Movie theaters and railroads were early adopters of air conditioning in the 1920s and 30s.

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The closure of the Strait of Hormuz as part of the U.S. war with Iran has sent energy prices way up. In this episode of McHistory, you'll go back to 1973 when something similar happened in McLean County during the OPEC oil Embargo.

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McLean County and central Illinois are gearing up for America 250 with a bunch of events, everything from a community drone show on July 2nd to readings of the Declaration of Independence. It's not the first national anniversary involving a big celebration. In this episode of WGLT's series McHistory, lets go back 50 years to hear what they did for the nation's bicentennial

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The closure of the Strait of Hormuz as part of the U.S. war with Iran has sent energy prices way up. In this episode of McHistory, you'll go back to 1973 when something similar happened in McLean County during the OPEC oil Embargo.

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the first 100 years of Bloomington history, water was scarce. In 1929, the formation of Lake Bloomington began after periods of drought, contamination and scarcity of safe drinking water.

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Four airlines now fly in and out of the Central Illinois Regional Airport [CIRA]. They carried about 325,000 passengers last year. It wasn’t always like this. There was a time when the airport that served the Twin Cities had sod and gravel runways.

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To reduce water use in an ongoing severe drought, the City of Bloomington has asked residents to conserve water by a goal of 10%. Water shortages are not unheard of for the city. Even at its start, water was scarce in Bloomington.

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During the Great Depression, the federal government tried to stimulate the economy by funding a variety of buildings and programs. Among them was the post office in the Town of Normal put up through the Works Progress Administration [WPA]. Inside that post office is another salute to the community, to human achievement, and to the importance of beauty in public spaces. It's an oil on canvas artwork.

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It has been many decades since Downtown Bloomington was the premier destination for shoppers in the community. There was a time, though, when there were four large department stores downtown. One of them was My Store.

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There's a declaration of emergency over the number of unhoused people in Bloomington right now, and efforts to provide new housing and expanded space in shelters. The issue is not new, though the response today is perhaps more humane than it was in other eras.

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