Today, almost everyone has a smartphone that can record and make movies.
Before the advent of smartphones, making movies required expensive cameras and training. Movies are an excellent method of documenting life in previous times.
Movies depicting typical Fairbury life were made in 1921 and 1937. Unfortunately, both of these two old movies have been lost. They were likely destroyed when the Third Street Opera House burned to the ground in 1952.
Watt Nakamaru recorded the oldest surviving movie depicting typical Fairbury life in about 1962. Watt worked for Honeggers and was also a photographer. Watt and his wife, Sonny, liked to play golf at the Indian Creek Golf Club.
Fairbury got its first swimming pool in 1958. This first pool was replaced by a second swimming pool in 1983. Watt filmed one minute at the old swimming pool. His film includes children using the diving board and the old swimming pool office at the north end of the complex.
In addition to being a photographer, Watt worked as a chicken sexer for Honeggers. In a 1982 Pantagraph article, Watt recounted that chicken sexing originated in Japan in the 1930s. He stated that chicken sexing seemed to be a specialty of Orientals as some Koreans can do the job. A chicken sexer's job is to determine the sex of the chickens when they are babies since the female of the species is more important than the male to egg producers.
Watt went to school in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, around 1952 and spent eight months learning how to handle the chickens. Watt could sort 1,000 to 1,200 chickens an hour with a 99 percent accuracy rate. Because he worked as a chicken sexer for the Honegger's Forrest Hatchery, Watt filmed about 15 minutes at that farm in Forrest. His footage includes the Honegger's airport with some of its distinctive red and white airplane fleet.
Since Watt and his wife spent a lot of time at the Indian Creek Golf Club, Watt recorded about 12 minutes of video at the golf course. His movies include scenes of golfers at the old clubhouse located at the south end of Fifth Street. This old clubhouse was replaced by the current building in 1968. Many Fairbury citizens recognize the golfers depicted in Watt's movie.
The Fairbury High School has conducted a Homecoming Parade down Locust Street for many years. The Homecoming Court usually rides in a convertible car. Watt captured this annual event with about one minute of film.
Descendants of Watt graciously donated his old movies to the Fairbury Echoes Museum. Fairbury Echoes Museum personnel uploaded Watt's videos to YouTube so anyone can view his old movies.
Dr. Pendergast (1879-1961) was an optometrist in Fairbury for many years. One of his unique hobbies was restoring and selling Cigar Store Indians. He became a nationally known expert on these figures and authored a book about their history. In 1942, a short movie clip under the Unusual Occupation series was made about Dr. Pendergast restoring his Cigar Store Indians.
Bob Hope was an entertainer famous for performing performances to entertain U.S. troops. Shortly before World War II ended in 1945, Bob did a show at a California hospital. Bob did an entertaining skit with Fairbury nurse Julia Flanagan during this show. The audio of this performance still exists today. Personnel from the Fairbury Echoes Museum combined the audio with historical information about Julia Flanagan and created a YouTube video documenting this event.
Honeggers was a significant company in Fairbury for many years. The firm had international operations, had close to 500 employees at its peak, was listed on the stock exchange, and had a corporate airplane fleet. They built and operated the vast feed mill that still stands just west of Fairbury. Their corporate office was in the former Illinois Hotel at the southwest corner of Second and Locust Streets. The corporate office also contained a restaurant, and it was painted in their distinctive red and white company colors. In 1995, this three-story building was demolished. Fairbury's new City Hall was erected on this property. An unknown photographer recorded eight minutes of the demolition of the Honegger office building and restaurant in August 1995. This video has been converted to a YouTube video.
In 2015, Fairbury had three old building advertising signs that had faded over the years to become "ghost signs." The Fairbury Improvement Group decided to repaint these three historic signs. In 2016, the first of the three signs, the Occident Flour sign, was repainted at Second and Locust Streets' northeast corner. A two-minute video on YouTube documents how this sign was restored.
In 2016, Steve Tooley made a nine-minute YouTube video titled "A Small Town Boy from Fairbury, Illinois." Steve's video includes aerial views of most of Fairbury's buildings and accurately documents the town's condition in 2016.
In 2023, a copy of a 2003 video about Fairbury was discovered. The Fairbury Economic Group made this video to help encourage people to move to Fairbury. It features many interviews with Fairbury citizens and shows how Fairbury looked in 2003. This video has been converted to a YouTube video.
Paul Garcia, a Fairbury native, made a video titled Small Town, Big Hearts: Falling in Love with Fairbury, IL., released in late 2023. Fairbury citizens have received this new video very well.
All of these surviving videos can be viewed on YouTube. Here is a link to the Fairbury Echoes Museum's website with links to each of these videos. Hopefully, with the advent of smartphones and YouTube, many more videos of typical Fairbury life will be created and preserved for posterity.
(Dale Maley's weekly history article on Fairbury News is sponsored by Dr. Charlene Aaron)
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