Tuesday, September 29, 2015

The Old S. 3rd Street of My Youth!

A discussion in a thread among my friends/classmates from my hometown of Pekin, IL involved homes built by Howard Brooking. I explained that he had, indeed, built (at least) 4 homes and a small store-type building in the 800 block of S. 3rd St. I lived at 803 from before 1st grade until the end of my Junior year at PCHS.
To help familiarize those who would like to know....here is a Goggle space pic of the area. My house is noted by the red pin. Those four in a row were built by Howard, who had a concrete  block plant about where the brown-roofed building is now located behind the four homes. I'm sure the original building collapsed long ago as several of us in the neighborhood managed to fall through the old roof in night ventures atop it.

Back then there were two tracks, one now appears mostly gone. Many would recognize Oedewaldt's 66 Station building just at the upper right, 1st building after S. 3rd St. jogs at Winter. The old store/church stood right where Park Avenue ends at S. 3rd....now a swirl of loose dirt in this picture.Some of the residents within a block of my home included the Jacksons, Stevens family, Gary Hein, Randy Frazier, The Jansen family, the Long family, the Liming family, and the Didinatos.

Gary Hein and I built a tree house high up in a tree where one (perhaps the same one) stands now by the tracks at the corner of the brown-roofed building with what appears to be boats under it.

Lots of years and memories in that picture area!