May 14, 1906, this postcard was postmarked at the Oregon, Illinois Post Office. It was sent by Ida Matmiller Wade (1866-1934) to her aunt, Julia Parshall in Erie, Pennsylvania. It pictures Jake, the donkey, pulling Ida’s son, Rex Wade (1896-1961) and three of his friends.

The scene is looking north on N. 3rd Street where one can see the old (1862) stone church (the Church of God, originally St. Mary’s Catholic Church). When the newly formed Church of God purchased this building for $600.00 in March of 1899 from John Gallagher, it was being used for grain storage. Next south is the 1880s Schiller Piano Factory owned by F. G. Jones. The piano factory started out as the Schaeffer Piano Company and the Schiller started out on the NE corner of 2nd and Washington Street. Later, after a fire, with the dam for power and the rail road spur which helps transfer the pianos to the train depot, F. G. Jones took advantage of this prime location where it produced pianos until 1971. In 1836, the first home was built on the new town plot on the SE corner of 3rd and Franklin Streets. It was built by Jonathan W. Jenkins with the help of early pioneer, John Gale, 2nd great grandfather of Bill Diven. The first male child, Jonathon's son, Lamoile T. Jenkins, was born in this house. Jonathon Jenkins was one of the 112 men indicted for the shooting and killing of John and William Driscoll, two of the notorious outlaws who infested the county in 1841, as was John Gale. The home was made of logs as at that time there were no saw mills. This first house was used for many purposes - a residence, a hotel, a boarding house, a public house, a courthouse and a church. It is said that the first sermon ever preached in Oregon was preached in this house by John Baker, a Baptist minister. Next, to the south, is the 1870s Reporter office. In December of 1921, the building was purchased by the Church of God as a permanent home for the printing and publication of the Restitution Herald. Previously the Restitution Herald had been printed by S. J. Lindsay at his property on N. 6th Street. In 1922, it was decided to use this building as the headquarters for the Church of God General Conference. Next is Pike Dernier's Rock River Broom Company, where city hall was located at the time with Pike Denier being city clerk, and another broom factory, the Rock River Broom Factory, L. L. Woodville, proprietor. The next building south was C. L. McDowell’s Blacksmith and Horseshoeing Barn.

Across the street to the west was Albert J. Fouch’s Livery Stable and south of that the mid 1840s Rock River House, originally the Moore Hotel, later named the Oregon House, the Black Hawk Hotel and it is now called the Patchwork Inn. Next south on the west side was the photography studio of Charles L. Curtis, a pioneer photographer, who very possibly took the photo.

Ida Matmiller Wade’s father, Jonathon, owned and operated the Sinnissippi Hotel. Jonathon died in 1913 and willed the hotel to Ida. She and her husband, Harry E. Wade (1866-1952) (an Oregon dentist and mayor but not to be confused with his grandson, dentist and mayor, Harry F. Wade) then owned and managed the Sinnissippi Hotel. The hotel passed out of the Wade family’s hands in 1960 and was razed in 1971 despite efforts to preserve it which reached all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court.

Rex Wade (1896-1961), one of Harry E.’s two sons, pops up in the 1976 Bicentennial History of Ogle County as an alleged participant in blowing up one of the two cannons delivered to the foot of Jefferson Street in Oregon for display in front of the courthouse. A group of young men, thinking it would be fun to fire the cannon one last time, blasted pieces around the downtown doing some damage but causing no reported injuries. They later paid for shipping a replacement. However, since records place that event in the 1898-1899 time frame when Rex would have been a toddler, he makes an unlikely suspect.

This original picture postcard is from the William Diven collection.

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