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The last serious history of McLean County came out in 1908. That's about to change with the book, “Freedom, Land, And Community: A History of McLean County, Illinois 1730 to 1900.” The author is Greg Koos, the retired director of the McLean County Museum of History.
A new history of McLean County is coming. It's the first such comprehensive book in more than a hundred years. And it's the first to situate central Illinois residents amid broader global and national moments (other than the civil war). The history of Mclean County is more than just Abe Lincoln, Beer Nuts, and State Farm. There's this massacre of native Americans too which happened in 1730 when two French fur trading companies got into a competition and used different native tribes as proxies. Plus Historian Greg Koos chronicles labor, suffrage, and immigration in his new book F...