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1952: C. R. Denson marks 50 years in Minonk

Submitted by Jari Lynn Oncken - August 6, 2017

July 17: The Pfister Hybrid Corn Co. of El Paso started detasseling last Thursday. They now have 28 crews in the community and four crews in Minonk.

July 24: The Homestead and St. Pats appear to be the undisputed winners of Minonk's Senior and Junior softball league races, respectively, as there are not enough games remaining to give their closest competition a chance to catch them.

A row of cotton plants planted by Stanley Gieselman, assistant at the I.C. depot, are in bloom at the south end of Illinois Central Park and just north of the Terminal Grain Co. elevator driveway.

Aug. 21: C. R. Denson, publisher of the News-Dispatch, remarked that it was his 50th anniversary since he landed in Minonk. "I came on up to Minonk that Monday afternoon to visit my parents, Mr. and Mrs. John J. Denson, who had moved here the previous March, when my father took a job as a pharmacist in Dr. D. W. Rawling's drug store. I have been in Minonk ever since."

Aug. 28: Logan D. Wilcox, 65, of Minonk, funeral director for over 40 years, died Monday morning.

He opened a funeral parlor on Minonk's main street in 1909, and later became the first in the area to practice embalming and to establish a funeral home with a chapel for conducting services.

A squad of 32 has been reported out for the Minonk-Dana football team of 1952.

Minonk businesses were hard hit this week by a slackening of highway traffic through town as a result of a Route 51 detour to Benson over 116 and north to Toluca on 116A to Route 17 and back east to the junction of 17 and 51 between Rutland and Wenona. This detour was necessary because they are tearing up Route 51 between Minonk and Rutland in preparation for a rebuilding and repaving job.

Sept.4: 623 pupils are enrolled in schools in Minonk, Dana, rural and St. Pats Parochial.

Sept. 11: Ekme Joosten, former Minonk resident, died at his home in Peoria last Friday.

He moved to Minonk in 1920 and took charge of the local Janssen and Joosten music store and expanded the business, purchasing the business building now occupied by Roley's Café.

Minonk plans to close the TB sanitarium here and send any Woodford County patients to the Peoria Sanitarium. It will continue to be used for weekly x-ray and medical services for the time being.

Sept. 18: More than 20,000, including the C. R. Denson family, greeted Dwight D. Eisenhower, Republican candidate for president, at Ottawa.