Buckley celebrates 150th birthday with a look back at its rich history

Buckley – a town that claims 600 residents and a towering Lutheran church – stretches a mere third of a mile. But it has enough history to fill a couple of books.

This week, from Friday through Sunday, the village will celebrate 150 years of its rich history with scores of special events and activities that are expected to draw crowds of current residents and former Buckleyites.

It all began for this village, located along U.S. 45 about 30 miles north of Champaign-Urbana, when the land was marshy prairie, ridden with snakes and rich with acorns and wild artichokes.

The first white settlers came to the area in 1831 via the Butterfield Trail, which cut through the southwest corner of Iroquois County. Farmers brought their hogs to fatten on the acorns and artichokes, according to "Celebrating 150 Years – Buckley, Illinois: 1856-2006."

The Illinois Central Railroad came through Iroquois County in 1853, and three years later the railroad deeded the land to Ira Manley, who named the town Bulkley after a cousin. But Manley sold out to John A. Koplin, who changed the name to Buckley and, in 1862, designed the layout of the village.

Growing up

As Buckley blossomed, stores opened and grain mills were built. Families built homes, many of which still sit on the tree-lined streets. A few brick streets paved by government labor during the Great Depression still rattle cars that drive through.

Some of the oldest homes – those built a century or more ago – will be featured on a self-guided tour during the sesquicentennial celebration. More than 70 properties will be listed on a brochure, and a large poster at each location will inform visitors about the building's history and defining features.

"We tried to find unique facts about each one," said Ruth Jones, who contributed to the sesquicentennial book. "Some were owned by the earliest settlers, and one has a 48-inch door. It was thought to be so wide to accommodate caskets."

As Buckley grew, its citizens required health care. Dr. H.S. Brossart arrived in 1892, five years after completing his medical training. He practiced for 51 years in Buckley, served as mayor for 26 years and also was a member of the school board.

"He was a well-known, respected physician, leader, historian in the community and was known for presiding over the birth of 4,100 babies," Jones said.

One early Buckley resident was not such an upstanding citizen. John "Jack" Hughes grew up in rural Buckley and moved to Chicago in 1864. In the 1870s, he and three other men planned to steal Abraham Lincoln's body and hold it ransom in exchange for a friend's release from prison and $200,000 in gold.

However, an informant tipped off the Secret Service, and detectives followed the thieves to Lincoln's tomb. As Hughes and a co-conspirator began to pull out Lincoln's casket, a pistol accidentally fired and Hughes ran away on foot, jumped a train to Ford County and stopped at the home of local farmer Owen McMahan. Hughes was arrested when he returned to Chicago; he eventually was convicted of robbery.

Despite the grand scale of that plot, Jones said Hughes didn't make the cut into the new history book.

"He was barely a blip on our radar," she said. "He's not considered a Buckley highlight."

A little Germany

In its earliest years, the town attracted German families from around Cook and DuPage counties.

St. John's Lutheran Church was established in 1870 and four years later officially became St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.

At first services were conducted in German, and pupils at the newly established school there learned how to write and speak German.

Erna Mull, a Rantoul resident, was a member of the confirmation class of 1937 and said her group was the last to have their service in both German and English.

"There was a decline in use of the German language. Churches would start to have German every other Sunday. ... It finally went down to all English," she said.

Jones, a lifelong member of St. John's, said although German is no longer spoken there, its effects remain.

"(Many) of the values from the church have been (instilled) through our German heritage," she said.

Lake it, love it

The demise of a local business in the early 1900s led to the development of one of Buckley's most cherished recreation areas.

Oliver Austin Derrough established a tile factory in 1890, digging a pit on the southwest side of town to extract clay to mold into tile pipes. Ben Spiegler of Chicago bought the factory in 1901 but died in 1908 and the factory shut down a few years later.

The Buckley Volunteer Fire Department bought the property in 1951 and developed Buckley Lake, which opened in 1953.

Today, the area includes a playground, a building for meetings, restrooms and a pavilion. The village took over maintenance of the lake in 1987.

The annual Buckley Fun Days are there each June, as are Fourth of July fireworks, family reunions and gatherings. Much of the sesquicentennial celebration will take place there as well.

Jones said the lake has long been a center of activity in Buckley.

"Kids, over the years, have enjoyed fishing there," she said, "and when I was in high school, we'd go ice skating on the pond."

Those memories hold a warm spot in her heart, but what she truly loves about Buckley are its values.

"It's a different set of values than what you might think," she said. "It's the people themselves that make you appreciate the town."