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Ever wonder about the origin of the Inman Hotel? Or the story behind the City Building?
Will Best has you covered ... like never before.
In May, under Best’s direction, the Champaign County History Museum began tours of downtown Champaign. The plan is to hold 12 walking tours each year with potential for more.
Don’t worry, the tours will avoid the sometimes cold and slippery winter months. Instead, they run from May to October, prime walking season.
The first tour was May 18 and the most recent tour was held Saturday. The next is June 29.
The tours are broken into two types: One includes stops at historic buildings in the city, the other deals with the lore of vice and crime in the community.
Who knew, the latter used to be a big deal locally in the 1920s and ’30s. The focus is on the vice inquiry of 1939, an effort to combat the number of gambling halls and speak-easies and the amount of crime in downtown Champaign.
“We look at the gambling halls and the corruption within the city government,” Best said.
Turns out, Champaign was not squeaky clean. If the walls could talk ...
Best, the manager for the Champaign County History Museum, took the job just over a year ago.
His favorite story is one for the vice and crime tour.
“Downtown Champaign on Market Street used to be called ‘Gamblers’ Row’ because of the number of of illegal gambling halls that were located on the second floor of many prominent businesses,” Best said. “They were essentially an open secret. While they were illegal, everyone knew about them.”
How is so much information known about the gambling halls? Thanks to the media, specifically the Daily Illini.
“They made it their mission to go to each gambling establishment and essentially write like a Yelp review,” Best said. “They would play a couple of hands, draw what the interior of the gambling establishment looked like and would write a review, what the atmosphere was like, how expensive it was, what accommodations they had, how the furniture looked.”
History in the blood
Best, a Monmouth native and Monmouth College graduate, moved to the area in May ’22 because his wife, Samantha, was pursuing a graduate degree at the University of Illinois. Will Best, 26, originally joined the museum as a volunteer in January 2023. He earned a master’s degree in museum studies at Western Illinois University.
Best had previously worked as the assistant director at his hometown museum.
His father Tom was a seventh-grade history teacher and is a Civil War historian.
“I grew up around it,” Will Best said. “I didn’t truly start appreciating history like I do now until my junior year as an undergraduate.”
That’s when he worked directly with his academic advisor in the history department. They talked about career paths in museums. He realized it was something he wanted to do.
Time for a reboot
The walking tours are not new for the museum. They had been held in the past and were “fairly infrequent.”
The tours were put together by museum president T.J. Blakeman, the museum board of trustees and vice president Perry Morris. They gathered the information and figured out the routes for the tours. They were conducted once or twice a year.
“COVID really put a damper on much of those activities,” Best said. “My effort over the last year is to get the information together so we can start conducting these tours more frequently and also increase the number of tours we do yearly.”
The tours include up to 15 participants and the goal is to always be full. They were near capacity Saturday and have already had signups for late June, which is a vice and crime tour.
Cost is $15 per person. Museum members receive a $5 discount for their ticket and anyone in their group.
The tours last 75 to 90 minutes and run longer depending on the number of questions. The tours cover 1¼ to 1½ miles, so you will get your steps in while learning.
There aren’t hills or stairs to climb.
The historic buildings tour include 14 stops and there are 10 for the vice and crime tour.
The museum offers private businesses and organizations the opportunity private tours. Best conducted one for Parkland College.
“They can book their own private tours by contacting me,” Best said.
Future plans
This is the first year of the more frequent tours.
“We’re hoping we will continue with this type of schedule,” Best said. “We’re hoping to add on a few additional tours for 2025.”
Such as?
“There is a lot of interest in the theaters in downtown Champaign and we’re also hoping to reintroduce our neighborhood walk, which was a historic homes tour along University and Church,” Best said.
Another idea is a haunted university tour, exploring rumors and legends on the UI campus.
“We’re currently just researching that one now,” Best said.
