Honoring the rich history of rural western Illinois, and examining the problems we currently face
FULTON COUNTY POPULATION: 37,069, INTERESTING FACTS: Named for Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat. Home of Camp Ellis a WWII prisoner of war camp. Home of Edgar Lee Masters author of Spoon River Anthology. Known for Spoon River Scenic drive, a tradition since 1968 that happens on the first 2 weekends of October attracting …
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CASS COUNTY POPULATION: 13,642, INTERESTING FACTS: Named for former Secretary of State and general Lewis Cass. Home of the Jim Edgar Panther Creek State Fish and Wildlife Area. MAJOR CITIES: Beardstown - Population 6,123. Home to a large pork slaughterhouse that has attracted a large immigrant population. Home to the famous Almanac Trial defense where …
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CALHOUN COUNTY POPULATION: 5,089 INTERESTING FACTS: 3rd least populated county in Illinois. Often called “The Island” because the course of the IL and MS rivers form the county into a peninsula. Named after former VP John C. Calhoun. Home to Two Rivers National Park featuring several migrating birds as well as its summer peaches. The …
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BROWN COUNTY POPULATION: 6,937 INTERESTING FACTS: Named for US General Jakob Brown who defeated the British at the Battle of Sackett's Harbor in 1813. Home to Western IL Corrections Center. Home to Siloam Springs National Park. MAJOR CITIES: Mount Sterling - Population 2,025, serves as the county seat. The railroad during the 1860s increased the …
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We've explored a number of topics revolving around social problems we face in rural America, but just because we're studying problems in rural America doesn't mean everyone is miserable. Rural places are awesome places to live and there's endless amounts of great things going on. But here´s our essential question today - can one make …
From January 2016 to January 2017, the region known as Forgottonia lost approximately 2,775 jobs. To learn why, we sat down with Dr. Trenton Ellis, a rural sociologist from Black Hills St. University. Although he lives in Spearfish, South Dakota, Ellis is a native of Forgottonia growing up in Canton, IL and graduating from Spoon River College in 2005. After SRC, Ellis completed undergraduate and master’s degrees from Western Illinois University in Macomb. In 2009 he matriculated to South Dakota State University’s Department of Sociology and Rural Studies where he graduated with a PhD in sociology in 2015. In 2016 he was awarded an outstanding Teaching Award at BHSU.
On this episode we wanted to share a cool experience we recently had in our psychology class. We were visited by the lovely Mrs. Karen Hahn a social worker from Psychology Specialists in Canton, IL. Karen’s visit is definitely consistent with our objective to examine the social problems we face in our own context of rural America; specifically these 16 counties in western IL referred to by many as Forgottonia. In fact if we want firsthand insights of what exactly the issues are and what it takes to overcome them, I’m not sure there’s anybody better to talk to then a social worker like Karen.
The following is an excerpt from our initial episode about the Neil Gamm and the history of Forgottonia. Our guest for this episode was Mr. Larry Eskridge from the Canton Daily Ledger. Our essential questions ask "What was the Forgottonia movement about and how is it similar and different today?" ENJOY!
The Forgottonia Project 