My name is Liz Wittrig and I joined the Champaign County Historical Archives as an intern in February. I am a graduate student at the University of Illinois’ School of Library and Information Science and will be working in the Archives to process the Chanute Collection.

The G.C. Willis Department store opened its doors in Champaign in 1872. Forty years later, the enterprise moved to an imposing edifice on Main Street.

Born in 1782, John W. Vance spent his youth in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Ohio. As youngster he and his brother, Joseph Colville Vance, chopped and delivered wood to stoke the fires of the salt works near their home. Later, they bought a team of oxen to haul salt to pioneer families in the Kentucky wilderness. This enterprise grew into a salt distribution company based in Urbana, Ohio.

The Champaign County Historical Archives, as repository for the county, maintains a microfilm collection of local newspapers going back the late-1800’s. My focus today will be on newspaper obituaries, and how they have been accessed over the years by historians and genealogists, and how you can access them today.

Abraham Lincoln’s birthday was this Sunday and next Monday is President’s Day, the national observance of Lincoln and George Washington’s births. Lincoln spent his early law career on the eighth judicial circuit, travelling with other lawyers and judges to try cases put before the court.

In honor of Valentine’s Day and all things romantic, here is Champaign County’s first issued marriage license, filed July 25, 1833.

I had to chuckle at this piece from the Champaign County Gazette, which describes an addled husband disoriented from his wife's specific and verbose instructions for her dressmaker. No wonder he suffered "great mental distress."