Departments

• To our readers
• President's message
• Letters
• ISHS news
• Obituaries
• Book review "The Little Giant, Part 1"
• The honor roll

Features

• The Original Springs Hotel of Okawville
• Zorro makes his mark in Chillicothe
• the two Macs: Building a college in turbulent times
• John Wesley College: A brief experiment in higher education
• Illinois Women Artists Series, Part 21, Irene Siegel
• Faith and practice: Springfield's Jewish community established first 'synagogue in 1858
• McKendree University: The oldest collegiate institution in the "west"

By: Cindy Reinhardy

Nestled along the Okaw River in southern Illinois is the small farming community of Okawville, population 1,434. What sets it apart from other villages of similar size is that it has played host to tens of thousands of visitors in the last century and a half. The visitors, many hoping for cures from rheumatism, arthritis or other ailments, came to bathe in Okawville's mineral waters.

Although the curative powers of the mineral baths have not been scientifically proven, there are those who still come to Okawville today on a regular basis to "take the cure." That cure comes primarily from the restorative powers of quiet rest, a relaxing soak in hot bubbling water an an excellent massage. But regardless of the catalyst for the cure, just like visitors more than a century ago, today's clients leave feeling better than when they arrived.

By: Allen W. Croessmann

They were an unlikely pair. One was a Missouri farm boy, a selfmade man, who sold metal strapping for boxes, turned that in a successful Chicago manufacturing business and spent the last quarter of his life engaged in philanthropy and world travel. The other, 21 years younger, grew up just outside New York City into a cultured, well-established family. After a brief stint in the insurance business, he became a successful minister and then turned to academia. For 18 years, from 1925 when Clarence P. McClelland, the New Yorker, was named president of Illinois Woman's College until 1943 when James E. MacMurray, the Chicago industrialist and the college's board president and chief benefactor, died, these two men of Scottish ancestry forged a remarkable partnership that ushered in a period of unprecedented expansion at the institution, renamed MacMurrary College for Women in 1930.

Their vision was audacious: It was to build the greatest college for women west of the Allegheny Mountains. During the MacMurray-McClelland years enrollment more than doubled, the campus burgeoned with the construction of five major buildings, gross annual income tripled, total assets climbed five-fold, the number and quality of the faculty improved, and the college's reputation as one of the finest women's schools in the country was established.