Category Archives: Government
The following Glances at Life article written by Homer Butler in 1974 summarizes the beginnings of the city’s first industrial park development west of North Carbon in 1966, which made further development of the city’s west side beyond the Interstate possible.
From a vantage point on Interstate Route 57 where it traverses Marion, one can look east and west, and view a wide area of development that has taken place during the last eight years. Continue reading
On June 1, 1974, 13 year old Frances Buckner, a resident of Creal Springs, was spending time in Marion with her father, Robert Buckner, who lived on the Public Square. They decided to walk down E. Main Street to Small’s Market at 1005 E. Main to buy milk. Frances outpaced her father who had health issues and was last seen about a half a block from Small’s. She wasn’t seen again until five nights later.
Her nude body was found lying in the street in the 500 block of E. Marion Street around 11 p.m. under a street light. Someone had thrown a rock through a local resident’s window to alert them of her presence. Continue reading
Addition of 440 acres to the City of Marion was voted in a special election held in the affected area north of the city Tuesday. Six residents of the area voted for annexation and two voted against it.
The annexed area includes the land north of the city cemeteries to the county road south of Cedar Grove, which is bounded on the west by an extension of North Russell Street and on the east by the C. & E. I. Railroad. It includes the Marion Drive-In Theatre, an auto salvage yard, Tom’s Restaurant and five or six retail businesses in addition to the Central Illinois Public Service Company’s gas storage plant and the county acreage on which the highway garage is located on the east side of Route 37. Continue reading
When 48 year old, divorcee and mother of two, Virginia Barbaro, failed to show up for work at Tony’s Steak House on Friday, August 17th, 1973, her friends went looking for her. She was discovered to have been murdered at some time in the early hours of that day in her apartment located over Boatright’s Electronics on the public square. Suspicion shifted quickly to an ex-boyfriend, 43 year old, disabled coal miner Boyd Moore, who lived in Christopher. Moore’s body was found that same afternoon not far from his home, with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Located near his body was a suicide note confessing to the death of Mrs. Barbaro. Continue reading