Small town Illinois

We had perfect timing for the Autumn colors with Oak, Maple and Hickory trees. There were many pumpkin farms and they had a bumper crop.  I enjoyed the roadside stands.  Phil stopped into the Republican headquarters near Harrisburg.

We stayed in this beautiful 1885 B & B in Carmi, near Harrisburg, when Phil's mother was in a home there.  Motels/hotels are few and far between in  this area.

It is a very pretty drive with tree lined highways.

This is an unusual entrance for a truck
stop motel in the middle of no-where.

A classic colonial Revival Gilded Age Harrisburg house.

Oak-hickory are the predominant trees and
cover the publicly owned areas.

We made many stops along the way and didn't drive long days, which was nice.

Grayville, Il where we stayed one night
near Phil's sister, is not exactly paradise.
I thought the sign was pretty funny.     

Much of this area is farmland with wheat and corn.  The major crop is
soybeans and they are developing Saluki Soybeans with a high yield and
disease resistance.

Harrisburg benefited from the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties, flaunting the most extravagant displays of wealth and many mansions built around the business district.

The shops that surround the town square are charming but a mix of dilapidated and renovated.  The Wal-Mart Supercenter constructed in 2008 is now the second largest employer in the city with 340 employees on the payroll.

19th Century residential neighborhood in Harrisburg.

Harrisburg represents small town, USA and offers a strong community life.

Densely-packed gilded age houses lined on narrow brick streets that look like they belong in Pennsylvania coal towns, not Southern Illinois.

Harrisburg has a few notable people.

Charlie Birger - notorious gangster,  Danny fife - pitcher for the Minnesota Twins, Virginia Gregg - actress and voice for Norman bate's mother in "Psycho", Chuck Hunsinger - running back for Chicago Bears, Henry Turner - physician that first decribed 'Turner Syndrone',  John Romonosky -1950's baseball player for St. Louis Cardinals.  John was a classmate of Phil's and passed away in 2011.

The White Lace Inn, recently renamed The Layfayette Inn consists of twin mansions and a carriage house, originally constructed for a prominent coal mine owner and his son in 1921.  It serves as a B & B with 14 bedrooms, each with it's own bath.

The lack of hotels/motels in the area make this a viable business and so glad to have the White Lace Inn. 

From the day the mansions were built, they stood as a corner stone of excellence in Harrisburg.  The vintage style construction display an elegance of bygone years from the marble walled vestibules to the carved walnut staircases and stained glass windows.

There must be thousands of small towns across the U.S., equally beautiful and in economic distress like Harrisburg.  I have to appreciate it's uniqueness and quality of life but the early industries that made Harrisburg are absent from the current scene and there are no jobs.   I kept thinking what a great place to film a movie and how fortunate Phil was to grow up here.