History
Spoon River College was founded on October 17, 1959 as Canton Community College, after the Canton Union School District passed a referendum to establish a junior college, to allow students from the local high school district the opportunity to receive post-secondary education similar to university curriculum. It held its first classes in 1960, using space in the Canton Senior High School building.
Authorized by the Illinois General Assembly and signed by Illinois Governor Otto Kerner, Jr. in 1961, legislation was later enacted that created the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE). The IBHE was tasked by statute with formulating a master plan for higher education in the state of Illinois. In July 1964 the higher education master plan was published by the IBHE, which led to the Junior College Act of 1965. Under the Junior College Act, Canton was classified as a Class II Junior College.
In the mid-1960s, the college moved its operations out of the high school building and into leased space in Canton. In 1968 the formation of Junior College District 534 completed the college's separation from the Canton public school district, and the institution was officially renamed Spoon River College and reclassified as a Class I institution.
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“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
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