The Roanoke Illinois Photographs of Thomas Pettigrew

For Many Years Roanoke had a weekly hometown newspaper, The Roanoke Post. The Owner/Editor/Photographer/Sole Employee of the paper was Thomas P. Pettigrew, who was known to everyone as "T.P.".  In addition to publishing the paper, he was also a barber by profession.  The newspaper office was a desk in the corner of T.P.'s barber shop.

T.P. was a very good photographer and took many, many photographs of people, places and events in the Roanoke-Woodford County area.  It appears to have been a hobby that he pursued for years.  The bulk of his photographic work apparently went to the town dump 50 years ago, but a taste of it has survived to give us an insight into what life was like in Roanoke and surrounding areas perhaps 100 years ago.

T.P. Pettigrew died in 1952 at the age of 78.  Sometime in the 1950's his barbershop / newspaper office was sold and torn down. The remains and contents of the shop were piled up on the street for removal to the town dump. Lewis Legel was walking past the pile of trash one day after part of the pile had been removed, and saw an old cardboard box containing photo negatives sticking out of the trash.  He picked it up and took it home.  After Lewis' death, his wife Babe was disposing of some of his personal effects and gave me the box of negatives.

My name is Hal Wiley, my wife is the former Lenore Schafer.  We moved our family from Roanoke to Scottsdale, Az. in 1957 and still live there.  Her family owned the Schafer Shoe Store on Main Street in Roanoke for  many years.  Lenore's aunt, Babe Legel, still lives in Roanoke.  Babe's husband, Lewis, died in 1993.

Computer technology has now advanced to the point where we can share these glimpses of history with other people who may be interested.  Most of these photos were taken about 1908 ~ 1909.   Many of the people in these pictures have relatives still living in Roanoke and the surrounding rural areas and you may recognize some of the buildings or landscapes.  Please go to the message board and let us know what you think.   

      Hal Wiley 2004

Webmaster's Note:

Hal Wiley worked for many years for Motorola in Phoenix Arizona, beginning as an engineer in the dawning semi-conductor research division in the fifties.  His work for them kept him abreast of developments in computer technology.  Upon his retirement, Hal resolved to teach himself computer graphics in order to document these and other photographic negatives that he had collected.  Without his dedication to the preservation of Pettigrew's work, it would doubtlessly have been lost to the ages.