Logan County

Copper or Brass Kettle

Image of kettle from the Rhoads Kickapoo Indian village site.
Much of what we know about the Kickapoo Indian Tribe in Illinois comes from an archaeological investigation that took place prior to a road-building project in the 1970s. This copper or brass kettle was one of the artifacts uncovered from the Rhoads village site. Excavations revealed a mix of traditional stone tools, arrow points, pottery, and other objects mixed with items of European origin including glass beads, silver crosses and jewelry, ceremonial smoking pipes, and this kettle.

Lincoln College Mammoth

Image of Lincoln College Mammoth bone
In what might have been the most successful college field trip of all time, Lincoln College freshman Judd McCullum discovered the tusk of a Wooly Mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) during a biology lab at the college’s Creekside Field Station in 2005. McCullum discovered the 12-foot-long tusk while conducting a freshwater mussel survey. The mammoth may have been one of the last of its kind in the region. Carbon-14 dating determined the animal died about 11,500 years ago, well after the glaciers had retreated from Illinois.

Rush-Seat Chair

Rush-seat chair
This chair is painted with an emblem of the Mt. Pulaski Masonic Lodge, which was chartered on October 8, 1858. The history of Freemasonry stretches back to Colonial times in the United States. (Benjamin Franklin, Paul Revere, and George Washington were all Masons.) Despite a wave of anti-Masonic sentiment in the 19th century, many new lodges were formed in the years before the Civil War. In an era with no federal “safety net,” the Masonic tradition of founding orphanages and homes for the aged provided a valuable social service.
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