Lilly Curve
Mrs. Ollie Anderson, 1613 West Main Street can look back at what has transpired during the last 79 years from the perspective of the oldest resident of the street where she came to live in 1898. With the exception of one five-year period in another location she has lived on West Main Street since she came to Marion with her parents at the age of five.
That makes her the distinction of having lived on West Main Street longer than any other resident at this time.
She says the late Claude Turner who lived with his sister in the old Turner house about two blocks west of Mrs. Anderson’s home frequently told her that she and he and his sister and the late Mrs. Ada Edwards, who lived nearer the public square were the oldest residents of the street that was the main-traveled road through Marion, east and west. And now all the others are deceased.
The house Into which Mrs. Anderson’s parents moved with their family stood where the Junior High School parking lot is now located. Just east of the house was a pond that furnished water for the livestock kept in the enclosed acreage to the east owned by William J. Aikman who built the spacious brick home at West Main and Russell Streets now owned by Wayland Sims. (1414 W. Main is currently Jasones Bed and Breakfast in 2013.)
The Edwards mill with its adjacent pond was several blocks farther east across Court Street. Mrs. Anderson remembers that the cemetery was on the north side of West Main near the present junction with Court Street, and was later moved to its present location west of the Ford automobile agency on Court Street.
Like many others who came to Marion around the turn of the century, Mrs. Anderson’s father, Bailey Butler, a veteran of the Civil War, came to work in the coal mines. He was one of the leaders in the miners’ union movement.
Mrs. Anderson relates an incident representative of her father’s independent spirit. He worked at Peabody No. 3 mine which she recalls, had no washhouse in the early days of its operation. This required the miners to wear their blackened work clothes home from the mine. The Coal Belt Electric Railway, which operated a trolley over West Main Street and off to Carterville and Herrin and the coal mines in between, would not permit the miners to ride in their work clothes. Her father walked the three miles each way to the mine and back.
When a washhouse was provided at the mine, and miners could change their clothing before starting home, they were welcome to ride the trolley. But Mrs. Anderson recalls that her father continued to walk in protest against the company’s former policy of barring miners from their cars.
Eventually the trolley tracks which passed her home and turned north on Carbon Street at what was known as Lilly Curve were removed from West Main because of interference with other traffic, and the electric cars traveled over a new route a short distance north of main street.
Mrs. Anderson recalls that the street was muddy in wet weather, and pockmarked with holes, but foot traffic was expedited considerably with the coming of the “board walks.” Marion’s first sidewalks were built of boards about four feet long laid across two-by-four stringers on the ground, literally lifting foot-travelers out of the mud.
The girl from Chamnesstown grew up on the south side of West Main Street, and in 1917 was married to Amos Anderson. They built their home across the street where they reared a family of five children of their own and five children of their oldest son, Lige. Three of their children who are living are Albert Anderson, recently retired city sewer department superintendent, and Mrs. Maxine Swafford, Marion, and Kenneth Anderson, Tacoma, Wash. Lige and James Anderson are deceased.
Among the neighbors who lived near the west end of West Main Street during her girlhood, Mrs. Anderson remembers the John Wardles, Robert Forster, and George Vickers families, some of whose members still live elsewhere in Marion. Down the street toward downtown Marion were the family homes of W.J. Aikman, Dr. V.A. Baker, A.J. Alsbrook, John H. Duncan, County Superintendent of Schools, C.H. Denison, former mayor and father of Congressman E.E. Denison who retained the Denison home until the property at West Main and S. Vicksburg was sold to become the site of the Marion Memorial Hospital. There were the families of Clay Hartwell, James Carter, Dr. Bentley for whom Bentley Street was named, and in a later day, Edward M. Stotlar, lumber company founder whose brick home on the north side of the street faced a two-story brick owned by O.S. Cole, automobile agency owner at the Hamlet Street intersection, and the families of Quiller Cash and Rev. J.W. McKinney.
Early homes that remain have changed occupants over the years; many of the homes have given way to commercial structures. One of the later which Mrs. Anderson recalls was the dwelling that stood at the southwest corner of the junction of West Main and South Court. It was occupied until the early 1920’s by Captain Brice Holland, owner of one of the first, if not the first automobile In Marion, a Ford touring car resplendent with bright brass radiator shell and headlights. After many years of service it was acquired by the Davis Brothers Ford Agency and treasured for years as an antique representative of the line.
(Glances at Life, Homer Butler, published on May 7, 1977)
Sam’s Note: The attached map illustrates in yellow how the trolley line used to progress down West Main and then swing North on Carbon near the property of Nora Lilly which is where the CIPS Southern Division Office now sits. I highlighted her property in orange. This curve was called Lilly Curve for this reason. Nora was a sister to Minnie Lilly Copeland. After 1905, the tracks were relocated parallel to the Illinois Central lines a few blocks north. (Illustrated in pink highlight). The later curve into North Carbon Street is still visible today in the arched tree line that surrounds the back of the soccer fields behind the St. Josephs Catholic Church today. Be sure to look for it next time your out for a drive, its obvious once you know what to look for.