David McClugage

David Hugh McClugage was born in Tremont in 1880, a son of Robert and Anna McClugage.  When David was relatively young, the family settled in Washington.  At nine, McClugage found employment peddling the Peoria Herald around town.  He also sold newspapers from Chicago, so many he got his picture in that paper for being a top seller in the state.

The McClugage family kept a bank account in Peoria while living in Washington, and a teenage David was put in charge of the account.  Bank employees were so impressed with intelligent David that they offered him a job in their arena.  David most likely wanted to jump at the chance, but Mama Anna decided he should complete his schooling at Washington High School first.  This he did in 1898, and he delivered a commencement address rife with political topics well beyond the average high school student's knowledge base.

That same year, the family moved to Peoria, and David began his career(s).  Almost immediately, McClugage helped organize the Peoria Social Athletic Club in 1900 so local men could burn off steam playing team sports.  Additionally, he stepped in on the ground floor of several different branches of city work,  including clerking at a law office and the police department, working with city engineers, and working with United States government engineers.  Eventually, he took a job as a tax officer that spanned many years.

In 1920, McClugage became the manager of the brand new Hotel Harold in Peoria, the same year he was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives.  He held both jobs until being elected Mayor of Peoria in 1937.  He served in that capacity for four years. In 1941 and his last year in office, the old Upper Free Bridge across the narrows was destined to be replaced, and plans were in motion to build the new Harvard Avenue Bridge to the south.   To honor his service, the city renamed it "McClugage Bridge."

In January 1944, McClugage was appointed postmaster in Peoria, but his health began to fail after a few short months.  Not one to shirk his responsibilities, he worked until his death on New Year's Eve, 1944.  Sadly, McClugage did not see his bridge completed.   Construction of the McClugage Bridge began as scheduled in 1941, but due to World War II, it was not completed until 1948. 

David McClugage never forgot his Washington roots, and the little town never forgot him.   As part of the Centennial celebration in 1925, David presented his beloved teacher, Miss Mary Italin,  with a commemorative urn that graced the center of the square for many years.  In 1938, McClugage returned as the keynote speaker for an alumni banquet:

I am here tonight not as the Mayor of Peoria but as the freckle-faced Dave McClugage who went to school here, sold papers here, skated at Old Red Tip, played ball at Kinsinger's, Cress' and Holland's pastures, was called 'Peanuts' for short, acted as a mascot of the best ball team in the country, and finally wound up a happy, careless Peck's Bad Boyhood career by graduating from high school all dressed up in my best pair of short pantaloons. 

As he ultimately found out, you may move afar and likely achieve great things, but the warm memories and nostalgic life experiences in Washington endure.  David epitomized the heart of Washington.