BLOOMINGTON — Back in the 19th century, long before high-rise
dormitories, condominiums, townhomes, assisted living communities
and other such arrangements, boarding houses played an important
role in providing room and board for young and old alike.
Boarding houses, often run by older women out of their homes,
typically offered a bedroom, a shared bath and “three squares” a
day, served at a communal dinning table.
One of the better-known was the Richardson House (see
accompanying image) located on the 200 block of East Front Street.
This old place is long-gone, and today the site is occupied by the
Station 220 (formerly Central Station) restaurant.
In the late 1800s, there were upwards of 30 or more boarding
houses operating at any one time in transportation-rich
Bloomington-Normal. With several rail lines and the Chicago
Alton (CA) repair shops as the community’s largest workforce,
a lot of people were coming and going, including railroaders,
“drummers,” (salesmen working for wholesale houses) and wandering
souls who simply found themselves in the Twin Cities for a spell.
In addition, both Illinois State and Illinois Wesleyan universities
had yet to invest in residential halls, meaning boarding houses
helped fill the need for student (and often faculty) housing. These
places also served as a temporary home for unmarried factory
laborers and young professionals, with the latter running the gamut
from struggling store clerks to up-and-coming lawyers.
Many of the city’s boarding houses were on the west side of
Bloomington near the CA tracks, such as the Railroad Eating
House at 905 W. Chestnut St. These were a little more
rough-and-tumble than the Richardson, and served railroad brakemen,
section hands, hard luck salesmen and the like.
Over on the near east side, the Richardson House was originally
the elegant abode for carriage maker Josiah Richardson and his wife
Lavina. By the early 1870s, it had been converted into the
Richardson House, with Mary L. Alsop serving as proprietor.
In mid-August 1875, The Daily Leader, a 19th century competitor
to The Pantagraph, lightheartedly reported on the obsession among
Richardson boarders with the game of croquet, presumably staged in
the backyard or some adjacent lot. The boarders “think that croquet
is one of the nicest games ever introduced for the amusement of
those who shun barrooms and can-can establishments,” The Leader
noted. “There is no ‘let-up’ from the rising of the sun to the
twinkling of the little stars at night. Why, we are informed that
seven croquet sets have been entirely worn out this season, and the
last one is in a dilapidated condition.”
Running the show was Alsop, a widow whose entrepreneurial and
business acumen would have made her one of the city’s business
leaders if not for the fact that she was a woman. After finding
success at the Richardson, she established a larger boarding house
on North Street (now Monroe Street) between Prairie and Gridley
streets (District 87’s administration building now occupies this
spot). “Mrs. Alsop was a unique woman in many respects, clever and
amiable and one of the best hosts Bloomington ever had,” eulogized
The Daily Bulletin, another Bloomington newspaper, upon her death
in 1901.
Many of these houses were run by women simply because it was one
of the few professions open to them. In 1886, to cite a
representative year, at least 18 of the 31 boarding houses listed
in the Bloomington city directory were operated by women.
The 1880 U.S. census enumeration of Alsop’s East Monroe boarding
house offers a window into life at such an establishment. In
addition to the proprietor and her 22-year-old daughter Josie,
there were five employees, including 25-year-old Irish immigrant
Maggie Boyd and 16-year-old Kattie Clancy, who were listed as
“dining room girls.” The occupations of the eight male boarders
included druggist, stock dealer, professor of music, carpenter and
an IWU law student (back when “The Wesleyan” included a law
school).
“Ah, there were excellent cooks in those halcyon days,”
reminisced an Alsop boarder in 1928. “Seated around the festal
board, the bachelors, spinsters, married couples and the great
variety of those who found it expedient to ‘take their meals out,’
met three times per day and, while discussing the viands so
temptingly served, indulged in merry repartee.” The anonymous
boarder added that Alsop’s house was “the scene of numerous social
events … while the broad porch carried its daily quota of
chatterers who spent an hour in congenial camaraderie as they idly
watched the world go by.”