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A heapin’ helping of local history in this week’s Mailbag: How St. Mary’s Road (maybe) got its name, whether the Champaign City Building once housed a bunker, the old Coca-Cola bottling plant, and details on a late-February trivia contest to benefit the Champaign County History Museum. Oh, and an item on who’s delivering packages for Amazon in our local area.
It’s easy to figure out the original occupant of the current Papa Del’s Pizza Factory at 1201 S. Neil St. in Champaign. The familiar “Coca-Cola” script above door that faces Neil Street gives its identity away.
The Art Deco building was constructed as C-U’s Coca-Cola bottling plant in 1938, and it continued as such through the mid-1970s. When we posted a picture of the building on social media earlier this week, several readers commented that they remembered grade-school field trips to the bottling facility — and others recalled walking or driving past the building and seeing bottles move through the factory on conveyors. A few others recalled meeting their future spouses there after the space was repurposed as a popular restaurant and bar.
In 1924, the Coca-Cola Company had developed standardized plans for the construction of its bottling facilities throughout the nation. These plans offered a more economical way to construct factories, and the design also optimized operating efficiency, expandability and publicity, according to a Preservation and Conservation Association newsletter article from 2002.
“Through large picture windows that always looked into the production area, publicity was obtained. Specification prerequisites were that the building’s main construction material be brick, concrete and steel and that the least amount of these materials as possible be used. The company offered four sizes of designs with differing floor plans and costs. Specifications described almost every detail, including what the interior finish material was to be composed of. The architect, who was usually a local architect, did not have much freedom.”
However, prominent C-U architect George Ramey “had a major role in site placement and other details,” according to the PACA article. If you’ve ever wondered about those vertical brick-and-limestone designs just below the roofline, they are stylized corn plants that are “representative of Native Americans and traditional farming in Illinois” and are a prime example of Art Deco ornamentation.
When Coca-Cola reorganized its bottling operations into fewer — and larger — regional bottling centers, the Champaign bottling operation was closed. Dabro Auto Supply occupied the building through the 1980s.
Jillian’s Billiard Club enjoyed a 15-year run there, ending in 2008. Billiard tables, video games and big-screen TVs made it a popular spot for office parties, happy hours and family gatherings.
Buttitta’s Restaurant followed in 2010-11, and Orange and Brew Saloon Brewers took over the space for about a year in 2013-14. In May of 2015, Papa Del’s owner Bob Monti bought the building into which he would consolidate all of Papa Del’s dining and delivery operations in 2016.
Hope you’ll join me for the next Trivia Night contest to benefit the Champaign County History Museum. Former Mailbag writer Tom Kacich, theater historian Perry Morris and I will serve as judges for the event, to be held on Friday evening, Feb. 23, at Jupiter’s at the Crossing in Champaign.
Doors open at 6, and the contest starts at 6:30. WHMS-WKIO Radio’s Mike Haile will emcee.
Individuals, couples and groups of up to eight people are invited to register for $25 per person, and participants may order dinner and beverages off the menu at their own expense. (It is a fund-raiser, after all!) Tablemates will collaborate on answers to the trivia questions, so individual and small-group registrants may be combined into tables of eight for maximum brain-power. There will be eight rounds of topical questions that test participants’ general – or is it random? – knowledge.
Register via the ChampaignCountyHistory.org webpage or the museum’s Facebook page. On the website, click on “events,” then “trivia fundraiser.” The contest will take place on the second floor at Jupiter’s, and the restaurant does have an elevator for easy, step-free access.
“Some years ago, maybe in response to 9/11, Champaign’s city government planned to build a bunker in the basement of the City Building, so the city could be managed from this safe place in event of a major catastrophe. Was the bunker completed?”
During an extensive renovation of the Champaign City Building in the mid-1980s, its lower level was indeed outfitted to serve as an Emergency Operation Center (EOC), according to spokesperson Jeff Hamilton. So that was long before the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
“The EOC was not a ‘hardened bunker’ in the form your reader might be thinking, but it was located in a secure, concrete basement with the facilities and equipment necessary for Champaign officials to effectively manage large-scale emergencies,” Hamilton said.
“The EOC consisted of several workspaces for operations and decision-making personnel, a communications room, a small kitchen and dining area, an emergency generator, and bunkrooms and washrooms for those who might need to stay on site for an extended period of time.”
He said the city’s EOC space also was used during almost daily to host meetings and trainings when officials did not need it to monitor threatening weather conditions or coordinate storm response and cleanup.
The signs are still there in the basement, and the space remains in use as conference rooms, an employee breakroom and a file room. But after the Champaign County Emergency Management Agency updated and expanded the capabilities of its own EOC in 2012, Champaign moved its EOC operations to that facility.
“This allows for increased efficiencies and cost savings, shared equipment and improved interagency collaboration during emergency responses,” Hamilton said.
Speaking of such collaborations….
Emergency-response planning in the twin cities may be both aided and complicated by the presence of a major university right in the middle of town. It’s sort of a densely populated city-within-the-cities, with a fall 2023 enrollment of more than 56,000 students.
Brian Brauer, the UI’s executive director of emergency management, said the UI also has its own primary EOC that is in the final stage of development in the northeast part of campus. As is the case with local fire and police agencies, Brauer said “our emergency-management network is collaborative and active,” with a certain amount of “structured redundancy” that would allow agencies to work together effectively, even if, say, the county’s EOC were to sustain storm damage.
Brauer said the UI’s former EOC at the Illinois Fire Service Institute had served the university well, but “it was designed as an in-person EOC, and what the COVID-19 pandemic taught us was that may not always be practical or possible, especially when we need to bring together multiple first-responder agencies, campus organizations, government agencies, social services, health organizations and more. We had to adapt in real-time.”
University staff “looked critically at what EOC functions must be completed in person, and which could be completed virtually and/or remotely so that our emergency-response capabilities not only address the modern risks and threats, but are also integrated, technologically current and adaptable to new and evolving situations.
Brauer said the UI is “fortunate to be situated on the border of two cities with modern emergency response capabilities, in a resource-rich county with a network of first responders, public health entities, healthcare providers and transportation agencies” that have a history of close collaboration. “We’ve built resiliency into our capabilities – the ability to adapt and pivot based on where the emergency is located and the level of response necessary to mitigate those emergency situations.”
“Around town, I see several digital billboards that promote the number of ‘exposures’ the messages offer to advertisers each week. Just curious how they came up with those numbers…?”
Kristian Gallivan, sales manager at Adams Outdoor in Champaign, said the billboard company arrives at those “impression” numbers with the help of a third-party company, GeoPath, which “generates standard audience measurements from all out-of-home media. One impression equals one view.”
GeoPath takes into account IDOT traffic data, market conditions, distance, visibility, mobile location data and much more to determine the number of impressions for each billboard.
Gallivan said the numbers motorists see on the digital billboards “can be one of two things”:
— Total impressions the company’s nine digital billboards in Champaign deliver in one week (4,197,416)
— Total impressions for each of the eight rotations on that specific billboard in one week.
“Have our local hospitals’ emergency departments seen an increase in cannabis-induced psychotic disorders among teenagers since the legalization of recreational marijuana in 2020?”
The reader must have seen recent national news reports that say medical professionals are noting higher rates of psychosis among young people, perhaps due to the availability of more potent cannabis and more frequent use.
OSF spokesperson Tim Ditman checked with a couple of people in the Emergency Department at OSF Heart of Mary Hospital in Urbana — the chair of emergency services, who is a physician who sees patients in the ED, and the ED manager, who is not a physician.
“They both tell me our ED has seen an increase in patients with cannabinoid-related illnesses in recent years. This includes some adolescent-age patients. I don’t have exact numbers. Patients are presenting with symptoms including vomiting and abdominal pain.”
Carle spokesperson Brittany Simon says Carle Health’s ED in Urbana sees “a wide range of patient needs as the Level I Trauma Center supporting the region, and our social workers and providers track presenting symptoms for all patients. Data from recent years do not indicate any measurable growth in patients seeking medical support for cannabis-induced psychotic disorders.”
“Is Amazon.com using U-Haul vans to deliver packages now? When a guy (or gal) I don’t know jumps out of a U-Haul and sprints to my front door, I’m not sure whether I should answer…”
Most of us are used to seeing the familiar, navy blue Amazon Prime vans zipping around town, but those are not the only vehicles the company uses to deliver packages. And even branded Amazon vans are operated by drivers who are not directly employed by Amazon.com, explained company spokesperson Alisa Carroll.
“Delivery service partners” are third-party, independent business owners who employ drivers — whom Amazon calls “delivery associates” – to deliver packages for the online retailer. With few exceptions, Carroll said these drivers are in Amazon-branded vehicles and are required to wear Amazon-branded apparel.
“The vast majority of the vans that you see are going to have the Amazon logo on it. On occasion, our DSPs may need to rent another vehicle, like a U-Haul or an unbranded van, for delivery purposes.” Regardless of whether the vehicles carry Amazon branding, they are owned, leased or rented by the DSPs.
In addition to delivery associates, Amazon makes use of “flex delivery partners” who drive their own vehicles and may or may not wear Amazon-branded vests. Flex delivery drivers are part of the gig economy and may earn money by making deliveries for multiple companies or apps such as Door Dash, Uber Eats and Amazon. “They can pick up blocks of deliveries based on their schedules and when it’s convenient for them,” Carroll said.
Amazon’s centralized fulfillment centers pick, pack and ship customers’ orders, and those orders typically are trucked to Champaign’s “delivery station” located in an industrial park on the north side of the city. That’s where delivery associates and flex drivers pick up the parcels for “last-mile” delivery around the area.
Customers do not have to answer the door for Amazon deliveries, Carroll noted. “We don’t knock and wait. They deliver the package and they go.” So customers would not need to open their door if they’re concerned about a plainclothes driver pulling up in an unmarked vehicle and coming to their porch.
Carroll said customers may use the Amazon website or app to track their deliveries, and/or to leave special delivery instructions for drivers.
“A few of the stoplight crossarms in Champaign have a bright white light mounted on them. I thought the light might be used to alert drivers to an approaching emergency vehicle … but at least one of them lights up (solid, not flashing) on what seems to be a random basis. Why?”
The light fixture facing westbound traffic on Kirby Avenue at Prospect Avenue has been malfunctioning for … a while now. Champaign Public Works’ Kris Koester says the city is aware of the problem, but in recent weeks “we’ve had so many knockdowns and traffic crashes with stoplights and traffic cabinets, this has not risen to be a priority.”
“I often travel across St. Mary’s Road in C-U and wonder how it got its name.”
I did not find an official record of how or when St. Mary’s Road got its name, so I’m hoping the reader will settle for an educated guess. St. Mary’s Cemetery is located just south of the road that shares its name, immediately east of the Canadian National Railroad tracks. The road may have been not much more than a dirt farm path in its earliest years, when it would have been about a mile south of Champaign.
The cemetery’s history goes waay back, probably to the development of CN’s predecessor, the Illinois Central Railroad. In his book, Remembering Champaign County, local historian and former Champaign mayor Dan McCollum said the site of St. Mary’s Cemetery is on a rise that originally was the location of a construction camp while the ICRR was being built in the early 1850s.
“Given the primitive state of knowledge regarding proper sanitation, the builders of the railroad at least knew that high ground for such camps was healthier than low ground,” McCollum said. “Disease, especially typhoid and cholera, were especially prevalent among the construction workers, most of whom were Irish. Either through accidents or disease, many workers died and were buried without much ceremony along the tracks.”
The St. Mary’s Church website says 8,000 to 10,000 workers were part of the labor-intensive project to bring the railroad to Champaign County in the early to mid-1850s. Most were Irish-Catholic, with a small number of German-Catholics. St. Mary’s parish, the first Catholic church in the county, was established in 1854. And the first Illinois Central Railroad trains rolled into West Urbana — present-day Champaign — in 1854.
McCollum said he’d heard “it was no accident that the Catholic cemetery south of Champaign developed on the St. Mary’s site was started as a result of those early burials of Irish railroad workers.” Those earliest graves likely would have been “rude and poorly marked” — so they would not have been included in official cemetery records.
Members of the Knights of Columbus — Twin City Council 891 do a fabulous job of maintaining the cemetery today. Member Danny Santarelli said “our records show that the paperwork to transfer the land to the diocese of Chicago — Champaign was in the Chicago diocese at that time — was signed on Dec. 26, 1866 for the purpose of a cemetery.”
So … while I have not found definitive proof, it does seem likely that the cemetery was named for the local parish. And in all probability, the road was named after the cemetery.
“Just curious: what is the oldest active ad running on WDWS? The singers on jingles don’t sound like the voices of any of the radio personalities I’ve heard….”
Our colleagues on the radio side of the News-Gazette house keep records about a lot of things, but senior account executive Chris Clemens tells me the longest-running active ad isn’t one of them.
So we checked with “Mike in the Morning” Haile, and retired sales rep Larry Fredrickson, to see if either of them knew the answer. Mike’s and Larry’s best guess, and mine, is that a Schoonover Sewer Service ad, voiced by long-time sports director Dave Loane, may be the oldest in current rotation. (Hey, why change it if it’s still working?)
As for the jingles … Clemens said most of those are recorded by companies that specialize in producing music for broadcast advertisers. Local businesses can hire such a studio to produce an entirely custom, one-of-a-kind music package. Or the production house may write lyrics to fit an instrumental music segment from their “catalog,” and have their staff singers record it as a jingle.
If any local business is interested in production music, Clemens said a good first step is for them to call their trusted radio sales rep, who can connect them with a production house that should fit their needs.
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