Elkhart Hill not only looms large in the area’s geography, it also plays a big part in the heritage of the village residents, according to the town’s librarian, Teri McGee.
Before the state closed Elkhart’s grade school about two years ago, the big annual project for the grade-schoolers was to create an Elkhart history book. “The teachers took the kids up the hill, told them the stories, told them about the animals that used to live up there, and the ones that do today. Then the kids came back and made these books,” McGee said, thumbing through the colorfully hand-drawn pictures on sheets of paper bound together.
“How cool is that? That mindset, it radiates throughout the whole town. The people are proud of who they are and where they come from and what they have.” McGee, who relocated to Elkhart from Peoria several years ago, said she’ll never move. She’s even convinced her fiancé to relocate to the village. “I don’t think I could live in a big city ever again after living here. I’d have to close my heavy storm windows and lock them so I can go to the grocery store. That’s not an environment I want to live in. You can go out and sit on the patio or the porch and it’s like living in the country. You don’t hear loud cars, you don’t hear loud music, you never hear sirens.
It’s as peaceful and quiet as you can get.” Another Elkhart “transplant” is Andrea Niehaus, a Michigan native and businesswoman most recently of South Africa, who searched long and hard for just the right place to open Horsefeathers, an eclectic gift shop, and the Wild Hare Café. She found that place in a dilapidated building that had originally housed a bank that opened in 1892 and was used later as an American Legion hall. Niehaus and her husband have restored as much of the original features of the old bank as possible, including the grand marble floor, foyer and vaults. Besides Niehaus’ two businesses, a post office and a small veterans park share the town’s center with The Blue Stem Bake Shop and two taverns, The Blue Moon and Talk of the Town. “A lot of Illinois history converges in Elkhart, it’s like a crossroads,” Niehaus said. “There is such a strong, very positive energy in Elkhart. There is a tremendous sense of community within the village itself — very active churches, everybody does their recycling, they hold fundraisers and have potlucks and do a ton of stuff for the seniors.
“It’s one of the few villages still alive and moving forward. Some just die out. But that wasn’t allowed to happen here.” “The village is a special place,” agreed Ransom. “It’s pretty much like a big family.
We have spats, but for the most part people care about each other. People work together. That makes it the kind of place you want to be. This place has charm you can’t find in Wal-Mart. There are many layers; it’s not thin like plastic.”
Bridge of time
Crossing a section of Elkhart Hill is an ancient path, a trail, or trace, used for thousands of years by herds of migrating bison, and other animals, including wild game. From Kaskaskia in the south, the trace meanders through Cahokia and the Edwardsville area, to Springfield then Elkhart Hill and up north to the Illinois River.
Behind the animals came prehistoric peoples, who over millennia used the trail for hunting, seasonal migrations, trading and waging war. Eventually, the path would be named Edwards Trace, after future Illinois governor Ninian Edwards, who during the War of 1812 led a group of nearly 400 men up the trail to Fort Clark, the site of present-day Peoria, to fight Illinois Indians.
The trace was a main pioneer trail and a stagecoach route. Parts of future hard roads and highways follow Edwards Trace, including sections that lie beneath Route 66 and Route 121 (now I-155).
The first white man to settle Elkhart Hill was James Latham, and his son, Richard, who arrived from Kentucky in 1819 to build a double cabin to accommodate each of their large, growing families. The pair also built a four-horse mill. According to Ransom, James Latham didn’t live on The Hill very long. Being a wellrespected individual, he was named a judge and within five years appointed by President John Quincy Adams as the first Indian Agent to the state of Illinois. Moving to Fort Clark, Latham unfortunately contracted an illness and died in 1826. He was brought back for burial on Elkhart Hill in what became
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