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Aug. 12th, 2013 01:26 amAny Popeye or Thimble Theater fans reading my blog here?
I just posted a set of photos from Chester, Illinois. Chester's claim to fame is being the home town of Elzie Crisler Segar, the creator of Thimble Theatre. It was the cartoon that introduced Popeye the Sailor Man to an unwary world. Chester is not going to let anybody get out of town without making sure that they're well-acquainted with that fact.
Segar based many of his characters on people he knew from living in Chester. In a continuing process of fund-raising and sculpting, Chester is erecting life-size statues and large murals of well-known characters like Brutus and Olive Oyl, but also of more obscure ones like Cole Oyl and the Whiffle Hen. The statues stand at locations relevant to the person they were based on, such as Cole Oyl, who stands outside the library founded by C. B. Cole, Cole Oyl's inspiration.
Here's a large paint-on-brick mural in the town square that contains many familiar faces for Popeye fans. If you'd like to see more, by all means click through and look around to each side in my photostream. There are a bunch of them.
It's worth contemplation, the way changing paradigms of transportation technology change the distribution of population and activity. In the late 1800s, Chester was a booming town served by 3 steamboat lines and 2 railroads. There were over 5000 people living there, which was a good number for the time. As commerce moved off the water and onto land, the fading of the steamboats contributed to the fading of Chester itself, along with so many other communities up and down the mighty Mississippi.
Next, I'm going to post a few pictures of the town in general, and the gorgeous bridge that crosses the Mississippi at Chester.
Copyright Stormdog 2013
I just posted a set of photos from Chester, Illinois. Chester's claim to fame is being the home town of Elzie Crisler Segar, the creator of Thimble Theatre. It was the cartoon that introduced Popeye the Sailor Man to an unwary world. Chester is not going to let anybody get out of town without making sure that they're well-acquainted with that fact.
Segar based many of his characters on people he knew from living in Chester. In a continuing process of fund-raising and sculpting, Chester is erecting life-size statues and large murals of well-known characters like Brutus and Olive Oyl, but also of more obscure ones like Cole Oyl and the Whiffle Hen. The statues stand at locations relevant to the person they were based on, such as Cole Oyl, who stands outside the library founded by C. B. Cole, Cole Oyl's inspiration.
Here's a large paint-on-brick mural in the town square that contains many familiar faces for Popeye fans. If you'd like to see more, by all means click through and look around to each side in my photostream. There are a bunch of them.
It's worth contemplation, the way changing paradigms of transportation technology change the distribution of population and activity. In the late 1800s, Chester was a booming town served by 3 steamboat lines and 2 railroads. There were over 5000 people living there, which was a good number for the time. As commerce moved off the water and onto land, the fading of the steamboats contributed to the fading of Chester itself, along with so many other communities up and down the mighty Mississippi.
Next, I'm going to post a few pictures of the town in general, and the gorgeous bridge that crosses the Mississippi at Chester.
Copyright Stormdog 2013
