History
Streator was named for Worthy S. Streator, an Ohio industrialist who financed the region's first coal mining operation. It was founded in 1868 and incorporated as a city in 1882 when Col. Ralph Plumb was elected as its first mayor. Streator's early growth was due to its success as a coal producer, a major glass manufacturer and a railroad hub in the midwest. Today Streator's economy is led by heavy-equipment manufacturer Vactor, food distributor U.S. Foodservice and glass bottle manufacturer Owens-Illinois.
The city is the hometown of Clyde Tombaugh, who in 1930 discovered the dwarf planet Pluto, the first object to be discovered in what would later be identified as the Kuiper Belt; and George "Honey Boy" Evans, who wrote "In the Good Old Summer Time." Streator hosts annual events including Streator Park Fest; an Independence Day celebration, the Roamer Cruise Night and the Light Up Streator celebration. Streator is governed by a Manager–council style of government. It maintains police and fire departments as well as a public works system. Its current mayor is Jimmie Lansford.
Read more about this topic: Streator, Illinois
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“If man is reduced to being nothing but a character in history, he has no other choice but to subside into the sound and fury of a completely irrational history or to endow history with the form of human reason.”
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“Systematic philosophical and practical anti-intellectualism such as we are witnessing appears to be something truly novel in the history of human culture.”
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)