unto itself. It was the home ground of Charles Birger, and had several stores, its own school system, and a post office. Ledford was a coal mining community set up by mostly Hungarians during the 19th century. It holds a large cemetery, an historic Hungarian cemetery, and the Ledford Baptist Church. Ledford is spread across a span of land along Route 45 between Carrier Mills and Harrisburg, with several roads branching off to the left and right of the highway. It is all considered "Ledford".
Climate
Harrisburg has a humid subtropical climate
A humid subtropical climate is a zone of climate characterized by hot and humid summers, and cool to mild winters. These climates normally lie on the southeast side of all continents (except Antarctica), generally between latitudes 25° and 40° ...
(Köppen climate classification
The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...
''Cfa''), bordering on a humid continental climate
A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezing ...
(Köppen climate classification
The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...
''Dfa'') with neither large mountains nor large bodies of water to moderate its temperature. Both cold Arctic air and hot, humid tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...
affect the region. The city has four distinct seasons. The highest average temperature is in July at , while the lowest average temperature is in January.[ However, summer temperatures can rise over , and winter temperatures can drop below .][ Average monthly precipitation ranges from a in September to in April, with the heaviest occurring during spring.][ Snowfall, which normally occurs from November to April, ranges from 1 to per month. The highest recorded temperature was on July 13, 1936, and the lowest recorded temperature was on February 2, 1951, at .][
]
Natural disasters
Flood risks
Flooding along the Ohio River
The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...
, causing back flow of the middle fork of the Saline River has plagued Harrisburg over the years. The city was flooded in 1883–1884 and again in 1913. The most severe came during the Ohio River flood of 1937
The Ohio River flood of 1937 took place in late January and February 1937. With damage stretching from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois, 385 people died, one million people were left homeless and property losses reached $500 million ($10.2 billion ...
when much of the city, except "Crusoes' Island", a downtown orbit that encircled the town square, was underwater. High water had reached from the river, and the city was flooded in its position among tributary lowlands. 10,000 out of the 16,000 residents were left stranded on the crowded "island" for weeks, while the other 80% of Harrisburg was completely inundated. By the time the flood waters had receded, 4000 were left homeless
Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing. People can be categorized as homeless if they are:
* living on the streets, also kn ...
. Between Gallatin County and Harrisburg, about of Illinois Route 13
Illinois Route 13 (IL 13) is a major east–west state route in southern Illinois. Illinois 13 has its western terminus at Centreville at Illinois Route 157 and its eastern terminus at the Kentucky state line and the Ohio River, at Kentuck ...
was covered by of water; motorboats navigated the entire distance to rescue marooned families. National guard boats were the means of transportation in the city, and several thousand people were transported daily from temporary island to island. According to the Sanborn Map Company
Sanborn maps are detailed maps of U.S. cities and towns in the 19th and 20th centuries. Originally published by The Sanborn Map Company (Sanborn), the maps were created to allow fire insurance companies to assess their total liability in urbaniz ...
, Harrisburg in October 1925 had a population of 15,000, and in a revised version by January 1937 the population had fallen to 13,000. After that, a levee
A levee (), dike (American English), dyke (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), embankment, floodbank, or stop bank is a structure that is usually soil, earthen and that often runs parallel (geometry), parallel to ...
was erected north and east of the city for protection from future floods. The levee became the unofficial northern and eastern border of the town. No businesses or residences exist in the Saline River Middle Fork floodplain
A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...
s. Flooding reoccurred in January 1982 due to drainage problems from the frozen ground, and in 1983, due to of rain. The Pankey Branch pumping system, on the east side of town, was built to handle flooding from the Saline River only, and has serious complex watershed technical problems, causing continual water backup within the levee during large rain events. The city rebuilt a new pumping system and requested the Army Corps of Engineers to certify the levee.
Flood of 2008
In Saline County, a preliminary estimate indicated $16.8 million in damage caused by of rain on March 18–19, 2008. At least 30 homes and 44 businesses had water over the first floor. Many business owners faced quite a task as they assessed the damage and began cleaning up. Others were able to reopen fairly quickly after suffering only minimal damage or waiting for flood waters to recede so that customers could reach their businesses. Harrisburg officials reported 74 businesses affected by flooding, Businesses along Commercial Street (U.S. Route 45
U.S. Route 45 (US 45) is a major north-south United States highway and a border-to-border route, from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico. A sign at the highway's northern terminus notes the total distance as .
US 45 is notable for incorporatin ...
), were hardest hit. Kroger
The Kroger Company, or simply Kroger, is an American retail company that operates (either directly or through its subsidiaries) supermarkets and multi-department stores throughout the United States.
Founded by Bernard Kroger in 1883 in Cincin ...
, which had just undergone a major renovation, reportedly had or more of water inside. The Federal Emergency Management Agency
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Exec ...
denied flood recovery grants and loans to Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
. Flooding in the city was being called the worst in 71 years.
Tornado of 2012
Spawned by a weather system that had originated in Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...
, an EF-4 tornado slammed into Harrisburg early on the morning of February 29, 2012. The tornado touched down just north of Carrier Mills at 4:51 am, destroyed a church and damaged houses along Town Park Road, and then traveled ENE through the Harrisburg Coal Field just north of Ledford, and then went through Liberty
Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom.
In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...
, where it damaged Harrisburg Middle School. The tornado then reached the south-western edge of the city at 4:56 am, specifically Dorrisville, which suffered significant property damage, and then churned eastward to Gaskins City which was nearly leveled; seven people were confirmed dead in that area, most killed in an apartment complex that was crushed by another residence, and 110 were injured overall. On June 3, another victim died in the hospital from their injuries, raising the death toll to 8. Harrisburg Medical Center was also significantly damaged in Gaskins City. Peak winds were estimated to have been about 180 mph, and the width of the tornado path was 275 yards, traveling 26.5 miles. In Harrisburg, more than 200 houses, and about 25 businesses were destroyed or damaged heavily. At least 10 houses and other buildings were leveled completely, and several structures were displaced from their foundations. Early estimates indicated nearly 40% of the city was damaged or destroyed. The following night, a mandatory curfew was enforced in the effected areas, from 6 p.m. through 6 am. Counting the damage and death toll, it was reported to be the worst storm since the Joplin, Missouri
Joplin is a city in Jasper County, Missouri, Jasper and Newton County, Missouri, Newton counties in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Missouri. The bulk of the city is in Jasper County, while the southern portion is in Newton County. J ...
, tornado. Harrisburg Unit 3 schools were closed until March 5, 2012, and later they offered trauma counseling to students after reopening.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Exec ...
and IEMA began doing preliminary damage assessments on March 5, 2012, to determine the need for public assistance. The storm damage in Harrisburg dominated national airwaves for several days, with both Anderson Cooper and Diane Sawyer
Lila Diane Sawyer (; born December 22, 1945) is an American television broadcast journalist known for anchoring major programs on two networks including ''ABC World News Tonight'', ''Good Morning America'', ''20/20'', and ''Primetime'' newsmagaz ...
doing special reports. Both ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' and ''Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...
'' published articles about the resilient history and nature of Harrisburg to rebound from the tornado and floods that have hit the city since its founding in 1889.
Gateway to the Shawnee National Forest
More than of Shawnee National Forest
The Shawnee National Forest is a United States National Forest located in the Ozark and Shawnee Hills of Southern Illinois, United States. Administered by the U.S.D.A. Forest Service, it consists of approximately 280,000 acres (1,100 km²) ...
lie to the south of Harrisburg, drawing visitors annually to the Saline County area and the gateway community. The Shawnee National Forest offers much to see and do. The national forest has of roadways, some of streams and frequent waterfalls, numerous ponds and lakes as large as (some with swimming beaches), 13 campgrounds, many picnicking sites, and seven wilderness areas where trails are designed for hiking and horseback riding.
Plant life is extremely diverse and ranges from sun-loving species to those that grow in dense shade. Tree cover dominates the publicly owned acreage, and is a significant component on privately owned lands. Oak-hickory is the predominant timber type, however, many other commercially important timber species also occupy significant acreages. More than 500 wildlife species can be found in the Forest, including 48 mammals, 237 birds, 52 reptiles, 57 amphibians, and 109 species of fish. There are seven federally listed threatened and endangered species that inhabit the Forest, as well as 33 species which are considered regionally sensitive, and 114 Forest-listed species.
When the Shawnee Purchase Units were first established, temporary headquarters were set up in Room 303, First Trust and Savings Bank Building, Harrisburg, Illinois. This was the only modern office building in the town of Harrisburg suitable for headquarters, and the forest has continued to occupy this building as Supervisor's offices. Expansion of the offices has continued since 1933, until today (June 1938), ten rooms on the third floor, and four rooms on the fourth floor, are leased by the Forest Service. Employees who were here during the early days of the forest tell of the chaos and confusion caused by the small space under lease, the incoming shipments of equipment and supplies, and the constant inflow of new personnel.
Media
'' The Daily Register'', based in Harrisburg, has been providing coverage of news for southeastern Illinois since 1869, and is owned by GateHouse Media. It is the major daily newspaper serving Harrisburg, Saline County, and distributes to Paducah, Kentucky
Paducah ( ) is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of McCracken County, Kentucky. The largest city in the Jackson Purchase region, it is located at the confluence of the Tennessee and the Ohio rivers, halfway between St. Louis, Missour ...
, Cape Girardeau, Missouri
Cape Girardeau ( , french: Cap-Girardeau ; colloquially referred to as "Cape") is a city in Cape Girardeau and Scott Counties in the U.S. state of Missouri. At the 2020 census, the population was 39,540. The city is one of two principal citie ...
, and Mount Vernon, Illinois
Mount Vernon is a city in and the county seat of Jefferson County, Illinois, United States. The population was 14,600 at the 2020 census. Mount Vernon is the principal city of the Mount Vernon Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all o ...
. The second major newspaper is '' The Eldorado Daily Journal'', based in Eldorado
El Dorado (, ; Spanish for "the golden"), originally ''El Hombre Dorado'' ("The Golden Man") or ''El Rey Dorado'' ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to describe a mythical tribal chief (''zipa'') or king o ...
and operated by GateHouse as a sister newspaper to the ''Register''. Newspapers are also delivered into the city from as far away as Evansville
Evansville is a city in, and the county seat of, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. The population was 118,414 at the 2020 census, making it the state's third-most populous city after Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, the largest city in S ...
, Chicago, and St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
. It is often included in the Illinois–Indiana–Kentucky tri-state area
The Illinois–Indiana–Kentucky tri-state area is a tri-state area where the U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky intersect. The area is defined mainly by the television viewing area and consists of ten Illinois counties, eleven Ind ...
.
Harrisburg has one television station licensed directly to the city; WSIL-TV
WSIL-TV (channel 3) is a television station licensed to Harrisburg, Illinois, United States, serving as the ABC affiliate for Southern Illinois, Southeast Missouri, the Purchase area of Western Kentucky, and Northwest Tennessee. Owned by All ...
. Broadcasting on channel 3, it is the ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
affiliate for a wide area of southern Illinois, western Kentucky and southeastern Missouri. The station's studios reside in nearby Carterville. There is one major AM broadcasting station in Harrisburg, WEBQ 1240 (also on 93.7 FM), a now country music station that has broadcast news and music to the region since the 1930s, its FM sister station (WEBQ-FM) is a St. Louis Cardinals affiliate and airs an adult standards format. WOOZ 99.9 FM Z100 has tToday's Best Country is also licensed to the city, with studios in nearby Carterville.
Government, healthcare, and education
Harrisburg is the county seat of Saline County with a mayor and council form of government. The city has four main council members. The city has a Police Department that shares a building with the Sheriff's department with 13 sworn officers and a civilian secretary. There are 7 full-time firefighters and 15 on-call members and a trained Emergency Medical Technician working for the Harrisburg Fire Department, working out of a central station. It has three fire trucks, a snorkel, a rescue truck, a 4×4 brush truck, and a tanker truck.
The City of Harrisburg operates its own water distribution system
A water distribution system is a part of water supply network with components that carry potable water from a centralized treatment plant or wells to consumers to satisfy residential, commercial, industrial and fire fighting requirements.
Defini ...
. It has a storage capacity of in elevated tanks. The water processing plant has a capacity of 4,000,000 per day, while average daily consumption is about 2,500,000 gallons. The city's water treatment plant has a design capacity of 3,125,000 gallons per day. Its average load is per day.
Harrisburg Hospital was at one time located in a four-story complex one block from the town square, but in the 1990s moved to Harrisburg Medical Center where 71 beds and 34 physicians are on staff. It also has an 18-bed psychiatric area. In 1995, the hospital completed a multimillion-dollar expansion and renovation program. There are 25 nursing homes in the Harrisburg and southeastern Illinois area. Three are located within the city. Harrisburg also has several clinics, and specialized physicians have offices within the city.
Harrisburg Community Unit School District 3 serves the city's student population with two K-6 elementary schools, a junior high school, and a senior high school. More than 2,300 students are enrolled in the district's schools. More than 1,300 students attend East Side and West Side Elementary schools. Malan Junior High was the main middle school for the city until 2005 when the new middle school was built in Liberty, which has 300 students enrolled. Harrisburg High School has more than 600 students enrolled. The city has seven preschools and daycare centers. Harrisburg once had several schools within the township before the different neighborhoods were annexed, all are now closed down, a few are, Horace Mann, McKinley School, Bayliss School, Phillips School, and Ledford school.
Higher education
Southeastern Illinois College is a two-year junior college
A junior college (sometimes referred to colloquially as a juco, JuCo or JC) is a post-secondary educational institution offering vocational training designed to prepare students for either skilled trades and technical occupations and workers in su ...
that sits on a campus east of the city limits. SIC enrolls more than 2,000 students each semester in college transfer and career education programs. SIC was founded in 1960. Other nearby local colleges and universities are Southern Illinois University
Southern Illinois University is a system of public universities in the southern region of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its headquarters is in Carbondale, Illinois.
Board of trustees
The university is governed by the nine member SIU Board of Tr ...
campus at Carbondale Rend Lake College
Rend Lake College (RLC) is a public community college in Ina, Illinois. It is part of the Illinois Community College System (ICCS).
History
Rend Lake College was founded in 1955 as Mt. Vernon Community College to allow students from High School ...
, at Ina; Eastern Illinois University, at Charleston, Shawnee Community College
Shawnee Community College (SCC) is a public community college in Ullin, Illinois. It is part of the Illinois Community College System.
History
Shawnee Community College was founded in 1967 as Shawnee College to allow students from Community Col ...
at Ullin, and the University of Evansville
The University of Evansville (UE) is a private university in Evansville, Indiana. It was founded in 1854 as Moores Hill College. The university operates a satellite center, Harlaxton College, in Grantham, England.
UE offers more than 80 differ ...
, at Evansville, Indiana.
Popular culture
* ''The Good Wife
''The Good Wife'' is an American legal and political drama television series that aired on CBS from September 22, 2009, to May 8, 2016. It focuses on Alicia Florrick, the wife of the Cook County State's Attorney, who returns to her career in law ...
'' – Season 3, Episode 21 – "The Penalty Box". Character Judge Murphy Wicks, played by actor Stephen Root
Stephen Root (born November 17, 1951) is an American actor. He has starred as Jimmy James on the television sitcom ''NewsRadio'', as Milton Waddams in the film ''Office Space'' (1999), and provided the voices of Bill Dauterive and Buck Stricklan ...
, lived in Harrisburg, the Gateway to the Shawnee National Forest.
Notable people
* Charlie Birger, notorious gangster
* John E. Bradley, state representative
* Danny Fife, MLB pitcher for the Minnesota Twins
The Minnesota Twins are an American professional baseball team based in Minneapolis. The Twins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central Division. The team is named after the Twin Cities area w ...
* James D. Fowler. state representative
* Virginia Gregg
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...
, actress, born in Harrisburg (1916), known as the voice of Norman Bates' mother in '' Psycho''
* Chuck Hunsinger
Charles Ray Hunsinger (July 25, 1925 – March 23, 1998) was an American college and professional football player who was a running back in the National Football League (NFL) and the Canadian Football League (CFL) for six seasons during t ...
, running back for the Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) North division. The Bears have won nine NF ...
and the Montreal Alouettes
The Montreal Alouettes (Canadian French, French: Les Alouettes de Montréal) are a professional Canadian football team based in Montreal, Quebec. Founded in 1946, the team has folded and been revived twice. The Alouettes compete in the Canadian F ...
; known for fumbling a ball in the 42nd Grey Cup
* John H. Pickering
John Harold Pickering (February 27, 1916 – March 19, 2005) was a founding partner of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, which became one of Washington, D.C.'s most prominent law firms. He was best known for his role as an appellate lawyer in cases ...
, founding partner of the law firm Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering
Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, also known as Hale & Dorr and WilmerHale, is an international law firm with offices in the United States, Europe and Asia. It is co-headquartered in Washington, D.C. and Boston. It was formed in 2004 thr ...
* Mason Ramsey
Mason Ramsey (born November 16, 2006) is an American singer. In March 2018, after gaining Internet fame from a viral video of him yodeling " Lovesick Blues" by Hank Williams at a Walmart, Ramsey was signed to Big Loud. He is known for his singl ...
, Walmart Yodeling Kid
* General Green Berry Raum, Civil War general, and president of the Cairo and Vincennes Railroad
The Cairo and Vincennes Railroad was a 19th-century American railroad that connected Cairo, Illinois, with Vincennes, Indiana. It was chartered by the state of Illinois in 1867 through the efforts of former American Civil War General Green B. Raum ...
* John Romonosky, 1950s baseball player, St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals ha ...
and Washington Senators
* Dale Swann
William Dale Swann (January 21, 1948 – April 9, 2009) was an American character actor known for his numerous roles in television, film and commercials.
Biography
Early life
Dale Swann was born on January 21, 1948, in Harrisburg, Illinois. ...
, character actor born in the Harrisburg
* H. B. Tanner, state representative and businessman.
* Oral P. Tuttle
Oral P. Tuttle (January 13, 1889–March 9, 1957) was an American lawyer and politician.
Biography
Tuttle was born on a farm near Harrisburg, Illinois. He went to the Harrisburg public schools and received his law degree from Northwestern Univ ...
, Illinois, state senator and lawyer
* Henry Turner, physician who first described Turner syndrome
Turner syndrome (TS), also known as 45,X, or 45,X0, is a genetic condition in which a female is partially or completely missing an X chromosome. Signs and symptoms vary among those affected. Often, a short and webbed neck, low-set ears, low hair ...
* Stanley B. Weaver
Stanley B. Weaver (May 23, 1925 – November 11, 2003) was an American funeral director and Republican Party (United States), Republican politician active in Illinois.
Weaver was born May 23, 1925, in Harrisburg, Illinois. He graduated from Ur ...
. Illinois state legislator and funeral director, was born in Harrisburg.['Former Urbana mayor and longtime legislator dies,' The News-Gazette, J. Philip Bloomer, November 12, 2003]
See also
* Coal-mining region
Coal mining regions are significant Natural resource#Extraction, resource extraction industries in many parts of the world. They provide a large amount of the fossil fuel energy in the world economy.
The China, People's Republic of China is the la ...
* History of coal mining in the United States
The history of coal mining in the United States goes back to the 1300s, when the Hopi Indians used coal. The first commercial use came in 1701, within the Manakin-Sabot area of Richmond, Virginia. Coal was the dominant power source in th ...
* List of coalfields
A coalfield is an area of certain uniform characteristics where coal is mined. The criteria for determining the approximate boundary of a coalfield are geographical and cultural, in addition to geological. A coalfield often groups the seams of ...
* Mill town
A mill town, also known as factory town or mill village, is typically a settlement that developed around one or more mills or factories, usually cotton mills or factories producing textiles. Europe
Italy
* ''Crespi d'Adda'', UNESCO World Her ...
* Rust Belt
The Rust Belt is a region of the United States that experienced industrial decline starting in the 1950s. The U.S. manufacturing sector as a percentage of the U.S. GDP peaked in 1953 and has been in decline since, impacting certain regions and ...
References
External links
Saline County Chamber of Commerce
Southeastern Illinois Regional Planning and Development Council
Harrisburg Official Website
*
{{authority control
Cities in Illinois
Cities in Saline County, Illinois
County seats in Illinois
Mining communities in Illinois
Populated places established in 1847
1847 establishments in Illinois