The Peoria Historical Society is offering history tours three times a week on this school bus owned by the Riverfront Museum. The tours previously took place on a CityLink trolley that is no longer in service. The society is offering a discounted price of $12.50 per person for each tour through the end of October. (Photo courtesy Peoria Historical Society)

Whether you’re a born-and-bred Peorian or an infrequent visitor, you’re bound to learn fascinating facts about the River City on one of the Peoria Historical Society’s bus tours.

“Peoria has a very rich history,” said Bob Killion, the society’s curator. “These tours are a fun and different way to learn about that history.”

Cost of the tours — normally $15 per person — has dropped to $12.50 for the remainder of the five-month season, which runs through the end of October. The history tours have been running in Peoria for 21 years.

Part of the reason for the price cut is to entice riders who might be hesitant to take the tour on a school bus rather than on the old CityLink trolleys that have been used since the late ‘90s.

“We just switched over to a Riverfront Museum bus this season, because CityLink told us they could no longer maintain the trolleys,” Killion said. “The bus can hold more people, and there are a lot of benefits to it, but ridership has been down a little bit because it’s something new and it’s not the trolley.”

Longtime tour guide Marilyn Leyland added that the bus is more comfortable and not as noisy.

“The trolleys clearly had aged out,”she said. “The one we were using leaked in the rain and got stifling hot. We can still step back in time on a school bus.”

The Historical Society has a rotation this season of six 90-minute tours that are offered weekly at 11 a.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and at 1:30 p.m. on Saturdays. The handicapped-accessible tours leave from the Peoria Riverfront Museum lobby with free parking available at the museum garage.

Built in 1837, the John C. Flanagan House at 942 NE Glen Oak Ave. is the oldest standing house in Peoria. The Peoria Historical Society offers periodic tours of the house, along with weekly history bus tours ranging from how Peoria was settled to why the distilling industry flourished here. (Photo courtesy Peoria Historical Society)

“Haunted Peoria,” arguably the most popular tour, will be offered three times a week in October at 11 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 1:30 p.m. Saturdays.

“The first year we offered Haunted Peoria, it sold out for the whole season before we ever started,” Killion said. “I think a lot of people just have an interest in the paranormal and the creepy stuff.”

Leyland, one of about 15 volunteer tour guides, said the Haunted Peoria tour was an outgrowth of Stephanie McCarthy’s book, “Peoria’s Haunted Memories.”

“The tour goes into Springdale Cemetery, up onto High Street and Moss Avenue and downtown past the hospitals,” Leyland said.

Tour guides follow a script that covers such ghost stories as the Legend of Nee-Nee-Wah, the Curse of Old Lady Gray and the Lady in White. The latter involves alleged sightings in Springdale Cemetery of the ghost of a 19-year-old girl last seen wearing a white dress while waiting for a streetcar. Her murdered body was found in the cemetery in June 1935.

“I have done some talks at nursing homes and retirement homes, and whenever I talk about the girl’s body that was found in Springdale Cemetery, people still remember her name: Mildred Hallmark,” Leyland said.

Another popular tour is called “Naughty to Nice” and follows Peoria’s history from gambling and gangsters in the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s to now being a four-time All-American city. The tour drives by the city’s most notorious crime scene where gangster Bernie Shelton was shot down in 1948.

The “Roll out the Barrel” tour focuses on the time period from 1850 to Prohibition when Peoria’s riverfront was lined with distilleries and breweries. That tour focuses on the places, people, mansions and neighborhoods involved with these industries.

A comprehensive look at Peoria called the “River City” tour covers everything from the Native Americans, the French, the whiskey, Caterpillar and the city’s grand mansions. That tour includes a breathtaking view of the Illinois River along Grandview Drive and prompts many people to take another tour that focuses specifically on the Drive and the oldest chartered cemetery in the state.

Located at 611 SW Washington St., the Peoria Historical Society was incorporated in 1934. The society, which has about 450 active members, offers educational and historical programs for both local and out-of-town visitors, including weekly bus tours. (Photo courtesy Peoria Historical Society)

The “Grandview Drive and Springdale Cemetery” tour begins with views of the elegant homes on what was dubbed “the world’s most beautiful drive” by President Teddy Roosevelt in 1910 and sheds light on the prosperous merchants and professionals who’ve owned them. The tour then winds down to Springdale Cemetery, which was designed by Hervey Lightner in 1855.

“People are stunned at Springdale Cemetery because it is so much more extensive than the average person realizes,” Leyland said.

A sixth tour that ended in August but will return next June focuses on President Abraham Lincoln’s visits to two Civil War training camps in Peoria.

“Most people don’t know that the first place Abraham Lincoln talked about his anti-slavery stance was in Peoria,” Killion said. “Cooper’s Union (New York) gets all the credit, but he actually gave that speech here first.”

Leyland said the guides continue to update the tour scripts periodically. “Even if you’ve lived here all your life, you learn things about Peoria that you never knew. And it’s a lot of fun,” she said.

In addition to the history tours, the Peoria Historical Society offers periodic tours at two historic homes, the John C. Flanagan House Museum at 942 NE Glen Oak and the Pettengill-Morron House Museum at 1212 W. Moss Ave.

An upscale porch sale featuring vintage and antique items will take place at the Pettengill-Morron house from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sept. 10 and 1 to 4 p.m. Sept. 11. Home tours will be available on both days for $10 each.

The society also has a large collection of research material housed at Bradley University’s Cullom-Davis Library and is in the process of putting its expansive collection online.

To learn which Peoria History tours are operating at any given time, visit www.peoriahistoricalsociety.org or call the Riverfront Museum at (309) 686-7000. Tickets can also be purchased online at https://cart.peoriariverfrontmuseum.org/PerformanceCalendar.aspx

Weekly Peoria History tour schedule:

September

Thursdays, 11 a.m.: Grandview Drive & Springdale Cemetery

Fridays,11 a.m.: Naughty to Nice

Saturdays, 11 a.m.: River City

Saturdays, 1:30 p.m.: Roll out the Barrel

October

Thursdays, 11 a.m.: River City

Fridays,11 a.m.: Haunted Peoria

Saturdays, 11 a.m.: Haunted Peoria

Saturdays, 1:30 p.m.: Haunted Peoria

— Take a trip back in time with Peoria Historical Society’s bus tours  —