”For the world was built by dreamers . . .”
–from the song ”Wake Up and Dream”.
by Thom Bishop and Ed Tossing.
A century ago a lively spirit was at play in America. Between taming a wilderness and building a nation, the early settlers had taken on certain qualities and traditions that, passed down from generation to generation, emerged as traits peculiarly American.
Neither so sophisticated nor so global as the Americans of today, these pioneers engaged in barn raisings and quilting bees and other acts of neighbors helping neighbors. Not yet world weary, they dreamed big dreams and worked hard to achieve them. They were optimistic, hopeful, persistent. Their sense of ”can-do” was pervasive: When they saw a need, they reached out to meet it.
Have Americans stayed the course? Or have materialism and self-interest taken over the American spirit? If the 11 Illinoisans featured here are typical, the answers, respectively, would have to be a resounding yes and no. Their dreams reflect the traditional American spirit, and their deeds have made a difference in improving the lives of their fellow Americans.
These 11 are from different parts of the state, but they all have common traits. They each saw something that needed to be done and committed themselves to doing something about it. Once committed, they spared neither time nor effort to accomplish their goals; it took 30 years, for instance, before Sadie Waterford Jones could see her dream fulfilled. They also learned at some point to make the system that first frustrated them work for them instead; Guadalupe Reyes was at first told by the state that the school she wanted built wasn`t needed, but she got it built anyway, and it`s now 70 percent funded by the state.
Their dreams, too, knew no limits, even those imposed by sheer lack of funds; Gordon Moore didn`t have the millions of dollars needed to build a huge park, but he got it done–with donated labor. Sometimes they surpassed their leaders in showing faith in what their fellow men could and would do; despite seemingly impossible odds, Al Robinson got blacks and whites in Chicago to come together and talk. And though most of the 11 are native-born, this qualification isn`t essential to their American spirit; David Monk came from Australia, but he`s all American in his commitment to the preservation of the prairie and the virtues of prairie life.
Their deeds, too, while varying as widely as their personalities, have something in common: an effect for good far beyond what any of those involved in them could have imagined. And in creating a change for the better throughout the state, such deeds are tangible proof that the American spirit lives on.
FRED WINKLER, MOUND CITY
A SMALL RIVER TOWN REACHES FOR THE STARS
By all rights, Mound City, a tiny town (pop. 1,200) so far south on the Ohio River it`s barely in Illinois, should have given up and settled for oblivion a long time ago. It should have understood that it was too small, too poor and too trapped by its own geography to make it. With no bank, no barber shop or fast-food restaurant, no movie theater and no hospital, what was the point, anyhow?
But Mound City didn`t give up. Today two loading facilities on its riverbank hum day and night, railroad cars clatter over once-unused tracks and trucks heavy with grain line up along its streets. It is financially solvent at a time that not many cities in America are. It even has the nerve to think that it just might be important not only to Illinois but even to the entire nation.
What happened in Mound City?
What happened was that in 1965 Fred Winkler, the local hardware-store owner, was elected mayor. Born and raised in Mound City, Winkler took the job when the town was just about beaten, its economy severely depressed and its prospects for recovery bleak. But instead of giving up, the new mayor turned to Mound City`s past to find a direction for its future. Records of city council meetings go back to 1854, and Fred Winkler read them all. He learned that Mound City`s ”finest hour” in the years after the Civil War had involved the river and river commerce. That bit of the town`s history inspired Winkler with the idea of getting companies to build loading facilities on the river.
He believed that Mound City`s geography could be made to work for it again. Because the town lies on the deep-water side of the Ohio River where the water never freezes and the water level is never too low nor too high for barges, cargo could be handled there every day of the year. The Ohio joins the Mississippi River just a few miles downstream and flows on to New Orleans and out into the Gulf of Mexico, and from Mound City on, there are no dams or locks to hamper barge traffic. Cargo, principally grain, could come to Mound City by truck or train; just 300 feet from the river was a railroad line, and there was easy access to nearby highways. Already, Winkler could envision Mound City as a busy river town, winning out over others in Illinois where at some time or another during the year water could be too low, too high or frozen.
For the next 12 years Freddie (as he is known to the townspeople) Winkler lobbied incessantly for the loading facilities. ”People thought I was some sort of crackpot with all these grandiose ideas,” he recalls. ”They got tired of hearing the same old singsong, but you just have to keep repeating it until it`s ingrained. It took a long time, but people finally began to see that the idea was possible.”
Winkler knew that to get the whole pie he`d have to put it together one slice at a time. Changes would have to be made to get Mound City ready for the loading facilities. So, while some citizens still thought that their mayor had his head in the clouds, Winkler turned first to his town`s antiquated electric power distribution system. Built in 1895, it definitely was not going to make it through the 20th Century. ”If you wanted to install an air conditioner,” says Winkler with a can-you-believe-this look, ”you first had to call in and ask, and usually you were told you couldn`t, because you`d blow a transformer and put a whole block of people out of lights.” So the city, which still owed $210,000 on the system, negotiated with bondholders and bought the bonds back from them for $150,000. Then it got Central Illinois Power Service (CIPS) to buy and rebuild the system for $150,000 (Winkler says CIPS did it to help out the city). With that double move, Mound City got rid of that debt and acquired more than adequate electric power for all the loading facilities–and air conditioners–it could want.
Next came the sewage system. ”This was a town of cesspools and septic tanks,” Winkler says matter-of-factly. ”And then a developer came in and put up FmHA (Farmers` Home Administration) housing. He did a shoddy job, and the sewer disposal systems in all the development houses failed. The discharge ran into the city`s open ditches.” The FmHA, swamped with complaints, notified the city that it would approve no more FmHA housing until the city put in a central sewage system and treatment facility. ”Well,” Winkler sighs, ”I thought, `Hell, that absolutely destroys us.` Then the more I thought about it, the more I thought it was a lever I could use.” Armed with a letter
(which he had requested) from the Board of Health on how dangerous the situation was, Winkler put on his suit and went up to Harrisburg, Ill., where the FmHA was holding meetings on a statewide bond issue for sewage systems.
”I told them, `Look, you`ve built these houses, and now you`re violating every ordinance in the book by discharging raw sewage into our ditches. Mound City is a danger to the state! You`re forcing us to bring suit against the FmHA to correct this situation.` We got our money right quick, I`ll tell you for sure.”
Winkler pauses and laughs heartily. ”A woman was talking the other day about all the things happening here,” he says, ”and I told her, `The best is yet to come.` And she said, `Oh, good! But your immortality is already assured. You`re the man who brought the sewers to Mound City!` ”
Winkler next took on the water system. Like the electric system, it dated to 1895 and was no longer adequate. The mayor`s solution was to add four miles of main water line, extending the system to every section of town. (Like his father before him, Winkler is the certified operator of the water system, in charge of measuring the chemicals that purify the water, adjusting the filters and sending water samples to the state lab.)
With adequate electric, sewage and water systems in place, Winkler, who kept getting re-elected mayor, was finally ready to pursue the loading facilities. Like an experienced door-to-door salesman, he took pamphlets and brochures and went to every state-sponsored seminar on industrial development he could find, pushing the attributes of Mound City as a loading port and asking developers to come take a look. They did, and in 1979 the Hudson Co. became Mound City`s first loading operation. Purchased later by Bulk Service Corp., a division of Tabor Grain, it is now expanding.
In 1982 another loading company, Behimer and Kissner (B&K), moved in. They had intended only a partial development, but Winkler persuaded them to buy out residents and take over an entire five-block section, pointing out that the company would not only ensure itself enough space for expansion but also eliminate almost-certain complaints about the proximity of loading operations to homes. Business proved so good that within a year B&K spent $5 million to expand their facilities, and this year the operation was taken over by its parent company, Consolidated Grain and Barge Co. of St. Louis, which also began operating a fleet of barges on the river. Mound City is now alive and well, thank you, and busy negotiating with still more developers.
One dark cloud–a flooding problem–still hangs over the town, but the never-say-die mayor seems to have the answer to that one, too. Now almost 65 and re-elected to a sixth term last April, Winkler has been in office for 20 years. ”When you`ve been mayor of a town this long,” he says, ”you think,
`Well, I`ve given a fair share of my time to the public cause; it`s time to rest a bit.` But because this reverse-drainage project is underway, I decided to run one more time and see it through to completion.”
Mound City is ringed by levees, part of the same levee system that surrounds the nearby town of Cairo. For decades, drainage of surface water behind the levee system has been a problem, resulting in flooding so widespread that an 8,000-acre area has been useless for any industrial development. Winkler considers those 8,000 acres crucial to any future expansion of the riverfront operations. To make that land usable is the goal of Winkler`s latest endeavor, the Cache River Project, which would install a new surface water pumping plant capable of drying out that whole area. To that end the mayor has already convinced the neighboring town of Mounds as well as Pulaski County and the State of Illinois to join in funding the project. Participation by the state is then expected to trigger federal money, and work on the project could begin in 1986.
If realized, the project will not only fulfill another dream of Winkler`s but also give him some personal relief. The present drainage pumps are vintage 1929 and have to be turned on by hand each time it rains hard. And that happens to be another of Winkler`s duties as the town`s certified water operator. Sometimes his mad dash to the pumphouse over wet streets in the pouring rain isn`t fast enough, and he has to sandbag the pumphouse doors to keep the rising water out while he primes the pumps.
As Winkler noted, Mound City, in contrast to other river towns, can handle cargo any time of the year. Two years ago, when a Canadian company couldn`t use the port facilities of Chicago because of ice on the Illinois and the Mississippi Rivers, it turned to Mound City, loading fertilizer there after sending it by train from Chicago. And starting last year grain has been coming from distant points in Minnesota and Iowa to be shipped out of the town. Mound City is coming into its own as a river town.
According to Winkler, the most noticeable result of the new businesses in Mound City is increased revenue. A 5-percent utility tax means that when the companies prosper, so does the city. Both city and companies must be doing well; the city`s finances have been stable and there has been no need to raise taxes on city services. The town`s few shops report an increase in patrons. Eighty people, only a few of whom are from Mound City, are employed in the loading facilities. This may not seem much, considering the size of the facilities, but in a county with 20 percent unemployment, every job is important.
Not everyone is happy. Lillard (nicknamed ”X”) Warden, who owns the local welding shop a couple of blocks from Winkler`s hardware store, is still protesting the high sewer bills and says that paying them has been particularly hard on people with fixed incomes. Winkler acknowledges that the cost is high, but says that the FmHA, not he, controlled the rate for paying off the bonds. Not surprisingly, he has already mapped out a plan to reduce that rate. Warden, however, says his business is going very well and that the loading facilities have helped ”100 percent–they have bought a lot of things from me.” And of Winkler, he says: ”I think the man is doing a good job. He`s doing the best he knows how. His only fault is, `Too much for me and not enough for you.` He sees himself and the town as the same person.”
Janice Walker has no complaints. She started a beauty shop in the same block as Winkler`s store a few months ago and says, ”Business is fantastic.” It must be, because she drives 20 miles from her hometown of Tamms six days a week to work in Mound City.
Across from Walker`s shop are the boarded-up buildings and vacant, weed-infested lots that Winkler refers to as the ”Main Street blight.” He`s itching to get rid of that blight and says he and the council have a plan to clear two blocks and put in a complex: a banking center, clinic, rental spaces for health-care professionals. ”The architect has already drawn up the blueprints,” he says, ”but everything in its own time.”
The next step is to find a developer, and after settling a few more details, the mayor and the council will hold a public hearing on the project. ”You can`t be positive that everything you`re doing is right,” says Winkler. ”And sometimes we may have overlooked something.”
Winkler is careful to do his homework before he consults the council on new projects. ”They have been very cooperative over the 20 years,” he notes. ”Of course, they`re inquisitive, and they challenge me on a lot of things.” He grins. ”But if they get a reasonable explanation, they`ll okay it.”
Can Mound City handle all this growth? Probably. Once before, in the early 1800s, some Cincinnati developers had grandiose ideas for the town. They named it ”Emporium City” and touted it as the new location for the nation`s capital. They even built a 90-foot-wide street from the town to the river and named it ”Pennsylvania Avenue,” the name it still bears. But the Cincinnati developers went home, and nothing else happened. Nothing, that is, until Fred Winkler came along.
Winkler is the son of a German immigrant father and a mother of English descent. For 26 years his father served as Mound City`s city clerk and for 42 years operated the electric and water systems. ”My father wanted to see the best happen in city politics all the time, and he would cuss and fuss when it didn`t,” Winkler says. ”But he couldn`t vote. And that`s an interesting thing because in city council matters neither can I, unless there`s a tie.”
The younger Winkler left Mound City only twice, once to work briefly in Chicago as a teenager, and then for four years while he was on active duty as a glider pilot during World War II (”I was a venturesome soul even then, I guess,” he muses). His mayoral duties now keep him away so often from the pink brick hardware store on Main Street that his wife, Mae, a retired teacher, has had to fill in for him during his frequent absences from the store.
If pushed, Winkler concedes that all his work for the city has taken a toll on his business. ”It could have grown two or three times its size now if I had been able to put more time into it,” he admits. ”But I`ve just let it roll at its own pace. It`s flourished anyway.”
What has been hard on the mayor is that except for a one-week visit to a brother in Colorado, he has not been able to take a vacation since he first got elected 20 years ago. His combined responsibilities as mayor and operator of the water and pumping systems have not allowed him to do so. How does his wife handle this? ”Oh, she minds our not having vacations and she complains some, but she`s very supportive. If she weren`t, I couldn`t have done all this.”
Why has he done it? ”It`s my home, I was born here,” he explains. ”I think that anybody without exception wants to make a contribution if they can.”
Winkler is ready any time, even eager, to talk about a favorite subject, the Civil War and the role Mound City played in it, in particular, the Eads gunboats commissioned by Abraham Lincoln and built in Mound City, and the Navy hospital ship and the Navy nurse corps that were based in the town. In this regard he nurtures another dream, that Mound City will become a Civil War tourist site, with the lodge at the national cemetery nearby displaying artifacts and perhaps presenting slide/lecture shows.
In his early years as mayor he did satisfy some of his passion for history when he got the old Illinois Central Gulf train depot in town declared a historic building (it was built before 1861) and, with funds from a small grant he had obtained, rehabilitated for use as the town library. The public got involved, donating money, finishing walls, installing heating, a hot-water system and toilets. The small, lovely white-frame building stands next to the tracks and a little way back from Main Street, a sentinel to the trains chugging by.
But it`s to the loading facilities and all the ramifications of their presence in Mound City that the mayor`s thoughts turn again and again. He`s grateful to the townspeople and the city council for their years of support, and he understands their not-infrequent skepticism. ”They were specially skeptical of home-rule power,” he recalls. ”They asked why I wanted that. But I knew what it would mean to us and I`ve led a charmed life because of it. It`s given us the authority to take steps needed to accomplish long-range goals. As I heard one judge say once, `Home-rule power is awesome.` ” Winkler has also used home rule to assure that, should the loading facilities or any other developments cease to be used for their originally intended purposes, the properties involved would become publicly owned again.
He is aware that as Mound City solves its problems, good things will also happen nearby. His hope is that development eventually will spark more economic growth in the surrounding areas.
Before he steps down as mayor and finally takes a much-desired vacation, Winkler has one final ”grandiose idea” for Mound City: He wants it declared a foreign trade zone. All kinds of goods from abroad could come up the Mississippi to Mound City, where they could be stored and then packaged for distribution to the rest of the country. Then, after the trains unload their grain, Mound City could send them out not empty but full of imported goods.
And then, Winkler adds, ”Who knows but that in times of national emergency, located as we are close to the geographical center of the nation and on a major waterway to a major port, that we would not become a major shipping center should something go wrong at ports on both East and West Coasts?”
Who knows, indeed? As Freddie Winkler says, ”We need people of imagination who can get a little far out with their dreams. Not fantasy;
dreams must be tied to reality.”
