Leaving a Path 

•May 22, 2024•

by Janet Roney

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago…an ugly rock created a big stir when it was put on display in the window of Horn’s Insurance Agency in downtown Sullivan. It was a big brown oblong shaped thing with grooves and ridges covering one flat side. Folks doing their Saturday night shopping on the square crowded around the window to get a good look at it. I was among them.  

It was a mammoth tooth. It rolled out of a load of gravel from Welsh’s gravel pit when it was dumped onto Ed Dunphy’s feed store’s parking lot. When they searched for more pieces of the mammoth, the spot from where it likely came was too disturbed.      

Welsh’s Gravel Pit was in the middle of a big circular ox-bow in the Kaskaskia called Old Bend or Brushy Bend. The ox-bow was about three and a half miles around and only 70 steps between its beginning and end. Gravel was under the entire area because it was where the river cut through the Cerro Gordo Moraine.  Nelson Ford there was the best ford between Cooks Mills and Shelbyville.    Read More

2014

Sullivan’s square gained more than 50 new faces this week as The Little Theatre brought in its cast and crew for their 57th summer season of shows. A total of 112 actors, designers, directors, technicians, and staff members from all over the United States will come to town during the 10 weeks of shows.

Natalie Elliott first opened her antique store, Church House Treasures, last May after reading about the property being for sale in a local publication. Elliott, a St. Joseph native, had never previously been to Bethany, let alone known where it was. Located in the former Presbyterian Church in Bethany, the store featured hundreds of items from clothes to jewelry, to holiday decorations and dish ware and anticipated more offerings throughout its first year of business. Read More