Notes
Notes introduction 1. Mohlenbrock, Giant City State Park, 3–4. 2. Ibid., 14–20. 3. 1878 History and 1907 Atlas of Jackson County, Illinois, 100 (hereafter 1878 Jackson County History). 4. Thompson, “Pioneer Days and Early Settlers.” 5. Also see Herbert Russell’s introduction to Mary Tracy Earle’s Flag on the Hilltop, xi; and Mabel Thompson Rauch’s Vinnie and the Flag Tree. The caves and physical geography of the Makanda area are important elements to the themes and action in both these books. Legends tell of Civil War deserters using the caves as hideouts. Earle’s book is the story of the Thompson brothers, T. W. and Albert, who with two friends raised the Union flag on Banner Hill, their farm near Makanda, during the Civil War in support of the Union cause and in defiance of sympathizers and those belonging to the Knights of the Golden Circle. Nearly the entire first half of the novel takes place in the caves around Giant City, where a deserting soldier hides and secret meetings are held. Alec Ford, Doc Ford, and T. D. portray characters much like the Thompsons. The villains, however, are varied, and as Herb Russell writes, Earle “captures the spirit of ambivalence among the contending forces in a southern Illinois border county.” Rauch’s book, Vinnie and the Flag-Tree, is a juvenile novel that tells the tale of Makanda-area families during the Civil War, both Union soldiers, such as the Thompson brothers , and their neighbors, whose son fights on the Confederate side and who support the southern cause. The heroine is young Vinnie, who works as a nurse in the Cairo hospital and marries Theodore Thompson. Some of the action takes place in the caves and rock overhangs of the surrounding area and in Pine Hills to the west. In secret, southern sympathizers meet to plan destruction of the railroad supply line running through Makanda and the killing of Union soldiers. Rauch uses such real Union county family names as Thompson, Rendleman, Hileman, and Hartline and depicts John A. Logan and his wife as regional heroes. 6. “Zane Grey Recent Giant City Visitor, Is Belief.” 7. 1878 Jackson County History, 100. The Vancil barn was located on the northwest quarter of section 35 in Makanda township and was built ca. 1840–50. The spectacular 44-by24 -foot double crib barn with one room on each side of a central passageway was wide enough to drive through with a team and wagon, and all under a common roof. The barn was deconstructed and taken from Giant City State Park in July 1981, under some vocal but insufficient public protest , to be reconstructed at the Lincoln Log Cabin Historic Site near Charleston, Illinois. Bob Kristoff, Giant City State Park superintendent at that time, said that the Conservation Department moved the cabin “because the park is not a historic site and because it believed the structure would be more at home in Charleston.” It has never been rumored that Kristoff fought to keep the cabin or for that matter any of the historic legacies of the park. See Keith Sculle, “Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site,” 7–9; photo and story in Southern Illinoisan, July 17, 1981, n.p. 8. Brieschke, Notes on Makanda, 47–49. 9. Ibid., 19, 26, 59. 10. Official Annual: Civilian Conservation Corps, Jefferson Barracks CCC District, Sixth Corps Area, 1937, 51 (hereafter CCC 1937 Annual). 11. Ward and Sculle, “National Register of Historic Places Inventory Form.” 12. Jenny Skufca, site interpreter, Giant City State Park, e-mail correspondence with author, Aug. 30, 2007. Beginning with company rosters supplied by the author to Skufca, the visitor center staff began collecting names of visitors who said they were CCC alumni who had worked at the park. Each roster that is exhibited as an appendix in this book is the list for only that company at that time period. Many enrollees came and went, so each six months might reflect new names. Although Skufca left the park in 2009, she said that the park will continue to create a full list of names of all those who have proven service in the CCC at Giant City State Park. . the land and its people 1. “Glacial History”; Harris, Horrell, and Irwin, Exploring the Land and Rocks of Southern Illinois; Raymond Wiggers, Geology Underfoot in Illinois, 8–9. The latter source states that the Illinoian glacier occurred 300,000 to 125,000 years...
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