By Jared Olar
Library Assistant
As construction proceeded in 1973 on the new Pekin Public Library and Dirksen Congressional Leadership Research Center, library and city officials paused for a moment on May 31 of that year to look back at the library’s and city’s past by opening the Pekin Carnegie library’s 1902 time capsule, which had been secured in a hollowed-out niche in the library’s cornerstone.
The next step, naturally, was to have a formal ceremony dedicating the new facility’s cornerstone. Because the facility was to house a research center dedicated to the late Sen. Everett M. Dirksen of Pekin, who was the leader of the U.S. Senate’s Republicans as Senate Minority Leader, Dirksen’s widow Louella extended an invitation to the Republican U.S. President Richard Nixon and First Lady Pat Nixon to come to Pekin and conduct the cornerstone unveiling and dedication that summer.
The president and first lady graciously accepted the invitation. Given their personal and political ties to the late Sen. Dirksen and his family – which included the Dirksens’ son-in-law, Republican Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee – the Nixons were pleased to honor the memory of their friend and ally in his hometown.
But this was also the time when the Watergate scandal had begun to heat up, with the hearings of the U.S. Senate’s Watergate investigation committee being televised from May 17 to Aug. 7. The Nixons must have welcomed the opportunity to leave Washington, D.C., for a few days during those months.
The community of Pekin, for its part, was generally very happy to welcome the president for the dedication ceremony, for it is not every day that a sitting U.S. president comes to visit a small city like Pekin. A very great deal of work had to be done in a relatively short period of time to prepare for the visit, including the construction of bleachers and a speaker’s platform along Broadway adjacent to the library, the placement of heavy metal barrels for security along the route that the president’s motorcade would travel, the coordination of security details and local law enforcement (which included the placing of armed guards atop nearby buildings, including the Carnegie library itself), and the printing and distribution of invitations and tickets to the event.
The coming of Mr. and Mrs. Nixon to Pekin was not confirmed until June 11, 1973, as announced by a banner front page headline in the Pekin Daily Times that day – “It’s Official! Nixon Coming to Pekin!” Word had already begun to leak out of the possibility of the president’s visit in the week prior, when it was noticed that the Secret Service and White House officials were in town.
Just four days after the visit was confirmed, on Friday, June 15, 1973, the president and first lady flew into the Greater Peoria Airport near Bartonville, landing at about 11 a.m. and arriving in time for the ceremonies in Pekin at about 11:30. The event attracted a jubilant crowd of about 10,000 to the immediate area next to and near the library, while many other people lined streets and roads along the route of the presidential motorcade.
Numerous national, state, and local public officials attended the event, including Illinois Gov. Dan Walker, a Democrat. Both the Republic president and the Democrat governor were to see their careers brought down by scandal – and both would later experience somewhat of a rehabilitation of their reputations in certain circles.
The event culminated in a speech by the president and the unveiling and dedication of the cornerstone by President Nixon and Mrs. Louella Dirksen.
Afterwards, the cornerstone was set aside in a safe place so it could be brought out again for a cornerstone-laying ceremony when the library and Dirksen Center was complete. Meanwhile the president and first lady returned to face the political repercussions of the Watergate coverup that were looming ever larger day by day.
Next time we will tell of the founding of the Friends of the Pekin Public Library, and recall the 1974 auction of the furnishings of the Pekin Carnegie library.
