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Campus at Illinois Wesleyan University
On the corner of McLean and Walnut
Autumn leaves in a Bloomington parkOne of the very first Bloomington IL Pages
"Virgin territory for VT?"
It looks like this is going to be one of the very first attempts to build a page for Bloomington Illinois. How exciting is that! And what a lot of responsibility for me as well. Bloomington is the headquarters of State Farm Insurance, and I was told that many historic advances in the philosophy and practice of actuarial science were made here. It's also part of a bi-urban area which includes Normal, the home of Illinois State University. Somewhere in the area there is also an enormous Japanese owned auto manufacturing plant. When I was a gradual student at the University of Illinois in the mid 1980s, my friends and I looked down our noses at Bloomington-Normal, because in our minds it lacked the urbane champagne-like sophistication of our university community. But visiting the area in the fall of 2003 for a professional conference, I was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable a place this seems to be.
"Madly about Adlai (the first one)"
"This was the home of Adlai E. Stevenson I, Vice-President of the United States 1893-1897. Stevenson was born in Kentucky in 1835 and came to Bloomington in 1852. He attended Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, and Centre College in Kentucky. He began to practice law in Metamore Illinois in 1868. A lifelong Democrat, Stevenson was elected to Congress in 1874 and 1878. He served as First Assistant Postmaster General in President Grover Cleveland's first administration, 1885-1889, was Vice-President in Cleveland's Second Administration, 1893-1897. Stevenson bought this house in 1889. He died in 1914."
