It seems like a new biography of President Abraham Lincoln comes out every few years, trying to uncover new perspectives of his time and character. Lincoln himself didn't write much about his life so what he did put down on paper has an outsized importance. On today's episode of our feature series McHistory, listen how a Bloomington-Normal man nudged Lincoln to do that.

McHistory is a co production of WGLT and the McLean County Museum of History. You heard Bill Kemp and Frankie Gordey. Charlie Schlenker produced this episode.

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Human beings have marked the turning of the year with many different traditions over thousands of years. Some practices have fallen out of favor. Today, American society celebrates on New Year’s Eve, and not New Year's Day, though this was not always the case.

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McHistory: A Civil War Christmas

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In the early 1800s, supply chains were a lot shorter, but the lack of mechanized transportation sometimes made it tremendously difficult to bring goods to market. Yet, a regional — edging toward national — marketplace did thrive.

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This episode of McHistory chronicles a huge temperature drop in the winter of 1836 that unsettled settlers and led to stories and tall tales for generations.

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It takes a beloved or significant figure in the history of an institution to name a building after that person. Illinois State University ended up naming two libraries for Angeline Vernon Milner.

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Bloomington-Normal and McLean County are not really known as a cradle of country music. But there was this one time...in the 1930s. Cynthia May Carver, better known by her stage name “Cousin Emmy,” was a pioneer in country and roots music during the golden age of radio from the 1930s to the 1960s.

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Hall of Fame pitcher Burleigh Grimes was the last major league pitcher to legally throw a spitball. Grimes played with seven different major league teams, though mostly with the Dodgers and Cardinals. He retired in 1934, the year before he came to Bloomington.

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There are truths. And there are poetic truths, ones that illustrate the human condition even if the stories portrayed lack a certain...accuracy. Why let facts get in the way of a good story, after all? Legendary broadcaster and storyteller Campbell "Stretch" Miller had that attitude toward life and storytelling in McLean County and elsewhere.

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There was a time when people operated elevators across the country, instead of passengers just pressing buttons as they do today. Meet the elevator operators who kept McLean County moving.

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