Urbana Railroad Company Silver Creek Bridge, 1951

Bird's Eye View of the City of Champaign County 1869. The Silver Creek Bridge is located on the track at the corner of 2nd Street and Springfield Avenue.

Fred and Betty Turner’s sixth offering in their Christmas card series was the first to feature a piece of Illinois history that was in Champaign County. The Silver Creek Bridge, or as we know it, the Stone Arch Bridge, at the northwest corner of 2^nd and Springfield avenue in Champaign was selected as the 1951 subject in honor of the 100-year anniversary of Illinois Central Railroad Company (ICRR).

The old and tattered stone bridge was not much to look at in 1951. The Turners suggested that most people in Champaign and Urbana who passed by the bridge did not know it was there nor the history behind its origins.

“Few even notice it and almost none recognizes it for its historical interest. It is the graceful little stone arch bridge over the north branch of the Boneyard, hidden by weeds, vines, and a scrawny peach tree—backed by a dying Lombardy poplar and a crooked evergreen, and used only as a neighborhood foot bridge”.

– The Turners

Urbana Railroad Company Silver Creek Bridge [Stone Arch Bridge] (Champaign, Ill.), 1951.jpg

Urbana Railroad Company Silver Creek Bridge (Stone Arch Bridge), 1951

Inside page of Turners' 1951 Silver Creek Bridge Christmas Card

St Louis Pictorial Advertiser 1858-59.jpg

ICRR Advertisement from the St. Louis Pictorial Advertiser, 1858-59

The historical insert for this card is brief, as many of their earliest inserts tended to be, but it offers some fascinating details about the bridge and how it was used. Particularly of note are the names cited of those who worked on the line. It is unclear where the Turners obtained the information for this insert (later ones sometimes cited sources), but it is very valuable for researchers and shows the variety of ways the Turner prints are useful as museum artifacts and archival materials. They are simultaneously a work of art, piece of local history, reflection of the past, and valuable research source.

The single color used for the exterior and interior of the card indicates there were probably only two wood-blocks carved for this card, one for the front and one for the inside page.

The interior of the card features a number of different font styles. Each of them was taken from an 1856 ICRR advertisement from the St. Louis Pictorial Advertiser. In the 1858 edition of the St. Louis Pictorial Advertiser, a similar advertisement is found. Like the one the Turner’s used as inspiration for the interior of their card, this advertisement also highlighted the “splendid State Room Cars” on the ICRR that “enable(ed) the passenger to retire to bed and take a comfortable night’s sleep whilst rapidly pursuing (their) journey.”