This is a reprint of a “From the Local History Room” column that first appeared in Nov. 2013, before the launch of this weblog.
The life of Martin Lohmann, bridge builder
By Jared Olar
Library Assistant
In a May 2012 Local History Room column last year, we reviewed the history of the bridges that have been built over the Illinois River at Pekin. Among the prominent figures playing a role in that story was an elected official named Martin B. Lohmann of Pekin, who was revered as the father of the old Pekin bridge.
That was the old lift bridge that was dedicated in 1930 and spanned the river for the next five decades, being dismantled and demolished in the early 1980s. As an Illinois State Representative, Lohmann had secured the funding for the construction of the lift bridge, and he was given the honor of driving the first car across the bridge during the dedication ceremonies on June 2, 1930.
Prior to his election as a State Representative in 1922, Lohmann, who worked in insurance and real estate, had served four years as Pekin’s city clerk and another seven years as a member of the Pekin City Council. A Democrat, he served a total of five terms in the Illinois House of Representatives and then was elected to the Illinois Senate in Nov. 1932, being re-elected in 1936 and again 1940. He retired from the Senate in 1953.
That, of course, is only the barest summary of Lohmann’s life and career. Perhaps the chief resource for learning about him is his Memoir, which the Illinois General Assembly Oral History Program published in 1980 a week after his death. Although that is not a part of the Pekin Public Library’s Local History Room collection, the Local History Room does have an extended biography and genealogical account of Lohmann which tells his life story up the early 1930s. The biography is found in John Leonard Conger’s 1932 “History of the Illinois River Valley,” vol. 2, pages 220-226.
“Martin B. Lohmann, who has made a most commendable record as a member of the state legislature since first elected to that body in the fall of 1922, represents the district comprising Tazewell, Brown, Cass, Menard, Mason and Schuyler counties,” Conger says in introducing his subject. Conger’s biography of Lohmann was not, however, written by Conger himself, but was quoted from an unnamed “contemporary biographer.”
This is how the biography sums up Lohmann’s career up to that point:
“His record reveals the overcoming of the handicap of practically no education in his early life and a long steady pull at his ambitions until he has achieved independence and political success and is recognized by both the people of his county and the state of Illinois as a fighter for those things that will be of benefit to the masses of the people.”
A Tazewell County native, Lohmann was born Aug. 27, 1881, in Groveland Township, the son of John Baltazer and Catherine Kief Lohmann. Martin Lohmann’s father was the son of German immigrants from Hesse-Darmstadt named Johan Georg (John George) Lohmann and Ann Eliza Lannert. Johan Georg, son of Jakob Lohmann, was born in Oberstein, Hesse-Darmstadt, in 1826, and came to America in 1851. He settled at first at Sand Prairie near South Pekin, moving in 1868 to a farm at Brush Hill northeast of Pekin. Johan Georg’s eldest son, John Baltazer, was born in 1854, and married Catherine Kief in 1877. John Baltazer ran a farm and a farm implement business, and also served as tax collector for Tazewell County.
Turning to John Baltazer’s son Martin, the biography says:
“When Martin B. Lohmann was twelve years of age he left school to assist his father in making a living. His first employment was in a grocery store, where he served as delivery boy, as clerk and in other capacities for a period of nine years . . . Upon leaving the grocery business he was employed by Dr. G. Z. Barnes as the salesman for a magazine that was edited by him. This position lasted for only one year, when the publication became bankrupt. Our subject then entered the tailoring business. Next he conducted a butcher shop in Pekin for a number of years but eventually sold this to enter the insurance and real estate business, in which he still continues. He has always been politically active and has served his city as alderman, city clerk and commissioner. One of the outstanding accomplishments of his city political career was his success in getting the city to pay off railroad bonds totaling seventy-five thousand, five hundred dollars, which had been drawing interest for fifty-two years. This action was taken when Mr. Lohmann was alderman and he saw the final payment when he was serving as commissioner.”
In 1905, Lohmann married Viola Ruth Rueling of Pekin, daughter of John V. and Elizabeth Schaffnett Rueling. Like Lohmann’s grandparents, Viola’s father also was an immigrant from Hesse-Darmstadt. Martin and Viola’s only child, born in 1912, was Nadine Veta Lohmann, whom the biography says was an accomplished singer. “The entire Lohmann family are gifted musicians and nearly every one of them can play some musical instrument,” the biography says. Martin’s wife Viola died in 1952.
As a State Representative, the biography says:
“He was the father of the bill that gave Pekin the new bridge that spans the Illinois river and connects State Highway No. 9 and Federal Highways Nos. 6 and 24. His first effort on this strategic piece of legislation was begun in 1923. From that time until 1925 he worked tirelessly, interviewing every member of the upper and lower house of the assembly, explaining to them the advantage of a bridge across the river near the center of the state. In 1925 he introduced the bill asking the state for four hundred thousand dollars. The bill was passed without an opposing vote, and today Pekin boasts of one of the finest and most modern bridges in the entire state. The bill was known as the ‘Pivot Bridge Bill’ and its author is known as ‘Marty Lohmann, The Bridge Builder.’ . . . In the beginning the people of his district thought of the bridge project only as a dream with little hope that it would ever be realized, and had it not been for the confidence and effort of Mr. Lohmann the people of Pekin would still be using the condemned structure of a bridge that was built half a century ago.”
Fittingly, the Interstate 474 bridge over the Illinois River at Creve Coeur, dedicated in August 1978, was named the Shade-Lohmann Bridge, jointly in honor of Lohmann and J. Norman Shade, mayor of Pekin.
While the lift bridge served Pekin well for many years, already by the 1960s plans began to be made for a replacement bridge. Work began on the new John T. McNaughton Bridge on May 12, 1975, and the first steel span on the new bridge was lifted into place on May 6, 1980. Lohmann, then 98 years old, was among those especially invited to attend the ceremonies at the bridge that day. Just a few weeks later, on May 29, 1980, he passed away, and was buried in Lakeside Cemetery in Pekin beside his wife Viola.
