Hillsboro Illinois Old Settlers Home Page

1884 - 2010 – 126th Hillsboro Old Settlers

Montgomery County’s oldest and most grandiose celebration is Old Settlers Days,
held annually in Hillsboro during the third week of August.

     Thousands of visitors come to the county seat for Old Settlers to enjoy the parades, carnival rides, musical entertainment and the midway of games and food stands that line Main Street. The main attraction of Old Settlers Days, however, is seeing people from all over the county, state and nation, as they, too, return for Old Settlers. Many family and class reunions are scheduled in conjunction with Old Settlers, making it a true community homecoming.

     This year’s celebration starts on Sunday, Aug. 15, and continues on Wednesday and Thursday, Aug. 18-19.

     Following is the history of Old Settlers, excerpted from the book, Hillsboro, A History, by Dorothy Bliss and based on the writings of her late husband, Tom Bliss.

     The Old Settlers Association came into being (unofficially) shortly after the Montgomery Agricultural Society was organized on June 24, 1854. It was formed to promote an annual county fair to be held on the Seymour tract of land, now Beckemeyer School campus, which became known as the Hillsboro Fairgrounds.

     Members of the Agricultural Society paid $1 a year to belong to the organization, according to a receipt which was issued to Justus Ware on January 6, 1856, by J.W. Kitchell, secretary.

     Year after year, men and women came to the fair at Hillsboro to see and to be seen, to renew old acquaintances and to make new ones. The women brought jellies, jams, cakes and cookies, quilts and fancy work, and other products of their domestic skill. The men took part in contests, entered their fine horses for exhibition, or hitched them to heavily loaded wagons to test their pulling powers. For many years, one could see the track on the school campus where horses once raced. 

     Early county settlers and members of their families decided somewhere along the line to form another organization to be known as the Old Settlers Association, and to build a log cabin meeting place on the fairgrounds. Jacob Cress, Solomon Harkey, whose home the historical society has restored, and Thomas Phillips, first Hillsboro mayor, promoted the building of the cabin out of logs donated by pioneer settlers or members of their families.

     The log cabin meeting place was erected in the summer of 1883 and the Old Settlers Association was formally organized on September 25, 1883, during the fair. There were 74 charter members of the association who joined that day, each paying the yearly dues of 25 cents. The Hillsboro band played while the members were signing the constitution, and the Rev. A.J. Williford called the meeting to order with prayer.

     At the association’s second meeting in 1884, Professor J.B. Turner of Jacksonville addressed the group, becoming the first in a long history of influential keynote speakers. In 1908, Adlai E. Stevenson who was vice president of the United States 1893-1897 under President Grover Cleveland, was the featured speaker.  He was the Democratic candidate for Governor of Illinois.

     In the early years there were baseball games, fiddling contests, horseshoe pitches and band concerts. Food stands and games of chance lined part of the racetrack at the fairgrounds. The present carnival atmosphere grew when the celebration was moved to make Main Street and Courthouse Square the center of attraction.

     The first Old Settlers parade was in 1898. The one-day celebrations commenced with parades of paper flower-decorated buggies and wagons pulled by horses. Later on, homemade floats and beautifully decorated automobiles made up the parade. In earlier years, more effort went into horrible or comic entries.

    Children were often in the parades on floats, riding their bicycles or walking with their wagons and pets, but it wasn’t until 1954 that the Young Settlers (Kiddie) parade was made a regular event. By that time, the celebration had turned into a two-day festival and the kiddie parade was held Wednesday evening. Six years later, under the direction of the Hillsboro Woman’s Club and the Business and Professional Women’s Club, the Young Settlers parade was moved to Thursday morning.

In 1956, the association created the Old Settlers Queen contest. Finances were dwindling and the annual contest became a means to raise money. Dr. R.G. Beatty and  Harry Muenter were chairmen of that first contest, when nine high schools girls participated. That year, association president, E.G. Kirchhofer, crowned Phyllis Bauer the first Old Settlers Queen as the highlight of the Wednesday program.

        Old Settlers Country Fair

     Old Settlers expanded to a three-day celebration in 1984, when a “country fair” was started on the Sunday before the traditional Wednesday-Thursday event.

     In the 18 years since, the Sunday activities have grown to include a community worship service under the oak trees on the Hillsboro High School campus, a huge car show on Main Street downtown, dog show, turtle races, photo contests, baby crawling contest, crafts, household demonstrations, plus the crowd-pleasing Little Miss Old Settlers pageant.

     The first Old Settlers Parade was in 1898. Early parades formed at the old fairgrounds and moved east to Fairground Avenue to Main Street, then north on Main, around the Courthouse and back south, winding their way on Tremont and St. Louis streets back to the fairgrounds.

    Parades were held on Thursday morning until 1958, when the “big parade” was moved to Thursday evening.