Name This Peoria Landmark

The newly reconstructed Keller Branch rail spur crossing north University in Pioneer Park. 

The Illinois Valley Yacht & Canoe Club, aka The Ivy Club.

The long ago closed (and often flooded) driving range and miniature golf course on Farmington Road. Kickapoo Creek would be to your right and the race track would be to your left. The structure you see is the covered shelter area of the driving range, for those who don’t like to hit golf balls in the rain. C.J. Summers, you may claim your prize here.

The scary high elevator of the Peoria Heights Water Tower, in the new Tower Park.

Aerial view of the Arbor District and Bradley’s Campus.

Bradley Polytechnic Institute, postmarked what appears to be 1908. Some history, courtesy of Bradley University’s website: Bradley Polytechnic Institute was chartered on November 13, 1896. Mrs. Bradley provided seventeen and a half acres of land, $170,000 for buildings, equipment, and a library, and $30,000 per year for operating expenses. The Institute was originally organized as a four-year academy (similar to a high school) and a two-year college. At the time there was only one other high school in Peoria. By 1899 there were 400 pupils at Bradley, and instruction was offered in biology, chemistry, food work, sewing, English, German and French, history, Latin and Greek, manual arts, drawing, mathematics, and physics. In 1920 the Institute dropped the academy and adopted a four-year college program. Enrollment boomed when servicemen returned from World War II, and in 1946 the Graduate School was established and the name was changed to Bradley University.