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Chanute Spotlight: Joseph C. Gomez and the Chandelle

Sergeant Joseph C. Gomez was the manager of the Chandelle Non-Commissioned Officers (NCO) Club at Chanute Air Force Base in the 1950s. As the manager of the Chandelle, he was responsible for... read more >

Technical Training at Chanute Air Force Base

Here in Champaign County the school year is drawing to a close. University students have finished their Spring semester, many have headed home for the summer, and K-12 students and teachers are... read more >

Chanute Spotlight: The Curtiss JN-4D “Jenny”

The first airplane to reach Chanute Field was a Curtiss JN-4D “Jenny.” Traveling over sixty mph, Chanute Captain W.W. Spain passed over the base on Tuesday, July 3, 1917 at 11:25am. Residents from... read more >

Tornado Sirens in C-U

It is officially springtime and we are heading into ripe storm territory. Luckily for those of us in Urbana and Champaign, we have an abundance of tornado sirens to warn us of impending danger. These... read more >

The Urbana connection to disgraced quiz master Charles Van Doren

Charles Van Doren died this month at the age of 93. Known for his participation and eventual guilty plea in the quiz shows scandals of the 1950s what made Van Doren’s rise and eventual fall... read more >

Greetings from Chanute! Let’s visit the Dining Hall

On March 16, 1992, former Chanute cook and World War II veteran Donald R. Hakala wrote to base historian Don Weckhorst asking for recipes from his time at the base. Hakala fondly remembered cooking... read more >

The Flatiron Building, gone but not forgotten

Between 1906 and 1948, the fork of Main Street and Springfield in downtown Urbana was occupied by a prominent building called the Flatiron.The Flatiron, designed by Joseph W. Royer, was built in 1906... read more >

Luker's Pan-O-Cake

On March 29, 1940, Jackson Luker of Urbana, IL filed an application at the United States Patent Office for his angel food cake package called Pan-O-Cake. His patent claimed that the way the cakes... read more >

Tales from the General Store

Although, I grew up in the piedmont of North Carolina my mother and her family hails from the north Georgia mountains deep in Appalachia. The Foxfire books, which captured the oral history, crafts,... read more >

The Illustrative Life of Caldecott, 173 Year Later

Every year we eagerly await the release of award-winning books to add to The Urbana Free Library’s growing collection. Now, there are certain awards that we always honored here at the library, but... read more >