Elijah Wallace is credited for the platting of Empire on July 28, 1855. He came to what is now Emerson in 1838 and bought four hundred acres along the Spring and Elkhorn Creeks from Anthony Sell for $1500. He built a cabin on the banks of Spring Creek and had his wife come from Pennsylvania to join him there. Later in 1850 he built a mansion across from his cabin. The wood used for the mansion was all cut from timber in that area. The house is now owned by Ronald Koster who has remodeled it and is now living there and running what used to be the Wallace farm. The house is, as it was in Empire days, one of the most prominent and distinguished houses in this area.
There were several mills located around Empire by 1859. One mill was built by Hezekiah Brink, the founder of Sterling, and was located on the Elkhorn Creek. The other saw mill was built by Elijah Wallace not to far from his original cabin on the Spring Creek. Both saw mills provided the wood needed for the growing town. There was another grist mill in Empire, but it was built to grind the corn more coarsely for cattle and livestock. Emerson was a popular spot for many farmers, as it was a time saver to get grain milled for family use and at the same time get feed ground of their livestock. These tow mills were the only grist mills serving a large area with most of the business coming from the North West. The grist mill on the Elkhorn Creek was run by Joel Harvey as were the saw mill and the woolen mill. The woolen mill provided the town with woolen cloth for clothing and blankets. The mill took in raw wool.
These mills were powered by a dam built across Elkhorn Creek in the 1840’s and a smaller one on the Spring Creek for the mills along its banks. When the larger dam was built across Elkhorn Creek the creek was about three times it present size. Stone was brought down the creek from a small pit about where the Emerson Quarry is now. All the stone used was quarried with picks and sledgehammers. The men building the dam would load rock on a wooden barge and pole it down the creek to where it was needed. After the rock was build up on the creek bed, white oak timbers were laid about a foot apart all the way across, and long, hand made, steel spikes were driven down through the timbers into the rock bed underneath. Another layer of heavy timbers was laid on top of that and the process repeated until it got to the height they needed. The dam provided power for the mills and a lake for boating, swimming and fishing. The dam was destroyed by an ice jam sometime in the 1880’s after all the mills had already stopped operating.
Joel Harvey also started the general store in Empire about five years after Empire was founded. Then store changed hands and was run by A. P. Reed and Martin Ryerson. Around 1886 Reed took complete ownership until his retirement in 1936. In 1917, Reed hired Walter Heilener who became the owner September 15, 1936, when reed retired. Then Heilener and his wife ran the store for thirty-three years.
Heilener ran the store as conveniently as he could for his customers. The store was ope six days a week, and he stayed open at night for the benefit of the farmers who worked until the sun set. He also used credit and treaded fresh eggs for goods during the Depression when money was hard to come by. The Emerson Store closed in 1969 due to Walter Heilener’s retirement and ill health. Heilener also ran a port office in the back of the store, which he had moved into his home when the store closed. His wife ran the post office there for six months and then retired also. The Emerson Store was one of the last general stores operating in this area.
There also was a harness and a horse collar shop back in the old Emerson days. The man who made horse collars had his shop in the upstairs of the General Store. The horse collars were made in leather and stuffed with straw, and sold or shipped out by train at Galt along with other goods, livestock, and merchandise from Emerson. The harness shop consisted of a single room about twelve feet by twenty feet, in which harnesses and other leather goods were made. The harness shop sat behind the old in that once exited in Emerson. The inn was a two story building about a hounded feet long that sat towards the northwestern section of Emerson looking for a place to eat and sleep. The inn was torn down and more modern homes took its place.
Not far from where the old inn was located there was at one time a slaughterhouse run by Horace Rubright. The slaughterhouse provided a quick butcher service for those living in and around Emerson. It consisted of several wooden sheds and buildings where cattle and hogs were slaughtered, and it also provided a supply of lard which was a necessity back then.
Emerson had its very own blacksmith at one time. He was Bob Grahm and his shop stood on the west side of Emerson. Grahm supposedly started the blacksmith Shop with a wagon repair on the second floor. Later on Bill Zeigler became the blacksmith. Zeigler was known to be quite an entertainer at time when he played his violin, and stomped his foot to keep time, in the James M Deets home where he boarded. He also occasionally amused those socializing t the Emerson Store by spitting his tobacco juice on the hot pot belly stove.
On the second floor above the blacksmith shop J. M. Deets ran the wagon repair shop. Because his shop was on the second floor he had to run the wagons and buggies up an outside stairway to the second floor with the help of the blacksmith. If no one was around to help he would use a pulley system to raise and lower the wagon. Deets could get four or five wagons upstairs to paint or repair at the same time. In the summer when it was to hot to work upstairs under a tar paper roof he would repair the wagons outside.
In the eastern part of Emerson there was “Honey Bee” Bill Stewart’s honey and cider industry. The cider mill was a shed attached to a big open building with a wooden plank floor approximately four feet off the ground. The three presses sat in a row on the top of the wooden floor with the large round tube below. The leftover mass went into a low area behind the mill. Stewart would sometimes run the mill around the clock during apple season to keep up with the demand for his apple cider at ten cents a gallon.
Bill Stewart also kept honey bees, from which he obtained his nickname. The fact that there were many fruit orchards around Emerson was convenient for the bees. In the winter Stewart packed his bee hives in leaves and laid Brush over then for insulation. He kept his better strain of bees in the cellar of his house for more protection. Although “Honey Bee” Bill Stewart was an active member of the community, providing it with honey and cider, he was also well know for his death and unusual burial. Stewart died some time in the late 1920’s or early 1930’s. He was supposedly the last one buried in the old. Almost forgotten Como Cemetery. The unusual thing about his burial was the way he had it done. One of his friends once sad, “Some day they’ll plow over your grave, “Honey Bee”. So Stewart went out and picked his plot and poured a cement slab fifteen feet long, five feet wide and two feet thick. When he died he had a hole dug along side and under the cement and had his coffin slid underneath the slab. His cement grave is still there in the Como Cemetery unchallenged by any plow.
The Lutheran Church that once existed in Emerson was organized on April 4, 1870, and a church building was erected that same year where the Kunde home in Emerson is now. In 1880 Reverend J W Richards became pastor of the church. Later on, Reverend E Brown became pastor.
The Emerson school building was on of the first graded school buildings erected in the county. At one time the school carried the title of Oak Grove Academy. Eight grades were offered plus an advanced grade. There were two stoves used to heat the upstairs of the school and one in the lower room. The old cast iron stoves were a target for jokes as occasionally a few 22 caliber bullets “accidentally” got into the fire. On February 19, 1914, the Emerson School was a total loss by fire. The Emerson Lutheran Church served as a temporary school. The new school was built in approximately the same area as the old one. Over the years, until 1951, several smaller schools in the area were annexed to Emerson School. In 1964 plans were made to build a new Emerson school. The old school was sold on September 25, 1965, and the first day of school in the new building where it stands today, was October 25, 1965. The old school is now a home remodeled and owned by Richard Winstead.
There is not to much left in Emerson to show people what its past was like. Houses sit where shops once stood, and pastures line the creek banks where the mills once were. Today people laugh and say, “Emerson? There’s nothing but houses in Emerson!” Little do they know about the history of Emerson once called Empire.
Do you know what it would be like if you had lived in Emerson, Illinois, in the early 1800’s? For one thing, it wouldn’t be Emerson. At that time it was called Empire, and it was totally different from Emerson now. Today if you drive through Emerson, you’ll find houses and an old retired store. But back in the 1800’s it was more than just houses. It had many industries such as mills, and blacksmith and wagon repair, a slaughterhouse and fruit press, a general store and post office, and inn, and of course a church and a school. Either as Emerson or Empire it has an active past that very few people know about.
