InFocus 314 | How history and tourism travel hand in hand

[Music] welcome to another edition of In Focus I'm Jennifer Fuller Illinois is rich in history and that history drives tourism to locations from border to border recent statistics show tourism's economic impact is significant for Illinois to the tune of more than 100 million annual visitors and more than 40 billion dollars while those numbers declined a bit due to the covid pandemic analysts say they're bouncing back Springfield's ties to one of the most famous presidents in U.S history brings people from all over the world to Illinois's Capital City there they can walk the streets Abraham Lincoln walked and visit many of the places he frequented including the Old State Capitol where he delivered his famous A House Divided speech now there's an additional distinction at the Old State Capitol researchers have found a new historic designation for the 185 year old building connecting it to the Underground Railroad Julie Staley shows us how it's shaping the history of Illinois there are several locations in Springfield that have a connection to the Underground Railroad one of them has been found to go right through here at the Illinois Supreme Court at the Old State Capitol building stories about the Underground Railroad in Springfield have been shared for more than a century but because of its secretive nature they can be hard to prove sources like books newspapers and letters piece together the facts but newly researched legal documents are also bringing light to this history the Underground Railroad was illegal and it was Secret so you did not necessarily go around telling folks about it but if you were a radical abolitionist which is what the people who actually were conductors and agents for the railroad then you likely knew someone who knew someone who knew someone of the same mindset Freedom Seekers they would be the people who would be escaping from enslavement and whatnot and they would if they either got caught they could be brought in before The Supreme Court or just on the circuit courts or small city courts in Illinois so that's kind of where most of this stuff comes from the association with the Underground Railroad in this building is Supreme Court cases that happened here that deal with those people conductors and freedom Seekers three cases in the Illinois Supreme Court put the old state capital in the network to Freedom the program was created in 1998 through the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Act this documents verifiable connections to the Underground Railroad today more than 700 locations have been identified Springfield has been listed before but these three cases Mark The First Time The Old State Capitol has been listed when people come here of course they're here for the Lincoln stuff but they don't really think well did other stuff happen here other stuff must have had to happen here Springfield has been the state capital since 1837 pretty much now this building opens up in 1839 1840 and the Supreme Court is here pretty much the entire time two cases happened in 1843 eels versus the people Dr Richard eels was convicted by the Supreme Court for aiding a freedom Seeker in his home in Quincy Illinois and Willard versus the people Julius Willard and his son Samuel a student here at Illinois College at the time were convicted for helping a freedom Seeker in Jacksonville the third case took place in 1850 Thornton's case brought charges to a black man named Hempstead Thornton he claimed he was wrongfully arrested when the local Constable didn't have enough evidence the charges were dropped the arrest took place during an event called the slave Stampede local authorities found out about a group of Freedom Seekers trying to get North from St Louis a fight broke out in Springfield between the group and the authorities and Thornton was arrested this case is connected to another story already on the network to freedom in Springfield Jamison Jenkins was a local Draymond in February of 1861 he drove Abraham Lincoln to the train depot when he left for the White House but in 1850 Jenkins plan to intercept the freedom Seekers coming from Saint Louis with Hempstead Thornton and take them to Bloomington in his wagon Jenkins lived in a house that used to be on this lot just a half a block from the home of Abraham Lincoln so Jenkins helped a group that were coming from St Louis get further north on their way presumably perhaps all the way to Canada and being a drayman or having a wagon is a good profession to have if you want to help freedom Seekers get further north we wouldn't have known about his involvement if it wasn't for newspaper reports that actually named Jenkins it's kind of a confusing series of articles in 1850 did he did he create Freedom Seekers was he helping the freedom Seekers But ultimately it was determined that he was actually helping them get further north so Jameson Jenkins would have had at least some connection with his neighbor Abraham Lincoln that calls into question whether or not Abraham Lincoln knew about the Underground Railroad here in Springfield and other stuff like that um it's difficult to say you have to look at it in a few different ways when it comes to Lincoln Lincoln being a lawyer a man of the law he's not going to really legally be in favor of something like the Underground Railroad now of course his own personal opinions and thoughts may say otherwise that he does in fact support the Underground Railroad these cases are proof that the Old State Capitol is a key part of the history of the Underground Railroad in a state that was free but not safe for those who sought Freedom it was based on a lot of trust and a lot of faith trust in your fellow man and faith in the man upstairs to get you as to where you really wanted to go and there were lines of course in Illinois because of our location on the Mississippi River and the further south you get at the Confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi down at Cairo because if you're in Cairo and if you go across the river you could be in slave territory it wasn't environment friendly to African Americans in Illinois although African-Americans did live here and did thrive in some cases and and almost in spite of what you would think with the laws on the books they shouldn't have been able to accomplish what they did which is a testament to their initiative and desire and efforts to achieve this this dream of of the founders that Lincoln espouse so so much pretty much entering the Lion's Den uh so to speak I mean you know again Springfield is going to be one of the hotter places that's not uh that's very anti-abolition um even though we always get the idea of well Abraham Lincoln was from here so how could it not be an abolitionist type town but a lot of people don't realize how different things were back then and um you know just because Abraham Lincoln was from here doesn't mean everybody's going to share those ideas and um you know he has a good reputation in town but those thoughts and ideas are not really you know I don't want to say welcome but can't really parade around the streets talking about abolition the Old State Capitol cases offer proof of the legal struggles for those seeking freedom and punishment that was upheld in Illinois before 1850. that's when the Fugitive Slave Law tightened requirements to help enslavers catch those who had escaped well I think there was never an enslaved person who didn't want to be free even though they might not have known what Freedom was but they knew that there had to be something better than the life that they were living now so and in in in Springfield Springfield was indeed a station Harriet Tubman probably the most famous uh conductor on the railroad who never came to Illinois because that was not her territory but um she said something to the effect that she would have led more slaves to freedom if they'd only known that they were slaves but that was the only life that they had ever known they didn't know any different and the fact that this wasn't um this was African-Americans also deeply involved in this not waiting for someone else to do for them but they were active agents in this effort of really pushing back against the institution of slavery It's always important to preserve history and to know the history Springfield does have a unique um a unique story to tell not only because of Miss of the Lincoln's presence here but even moving forward where when we can talk about the 1908 race riot which brought Springfield once again to national attention and more importantly the formation of the NAACP and then even moving more forward in into our time of History the fact that our president made his announcements um at the site of the Old State Capitol that's where he made his first remarks and then that's where he made his announcement about the vice president who is now the president so you know Springfield has a role in history and the work goes on stories about the Underground Railroad in Springfield will continue to be researched and confirmed for more accurate picture of the past foreign Focus I'm Julie Staley the number of network to Freedom sites could be much higher in Illinois the National Park Service continues to encourage people to go through the process of verifying information to ensure these stories are preserved and not lost to history our conversation continues as we take a closer look at tourism and history and how they both travel so well together with historian and author Mark matzinger Mark thanks for joining us it's nice to be here you have a great combination here of just what we're talking about in that you sit on the Illinois State Historical Society board you also are president of the Saline County Historical Society but you're also involved in tourism too with the southernmost Illinois tourism Bureau and lots of other organizations how important is it for history to be a part of Tourism and tourism to remember the history of the area it serves you know Southern Illinois is is kind of is kind of a diverse area we have a lot of different cultures that came into this area and history we don't have any big battlefields we don't have any presidents homes and that type of thing but what we do have is a lot of nice stories that can be told and if you add those together with our recreational thing things you take you know visiting Garden of the Gods and you visit the cave and talk about the history there or hopefully the the Crenshaw house is going to be uh the state's doing some work there if you start adding all those together it makes southern Illinois a really unique place to visit sure people also look at places like following the Trail of Tears or perhaps they visit some of the um uh Fort Massac or or Fort deshard or other areas of Southern Illinois but you mentioned stories you also can talk about the Lincoln Douglas debates in Jonesboro and in other places across the state a lot of places have Heritage trails and of course the Lincoln Douglas debates is also part of that Heritage Trail we know we have the Lewis and Clark Heritage Trail through here but I can kind of see some Regional Heritage Trails kind of popping up that I think would be great for for tourism in this area you mentioned that southern Illinois has so much recreationally that draws people to this area and the Shawnee National Forest is probably the largest at least geographically uh that causes people to come in now you've been involved with a specific tour the trig tour in the Shawnee National Forest and in deep southern Illinois how important is it to remember the history of how that all got started and and why it is the way that it is well you know the probably the father well pretty much the father of the Shawnee National Forest is that little Trigg and he had a business card that he passed around it said you know salesman for the Illinois Ozarks but not in a real estate business and he had kind of the right idea he first started out as a reforestation project where he was trying to get you know the the trees to regrow and that type of thing and then he saw Recreation as a possibility of a way to kind of bring us out of the poverty that we were in he also saw a very good opportunity to take the history of Southern Illinois the recreational stuff in Southern Illinois and just kind of tie them all in together and that's what we've done with the revitalization of the trig tours by doing that we have kind of created a kind of a trail that people can follow you know we we've gone to Old Shawnee town that we left there and we went to equality then we went to the uh to the Salt Wells and into the Crenshaw house and we eventually ended up in in rosicler Look At The Florist Bar Museum and then we finished our evening at the Rose Hotel and these kind of trails I think are are the the best way to kind of package Southern Illinois tourism tourism as a part of the Illinois economy is a big part of of what comes and goes in and out of Illinois how do you draw people in to areas where the towns are a little bit smaller the pace is a little bit slower and maybe it's not as as bright and glitzy as a big city but there certainly is much to see well you know one of the problems that we do have with tourism is the infrastructure we we really don't have the infrastructure a lot of times it takes but I think what's going to have to happen there's going to have to be a cooperation between areas because nobody really thinks about I'm just coming to Harrisburg from Chicago when they come down here they want to go to to Harrisburg but they might want to also go to you know to another County and we've got to start working together as a group and I think southernmost is is trying to do that but right now we kind of have like a little areas that's really just kind of says this is my area and I'm going to promote it we've all got to start working together on this because like I said we don't really have anything in particular but we have a lot of stuff that you can lump together in a really great package when you work with communities and try to work on these collaborations and things like that are you able to point to other areas where there have been successes in terms of boosting tourism and boosting that infrastructure well one of the one of the areas and I also I I talk every so often what's known as a Francis Marion Symposium and uh in Clarendon County South Carolina they have put together kind of a really unique uh trail system and it's called a mural Trail and wherever there was a Francis Marion Battlefield there's really nothing there left it was just a place in a swamp or somewhere where they had a battle but they would put these murals up and people can follow these murals from place to place Southern Illinois could have something similar to that I think it would be you know uh you could follow the mural and then you could maybe go see the real place a mural to Stone face and then you think well that's really kind of neat I like to go see Stone Face in the town of Muddy you have some really unique little things there that would be kind of a nice thing to see and you can just kind of follow this mural system around and it would be kind of a way to to see the actual to see the pictures get an idea of it and then go see the real thing and you can just follow it from point A to point B I think would be a kind of an interesting way to do that a lot of people who both have grown up in Central and Southern Illinois or have moved to the area talk about boy I wish people where I used to live or where I visited could see the things that I get to see every day what would you recommend to those people who would like to bring more people to Southern Illinois or to Central Illinois to kind of get the word out there for them well I think one of the best things is is just we need to promote it and if if you look at the Saline County visitors it's visit Saline County Facebook page we have put together little Clips promoting the area and promoting we're not trying to just promote Harrisburg or Saline County because we know that when people come here they if they're going to go to burden Falls or one of those places so we're just kind of putting out these little clips that I think social media can kind of push out there Sean Grossman has done a great job with hiking with Sean uh Mike trevinko and his new book has done a great job which I I helped I collaborated on but things like that I think with the social media is is probably the way to go with these things what do you see in the future when it comes to history and tourism do you see people getting more interested in not just going to a place but understanding the history of that place I think so and one of the one of the projects that we're working on and Mary McCoy and Heather carrier are kind of hitting this up is that they kind of doing kind of a Heritage type trail of uh black settlements in a black history of Southern Illinois places like Lakeview Millers Grove Locust Grove uh even even the salt Wells those type of places make great places for people to kind of connect with their Heritage and to just kind of follow around and see these spots and see the spot where people actually existed and lived and and struggled you mentioned earlier that there is some struggle in terms of collaboration bringing people together because everyone wants to say that my thing is the thing that you need to come see do you see that Illinois as a whole is working to try and bring that collaboration together so that if people are going to take a trip perhaps they spend a few days across the state we don't if you if you drive through Tennessee and you see stop at the rest stops what they've done is they've broken Tennessee off into these different groups you know the the Upland area the middle area the lowland area and I think Illinois could probably do that saying you know as we as you pass through Illinois and most people let's face it go from north to south or south to North as you pass through these areas this is what each one of these has and I think tourism has tried to do that but I think we could focus on that just a little bit more and just say this is everything that we're offering in Southern Illinois and really push that as not just Harrisburg not just Carbondale but the entire end of the state is a destination certainly Mark matzinger is a historian and an author and very busy in tourism and historical events and and planning across Southern and Central Illinois thanks so much for your time thank you for having me we now take a look at another historical site in Illinois Fort Massac State Park which sits on the Ohio River in Massac County near the waterways Confluence with the Mississippi River at Cairo for nearly 50 years now Fort Massac has hosted an encampment which demonstrates what life was like in the late 17th century the encampment like so many other events was put on hold during the pandemic but returned in the fall of 2022 welcoming hundreds of students for a day of living history wsiu's Benji Jeffords was there today we're having the education days we have approximately 3 500 kids out here today uh doing demonstrations on the late 1700s early 1800s period this is all here so that you can learn what life is like 250 years ago it was very hard it was very brutal everything is indicative of that period whether it be the food the clothing or the way they're cooking foreign we come down here a day early just to entertain the school children given an idea what went on with the Cannons how they were loaded how they were fired and uh just some entertainment for them you get maybe interested in history it's a living history I mean as I told somebody the other day when I was in school I was taught the more senses you can use the better you learn and of course the smells the uh sounds the uh seeing it and then the explanations that we give them help them to understand how this country was formed that's what I'm using here is called you really have to monitor it because it's really hot the more air you put to it so you can actually burn your steel up in fourth grade at our school we teach at Illinois History unit and uh actually during that unit we talk about the French and Indian War and so a lot of the people that that they are discussing um our people that we learn about in our our social studies Illinois history I think it's very important because I substitute teach and those kids a lot of them don't know anything about history and it's not because they don't want to learn it's because it's not in the book seeing how these people are living would be something that they don't really get to to see you know in the book knowing how these things actually happened and the way people lived is very important that they get to see I think they enjoy it we really uh we would really hope that they enjoyed it because if they if we can enter get that spark of interest in history then they'll they might follow it yeah there has to be teachers to teach history and there has to be students that want to be teachers or they really enjoy it they like seeing uh the authentic setup and everything and they like the Cannons and the gunshots and they really enjoyed this reenactment right here get ready it was honestly kind of scary because you were watching everyone shoot at you and then you would and then I don't know and then they yelled that they shot you and it was fun [Music] we came over here we grabbed a fake gun and we started fighting they're actually get getting to explore the uh the time period that was here and throughout the Colonials downhill Place one we haven't had this kid's day for two years because of covid and everybody seems to be very happy to be back out here uh everybody's smiling having a good time it takes a lot of coordination of course to put on an event of this size we'll have close to 200 000 people this weekend out here that's it for this edition of InFocus I'm Jennifer Fuller you can find InFocus online at wsiu.org or at our YouTube channel thanks for joining us we'll see you next time thank you [Music] [Music]

2023-01-20 10:59

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