The USPS uses the hyphens in Cave-in-Rock, Illinois. I saw the post office in the town and I documented the usage. Other signs around town were about evenly split on using hyphens.
After we visited the state park of the same name, I took a walk around town, mostly along a short stretch of Main Street, while Ann lounged around in the car.
The town’s actual main street seems to be Canal Street, but Main — which parallels the Ohio River — features the post office and Cave in Rock United Methodist Church, which doesn’t bother with the hyphens. Actually, according to the sign out front, the church doesn’t bother with “Cave in Rock” at all.
Rose’s Kountry Kitchen. Not too busy, but it was Sunday afternoon.
The River Front Opry House. Not sure if anything goes on there anymore.
Some pleasant-looking houses.
Also, art bicycles at various points near the street.
A small group of residents, acting informally, installed the bikes, reports KFVS-12. Civic-minded folks, from the look of it.
Something else about Cave-in-Rock: From 2007 to 2013, the annual Gathering of the Juggalos happened at nearby Hogrock Campgrounds. See SNL for a parody of an infomercial advertising the Gatherings of that period. Also, see a report by the FBI on the Juggalos. I have no idea whether it’s accurate, or whether the G-men had a burr up their butts for no solid reason.
Picture that, a town of 300 people inundated by 10,000 Juggalos. Guess they figured that Juggalo money spends too, despite the risk of damage to the town. Not the only hint of Insane Clown Posse I’ve run across this year.
Between Harrisburg and Shawneetown is the village of Equality, Illinois, pop. about 500. We drove down its main street, W. Lane St., then turned onto N. Calhoun St. Near the intersection of those streets, a restaurant called the Red Onion looked almost pre-pandemic busy.
Not far along Calhoun, I saw a place I wanted to stop.
The Equality water tower rises over the former site of the Gallatin County courthouse. The town was county seat for a while in the 19th century, but eventually lost that distinction. The building, later used as a school, burned down in 1894.
Under the tower is a sizable but timeworn memorial.
It honors Michael Kelly Lawler, born in County Kildare, Ireland, but who came to Gallatin County, Illinois, as a boy. A veteran of the war with Mexico, Lawler spent the Civil War in the western theater, most notably as a brigadier general leading Union troops during the Vicksburg campaign.
The state of Illinois erected the memorial in 1913, a good many years after the Gallatin County hometown general in blue had died. A plaque on the memorial lists E.M. Knoblaugh as the sculpture.
A simple Google search uncovers little about him, except the fact from the 1915 edition of Report of the Auditor of Public Accounts that the state of Illinois paid him $688.02 for service as a sculptor, and $4,210 to erect the monument, or $4,898.02 all together. In current dollars, more than $128,000, so he presumably did well in the deal.
Besides that, whoever he was, he did a fine job, especially on the relief, a lifelike visage that looks like it might have been restored sometime recently.