Illinois Turns 200

In just 5 years, Illinois will turn 200 years old.  What a run we've had so far.  Lots of amazing things have happened in our state.  Lots of sad and discouraging things have happened in and to our state.  But, we are resilient, and we as a people have endured hardship after hardship.

Times are tough right now.  Not just tough.  TOUGH.  The state is out of money.  The state legislature seems unwilling, unable and unmotivated to do a single darn thing about it.  Eventually, this is going to kill us.

What shape will we be in for our 200th?  What will the next 5 years be like?

I found this editorial on-line today.  It speaks to this matter and is a very, very good read.  Check it out.

Out for now....

Matt

Looking Ahead to 2018 Bicentennial

JIM NOWLAN

Illinois has been going through a rough patch. It was not always so.

When I was a kid in the 1950s, I was proud to be from Illinois. The state was rich, farming and manufacturing were booming, and we were the crossroads state, with Route 66 and Lincoln highways and long-distance "zephyr" trains connecting in Illinois.

Our 2018 bicentennial provides a great opportunity to celebrate our past, think ahead, and have some fun throughout the state doing it.

Unfortunately, Illinois doesn't know where it is going, or where it has been. We do no planning and thinking ahead at the state level. The state commerce department stopped doing economic development planning in the 1990s. Our highway department does five-year plans, but has no money to implement them.

Illinois has much going for it, to build upon. Our infrastructure is second to none. Agriculture continues strong, and the state's higher education, from a comprehensive network of community colleges to world-renowned graduate research centers, is hard to beat.

We have plentiful water and a world financial center that business around the globe checks out each morning. Then there is our location, in the middle of the world's largest economy.

And our history is important to the world, and not just to ourselves. Three presidents and more Nobel prizes from the universities of Chicago and Illinois than just about any other state.

Our architects have been designing buildings around the world since the late 1800s (and continue to do so). We invented the self-scouring steel plow, reapers and farm equipment that makes Midwesterners the most productive farmers in the world (and we continue to do so).

We also have known how to think big. The World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 drew 27 million fairgoers to our glorious lakefront. (If our State Fair draws 600,000, it is a success.) The sprawling Museum of Science and Industry is the only remaining building — and it was by far the smallest at the fair.

Somebody was thinking big more recently, whether the feds or state highway folks, when the Interstate system was designed in the 1950s. Illinois has 2300 miles of Interstate, more than any states but California and Texas, and its arteries pulsate outward to the nation.

Springfield historian Tony Leone notes that Illinois celebrated in 1918 for our centennial. There were pageants, plays, history books and special postage stamps. The U.S. even minted a Lincoln 50-cent piece with the state seal on the back.

The large Centennial Building on the state Capitol campus in Springfield is the lasting legacy of the celebration.

The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency is creating a commission on the bicentennial, and Leone will be a prominent member. He has good ideas — an Illinois History Museum to rival and complement the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield, and publications, digital as well as print, of course, that trumpet our history to every school child in Illinois.

I suggest the commission be large, with at least one each of scientists, business people and civic leaders for every history buff on the panel. There should be many active committees, and the commission must be directed not only to look back but also to look ahead, to think big and dream.

Nor should the commission pass over the challenges we — and other states face — such as violence in the ghettoes, the collapse of families in many neighborhoods, and the severe erosion of the middle class.

When I guest lecture in college classrooms, I ask how many of the students plan to stay in Illinois upon graduation. The consistent response is that most want to exit the state. We need to reverse that, and the challenge can certainly be a part of the charge for a large bicentennial commission, especially in a state that doesn't know where it is going.

This could be something big — and important. There is time, though five years will fly by. Let's make our milestone birthday something to remember — and to celebrate.