March 2021
Construction on the long-awaited Eldamain Road bridge and extension project has finally begun with county officials assembling for a groundbreaking event.
March 2011
Newark High School brought home the Class 1A State Basketball Championship.
March 2006
Mike Hitzemann has been hired as the first full time chief of the Bristol-Kendall Fire Protection District.
March 2001
Kendall County is in the top three fastest growing counties In Illinois. The City of Yorkville count for the 2000 census was 6,189, but city officials feel it is closer to 6,500 with some new homes possibly not properly counted. They are considering a special census.
March 1996
With the building referendum passed, a sign is back up on Game Farm Road marking the site of the new Yorkville High School.
Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar was in Yorkville to help with the groundbreaking ceremony for improvements at the Riverfront Park downtown.
March 1991
The Kendall County Board held its first night meeting in history. The board voted to break what is believed to be a 150-year tradition of daytime sessions and schedule night meetings so more citizens can attend.
March 1986
A costume ball will officially open the Yorkville Sesquicentennial celebration. The Yorkville Jaycees are selling “The Game of Yorkville”, a monopoly-style board game.
March 1981
The Yorkville girls basketball team won the Hampshire Sectional, advancing to the Sweet Sixteen. The Foxes bowed out in the Lemont Super Sectional, falling to eventual state champion Chicago Christian. They finished with a 28-2 record.
March 1976
The wrestling Foxes brought home the school’s first ever state championship.
A tornado touched down in Oswego Township, damaging 11 homes and several farm buildings.
March 1971
Kendall County’s official population in the 1970 census was 26,374 up 50 per cent from the 1960 figure. The census was about even, rural versus urban. 48.1 per cent of Kendall County was classified as urban and 51.9 per cent rural.
March 1966
The Kendall County Forest Preserve Commission has received a pledge for $28,451 in federal funds to help purchase part of a farm near historic Meramech Hill near Plano. The commission is now working with the newly-formed county recreation group to acquire another forest preserve on the Merrill G. Harris farm south of Yorkville.
March 1961
Only some cleanup remains and the new Glen D. Palmer dam in the Fox River in Yorkville will be complete.
March 1956
The Yorkville High School Board of Education is seeking bids on an addition to the high school (now Parkview School). The building will be west and north of the present gymnasium and will provide quarters for home economics, agriculture, industrial arts and science, as well as new dressing room space and offices.
March 1951
Mae E. Wells is now the clerk of Kendall County Selective Service Board No. 148, Plano. Members of the board include Fred Weir, Plano, Ralph Wittie, Millbrook, Henry Gilbertson, Newark; L. Earl Gilbertson, Newark; Eugene Campbell. Yorkville, appeal agent; Dr. Francis A. Torrey, medical advisor.
March 1946
LaVerne Monkamaier has reopened the Yorkville Theatre in the town hall. Playing this week will be “Tanks a Million.”
March 1941
Part of a caravan of cars being towed for a northern Illinois finance company was involved in a collision with a westbound train in Yorkville. The driver, from DeKalb, said he was headed north driving a 1936 Pontiac and towing another, and was unable to stop. He was not injured.
March 1936
An election for proposed fire districts in Yorkville and Oswego was held with both proposals approved. The Oswego district was okayed 229-3 and the Bristol-Kendall district vote was 243 for and 44 against.
March 1931
Two men from southern Illinois were arrested downstate for robbing the Farmers State Bank of Millbrook last month. They escaped with about $200 currency. They were arrested in Charleston, Illinois. Both confessed to the robbery and admitted that the Cadillac automobile they drove had been stolen from a real estate dealer in Mattoon. One of the suspects had apparently been employed as a day laborer on a farm in the vicinity of Millbrook.
March 1926
Yorkville and Bristol are to have the first of the game and fish farms which have been planned by the state commission. Last year saw the completion of the fish hatchery on the Blackberry Creek at the old mill, near the river. This year the deal is closed whereby the state takes over a 55-acre plat on the northwest side to be used as a game farm and it will be stocked immediately.
March 1921
M. and Mrs. L. H. Britt of Millbrook are very happy over the arrival of a little son in their home. Lemuel could never run the farm without a boy to help him.
March 1916
The Olympian Literary Society of Yorkville High School will present “MacBeth a la Mode”, a burlesque of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.” Admission will be 10 cents, proceeds to go for the payment of the curtain used in the performance.
March 1911
After 15 years of continuous operation, the Bristol Creamery was closed.
March 1906
William Reingardt and Charlie Hardekopf have had carpenters and painters at work in the store building vacated by Peterson and Bretthauer’s dry goods department, getting it ready for their occupancy.
March 1901
If one would look into our three churches on a Sunday morning and see how few men were present he would wonder if the same proportion of women to men would exist in the congregation in heaven.
March 1896
The White Metal Company has now been declared defunct and the property sold to J. S. Healy, who will use the plant for the manufacture of evaporated cream. Sale was for $1,450.
March 1891
The fine plant at the white sand bank in Millington burned, completely wiped out. The money loss was way up in the thousands.
March 1886
The mattress factory in Oswego has been bought by the Shoger Brothers and moved to the corner of Main and Jackson streets. It will be turned into a farm machinery warehouse.
March 1881
Al Van Emmon has been on the sick list for the past few days.
March 1876
Yorkville needs a new railroad depot and passenger room. The present station house is not adequate to the wants of the traveling public or for the accommodation of freight. Often the passenger room is filled with men and boys and it is difficult for ladies to find a place to sit or even stand. In court time the room is crowded to suffocation with waiting passengers and in cold weather the atmosphere is foul, while in rainy or damp weather the steam from wet clothing is of a bad odor often to say the least. The fault is the lack of room. There should be a room for ladies
March 1866
Those persons in the habit of riding their horses on the gravel sidewalks in Bristol (north side of present Yorkville) should stop it at once. Those walks are for the benefit of pedestrians and not equestrians.