PROPHETSTOWN — Remarkable lives often start quietly – in a classroom, on a farm, or along a dusty road – long before the world hears about them.

Whether they come from a major metropolis or the tiniest of towns, all it takes is curiosity, grit and a little imagination to carry someone from hometown to headlines — and some towns can boast of more than one notable name, people who left behind more than just memories, but a lasting legacy.

From its earliest settlers to college football fields, Prophetstown has a history of producing people who’ve left a mark far beyond their community, where ordinary streets have seen extraordinary footsteps from all walks of life.

There’s Asa Crook, the first white settler whose family became the town’s foundation. Wabokieshiek, the Winnebago Prophet whose legacy is tied to the very land the town sits on. John Lewis, once enslaved, became the town’s top cop. Artists and creators like Bob Zschiesche and George “Bud” Thompson put Prophetstown on the map with cartoons and murals. Bret Bielema, a Prophetstown High athlete who became a walk-on football player at Iowa, now leads the University of Illinois football team to successful seasons. And there are people who are currently preserving the history as well.

Their stories are full of ambition, humor and invention. Flip the page, and meet the people who both made Prophetstown what it is today, and inspires today’s residents. Maybe you’ll catch the spark that inspired them.

Wabokieshiek

Wabokieshiek (c. 1794–c. 1841) was a Native American leader of mixed Sauk and Ho-Chunk heritage whose life and legacy are deeply tied to the land that became Prophetstown. Known as “White Cloud” or the Winnebago Prophet, this medicine man and spiritual advisor led a multi-tribal village along the Rock River where Prophetstown is today, and played an influential role in the events leading up to the Black Hawk War in 1832. He encouraged resistance to U.S. territorial expansion. The village was destroyed after the conflict, and Wabokieshiek was captured with Black Hawk’s band. After being released, he lived quietly until his death around 1841. A copy of a painting of Wabokieshiek is displayed at the Prophetstown Area Historical Society.

Asa Crook

Asa Crook’s (1790-1854) contribution to Prophetstown’s history is an important one: Without him, the city may not have existed. Crook become the first White resident of the area that would become Prophetstown when he settled there in 1834 – two years after the destruction of Wabokieshiek’s village. Vermont-born Crook, his wife Mary and 11 children were known as Prophetstown’s first family, and lived for many years in a large white farmhouse built in 1839 on the east edge of town. Asa became Whiteside County’s first Justice of the Peace in 1835. Today, Crook’s family home is a museum operated by the Prophetstown Area Historical Society.

Anthony Matson

Anthony “A.J.” Matson was an early Prophetstown settler whose persistence helped bring a railroad through town and reshape the community’s future. Born in Pennsylvania, Matson came to Prophetstown in 1839 and built a varied career as a carpenter, merchant, postmaster and banker. He devoted himself to a long campaign to connect Prophetstown to regional grain markets by rail. His efforts were finally realized in March 1871, when the Grand Trunk Railway, operated by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, reached Prophetstown. The arrival of the railroad strengthened the town’s economic and agricultural connections to the wider region until its abandonment in 1984.

John Lewis

John W. Lewis (1849-1950) was a Prophetstown figure whose century-long life bridged slavery and civic leadership. During a time when Black people faced obstacles to equal opportunities, Lewis rose through the ranks and served as Prophetstown’s top cop. Born enslaved on an Alabama plantation, he gained freedom at the end of the Civil War and adopted the name John Lewis while traveling with Union troops. Lewis pursued education, farmed, and later worked in business. Known affectionately as “Uncle John,” he moved to Prophetstown in 1882, where he served 32 years as constable and nearly 15 years as the town’s police chief.

William Pettit

William A. Pettit (1863-1945), known as Prophetstown’s “Sorghum Man,” was a farmer and entrepreneur whose products reached far beyond northwest Illinois. Born in New York, Pettit came to Illinois as a child and spent most of his life farming east of Prophetstown. He became known locally for producing sorghum molasses and apple cider, processing cane and apples for farmers across the region and later shipping to multiple states. Pettit also ran Prophetstown’s first creamery, did custom butchering, and built a dairy herd. Over time, he farmed more than 220 acres and donated land that became part of Railroad Street.

Claude Fuller

Although his time in Prophetstown was brief, Claude Fuller (1876-1968) went on to have a notable career in American politics. Born in Prophetstown, he moved with his family to a farm near Eureka Springs, Arkansas, in 1885. After working his way through school and legal training, Fuller became a lawyer and entered public service. He served in the Arkansas House of Representatives and was mayor of Eureka Springs before being elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he represented Arkansas’ 3rd District from 1929 to 1939. After leaving Congress, he practiced law and remained active in banking and agriculture until his death.

George Brydia

George Brydia (1887–1970) was one of Prophetstown’s most influential civic leaders, having shaped the community across four decades of public service. Born in Saunemin, he moved to Prophetstown in 1907 to work in his uncle Rod Crook’s grocery store, later going back and forth between stints in retail with sales work at Eclipse Lawn Mower Co. Elected mayor in 1920, he served 19 years, overseeing major infrastructure improvements, including Illinois Route 78 and a new Rock River bridge. In 1939, Brydia entered the Illinois House of Representatives as a Republican, serving 25 years, during which time he chaired the Mississippi Scenic Parkway Commission, promoting tourism along the river. He also helped bring Prophetstown State Park to fruition in 1953.

Vesta Stoudt

Although Vesta Stoudt (1891-1966) did not invent duct tape, the Prophetstown native was instrumental in making it happen. Born in Prophetstown and later living in Sterling, Stoudt worked at the Green River Ordnance Plant in Amboy during World War II, packing ammunition for U.S. troops. Troubled by flimsy paper tape that made cartridge boxes difficult to open in combat, she proposed a stronger, waterproof, cloth-backed alternative. After supervisors dismissed her concerns, Stoudt wrote directly to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, motivated in part by having two sons in the Navy. Her idea was ultimately approved by the War Production Board and passed to Johnson & Johnson, helping lead to the development of what became known as duct tape.

“I have two sons out there some where, one in the Pacific Island the other one with the Atlantic Fleet,” Stout wrote. “You have sons in the service also. We can’t let them down by giving them a box of cartridges that takes a minute or more to open, the enemy taking their lives, that could have been saved had the box been taped with a strong cloth tape that can be opened in a split second.

I didn’t know who to write to Mr. President, so have written you hoping for your boys, my boys, and every man that uses the rifle grenade, that this package of rifle cartridges may be taped with the correct tape.”

Bob Zschiesche

One of Prophetstown’s notable artists, Bob Zschiesche (1929-96) was a cartoonist who was hired in 1950 as an assistant on Frank King’s long-running “Gasoline Alley” comic strip. Before his work appeared in the national strip, his first cartoon works were printed in the Prophetstown Echo. Zschiesche later became editorial cartoonist for the Greensboro, North CarolinaDaily Newsnewspaper. After a brief stint back assisting with “Gasoline Alley,”he moved on to syndicating his own editorial cartoon series, “Our Folks,” in 1980, depicting everyday scenes with current events set in a community close to home. He also worked on the “Barney Google & Snuffy Smith” and “Harley Hogg” strips at various points.

Bud Thompson

George “Bud” Thompson (1930-2023) devoted seven decades to public service and the arts in Prophetstown. Growing up in the family livestock business, he discovered a passion for drawing that led him, as a teenager, to meet modernist painter Georgia O’Keeffe. Thompson served on the school and county boards, held two terms as mayor, and served for 15 years on the Illinois State Board of Education. He oversaw murals celebrating local history, earning Prophetstown recognition as Illinois’ most arts-friendly small town, and his artwork extended across Illinois and around the world.

Calvin Schuneman

Calvin Schuneman (born 1926) served in the Illinois House of Representatives as a Republican from 1975-81, and then in the Illinois State Senate from 1981-93. On the local level, Schuneman worked for the family insurance and real estate agency for more than 50 years. In a 1998 Sterling Daily Gazette interview, Schuneman said his greatest accomplishment in state government was playing a key role in rewriting Illinois’ Unemployment Compensation Act in 1985 after the system went bankrupt in the early 1980s, which helped businesses end the practice of workers receiving benefits after voluntarily quitting. Schuneman and his wife Dorothy live in Naples, Florida.

Bret Bielema

Prophetstown still has a native who is making headlines nationwide. Bret Bielema (born 1970) is the current head coach of the University of Illinois Fighting Illini football team, and recently led the team to its second consecutive nine-win season, a first in the program’s history. This past season ended with a win over Tennesee in the Music City Bowl. A former walk-on defensive lineman at the University of Iowa, the 1988 Prophetstown High School graduate transitioned into coaching and built a long career in the sport. Bielema served as head coach at Wisconsin (2006-12), winning three straight Big Ten titles, then at Arkansas (2013-17), and since 2021 at the University of Illinois. He has also coached in the NFL with the New England Patriots and New York Giants.

Fred South

Want to bring history out of the museum and onto your bookshelf? Prophetstown historian Fred South has written, and continues to write, several spiral-bound books about Prophetstown’s history and important people, which can be bought at the Prophetstown Area Historical Society. Materials consist of local history lessons that South, a Montana native, taught students at Prophetstown High School for 30 years until retiring in 1994 — many of which were used to write this story.

Connecting residents with the people who shaped their town, bringing local history to life and remembering the faces behind Prophetstown’s story has long been South’s mission.

“When I began doing research for the PAHS one of my goals was to bring these people back to life, so to speak, and let our town folk know about them,” South said. “Back in the 1970s I took my history classes to Riverside Cemetery here in Prophetstown were we did a cemetery survey. Seeing all of those people buried there who were responsible for what our town has become, it dawned on me that few people who live there today know anything about these folks, which I thought was a shame.”

The Prophetstown Area Historical Society, on the southwest corner of Washington Avenue and Third Street, is open from 10 a.m. to noon every Saturday. For more information, or to schedule an appointment at any other time, call Jeff Dever (815-535-1047), Beverly Peterson (815-537-2668), Janet Goodell (815-537-2224) or Glenna Spotts (262-994-6442). Also find Prophetstown Area Historical Society on Facebook.