Ankabar Acres

This article was written by Frank Borror of the East Peoria Historical Society in 2014. Used with permission.

East Peoria was once the home to one of the country's premier horse breeding and training facilities.

Ankabar Acres was a huge farm, actually five farms, totaling 552 acres - the 1950 Illinois Edition of the Library of American Lives reported it to be a 1,000 acres.

Dorothy Kuykendall, who lived on the farm as a child, related the larger figure included property on Washington Road and in Peoria. Part of the Peoria property is now Schmoeger Park on West Forrest Hill Road.

The farm was owned by Harry John Schmoeger, president of Peoria Builders Supply and Ready Mix. He was known as Harry to his wife and siblings, to everyone else he was HJ. The farm was located on Highview Road (now Centennial Drive) in Fondulac and Washington Townships and surrounded Hollands Grove Cemetery on three sides. Beside crops, it also typically housed 50 cattle, 200 hogs and 50 horses and included a half mile training track to work the pacers and trotters housed there. A trotter is a harness racer that moves its legs forward in diagonal pairs (right front and left hind, then left front and right hind striking the ground simultaneously), whereas a pacer moves its legs laterally (right front and right hind together, then left front and left hind). The farm got its name from Ankabar, a horse with a storybook racing carrier, who was trotting champion of 1932 and 1933 and leading money winner on the Grand Circuit in those years. Mr. Schmoeger coined the name of this horse from his daughters' names - Ann, Katherine and Barbara.

Ankabar Acres was billed as the "Home of Champions" and that was literally true because in addition to Ankabar, it housed world champion pacer Mc I Win who held the world record for a three-year-old of 1: 59 ¾ on a half-mile track and 1937 two-year-old trotting champion Promoter in addition to Bingen Silk, Ankabar's sire.

Mc I Winn at the close of 1959 had sired the dams of 45 performers in 2:05 or better, including four in 2:00. The colts were sold at auction each fall. Ankabar, after retiring from the circuit, lived out his life munching clover on the farm, and is buried there with two other horses. It's ironic that he never contributed to the breeding program - he was a gelding.

Schmoeger purchased the first of this property in late 1931 and early 1932 and moved from Peoria in the late '30s after purchasing the tract that contained his house in 1935. His two older daughters were at this time grown and he lived there with his wife, Irene, and daughter, Barbara. His home lay about one-eighth mile south of what is now Centennial Drive.

The farmhouse was reputed to be among the oldest in central Illinois, dating from about 1840 and built by John Gable. Six stables and barns and a training track lay south and east of his home which was destroyed by a fire in the 1970s and the rest of the structures have since been razed. At the time of the fire, Carl Reardon owned the home and had planned to restore it to its former grandeur. An additional abutting tract of land, lying in Washington Township, was purchased by HJ's wife, Irene, in 1939. In 1954, Irene, with the blessing of Harry, donated a portion of this ground to the Hollands Grove Cemetery, doubling its size.

The farms were managed by Cliff Olson who also owned Olson Dairy Farm. Olson lived in the large white house on Centennial Drive now owned by Walter Eschelbach. This house was constructed in 1861 for John Dingledine and the date and builder's mark remain to this day in the house's rubble foundation. The cattle and hog facilities lay behind this house. It is said the barn that held the hogs was so large that when it was destroyed by fire the glow could be seen in the sky as far away as Pekin.

Olson's daughter Shirley Riley supplied me with a newspaper article relating how he was a staunch believer in conservation practices, and with the blessing of owner Schmoeger, embarked on a project that made the farm the pioneer outdoor laboratory for soil conservation in central Illinois.

In the spring of 1938 a contract was entered into with the United States Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service whereby the government furnished the engineering and labor and Ankabar management paid for the materials. On 311 acres, that was designated as farm No. 2, a complete conservation project was instituted including concrete dams on both sides of the farm, terracing, contour plowing, regular liming and a three-year rotation plan of corn, oats and clover. Labor was furnished by the Civilian Conservation Corps who, among other things, cut 7,000 square yards of sod for terrace outlets. The project was so successful that by 1948 corn production had increased from 30 bushels per acre to 75 and oats from 20 bushels per acre to 55. Schmoeger's grandson Dr. Mark Wheeler knowing nothing of this, stated: "It is amazing to me in view of HJ's loathing in his old age of everything related to the New Deal and the 'class traitor' FDR." By the late 1950s, all the fields were let to local farmers, and the only livestock grazing were their cattle. There were no hogs, but there were many more than 50 horses. Bud Schmitt, past Fondulac Township assessor, said the farm may have held as many as 300 horses at this time. Besides his own horses, Schmoeger also boarded other owners' animals and breeding operations ceased during the mid-60s. The portion of the farm lying north of Highview Road was sold for the development of Illinois Central College on Feb. 27, 1967.

Grandson Dr. Mark Wheeler said: "HJ sold the land that became the central part of the campus for what he said was a bargain price, calculating that the development would enhance the value of what remained of his holdings." Following Harry Schmoeger's death in November of 1967, after final settlement of the estate, the remainder of Ankabar Acres was acquired in 1977 and 1978 by Group 5 Development Company, a firm made up of local business men, who developed it into residential housing.

Today the only known reminder to the existence of Ankabar Acres is a small bench placed by granddaughter Barbara Day inscribed "Ankabar Acres - There's No Place Like Home" next to the graves of HJ, his wife, Irene, and daughters, Ann, Katherine and Barbara in nearby Hollands Grove Cemetery.

An interesting side note relayed to me by Carol Blye, secretary-treasurer of Hollands Grove Cemetery Association, concerned Harry Schmoeger's leg. It seems HJ's left leg was amputated above the knee in the mid-1950s because of an aneurism. It was buried in the cemetery prior to his death and then later reinterred with him in the new portion of the cemetery - the portion that his wife had donated.