A brief history of Peoria - University Library

I4...PE0RIA
and devotion to a lofty purpose. Their memory is deserving of a
better recognition than it has yet received at our hands.
This was then the beginning of our Peoria, one of the oldest,
and in the story of its discovery, one of the most interesting cities
of our country.
Compare the Peoria of today with that solitary grandeur of two
and a quarter centuries ago and what do we find?
A busy populous city, with its suburbs, of seventy thousand
souls, extending far up an down between bluffs and lake and river;
its shaded homes, its stores and shops and public buildings, its
churches, school and charitable institutions, its broad and well paved
streets, full of stirring life; its street cars, with all the latest improvements
of applied electricity as motive power, forming a net
work of arteries throbbing with the ebb and flow of ceaseless industry;
its mills and factories crowding the river bank, and already
reaching out for greater space back of the bluffs; its steamboats at
"the wharves, tell the story of a progressive and energetic people,
appreciating the gifts that a bountiful Providence has set before
them.
We could elaborate much more fully on the early history of
Peoria, but as its development has been practical and utilitarian, we
will not tire our reader too much before he has perused facts and
figures furnished by some of our leading citizens in the various industries
that strengthen the life blood of our city, and ask that they
be examined carefully and full comparisons made, because it is only
by such careful and analytical perusal that proper and full justice
can be done.
THE HEALTH OF PEORIA
BY DK. EMMA LUCAS.
The history of the founding of this city; the reason why this particular
site was selected— is not known to the writer. That it was a well
chosen spot, time has proven. The commercial factor was doubtless
the primary cause of the growth and prosperity of the community.
In times past the comuiercial availability of a location has
largely decided where cities should be built. In the future the san-
itary po.ssibilities of the location will probably be equally studied,
for prosperity and happiness go hand in hand with health. We are
fortunate, however, in that this location combines with its commercial
qualifications, great natural beauty and rare sanitary advantages.
Long before we aspired to a Commissioner of Health,
Sanitary Inspectors, etc.. Nature had its unsalaried health bureau at
work for us, sweeping away the. ever appearing wastes from above
and from under ground. The city lies so that after every good rain
the streets look as if they had come fresh from the hands of a tidy
house- wife ;
while underground we have a vast body of spring water
moving southward and "riverward," serving continually to free our
earth from the bane of the sanitarian—soil pollution. Those who
have planned our city have /!>/rt;/«