| Sufjan Stevens – To the Workers of the Rock River Valley Region, I Have an Idea Concerning Your Predicament Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| It's sad to go through the Rock River Valley region and see all the empty buildings. | |
| Sufjan Stevens – They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhhh! Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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As being from the Buda area, I will agree with Buda being a ghost town, it's about 600 people, which is big for a ghost town, though. There's just not much activity in that area. Period. Doing research: "Green Ridge" is no longer a community, but once was. The buildings are no longer existant. The town was near what is Girard today. Birds, Illinois, was at a population of 51 in 2000. Parker City was a boom town that no longer has any inhabitants. There are evidence of wells still there? (Not sure about that source) Is not faar from Carbondale. I also found nothing on McVey, Horace, Lemmon, or Enos, just a random spot on Google Maps. Reader/"Reeders" is an unincorperated community- which really means it's a small group of houses. I looked up an area near me, and it came up as an "unincorperated community." Not- though a town of about 50 near me (with a post office & zip code-making it at least a village) came up as one, too. The rest are towns with populations from 128 (Sailor Springs)-25,561(Kankakee). My assumption is that he was going for the decline of towns in Illinois, and how nobody every remembers the history of the small-town/ghost-town areas. He obviously did a LOT of digging or knew his stuff. |
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| Sufjan Stevens – The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You're Going to Have to Leave Now, or, 'I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Th Lyrics | 16 years ago |
| Oh, and Jefferson Davis was also part of this militia. | |
| Sufjan Stevens – The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You're Going to Have to Leave Now, or, 'I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Th Lyrics | 16 years ago |
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It's definitely a reference to the Black Hawk War that began in the vague North Central Illinois Valley area. There's a park dedicated to Black Hawk, and my fourth grade class took a field trip there and to its museum there. [When the state's parks were closing, it was a big controversy because the Black Hawk State Park was on the list to close- it has a very large statue pretty famous for the area there, looking over the Rock River.] Also, I need to dispute something: "Blackhawks" weren't a tribe, which is why the hockey team has a deceptive mascot. Black Hawk- two words, as noted in the title as well- was the native American leader who led a group of Sauk and Fox (and apparently Kickapoo, according to Wikipedia) native Americans in a battle against the people who inhabitated what used to be their land- taken over in 1804, I believe. But it is true, they weren't exactly pacifists. Though they had been moved to Iowa, they returned to the area for this battle. The battle was in 1832, and yes, Lincoln was part of the militia that was sent to fight the Sauk and Fox peoples. He stole a chicken once during the war- I bet you might not have known that! |
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