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The story of Urbana’s “state streets” … next steps for a long-time church congregation on the UI campus … a recent NOAA weather radio signal outage … and what happens to gym shoes that are tossed over power lines. All in this week’s Mailbag.

Townies and most UI alumni know about the cluster of “state streets” in the neighborhood just north of Florida Avenue and east of Lincoln Avenue.

It turns out that at least 19 U.S. states have lent their names to streets in the City of Urbana since it was founded in 1833. They were named one at a time, or a few at a time, over many decades. And some of their names were changed along the way. It’s easier to trace the “when” than the “why” behind the names.

An 1858 map of Urbana shows California and Oregon streets extending east from present-day Lincoln Avenue. California had become a state in 1850, but Oregon did not officially join the union until 1859 — so the street in Urbana may, technically, have been named after the Oregon Territory.

An 1893 atlas of Champaign County showed Ater Street as the name of current-day Nevada Street. Dry Street had been renamed Illinois Street by 1909, and Nevada Street (west of Lincoln Avenue) was shown on the 1909 map, as well.

(If you’re not confused enough already, think about this: Hubbard Avenue was the name of the three-block stretch of current-day Nevada Street that lay just east of Lincoln Avenue, as shown on a map dated “191?” at the county historical archives. Back then, Ater Street picked up again east of North Street, which we know today as McCullough Street. There is no Ater or Hubbard street today; those segments are now Nevada Street.)

In his April 30, 2021 Mailbag, Tom Kacich told the story of Blair’s Addition — the first name of the fashionable subdivision developed by UI Professor Joseph C. Blair. It soon became known as the University Heights Addition to Urbana, and it’s the area that comes to mind when many of us hear the term “state streets.” Some townies may have had their own name for the neighborhood in later years.

“In 1910, according to a February 1937 story in the Urbana Courier, Blair purchased 40 acres of land – south of what is now Michigan Avenue – that he intended to develop as a model residential section of Urbana. Streets and lots were surveyed, sewage and water lines were installed, streets and sidewalks were built on five ‘state’ streets: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Delaware and Florida,” Kacich wrote.

A 1913 map of Urbana shows Washington Street just south of Nevada Street, and the corporate (city) limit boundary was just south of Michigan Avenue. The map shows Michigan Avenue, Iowa Street, Indiana Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue (east of Lincoln Avenue). However, it appears present-day Indiana Avenue was called Morris Avenue at that time. And it seems current-day Ohio Street was called Indiana Avenue in those early years. I’ve not found documentation about who, exactly, named which of those streets – or why some of the names were changed.

Several maps from the same era show that the west-of-Lincoln-Avenue portion of present-day Pennsylvania Avenue was called Maple Avenue in the city’s early days; Maple Avenue had been renamed Pennsylvania Avenue by the time the 1923 campus map was published. Florida Avenue was on that 1923 map, as well.

A 1926 map of the city, “revised in 1936 and 1947,” showed Maryland and Virginia Drives as short north-south streets sandwiched between Pennsylvania and Florida Avenues. I don’t know whether those names appeared on the original 1926 map, or if those streets and their names were added in the later revisions. (Perhaps a reader who has an unrevised 1926 map, or a map from the early ’30s, could check and let us know if Maryland and Virginia Drives existed then.)

A 1952 map shows Colorado Avenue in southeast Urbana, and a newspaper article from January of that year referred to “the Sidney road, now renamed Colorado Avenue.”

So what about the origins of some of Urbana’s later, and lesser-known, “state streets” — including some that came and went within a relative few years?

Maps from the late 1940s and early ’50s show “Illini Village” in the area where the Pennsylvania and Florida Avenue Residence Halls are today — between Lincoln Avenue and Mount Hope Cemetery. Several online resources from the UI Archives tell us Illini Village was a temporary student housing complex for veterans and their families, built after WWII.

A 1950 map, titled “University of Illinois’s Hometown of Champaign-Urbana,” shows Carolina as the next north-south street east of Virginia Avenue. Today, the former Carolina seems to be a driveway that runs between the Sigma Nu fraternity house, and Carr and Babcock Residence Halls. A couple of even shorter north-south streets, Alabama and Georgia, were located approximately where Saunders Hall is today.

By the time the oldest Baby Boomers were ready for college in the 1960s, there was an immediate need for a more traditional type of student housing. PAR (1962) and FAR (1966) were built where Illini Village had been, and some of Urbana’s shortest (and shortest-lived) state streets disappeared for good.

“I heard the University Place Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) building near the UI campus is being sold. Will the church be merging with another, disbanding, or maybe renting worship/office space elsewhere?”

Pastor Kristine Light tells me the UniPlace congregation is not disbanding, and will be moving to the University YMCA this fall. “Our last worship service in the building will be Sunday Sept. 14, 2025. We are excited to be taking our student ministries, food pantry, Community Free Dinner program, worship life and excellent music ministry with us to our new home at the University YMCA,” 1001 S. Wright Street in the heart of campus.

On Thursday evening, the Champaign County History Museum hosted a History on the Town reception at the current church, 403 S. Wright in Champaign. The invitation to the event noted that the congregation has, indeed, decided to sell the property. Details on the potential sale were not available at presstime.

According to CCHM, the congregation’s first church was established on the campus in 1872. The current church, which was dedicated in April 1936, was built after a March 1932 fire destroyed the previous building.

“It was so nice to see all of the happy people at the first Friday Night Lights in downtown Champaign. But around 9:30, Neil Street was like a racetrack with motorcycles, loud cars and speeding cars. Does the city plan to install speed bumps there?”

Gregory Manzana, deputy chief of operations with the Champaign Police Department, said CPD and other city departments work hard to ensure a fun, welcoming and safe environment for visitors to FNL and other city events. Champaign Police officers are assigned in the department’s north district and on specific downtown details throughout the summer, and part of their role is to ensure that traffic in the area complies with the Illinois Vehicle Code.

“I am thankful for this person’s willingness to reach out through the Mailbag, as Champaign Police received no calls for service related to speed or vehicle noise on Friday night, May 30, and this provides actionable information to our officers in the area. On Friday night, officers did take proactive steps to address concerns they saw in the area, including speeding.

Manzana said an infrastructure change already is planned to slow traffic and encourage everyone to safely share the right-of-way as part of the Phase II construction of the Downtown Plaza. “A tabled intersection is planned for the intersection of Neil and Hill Streets that will slow vehicles in the area and make access to the Neil Street Plaza more welcoming, regardless of mode of travel or physical ability.”

More information on the tabled intersection is available at engagechampaign.org/downtownplaza. That project is being coordinated through the city’s Planning & Development and Public Works departments.

“Is Champaign’s NOAA Weather Radio station off the air again? My weather radio doesn’t work for the spoken forecast anymore.”

The Champaign weather radio station, which is operated by the National Weather Service’s office in Lincoln, posted this notice on the US National Weather Service Central Illinois Facebook page on May 28:

“Due to a required, scheduled update to our main computer systems, all NOAA Weather Radio stations operated by our office will be off the air from about 7 a.m. Tuesday, June 3rd through the afternoon of Thursday, June 5th. We are unable to reschedule this upgrade in the event of severe weather, so be sure to have alternate ways to receive severe weather information during this time period.”

Weather radio stations with transmitters in Bloomington, Champaign, Galesburg, Jacksonville, Newton, Paris, Peoria, Shelbyville and Springfield were affected by the scheduled outage.

Full disclosure: the reader’s question came in a few days before the planned outage, so we got in touch with NWS-Lincoln’s lead meteorologist, Chris Geelhart, to see if the computer updates had begun early. He checked for the Champaign signal shortly after we sent him the question, “and WXJ-76 is currently broadcasting; we’re able to pick it up over the air from here. Not sure if it was a momentary fluke” with the radio signal or the reader’s receiver.

Months ago, a Mailbag reader asked whether NOAA could livestream its weather radio stations, and the official answer was “no.” That same reader just told me that WeatherUSA, a privately owned company that offers weather-related data and business services, streams some NOAA Weather Radio stations including Champaign-based WXJ-76. You can hear that stream, and others from around the country, free of charge at weatherusa.net/radio. Note that the streams may be delayed by 10 seconds to 2 minutes because of buffering or network delays. 

“Can you get an update on the status of the HACC apartment buildings at Third and East Park streets in Champaign? Last I heard, they were going to be renovated over the winter and early spring, but they’re still boarded-up and vacant.”

Lily Walton, executive director of the Housing Authority of Champaign County, said the project “is still underway and is expected to be completed by the end of the summer. Work has been ongoing and the windows are boarded-up to prevent squatters” from occupying and possibly vandalizing the units.

“Following up on a recent Mailbag item: the UI commencement website encouraged grads to take a photo with a sign that features the column-I. Wasn’t that logo retired in 2017?”

UI spokesperson Robin Kaler said yes, it was — and “when the column-I was retired, we asked all university units to use the materials they had already produced and phase out the logo in ways that were sustainable, realistic and budget-conscious.

“Changes to websites began almost immediately, and supplies of stationery and other paper supplies continue to dwindle. Obviously, adornments designed to be permanently displayed on outdoor spaces are the most complicated to change.” They also can be some of the most costly changes related to a rebranding effort – a one-time expense that’s not necessarily a part of a unit’s annual budget.

“Since the announcement of the new Illinois brand platform in 2024, Strategic Communications and Marketing has been providing additional support to update prominent column-I logos to our new branding. Replacement of the signs on the overpass on I-57 and extension offices across the state, as well as at the Illini Union Bookstore, the intersections of Lincoln/Green, University/Wright, Race/Florida and Race/Windsor began several months ago. We plan to have these completed by the end of September.

“We are as eager as your readers to show our block-I pride everywhere!”


”While biking to campus on John Street, I saw several pairs of tennis shoes strung over the power lines above the road. Will those need to be taken down, or do they fall naturally as the laces break?”

Ameren spokesperson Karly Combest said that utility’s linemen do remove athletic shoes from lines when necessary. For whatever reason, the shoe-tossing “seems to be abundant during the move-out season for students.” She points out that the particular set of overhead wires in the reader-submitted photo is not an electric line; it’s a communications line, likely belonging to AT&T.

“When and why did the liquor store in the strip mall at Bradley and Mattis close?”

Uhhh, it’s been a while now.

City of Champaign spokesperson Jeff Hamilton said “in July 2024, the City of Champaign revoked the liquor license previously issued to Joe’s Liquor on Bradley, Inc., located at 1807 W. Bradley Ave., following multiple violations of the city’s Liquor Ordinance. Around this same time, the Illinois Liquor Control Commission also revoked the business’s state liquor license for multiple violations of state law.”