Editing Tuscola, Illinois (section)

==History==
The city of Tuscola's name came from an unknown Native American tribe's word for "flat plain."<ref>{{cite book|title=Illinois Central Magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3WI3AQAAMAAJ&pg=PT49|year=1922|publisher=Illinois Central Railroad Company|page=41}}</ref>

The founding Supervisor of Tuscola township was [[O. C. Hackett]], who was elected in 1868. Hackett was elected Supervisor with a majority of only one vote over W. B. Ervin.<ref name="History of Douglas County, Illinois">[http://genealogytrails.com/ill/douglas/tuscolatwphistory.html History of Douglas County, Illinois]</ref> O. C. Hackett was the grandson of noted Kentucky frontiersman and Boonsborough resident [[Peter Hackett (frontiersman)|Peter Hackett]]. O. C. planted Hackett's Grove, a sassafras grove situated on Section 31, Township 16, Range 9, on the east side of the township. This  {{convert|20|acre|m2|adj=on}} grove is traversed by a branch of Scattering Fork of the Embarrass River, long known as Hackett's Run. According to the History of Douglas County (1884), the grove had been owned by the Hacketts long before Douglas County came into existence.<ref name="History of Douglas County, Illinois"/> O.C. Hackett's father, John Hackett, settled in nearby Coles County in 1835.<ref>[http://genealogytrails.com/ill/coles/chapter3.html History of Coles County, Illinois].</ref> Family legend holds that [[Abraham Lincoln]] stayed at the Hackett farm during the [[Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858]].

From the 1890s to the 1940s, Tuscola had a sizeable number of African-American citizens, including Arthur Anderson, the "most graceful walker" at the 1898 Colored Folks Cake Walk in Tuscola; his partner Cozy Chavous; the musician Cecil "Pete" Bridgewater, father of internationally known musicians [[Cecil Bridgewater]] and Ronnie Bridgewater; the educator and musician Ruth Calimese, daughter of automobile worker "Big Jim" Calimese; musician Solomon "Sol" Chavous; mail carrier and war veteran Bruce Hayden (father of distinguished violinist Bruce Hayden Jr.); Lemuel and Nettie Riley; football star and garage owner Tommy Wright; and dozens of other people. Tuscola had two churches with mainly black congregations, the African Methodist Episcopal Church on North Niles, and the White Horse Riders church on Houghton Street.  Unlike the neighboring town of [[Arcola, Illinois|Arcola]], Tuscola did not have the ordinance, common in small Illinois towns at the time, that an African-American person could not be on the streets after sundown.  The black and white people of Tuscola got along well.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://tuscola.org/sites/default/files/22Negro%20Population.pdf |title= The History of Tuscola's Negro Population |website= Tuscola.org |access-date= September 17, 2014 |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20141014105054/http://tuscola.org/sites/default/files/22Negro%20Population.pdf |archive-date= October 14, 2014 }} Adapted from ''The Cabin Chatter'', April 1997, Douglas County Museum.</ref><ref>{{cite journal |url= http://eblackcu.net/portal/archive/files/african_americans_tuscola_2fb341813d.pdf |title= The History of Tuscola's Black Population |journal= Douglas County Cabin Chatter |publisher= Douglas County Historical Society |date= c. 1993 |access-date= September 17, 2014 }}</ref> However, between 1922 and 1924 two large Ku Klux Klan gatherings were held in Tuscola.  The 1924 rally consisted of nearly 2,000 Klan cars, a hundred marching Klansmen, burning crosses, and a naturalization ceremony in Tuscola's Ervin Park.{{citation needed|date=September 2014}}