Homer High School

Homer High School

Image Credit:
Homer Historical Society

Once located in east Homer and built in 1890

The Homer High School building where Mary Mack (née Morgan, step-daughter of Wiley Jones) became the first African American to graduate in Homer, where William Walter Smith became the first African American to graduate from University of Illinois, and where Robert Earnest and others attended, no longer exists. William Frank Earnest, Class of 1915, who was the first African American to die in combat during World War I in France, graduated from the Homer Opera House. His signatures are still found on the stage.

Continue Reading History Show Less

SOURCE:

“From the Timber to the Prairie: A History of Homer, IL.” Vol. 1., Ray Cunningham and Molly Spencer Shoal, [Homer Historical Society, Homer, IL 2005]; Census; Champaign 1885 County Directory.

Decade:

1890-1899

People:

  • Mary Mack
  • Robert Earnest
  • William F. Earnest
  • William Walter Smith

Location(s):

  • Homer, Illinois

Additional Homer Trail Sites

Wiley & Frances Jones

Wiley Jones came to Homer from Decatur, Georgia, after the Civil War with William C. Custer. Jones would run a barber shop for years in Homer, was a trustee of the Homer Savings and Loan Association, and was nominated to serve on the Village Board several times. In 1877, Wiley Jones and Mrs. Frances Roberson Morgan were married at the home of Rev. Whitlock. Frances died in 1914 and Wiley Jones died in 1919 in a fire while lighting his stove. Wiley and Frances are buried in the Homer G.A.R. Cemetery.

Education

Military

Sports & Recreation

William Frank Earnest

The historic colonnades that grace the University of Illinois’ Memorial Stadium, dedicated in 1924, bear the names of Illinois students who died in World War I. One of those students was William Frank Earnest, the first African American from Champaign County to die in the war.

Sports & Recreation

Homer Park

Briefly known as Riverside Park, Homer Park was an amusement park north of Homer that ran from 1905 to 1936. It was created by William B. McKinley of the Interurban and C.B. Burkhardt to encourage ridership on the transit line. African Americans utilized the park for picnics, barbecues, band concerts, dances, orations, fraternal gatherings, swimming, and fishing. The Bethel A.M.E. Church of Champaign organized Sunday school events, and residents congregated for religious revivals and church outings. African American baseball teams and jazz bands also played at Homer Park.

Agriculture

Business

Community

Education

Military

Early Achievements in Homer & Southeastern Champaign County

Homer, Illinois, has a rich history as a village where many early African Americans in Champaign County could gather, work, recreate, and build successful lives for themselves and their families. Many prominent African American businesspeople, intellectuals, and community leaders passed through or came from Homer.

Agriculture

Innovation

Home of Jacob Earnest

Jacob Earnest arrived in Vermilion County, Illinois, in 1871 from Greene County, Tennessee, where he and his family had been enslaved. By 1880, he was working 404 acres of farm, pasture, and forest land around Carroll in Vermilion County and Homer in Champaign County, adding 80 acres in 1885. In 1897, he bought his Homer home and the adjacent lot. (The house presently at this location is not the original.) A respected farmer, blacksmith, teamster, and harvester, he was known for creating a steam powered horse drawn thresher machine and established his own threshing ring to harvest farms in the area.

Military

Homer G.A.R. Cemetery

The Homer Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.) Cemetery was established in the 1860s and is the final resting place for some early African American families and local African Americans who fought in the Civil War.