North First Street Corridor, Champaign

North First Street Corridor, Champaign

Image Credit:
North First Street and University Avenue, 1926, Champaign County Historical Archives at The Urbana Free Library, Urbana, IL

North First St., Champaign, IL

North First Street Corridor is the oldest business district in Champaign, dating to the 1850s. A triangular area that originally included East Main Street, University Avenue, and the first two blocks of North First Street, it bordered an integrated working-class neighborhood called Germantown.

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Since its early years, African Americans lived, worked, and owned businesses there. Early Black businesses included barbershops, skilled trades, small restaurants, taverns, and vendors. Enterprises like Columbus Green’s barbershop at 109 E. University Avenue were in operation by the 1870s. As the district expanded, so did types of Black businesses, including the Majestic Theatre, an African American movie house and Vaudeville theater operating in the 1910s at 79 E. Main Street.

After World War I, the adjacent northeast neighborhood increasingly became African American as restrictive covenants and redlining kept them out of developing subdivisions and other neighborhoods. It became known as the North End. By the 1940s, North First Street Corridor—called the Black Downtown—was the main commercial focus of the Black neighborhood. It had become the gateway and face of the North End, attracting Black businesses like Harris and Dixon Taxi Cab Company located on a former island at Main and First Streets. In 1943, Prince Hall Mason’s Lone Star Lodge #18 bought the buildings at 208 and 210 N. First Street, moving from Market Street in downtown Champaign. By the 1950s, over 30 Black businesses operated there. In 1951, Roscoe Tinsley’s Cleaners moved to the first floor of 208 N. First Street, and operated for 20 years.

The 1960s and 1970s saw a transition as older businesses were passed or sold to younger generations. At the same time, the corridor had physically declined mainly due to lack of investments in its infrastructure from public and private capital. Starting in the 1970s, urban renewal initiatives demolished dilapidated buildings leaving vacant lots. Businesses closed, leaving vacant buildings, and parking lots took up valuable commercial real estate. Private support lapsed. What was meant to inspire the redevelopment of the North First Street Corridor left it a ghost of its former self.

Despite it all, the Corridor holds memories of successive Black entrepreneurship. It, like the North End neighborhood, conveys a sense of past and present self-reliance. Through the history of Champaign, it contributed to the twin cities’ economy.

This trail stop is sponsored by:

Ameren

Decade:

1850-1859

Location(s):

  • Champaign, Illinois
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Additional Champaign Trail Sites

Social and Religious Life

Emancipation Day Celebrations

President Abraham Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862. For many years afterward, in or around September, African Americans would congregate at parks and other community spaces for Emancipation Day celebrations. These celebrations were held in Champaign, Homer, Tolono, Sidney, and other parts of Champaign County. Celebrations often included food, music, and dancing.

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Business

Edward A. Green

Edward A. Green, a freeman, became one of the first African Americans to settle in Champaign County in 1856. Born in North Carolina, he moved to West Urbana (now Champaign) from Union County, Ohio, with his first wife, Georgia Anne, and daughters, Anna A. and Florence E. Green. A carpenter by trade, in 1858 he began purchasing parcels of land throughout what would become Champaign and into northwestern Urbana, ending up with approximately 14 lots. Six lots were located in Urbana between Wright and Goodwin Streets, along Eads and Champaign (now Vine) Streets.

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Military

Cecil Dewey Nelson, Sr.

Cecil D. Nelson was the most decorated World War I soldier in the county. A sergeant in both the Mexican Expedition of 1916 and World War I, he increased his age so he could enlist in the Illinois 8th Regiment, known as the “Old 8th,” in Danville, Illinois. With the U.S. involvement in World War I, his unit become part of the all-Black 370th Infantry where he met and became friends with William Frank Earnest, whom he saw die. On October 18, 1918, he was awarded the French Croix de Guerre by French General Vincendon for bravery under fire, and several other decorations later for his service during World War I. The son of Joseph and Estella Nelson (née Anderson), he, like his mother, was born and raised in Champaign, Illinois, and was a member of Bethel AME. He returned home where he met and married William Franks’ niece, Carrie Mae Earnest, and became an active and respected member of both the Black and white communities. He lived at 1002 N. 5th Street in Champaign, and he is one of the founders of the William F. Earnest American Legion Post #559.

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Community

Carver Park

In 1951, African American civic leader Charles Phillips saw a need for quality single-family housing in the Black Community. So, he put together a “grass roots” coalition of friends and acquaintances to buy ten acres of farmland and hired developer Ozier-Weller Homes. Each family put up $350.00 to develop the 70-home subdivision named after African American scientist and inventor George Washington Carver. It was Champaign-Urbana’s first subdivision financed and built by African Americans.

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African American Civil War Burials and Mt. Hope Cemetery

Located west of Memorial Stadium at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Mount Hope Cemetery (611 E. Pennsylvania Ave., Champaign, IL) was plotted and internment began in 1856. Sitting on the dividing line between the two cities, it’s the oldest operating cemetery in Champaign-Urbana. Throughout its 150 years, it has been the final resting place for many local African Americans and their families, including most of those who fought in the Civil War. The majority of these veterans were buried in what was the Grand Army of the Republic’s (G.A.R.) section, now known as the “old” veteran's section, found as you enter the cemetery. It is represented by the Civil War Memorial and a 32-pound canon built in 1851. However, many of the original markers no longer exist for many of these and other Civil War veterans, or they were moved to other locations in the cemetery.

African Americans veterans from various wars including World War I and II are also buried in this section.

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Community

Social and Religious Life

Salem Baptist Church

Located at 500 E. Park Street in Champaign, Salem Baptist Church was initially established in 1867, the same year the University of Illinois was established, as Second Baptist Church at 406 E. Park ("the Old Coffee Place"). In 1874, the original church was destroyed by arson. After occupying locations at Swannell Drug Store at Main and Hickory, and on East Clark Street, the church bought the land at its current location in 1901 and began construction in 1908. It was renamed as Salem Baptist Church.

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