Marshall Public Library (Marshall, IL)

Burned Courthouse shell – A fire in the courthouse was discovered at 3:00 a.m. on December 31, 1902, by Officer Howard Handley and Mr. Allison, a night clerk at the Marshall House. They believed it must have been smoldering for several hours. The main theory about the source of the fire was that a meeting had been held in a room on the second floor the evening before, and it was believed that a cigarette or stub might have been mislaid. The roof and the floor and contents of the second story were completely destroyed, but the record books and most of the contents of the first floor were carried out of the building by volunteers and taken to several other buildings for safety.
Following the fire office space was rented in the Pythian Theater building and the Clark County Bank until a new courthouse could be built. This picture shows the remaining shell of the 1888 courthouse looking from south to north. The house in the background on the left is now the site of a laundromat and the building on the right was Grabenheimer’s (recently Tatum's).

Notes from Brian Murphy:
The house was originally built by Nineveh Shaw. The farm was later purchased by James C Bryan, my Great Great Grandfather. He was the first hardware store owner in Marshall. Dad and Uncle George Kile had the house torn down, they found it had walnut floor joists and poplar flooring. I have the original order for the lumber that came from Walnut Prairie. It was purchased from William B Archer. That farm had a loom shed on it where farmers brought flax to make linen material. I have a throw that was made there. The farm is now the Westwood Subdivision.

Paul Paddock, 4th & Archer looking east
What a neat photo . . the old tanker truck, the proud looking young man, and the Claypool & Son building in the background. When we began researching this photo, the name was a great place to begin. A search of our newspaper archive quickly revealed a sad story for this young man.
Paul Paddock was born in April 1903 and grew up in Darwin. In 1926, he was living in Marshall - rooming at Clay Montgomery's boarding house on Locust Street and driving a tanker truck for H.B. O'Hair. On the morning of December 22, 1926, he had breakfast at the boarding house and headed to work. When he returned to O'Hair's filling station after a run in his truck, he was not looking well and was talked into returning to the boarding house. There he fell terrible ill and passed away suddenly. Paul was only 23 years old. He was laid to rest at Darwin Cemetery.