Illinois

Having fun on Illinois 1 | Ridge Farm library growing again for future generations

Published

2 months ago

March 21, 2026

Having fun on Illinois 1 | Ridge Farm library growing again for future generations

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is 10th in our 12-story road-trip series looking at the people and places along Illinois 1 — from Watseka to Paris.

RIDGE FARM — A few years ago, the Elwood District Carnegie Library was in pretty bad shape and its future was uncertain.

Jennie Sollars, current president of the library’s board, and her mother, Diane Dawson, who serves as treasurer, were among those tasked with saving the building.

“It hadn’t been maintained in 50 years,” Dawson said, adding that the only things that had been done included the ceilings in 2005 and some repairs to the roof in the 1970s.

To tackle all the needed projects, repairs and remodeling started in December 2023.

“It’s been gutted; this whole floor has been done. Just last year we remodeled,” Dawson said.

The almost 20 projects they’ve completed in the last two-and-a-half years include: new gutters; sanding, caulking and painting the outside windows and doors; a concrete pad for the first outdoor flagpole; new sheeting and roof over the children’s room; patching, sealing and painting the walls of the children’s room; a new south sidewalk; a new subfloor and carpet tiles in the main library; updating the internet wiring; and remodeling the main library with a new partial wall and relocating the bookshelves.

They also restored and refinished the original front desk, stabilized the front concrete steps, resealed the stairs and sidewalls, and installed a new metal roof.

This spring, they plan to repair the soffit on the north and east sides of the building. They also are trying to find a grant for their parking lot.

Dawson said their new board consists of “so many talented people” in addition to director Loretta Fagg, and they want to make sure the library continues to serve as a hub for the community.

The library is on Illinois 1, at 104 N. State St. in the center of the village of around 800.

According library board member and historian Jamie Robertson, the village was awarded an initial grant from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation in April 1909 in the amount of $9,000 (about $300,000 in today dollars). The land it was built on was originally purchased in May 1909 from T.E. Smith.

The five-room library was completed in 1910 for $12,000 (about $400,000 today). It features solid-oak woodwork with 14-foot-long beams and large pillars on the exterior.

Though Carnegie was a steel magnate who became one of the richest people in history, he grew up poor and spent a lot of time as a child in his local library. During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away almost 90 percent of his fortune, or about $350 million (about $7 billion today) to charities, foundations and universities, including an initiative where he promised to build a library in any town that would provide a site and pledge to maintain the building.

More than 2,500 were built between 1883 and 1929, and the one in Ridge Farm is one of the smallest still in operation. It serves residents of the village and nearby Elwood Township, Olivet, Vermilion Grove, Indianola and other communities.

According to Robertson, the village’s original library was in the back of a jewelry store. Once it amassed more than 100 books, the ladies of the Chatauqua Literary and Scientific Circle realized they needed a bigger location, and member Anna C. Cole wrote to Carnegie about building one. The group played a major role in getting it built, including getting a tax levy passed to support it.

The library today is warm and inviting. There are sections to “Rediscover an Author” with many new patrons, a new-book section, an “Authors in Illinois” area, a children’s room and a big selection of audio books and movies.

Dawson said while the library only saw 20 or so patrons a month a few years ago, that monthly average is now near 150 patrons.

Fagg “has been phenomenal,” Dawson said, adding that she’s in the process of hiring a new assistant, and the board has been “fantastic” in getting things done.

“Everybody’s taken the ball and run,” she said. “You couldn’t ask for a better group of women. We all have our things that we love about the library, and so, we’re bringing it together.”

The library is open from noon to 6 p.m. Tuesdays, noon to 5 p.m. Wednesdays, noon to 7 p.m. Fridays and noon to 4 p.m. Sundays.

With Vermilion County’s 200th anniversary and the United States’ 250th anniversary this year, the library is working with the village on banners, exhibits and activities as part of the celebration. The library celebrated its 215th anniversary last year.

Some future programming being planned includes a tea party for children, euchre club and movie nights. Dawson will also have a couple summer programs for professional organizing. That’s partially what she does for a living besides decorating.

In addition, the library goes out in the community. A technology grant allowed them to buy headsets, and they are taking those and audio books and large-print and other books to Ridge Farm residents, as well as to Chrisman and elsewhere, including nursing homes.

“So, that’s a delivery we offer for the community,” Dawson said. “It didn’t hurt Chrisman. They don’t have the audio.”

The library is seeing use from about 10 percent of the population right now, she said, “which is terrific.”

“We’ve got a lot of things we’re excited about,” she said.

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Illinois

Fireball sightings reported in at least 8 states including Illinois

Published

6 hours ago

June 2, 2026

Press Room

Fireball sightings reported in at least 8 states including Illinois

Updated on: June 2, 2026 / 6:09 AM CDT
/ CBS Chicago

Sightings of a fireball were reported across Illinois and at least eight other states on Monday night.

The American Meteor Society received nearly 200 reports of a fireball seen over Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, New York, Ohio, and Wisconsin around 10 p.m.

Some of the reports out of Illinois came from Chicago, Aurora, Carpentersville, Warrenville, Addison, Waukegan, Oak Lawn, Shorewood Westchester, and Glen Ellyn. There were also reports from Indiana, including Valparaiso and Fort Wayne.

Matt Snyder

There was also a report out of Ontario, Canada.

Home camera footage, posted by the American Meteor Society, shows a flash across the sky in Michigan about an hour Northwest of Detroit.

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Illinois

Car crashes into home in unincorporated Cary, Illinois, with 3 people inside

Published

16 hours ago

June 1, 2026

Press Room

Car crashes into home in unincorporated Cary, Illinois, with 3 people inside

June 1, 2026 / 8:08 PM CDT
/ CBS Chicago

A car crashed into a home in unincorporated Cary, Illinois, while three people were inside Monday evening, fire officials said.

A spokesperson for the Cary Fire Protection District said they were called to a home in the 2500 block of Oakdale Terrace just after 5:30 p.m. after reports came in that a vehicle had crashed into a house.

When paramedics and firefighters arrived, they found a black Jeep had slammed into a house, causing damage.

Three people were in the home at the time, fire officials said, but they were all able to get out safely and no injuries were reported. There were two people in the Jeep who got checked out by paramedics for minor injuries, but they declined further medical attention and did not want to go to a hospital.

Because of the damage to the home, McHenry County officials deemed it unsafe to occupy until repairs were made.

The American Red Cross is helping the four residents of the home with temporary housing and other needs while repairs are made.

The circumstances surrounding the crash are under investigation by the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office. It was not clear if any charges or citations would be issued.

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Illinois

Rideshare drivers could unionize in Illinois under bill passed by General Assembly

Published

1 day ago

June 1, 2026

Press Room

Rideshare drivers could unionize in Illinois under bill passed by General Assembly

Over the past five months, a sea of rideshare drivers in yellow T-shirts flooded the Illinois state Capitol almost weekly, lobbying for the right to form a union. They may be able to do so soon, after Illinois lawmakers passed a bill giving them that ability in the final hours of the spring session.

House Bill 5090 would regulate how rideshare drivers can form a union, elect union representatives and engage in union activities such as collective bargaining.

The bill passed the House 83-28 early Monday morning and now heads to the governor. It passed the Senate 42-12-1 earlier on Sunday afternoon.

Rideshare drivers say a union is necessary because under federal law, they’re defined as independent contractors, despite having little control over work practices while working for companies like Uber and Lyft. That makes a statewide union their only option to collectively bargain and form a labor agreement, they say.

“This goes back to a fundamental belief that when workers are able to organize and have a collective voice, that does lead to better wages, benefits and working conditions,” bill sponsor Sen. Ram Villivalam, D-Chicago, said. Rep. Yolonda Morris, D-Chicago, carried the bill in the House.

“This legislation is urgently needed as drivers face declining wages, rising vehicle costs and unsafe working conditions without basic protection or a real voice on the job,” Morris said.

Forming a union

Drivers who are interested in forming a union would need to follow specific guidelines to do so: They would have to obtain signatures in support from 10% of active drivers to show interest, then 30% to become a certified union. From there, the union can petition the Illinois Labor Relations Board to conduct an election for individual union representatives.

Those thresholds are lower than in other labor sectors, but they were chosen because this industry is so new, Villivalam said. Union membership would be voluntary.

Every four months, transportation network companies — defined as entities providing rides through a digital platform, not including taxi associations — that provide the top 95% of rides would need to give the ILRB contact information for all drivers who, in the past six months, completed 10 or more rides in Illinois.

The board would determine the median number of rides completed by that population, and any driver who completed that number or more would be considered an active driver and would be eligible to join the union.

Like any other organization with unionized employees, these companies would be required to adhere to fair work practices, negotiate in good faith, provide timely and accurate information to the union and follow other standard labor regulations. They could be fined by the ILRB for violations.

This bill also includes a 4-cent-per-ride charge to the companies, to cover the implementation costs under the bill and for a grant program, a charge that companies are prohibited from passing on to the consumer. The grant program, Rideshare Workers Support Fund, would be managed by the secretary of state and paid to the union representative.

The bill also regulates how the ILRB and the Department of Labor would handle bargaining mediation, arbitration, labor agreements and unfair work practices.

The path to unionization

Rideshare drivers in Illinois have pushed for unionization rights since early 2019, initially beginning in the city of Chicago. In rallies and committees, drivers have told stories of dwindling wages and a lack of access to appeals for deactivations.

“Let’s be honest, we don’t operate independently at all. We don’t set our own wages. We don’t control the rules. We don’t decide who is deactivated and how they’re punished. The algorithm, the corporations do,” Brett Currin, a rideshare driver, said at a January rally at the state Capitol.

The bill does not address those issues specifically, but through a union, drivers would be able to negotiate with their company on those issues.

“Hearing these (constituent) stories and then working with organized labor to craft a product that they had already been working on to move forward, really is what this is stemming from,” Villivalam said.

Villivalam, who represents parts of the northwest side of Chicago and its suburbs, said his district has the largest number of rideshare drivers in Illinois.

The Illinois Drivers Alliance led the effort throughout this spring, backed by the local International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, and the Service Employees International Union Local 1, two unions representing thousands of workers across the Midwest.

California and Massachusetts have also passed similar measures, with Massachusetts certifying their statewide union just last week, on May 26.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

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