Book Description

In Echoes of Purple and Gold, Jack Keefe stacks local history like cordwood, telling forgotten tales and making odd connections that people no longer suspect. What school kid hasn't heard--or heard about--the story of Ichabod Crane in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"? He was both fictional and real. The fictional Crane is the one everyone knows about. But there were also two real ones. One was a military man in the nineteenth century; the other had a lot of influence on central Illinois. How many times has anyone ever heard the surname Magoun? The name is all but gone now from the city he called home. But he was once a household name until his bank went under. Arguably, it killed him. What about General Custer and Seventh Cavalry? They didn't just magically appear in Montana to make history. First, they had to water their horses in Illinois. The general even had to do some birthday shopping there. Most people already know colors don't make a noise. But when you read the title chapter of this book, you'll understand the phrase. Echoes of Purple and Gold has stories you might think you know: high school colors, sinking ships, a hanging, and a central Illinois man who put Zane Grey on the literary map. Add a toddler who was run over by a train and still telling about it a lifetime later, the city's fattest men enjoying an enormous meal the night before Thanksgiving, plus the magic of railroads coming to town. They have never been presented as they are in this book. All these things make for history, memories...and echoes.