← Columns

The Coffee Club Historical Society

The Source

This is not a commercial, but I’ve got to say it. I like Hardees. Yes, the food’s pretty much the same as the Scottish place down the street, I can’t tell a Hardee’s fry from something I’d get at Burger King, and the Diet Coke pretty much matches up with what they serve you at Wendy’s, but Hardees has a morning coffee crowd that just appeals to me. Oh, I don’t belong to it. In fact, I don’t even know the members, but I often find myself meeting someone at Hardees at about the time the morning or afternoon coffee drinkers form their coffee klatch. I can’t help but overhearing them…really. Okay, maybe I am purposely eavesdropping. If they don’t want to be heard then they need to start whispering. A recent spying session found me in the middle of a history lesson as the slurpers and sippers recalled their early memories of Jacksonville. Among the things I learned: . . . The trolley would run from the square toward west Jacksonville then turn around somewhere just past Illinois College. One lady at the table swore that it ran further than that, but the loudest voice in the group claimed that as a boy he used to run up to the area of Woodland to see it turn around. He said they’d let the Illinois College girls off on College Street then move west to make the turn around. . . . The best money a young boy could make would be earned selling newspapers on the Jacksonville Square. The object was to sell papers to men who were well dressed because they were the most likely to toss you a nickel tip. Ladies were notoriously poor tippers and young people didn’t tip at all. The east side of the square was the richest lode of paper buyers due to the fact that the newspaper office was located on the west. . . . The most infamous saloons were located along East State along with certain houses run by women where men would sneak in for a thrill. I assume they were talking about health spas. . . . A day spent at Sammy Nichols’ Park was as close to heaven as a young Jacksonville boy or girl was going find. At that time the park offered not only the ubiquitous ducks, but also a variety of other wildlife (not to be confused with the wild life on East State.) . . .We shouldn’t complain about Morton Avenue. It was formerly a mud run. . . . MacMurray was always the place to go to find the best-looking women in town. Perhaps this harkens back to the day when Mac was an all-female academy, but one fellow at the coffee table said that Illinois College tended to house more local kids and a young man in search of a smooch was too likely to end up kissing his cousin in a dark I.C. walkway. . . . In spite of all the coffee talk about fooling around in their earlier days, the entire group agreed that they did nothing but work hard when they were young. . . . The best places to meet other kids were at the drive-in restaurants. The mention of this brought on a mild tsunami of tales about the various folks who ran these cafes. It seems as if a gruff disposition was necessary. . . . Everyone used to bring his own popcorn to the movie theatre. This brought up the 1950’s custom of “rushing a house.” A hundred or so high school and college kids would simply walk into a movie theatre without paying. I heard one lady say, “What were they going to do about it? They just let us stay.” . . . The Morgan County Fairground was out of town. . . . Jacksonville had more communal property in those days. One fellow remarked, “Hell, my yard was your yard, and your yard was my yard. Everybody had fences but you played wherever you wanted to. You didn’t even have to know the folks that lived there.” . . . If a young boy got on his bicycle at ISD he could be going 40 mph by the time he got to the square. . . . The racetrack at the fairgrounds was open for any father who’d like to give his daughter a relatively safe course in driver’s education. . . . The trick on Saturday nights was to park the family car on square in early afternoon. That would assure you a place to sit and watch the folks driving around looking for parking places. Jacksonville has always been rife with historians and although the genealogical and historical societies have vast files, if the researcher wants a vivid picture of our past I’d advise they buy a cup of coffee at Hardees.