Long before Bresee Tower rose 158 feet into the Danville sky, its corner of the public square had already shaped the city’s soul. From George Haworth’s log cabin smokehouse and Danville’s first schoolroom to Abraham Lincoln’s visits with law partner Ward Hill Lamon at the Barnum Building, this northwest corner has always been a stage for American history.
Along with more than 500 photographs, this book uncovers nearly two centuries of life and legacy at the northwest corner of Danville’s Public Square—from frontier medicine and boarding houses to modernist banks and lost hotels. Readers will walk through the stories of the Daniel Building, the Robert E. Jones Municipal Building, and the saucer-shaped Motor Bank that replaced the grand Grier-Lincoln Hotel. Along the way, they’ll meet mayors, pioneers, whiskey distillers, Civil War guardsmen, and presidents. They’ll be walked through the tower’s historic rise, steady decline, and finally its dramatic demolition.
With striking detail and reverence, this is more than a history of a building—it’s a celebration of the people, places, and moments that made Danville, Illinois, what it is today.
It was written by ultra runner, historian, author, and photographer, Michael Kasper, who has compiled hundreds of photos of Bresee Tower while on training runs on the streets of Danville. If you’re from, or currently reside in Danville, try to put your self in his shoes as you flip the pages, envisioning where in the city he would have been as he stopped and took each shot.
Long before Bresee Tower rose 158 feet into the Danville sky, its corner of the public square had already shaped the city’s soul. From George Haworth’s log cabin smokehouse and Danville’s first schoolroom to Abraham Lincoln’s visits with law partner Ward Hill Lamon at the Barnum Building, this northwest corner has always been a stage for American history.
Along with more than 500 photographs, this book uncovers nearly two centuries of life and legacy at the northwest corner of Danville’s Public Square—from frontier medicine and boarding houses to modernist banks and lost hotels. Readers will walk through the stories of the Daniel Building, the Robert E. Jones Municipal Building, and the saucer-shaped Motor Bank that replaced the grand Grier-Lincoln Hotel. Along the way, they’ll meet mayors, pioneers, whiskey distillers, Civil War guardsmen, and presidents. They’ll be walked through the tower’s historic rise, steady decline, and finally its dramatic demolition.
With striking detail and reverence, this is more than a history of a building—it’s a celebration of the people, places, and moments that made Danville, Illinois, what it is today.
It was written by ultra runner, historian, author, and photographer, Michael Kasper, who has compiled hundreds of photos of Bresee Tower while on training runs on the streets of Danville. If you’re from, or currently reside in Danville, try to put your self in his shoes as you flip the pages, envisioning where in the city he would have been as he stopped and took each shot.
