100 years ago: Don’t have your driver’s license for 1925 yet? Hurry or you’ll be arrested
Looking back at stories that appeared in the O’Fallon Progress 100, 75, and 50 years ago:
100 years ago, March 5, 1925
“Better late than never” but those automobile owners who have not yet obtained their 1925 state automobile licenses better hurry, otherwise they may be subjected to arrest and extra charges for violating the state automobile laws.
Word has been given out that a squad of automobile investigators has been sent out from Springfield and are due in this vicinity any day. At Rock Island last week a total of seventy-two automobile owners were arrested for not having 1925 licenses.
The investigators work on a commission basis, hence the more violators they pick up, the more money they make. Automobile licenses are required to be renewed on January 1st each year, but a month or so of grace is given before the investigators are ordered to get busy. The autoist saves nothing by deferring taking out his license.
Over 600,000 licenses have already been issued by the secretary of state’s office this year and applications are coming in and being filled at the rate of 15,000 a day.
75 years ago, March 2, 1950
Since Monday night lights are burning dim and with few exceptions store windows and exterior illumination has been eliminated in O’Fallon in accordance to a request by the Illinois Power Company. The utility is acting under a directive of the Illinois Commerce Commission to reduce by 25 percent the amount of electricity distributed as a coal conservation measure.
Under the directive, industrial, business houses as well as home consumers are being asked to make every effort to save electricity wherever possible. Most O’Fallon business men immediately took steps to abide by the request with the result that store window and outdoor signs are in darkness in an effort to comply with a 25 percent “dim-out.”
At Scott Air Force Base a drastic curtailment of electricity was immediately placed into effect to comply with the ICC’s order.
The Illinois Power cited the order of the commission which is as follows: “No user of electricity, other than a public water supply or sewage disposal system or public street lighting system, shall, during the seven-day period, February 27, 1950 to March 5, 1950, inclusive, and during each successive seven-day period thereafter until otherwise ordered by the commission, use more than 75 percent of such customer’s average weekly use of electricity during January, 1950.
“A customer’s average weekly use during January, 1950, shall be deemed to be seven times the daily average number of kilowatt hours used by him in this meter reading period which ended in January, 1950. It will be noted that the restrictions apply to residential customers as well as to other classes of customers.
“The commission, however, realizes that the electric utilities might experience great difficulty if they were to attempt to force compliance by the hundreds of thousands of individual residential customers, and also that these customers may be unable to determine whether they have reduced their use of electricity by the required percentage.
“Therefore, residential customers are urged to conserve electricity in every way possible without causing themselves severe hardships. Any residential customer who cooperates in this spirit will be deemed to be in full compliance with this order.”
50 years ago, March 6, 1975
While plans for a road into O’Fallon’s new Rock Springs Park remain indefinite, a group of pupils at O’Fallon Township High School have begun some clean-up work on the 106-acre site. Additional work has been done earlier by a Boy Scout troop.
First work included clearing the debris left by a collapsed farm house remaining on the site. Last Saturday a number of pupils in geology classes taught by Rion Turley worked through most of the day on the project.
Turley, a dedicated naturalist, has definite beliefs about the park. He has mapped the area and has suggested that most areas remain in a natural state. He believes there should be limited access within the park for autos, keeping much of the park for hiking areas and nature study.
Turley was especially interested in the creek through the park where rock outcroppings make a natural laboratory of geological formations.
Meanwhile, Mayor Gary C. Mackey has been working on an access road into the park. Now the park can be reached through a farm lane off Vincennes road east of town. Mackey said there are two possible ways into the park, one is from Weber road near the nursing home. However, some right of way will have to be worked out.
A second way into the park, also presenting need for a right of way, would be from Highway 50 over the Nick Klein farm near the present Northwoods Motel. Mackey said the route from Highway 50 would necessitate a bridge over the creek and a deep ravine.