PEORIA MAGAZINE April 2023

That was as true in the early 1900s as it is now. The entire region changed when local implement dealer Murray Baker convinced Pliny Holt, nephew of

He ties that community pride to one event. LET THERE BE LIGHT “I don’t think there was any occur rence that would approximate the impact of the Festival of Lights,” said Triggs. “It has been an enormously successful community undertaking.” Coming up on its 39th year, the annual Folepi’s Winter Wonderland display at Veteran’s Park at the top of the Springfield Road hill averages 25,000 vehicles per year, while the Parade of Lights brings thousands of people, literally by the busload. The festival garnered national attention in 2020 when it won the Great Christmas Light Fight on ABC TV.

relentlessly plowing ahead with a mantra of “out with the old, in with the new.” An industrial junkyard on the riverfront north of I-74 became the foundation for EastPort Marina, “the best public marina outside of Chicago,” according to Jeff Giebelhausen, the former mayor who oversaw its development. Near the marina, HarborPointe offered some of the first high-end townhomes on either side of the river. A former gravel pit on the bluff off U.S. Route 150 on the community’s eastern flank became EastSide Center, a regional sports mecca that attracts thousands of athletes and fans from all over the state, said Rick Swan, executive director of the East Peoria Chamber of Commerce. On summer weekends,

California-based Holt Manufacturing founder Benjamin Holt, that the factory of a bankrupt tractor maker in East Peoria was the perfect spot for a new business venture. The company that became Caterpillar began building tractors there in 1910. Flood waters nearly carried the town downstream in 1927, continued to prove troublesome in the 1930s, and threatened Caterpillar’s wartime production in the 1940s. A system of dams, levees, channels and bridges then reshaped the soggy landscape and helped spur growth on (mostly) dry ground. When the cement for Interstate 74 was poured up the eastern bluff in the 1950s, bridges were built, streets rerouted and a wave of industrial development changed the face of the river valley again. “VISIONARY LEADERSHIP” Kahl credits the community’s “vi sionary leadership” in the 1980s with taking the first steps toward shaping the East Peoria we know today. It got going with the Town Centre I and II renewal projects at the “four corners” intersection of Washington and Main Streets, the former hub of commerce. “That was the beginning of a long term vision to transform all of this,” Kahl said, referring to the former Caterpillar factories and offices. “Jim Ranney, the mayor at that time, knew that manufacturing wasn’t going to last forever.” For the next 40 years, East Peoria government and business leaders aggressively used the economic development tools at their disposal,

After nearly 30 years, the Par-A Dice Hotel Casino also has become synonymous with East Peoria. The casino has pumped more than $100 million in gaming tax revenue into East Peoria coffers since the early 1990s. Though the pre-COVID take of $2.2 million was significantly lower than the 2003 high of $4.5 million, gaming — along with hospitality and sales tax — continues to be a vital revenue source. “(Gaming revenue) has made it easier to make some tough decisions over the years because there was a revenue steam to help if you needed it for a particular project,” Triggs said. Giebelhausen agreed. “(The Par A-Dice) has caused a lot of things to happen in the city that would not have otherwise been achieved.” Meanwhile, East Peoria’s annual sales tax revenues, adjusted for inflation, have more than tripled over the last 40 years.

“you may be hard-pressed to find a hotel room from here to Bloomington” thanks to the tournament crowds, said Swan. The demise of the Wallace Station power generating plant on the edge of the Illinois River, once famed for its 37-foot illuminated Reddy Kilowatt sign, made room for Walmart, Lowe’s, Riverfront Park and dozens of other restaurants and businesses. The 150,000-square foot Bass Pro store just north of I-74 sits on the plant’s former ash pond. “The city has turned over and become wholly new, rejuvenated, redeveloped and remodeled,” said former City Attorney Dennis Triggs, who was an enduring and influential presence on that journey, through multiple mayoral administrations. “Somewhere along the line, I think the city also recaptured some pride and the spirit of the people who live here was reinvigorated.”

APRIL 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE 73