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Reflections: Time to celebrate again…just like the old days · Kendall County News - Shaw Local

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  Speaker 1: Reflections. Time to celebrate again, just like the old days.
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  Speaker 1: Written by Roger mattel Forshaw Local News Network. This article
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  Speaker 1: is being read by an automated voice brought to you
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  Speaker 1: by Everlett. Although we're looking forward to the ultimate historically
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  Speaker 1: entertaining blowout when we celebrate the nation's two hundred and
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  Speaker 1: fiftieth only fourth, the Oswegoland area is already looking to
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  Speaker 1: the twenty twenty sixth edition of Prairie Fest in a
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  Speaker 1: few weeks, the eagerly anticipated community festival filled with entertainment,
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  Speaker 1: fun and food. Each year's Prairie Fest joins the area's
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  Speaker 1: community celebrations, with other towns up and down the Fox
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  Speaker 1: Valley chipping in with their own. Yorkville has their traditional
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  Speaker 1: July fourth celebration parade and fireworks, greatly expanded this year.
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  Speaker 1: Plano celebrates Juneteenth this year. Aurora has a bunch of
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  Speaker 1: festivals all summer. Geneva has Swedish Days, Montgomery has Montgomery Fest,
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  Speaker 1: and on and on. Years ago, community celebrations were smaller,
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  Speaker 1: farther between and were designed for the amusement of immediate
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  Speaker 1: area residents, unlike many of today's statewide marketed fests. Those
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  Speaker 1: long ago. Festivities were usually kept pretty short, but the
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  Speaker 1: enjoyment was no less intense. In fact, it was probably
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  Speaker 1: more intense simply because there were so many fewer forms
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  Speaker 1: of entertainment available then. During my childhood, the big community
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  Speaker 1: event in Oswego was the annual Carnival, the great granddaddy
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  Speaker 1: of today's Prairie fest, sponsored by the Aswego Businessmen's Association,
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  Speaker 1: the forerunner of today's Chamber of Commerce, which set up
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  Speaker 1: shop right on South Main Street. The tilta World ferris
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  Speaker 1: wheel and other small rides really gave us a thrill,
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  Speaker 1: as did the opportunity to engage in games of chance
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  Speaker 1: with unsavory carni workers. A more wholesome activity was the
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  Speaker 1: annual school fund fare at All Today each school building
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  Speaker 1: has their own funfair, but in the nineteen fifties it
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  Speaker 1: was a traditional community Halloween event sponsored by the PTA.
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  Speaker 1: There was only one in those days as their main fundraiser,
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  Speaker 1: firsty old red brick School Gym, and later at the
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  Speaker 1: New High School, later Trauver Junior High and now at
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  Speaker 1: least for a while yet the District three hundred and
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  Speaker 1: eight center on Franklin Street. We enjoyed Halloween costume contests
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  Speaker 1: and had the chance to win wooden canes and other
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  Speaker 1: highly prized do dads in the ring, toss, penny pitch,
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  Speaker 1: and other games. Back in the eighteen hundreds, formal community
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  Speaker 1: celebrations were even rarer, with the annual County Fair the
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  Speaker 1: most important local event in the eighteen fifties. According to
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  Speaker 1: accounts in the Kendall County Courier. The fair was held
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  Speaker 1: at the Courthouse in Oswego, with displays of produce and
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  Speaker 1: other traditional fairfair arranged around the courthouse grounds. The first
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  Speaker 1: Kendall County Fair and livestock Show was held at Oswego
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  Speaker 1: eighteen fifty three and continued to grow in popularity over
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  Speaker 1: the years. After the county seat moved back to Yorkville
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  Speaker 1: eighteen sixty four, a real fairgrounds was acquired on Game
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  Speaker 1: Farm Road, about where the Beacher Center is now located.
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  Speaker 1: Although it continued to be popular, mismanagement raised its ugly
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  Speaker 1: head and the Fair Association was dissolved in nineteen oh eight,
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  Speaker 1: just five years after celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. Eventually, the
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  Speaker 1: Kendall County Fair was revived, and each year it seems
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  Speaker 1: to become more popular. Of course, our neighbors to the
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  Speaker 1: west in Sandwich still produced their annual Decalb County Fair,
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  Speaker 1: one of the oldest and the best county fairs in Illinois,
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  Speaker 1: if not the nation. Besides those annual events, each community
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  Speaker 1: enjoyed their own small celebrations. Most of these events were
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  Speaker 1: put on by local organizations as fundraisers, or were the
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  Speaker 1: products of itinerant entertainers. For instance, in a curious mixture
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  Speaker 1: of sponsor and eventual end money use, take this item
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  Speaker 1: from the September thirty, eighteen sixty nine Kendall County Record.
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  Speaker 1: The Oswego Union Sowing Society's Peach Festival of last week
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  Speaker 1: was not well attended. The proceeds of it are to
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  Speaker 1: go towards buying a hearse, but this generation needn't expect
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  Speaker 1: the benefits of one unless funds for the same are
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  Speaker 1: raised by some other means. The new hearse was Somlanley,
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  Speaker 1: purchased in eighteen seventy one, apparently much to the community's satisfaction.
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  Speaker 1: Occasionally two towns would get together for some competitive activities,
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  Speaker 1: and from the late eighteen hundreds through the first few
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  Speaker 1: decades of the nineteen hundreds, baseball was extremely popular. The
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  Speaker 1: July thirty first, eighteen seventy four record reported last Saturday afternoon,
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  Speaker 1: the boys from Yorkville played a ballgame against Oswego. Mister
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  Speaker 1: Geo Sealy was selected as umpire, and the mercury stood
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  Speaker 1: at one hundred and four in the shade at the
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  Speaker 1: close of the soft inning. The game was closed with
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  Speaker 1: a score of nor nine for Oswego and fifteen for Yorkville.
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  Speaker 1: The Yorkville boys having to take the train to get
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  Speaker 1: back home. Mister King of the Yorkville club caught a
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  Speaker 1: ball handsomely in the right eye, and a little later
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  Speaker 1: an Oswego boy got one in his left eye. During
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  Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds, a number of traveling medicine and other shows,
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  Speaker 1: from one man with a dancing bear to an entire circus,
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  Speaker 1: visited local communities from time to time. An Oswego reporter
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  Speaker 1: noted in eighteen seventy four that a menagerie consisting of
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  Speaker 1: two men, a bear, and a drum came along the
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  Speaker 1: other day and exhibited in the streets. The bear was
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  Speaker 1: a good upright water, would dance and shake hands with
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  Speaker 1: and kiss the ring master, carry a poll, wear a hat,
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  Speaker 1: roll over, etc. One Oswego youth. Will Sutherland even traveled
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  Speaker 1: with a circus in the early nineteen hundreds, and in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen twenty three a circus took a break near Oswego
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  Speaker 1: Startling residence. According to the Record, Grange Brother's circus passed
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  Speaker 1: Oswego on Route eighteen now US Route thirty four Saturday
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  Speaker 1: morning en route from Sandwich to Belvidere. Early risers were
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  Speaker 1: surprised to see elephants and camels grazing along the roadside
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  Speaker 1: or blocking traffic. Small towns did have community celebrations back then.
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  Speaker 1: Most no Fourth of Notablief on the fourth of July.
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  Speaker 1: According to back issues of the Record, most local Independence
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  Speaker 1: Day celebrations had several things in common. There was usually
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  Speaker 1: a parade, although it was usually called a procession. Oration
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  Speaker 1: was the featured event, since that was an era that
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  Speaker 1: appreciated the long winded stump speech, including reading the Declaration
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  Speaker 1: of Independence, followed by speeches by the best local and
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  Speaker 1: sometimes imported orators. Most towns had a local band and band.
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  Speaker 1: Music and singing were both parts of most years celebrations,
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  Speaker 1: as were foot races, baseball games, and croquet. I imagine
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  Speaker 1: people have found reasons to celebrate one thing or another
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  Speaker 1: For as long as there have been people, it seems
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  Speaker 1: that only the size, cost, and the frequency of our
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  Speaker 1: celebrations have changed through the years. Looking for more local history,
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  Speaker 1: visit