If Worthy Streator supplied the money and the name, Colonel Ralph Plumb supplied the energy. Streator remembers him as its founder, and his name is still all over town. Read on for his life and legacy, or go back to the History of Streator overview.
From New York to Ohio
Ralph Plumb was born in Busti, New York, on March 29, 1816. He moved to Ohio, served in the Ohio House of Representatives in 1855, then studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1857, practicing in Oberlin.
Civil War Service
When the Civil War began, Plumb joined the Union Army as a captain and quartermaster of volunteers. He was brevetted lieutenant colonel, and the title “Colonel” stayed with him for the rest of his life.
Arriving in Hardscrabble
After the war his relative Worthy S. Streator recruited him to manage a coal venture in Illinois for a group of investors. Plumb reached the settlement then called Hardscrabble in February 1866. As business manager of the Vermilion Coal Company, he platted the land for a new town and oversaw the sinking of eight mine shafts.
He also had to find workers. Without the money to hire European labor agents, the company spread the word through steamship offices and railroad notices. The approach worked, bringing waves of immigrant families to town. More on that story is on our coal mining era page.
Mayor and Congressman
When Streator incorporated as a city in 1882, Plumb was elected its first mayor and served until 1885. He was then elected as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives, serving from March 4, 1885, to March 3, 1889. After Congress he worked in banking until his death in Streator on April 8, 1903.
A Name on Everything
Plumb shaped early Streator in a very physical way. The main hotel and the opera house bore his name, and he paid for the construction of the city’s first high school building. That school, today’s Streator Township High School, graduated its first class of seven students, one boy and six girls, in 1876.
The Plumb Opera House later housed the Ladies Library Association, and because Plumb knew Andrew Carnegie personally, he asked the steel magnate for a library grant. The result was the Carnegie-funded Streator Public Library, which opened in January 1903, a few months before his death. The opera house later became the Plumb Theatre, which showed films until it was demolished in 1980.
Remembering the Colonel
A monument to Colonel Plumb, sculpted by Marlene Miller in 2004, stands in Streator City Park. The concert venue built in the park in 2012 was named Plumb Pavilion. His family’s influence lasted well beyond his lifetime, as our page on the Plumb family legacy shows.
Founder, Promoter, Politician
Plumb’s career touched nearly every part of early Streator: he laid out the streets, ran the mines, built the hotel and theater, paid for the school, led city government and represented the area in Washington. Few small Illinois cities owe so much of their early shape to one person, and that is why Streator calls him its founder even though the town carries another man’s name.
Related Streator History
- Streator History Overview
- Dr. Worthy S. Streator: The Man the City Is Named For
- Streator Public Library: The Carnegie Library on Park Street
- The Plumb Family Legacy: Opera House, Hotel, Bank and Disney Music
Sources
- Ralph Plumb – Wikipedia (based on the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Plumb
- Streator, Illinois – Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streator,_Illinois
- Streator Township High School – Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streator_Township_High_School
- Streator Public Library – Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streator_Public_Library
- Cinema Treasures – Majestic Theatre (Plumb Theatre references). https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/5132
