PEORIA MAGAZINE November 2023

Grandview Drive in Peoria Heights

Peoria Heights Mayor Michael Phelan

Downtown Peoria Heights (contributed photo)

that we’re still recovering from,” said Heights Mayor Michael Phelan. Nonetheless, the village has come a long way. Last year, Village Hall ran a $1 million budget surplus. Village trustees have lowered the municipal property tax levy the past three years. As a lifelong resident, Phelan recalls Pabst Brewery as a huge fixture in the village. “Growing up, we didn’t have air condi tioning, so at night during the summer months you’d hear the trains constantly switching throughout the night, trucks

idling, trucks pulling in and out. It was a three-shifts-a-day, very busy opera tion,” Phelan said. Peoria Heights has always been known for the river that flows past it. “There was lots of fishing and lots of cabins along the river. The Illinois River produced more fish than any other river in the country, except the Columbia River,” said Phelan. “That was before they reversed the flow of the Chicago River, so then you didn’t have the pollution and siltation. The river was beautiful and clear.” Today, Peoria Heights is trying to cap

italize on that natural beauty and those amenities again by building a local econ omy not only focused on the hospitality industry — its Restaurant Row downtown is perhaps the most popular in the region — but on ecotourism and recreation, with its sights set firmly forward.

Linda Smith Brown is a 37-year veteran of the newspaper industry, retiring as publisher of Times Newspapers in the Peoria area

94 NOVEMBER 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE