Interview with Bill Kemp, McLean County Museum of History

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It’s a museum dedicated to McLean County, home to Bloomington-Normal, but the displays are as broad-based and American as apple pie: Abraham Lincoln, Route 66, and baseball.

The McLean County Museum of History, 200 Main St. in Downtown Bloomington, occupies the old courthouse building where a staff of 12 come up with concepts and collections that keep the past alive.

Since Route 66, now celebrating its 100th year as America’s highway, runs right past the old courthouse so it’s only fitting that the celebrated road be celebrated inside the museum.

As for Lincoln, what many don’t realize is that Abe spent more time in Bloomington in his adult life than anywhere else besides his hometown of Springfield, noted museum librarian Bill Kemp, the archivist who’s worked there since 2003.

Between 1837 when he became a lawyer and 1861, when he went off to Washington to be president, Lincoln spent time in Bloomington, the county seat, as both lawyer and judge. He made a number of speeches in Bloomington, had friends and associates there, and owned property in Bloomington, said Kemp.

While you find Lincoln and Route 66 on the ground floor at the museum’s visitors center, “More Than a Game” is the baseball display on the building’s third floor.

That’s a deep dive into baseball and softball over the past 150 years in McLean County, a county that can claim four baseball Hall of Famers, Kemp said.

The four include Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn, who went from Bloomington to play in the National League with five different teams from 1880 to 1891. He won 60 games in 1884, a record that Kemp said will never be broken.

“The last man to get half as many wins in a year was Denny McClain with the Detroit Tigers, who won 30 games in 1968,” he said.

Another Hall member was Clark Griffith, who grew up in Normal. Griffith blossomed as a pitcher in the 19th century before turning to managing and ownership. He was the first manager of the Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees before becoming the owner of the Washington Senators.

The other two members of the Hall from McLean County are baseball announcers: the late Bill King, the voice of the Oakland A’s for decades, and Denny Matthews, who’s been calling games for the Kansas City Royals since 1969 and is still going strong at age 83.

“More Than a Game” involved more than a year of research and planning, said Kemp, adding that an oral-history component included interviews of area players, umpires and fans.

Other exhibits at the museum cover home-building over the years, agriculture, labor, politics and power.

Among his many duties at the museum, Kemp continues to chronicle area history through columns. He wrote 670 history columns for the Bloomington Pantagraph, starting in 2006. Other staff members now pitch in to file stories, but Kemp still knocks out a column every two months or so.

Born and raised in Chicago, Kemp admits to being someone not interested in frequent-flyer miles. “When I’m in Livingston County (just north of McLean County), I like to say I feel I’m in a foreign country,” he joked.

Museum hours are Monday to Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors with children free. Admission is free on Tuesday when hours are extended to 8 p.m.