Peoria Illinois, 1908
Peoria is noted for her importance as a manufacturing and commercial center. It is a city of well-paved streets, beautiful homes, good schools, fine churches and hospitable people. Wonderful natural resources. The most extensive coal mining center in the United States west of Pittsburg. The largest consumer of corn in the world. Greatest distilling district in the world. A prosperous, modern thriving city of 80,000 population, destined to surely become a city of 125,000 inhabitants within the next ten years of the Twentieth Century.
-introduction to the softcover book “Views of Peoria and Vicinity,” copyright 1908
April 21st, 2007 at 9:17 am
And 100 years later we have, what, 102,000 people? My, how far we’ve come.
In fairness, prohibition really hurt the city.
April 21st, 2007 at 11:27 am
Beautiful Homes, Fine Churches and Hospitible Peoria are about the only things we have left from that list.
April 21st, 2007 at 1:01 pm
The US Bureau of the Census (which has the most confusing and worthless web site known to peoplekind) says that the estimated 2003 Peoria city population is 112,000 and change (forgot to write down the whole number). This is down like 24 people from the 2000 census. It’s worth noting that their census projections, which they do constantly, are very often wrong and based on crappy information. (I worked for the 1980 census in Peoria and LOTS of people were never counted.)
In 1908, the year in question above, Peoria had 85,000 people in the city. At that time, Tazewell and Woodford counties were mostly agricultural. Tazewell County now has a population of about 130,000, more than the city of Peoria. Woodford is around 35,000.
Had so many people not moved to Tazewell county after WWII, the city would be much larger than it is now, perhaps in the 175,000 range. Why did so many move across the river? Ask your parents, they know.
Chicago continues to loose people in huge numbers, which is why Aurora will soon pass Rockford as #2, and Naperville is closing in on #3. Joliet has also passed Peoria. Springfield is just ahead of us, but mostly because there are very few suburbs and the city just keeps annexing westward. Champaign and Urbana combined are now larger than Peoria.
So, I think the answer is in geography. Peoria city lost a number of residents to the counties to the east and city government never seemed much interested in doing anything about it.
Which is why I think the only solution is to do what Indianapolis did in the 60’s, annex everything in the county that isn’t already incorporated. That would add about 40,000 people right there.
There is also a statistic from about the same era that Peoria industry contributed 1/16th of ALL federal tax revenue.
September 7th, 2007 at 10:16 am
[...] Peoria Illinoisan ” Peoria Illinois, 1908 Peoria Illinois, 1908. Posted in Uncategorized at 4:51 pm by PeoriaIllinoisan … peoplekind) says that the estimated 2003 Peoria city population is 112,000 and … [...]