THE LEGEND OF "LAKEVIEW"

The Story of the Hartford Castle

On the night of March 21, 1973, the sound of sirens filled the air along New Poag Road, not far from Alton and Wood River, Illinois. By the time the fire engines reached the house once known as the “Hartford Castle,” though, it was much too late. What time and vandals had not been able to destroy, flames finally did. A house that was once connected to local tales of death, Prohibition booze, and ghosts was gone, leaving only a legend behind.   

Lakeview, as the Hartford Castle was officially known, was constructed by a French immigrant named Benjamin Biszant in 1897. The castle-like house with the red-capped turrets was incredibly expensive, although the source of Biszant's wealth remains unknown. Most believe that he may have been an insurance executive, a contractor or an investor of some sort. Whatever his profession, he purchased a large section of land near Hartford and began construction on what was to be a "dream house" for his English bride.

 Hartford Castle during its glory days

Teams of workers with horses were brought in and a moat was excavated around what would be the home site. The soil that was removed from it formed a rise on which Lakeview was built. When the house was completed, it boasted turrets that loomed high above the surrounding countryside, and 14 rooms. The floors were made of imported cypress wood and the ceilings supported by hand-carved columns. Crystal chandeliers were used in mirror-lined main hall and music could often be heard drifting out over the fields in the evening. The landscaped gardens were decorated with gazebos and statuary and Biszant scattered his own concrete creations of animals and cannons about the grounds. A stone bridge was built to reach an island in the middle of one of the small lakes that adjoined the moat and the lakes were used for boating and swimming. Biszant stocked them with goldfish.

Tragically, though, Biszant's wife died in the early 1900s and he returned her body to England. After that, he lost interest in the castle, and sold it before moving to California. Not long after, the ghost stories that became attached to the place began to be told. According to these tales, the lingering spirit was that of the Frenchman's wife, still haunting the place that she loved most in life. The ghost stories became a part of the house and they continued to be heard for years after, through various owners and even now, long after the house has been destroyed.

The castle passed through the hands of several owners after Biszant sold it and was rumored to have been used at one time as a boy's military school and later as a home for unwed mothers. Neither of these uses were ever verified. In the early 1920s, it was turned into a resort and during this period was believed to have been operated for a time as a speakeasy. The house was not far enough off the main roads that it could not be found and yet was secluded enough that the party-goers and gangsters who flocked to the place were not bothered. If the speakeasy stories were true, those days did not last long, and the resort was later closed down.

Shortly after, the castle was purchased by a couple from Wood River and they lived in the house until 1964. Soon after they moved in, they began to have problems with intruders and trespassers. The castle seemed to be viewed by the public as community property, or a park, and the owners stated that people would often just roam through the 35 acres at all hours of the day and night. Some even broke into the house and wandered from room to room, as if on a tour. The grounds were apparently too attractive, with the landscaped gardens and statuary, for people to stay away. And like the gangsters of times past, teenagers often congregated in secluded spots on the estate for clandestine beer parties or searched out the best place to serve as a "lover's lane." Hoping to counteract this invasion of privacy, the family opened the grounds to the public on weekends for several years but, eventually, this practice ended and the property was again closed down.

In 1964, the owner died and his wife moved back into Wood River. There were attempts to rent the house after that, hoping that someone would just remain on the grounds to protect it from vandalism, but this plan fell through and maintenance on the house and property ended with the owner's death. The estate began crumbling into ruin and the lawn became thick and overgrown. By 1971, the house had fallen into disrepair and was showing signs of damage from thieves and vandals. The cruelest blow came the following year when intruders gutted the residence, ripped mantels from the fireplaces, broke windows, and using a small telephone pole as a battering ram, smashed huge holes in the plaster walls. The senseless and stupid destruction led to the house being officially condemned by county inspectors.

The final blow was dealt to the castle on March 21, 1973, when it burned to the ground. An alarm was sounded but by the time that firefighters arrived on the scene, only a tall chimney and burning embers remained of the once grand mansion.

The remains of an old gazebo on the property

The statue of a dog found out in the woods

The site of the former “castle” can still be found in a cluster of thick woods and brambles, just off New Poag Road, on the other side of Hartford. Only those who know of the place would have any clue that the ruins of the estate still remain as broken columns, a few pieces of shattered statuary, and the dim outline of the castle's moat.

This is a place that has been truly lost by time and one that, according to legend, remains haunted by the Frenchman's wife, even today. There are those who maintain that her spectral form can still be seen wandering through the remains of the estate and that her voice can still be heard as she weeps for the life and the wonderful home that she lost. Others insist that old-time music can still sometimes be heard as well. They say that it floats through the trees and above the fields on summer nights when the crops are tall and when sound seems to carry for miles. Perhaps in another time and place, Lakeview still stands and the party still continues, beckoning to all of us from a distant memory that is now long since forgotten.

THE ASSASSIN FROM ILLINOIS

THE STORY OF JAMES EARL RAY

On April 4, 1968, civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was shot and killed while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. The man arrested and charged -- and who entered a guilty plea – for the murder was James Earl Ray, who became one of the most hated men in America.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Why the small-time crook would have even consider killing a man like Dr. King remains a mystery to most, as every crime that he ever committed was for money, never for political convictions. Many have speculated that he was paid to kill King, and he went to his grave professing his innocence, but what really happened is unknown. Few Illinois residents know (or care to remember) that James Earl Ray was a native of the state – specifically Alton, Illinois – or that a robbery that he committed in Alton may have actually financed the assassination of Dr. King.

James Earl Ray was born in Alton on March 10, 1928 in a small frame house in the 1000 block of West Ninth Street. His family moved to Quincy after his father was run out of town following his arrest for writing a series of bad checks. It was in Alton, however, that Ray's criminal career began. He was a cheap crook who held up gas stations and stores and was arrested several times for burglary and armed robbery. In a 1952 robbery attempt, he actually dropped his wallet at the crime scene, which led to his arrest. He spent time at the Illinois State Prison in Joliet and then returned to Alton again.

James Earl Ray

In 1959, he robbed Wegner's Food Store in Alton and fled to Missouri. While on the run from police officers, he clownishly fell out of his escape car and was immediately arrested. Ray was already wanted for a robbery in that state and so he was sentenced to two terms at the Missouri State Prison. Incredibly, he escaped from prison by hiding in a large box that was used to transport bread to the prison's farm crew. He vanished on April 23, 1967 and again returned to Alton.

In July 1967, Ray robbed the Bank of Alton and managed to get away with $30,000. Investigators came to believe that it was with this money that Ray fled the country after killing Dr. King.

After the robbery, he left Alton and eight months later, turned up in Memphis. Using several aliases, Ray rented rooms all over the city, one of which was directly across the street from the motel where King was staying. As he stood at a bathroom window on the night of April 4, Ray had a clear shot at the civil rights leader as he emerged from his second-floor room and stood talking to some friends on the balcony. The assassin raised his rifle and sighting through a pair of binoculars, squeezed the trigger only once. The bullet ripped through King's neck, passed through his lower jaw, severed his spinal column and sent him spinning back against the wall. King died without speaking an hour later at a nearby hospital.

Friends and staff members of Dr. King react after shots ring out 

at the Lorraine Motel

The moment after firing his weapon, Ray calmly left his possessions in the room and casually drove away from Memphis, crossing into Canada three days later. Despite being listed on the FBI "most wanted" list, he stayed in Toronto for a month and then using a Canadian passport (and another alias), he departed for London. After remaining there for six days, he flew to Lisbon, spent five days at the Hotel Portugal and returned to London. Some reports claim that it was in Lisbon that Ray received payment for killing King. Back in London, though, Ray moved erratically from hotel to hotel and then, as if to prove what a moronic small-time hoodlum he was, Ray called several London newspapers and inquired as to how one might go about enlisting in the mercenary military forces in Africa. Days later, he was arrested by the London police.

Ray was almost immediately scheduled to stand trial in Memphis in March 1969 but then he abruptly pled guilty after being extradited from England. He was sentenced to 99 years in prison after just a two-hour hearing. Three days later, Ray recanted his confession and claimed that he had been set up for the assassination by a man named "Raoul," who he had met in Montreal. He later wrote a book that claimed he was a political prisoner and the victim of a vast conspiracy.

Ray had hired Jack Kershaw as his attorney, who promoted Ray's claim that he was not responsible for the shooting. Kershaw and his client met with representatives of the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations and convinced the committee to run ballistics tests—which ultimately proved inconclusive—that they felt would show that Ray had not fired the fatal shot. Kershaw claimed that the escape was additional proof that Ray had been involved in a conspiracy that had provided him with the outside assistance he would have needed to break out of jail. Kershaw convinced Ray to take a polygraph test as part of an interview with Playboy magazine. The magazine said that the test results showed "that Ray did, in fact, kill Martin Luther King Jr. and that he did so alone." Needless to say, this was not what Ray wanted to hear but he managed to spin it into further evidence of the conspiracy against him.

Strangely, though, Dr. King’s son, Dexter, met with Ray in 1997 and publicly supported his efforts to obtain a retrial. Dr. William Pepper, a friend of King in the last year of his life, represented Ray in a televised mock trial in an attempt to get him the trial he never had. The King family has since concluded that Ray did not have anything to do with the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ray died in prison on April 23, 1998, at the age of 70, from complications related to kidney disease and liver failure caused by hepatitis C. While his claims of far-reaching conspiracies may be hard to swallow, there are still a number of unanswered questions in regards to Ray and the King assassination. However, they are questions that are likely never going to be answered.

America's "Gentle Giant"

AMERICA'S “GENTLE GIANT”

The Story of Robert Wadlow, Tallest Man in the World

The tallest man who ever lived was born on this date, February 22, 1918 in the small Mississippi River town of Alton, Illinois. During his short, often sad, life, he gained international and lasting fame as the tallest man in history. Robert died tragically in 1940 at the age of only 22 but during those few years, he remained vigilant about being cast in the role of a "freak". He only wanted acceptance and a normal life, but even when he was very young, he and his family realized that this would be nearly impossible.

Robert Wadlow (center, obviously) with his father and brother. 

When Robert was born, he weighed in at just over eight pounds, an average weight for a baby boy, but his height and weight would not stay average for long. He was the first child of a Alton engineer and very soon, his parents began to realize that something out of the ordinary was happening with their son.  By the time that he reached his first birthday, Robert weighed over 44 pounds, which was large, but not alarming. Fear came later, when he was five years old, weighed 105 pounds and was five feet, four inches tall. Needless to say, the Wadlows took the boy to the doctor but he was pronounced to be in good health. By the time he turned eight, he was over six feet tall and weighed 195 pounds. His parents, brothers and sisters were all of normal size.

When he entered school, Robert gained the attention of the entire world. His parents were already well aware of the fact that he was going to be an unusually tall man but they vowed not to accept the many offers made to them by showmen who wanted to put their son on display. They understood that for him to have a career as a human oddity would make it so that he was incapable of a normal life. The Wadlows saw that Robert's friends and relatives, through regular contact with him, were able to forget about his size and to treat him as a regular person. This is what they wanted for him and eventually, what he wanted for himself. For the Wadlows, subjecting the boy to a life in which his height would be his livelihood seemed detrimental to his happiness.

Whether he was exhibited or not (and readers must remember that "freak shows" featuring giants, little people and more were common at this time), Robert often found himself in the limelight. He was often followed by doctors, promoters and fans. He became a regular visitor at the Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, where his case was studied and frequent measurements taken. After diagnosing his size to be caused by pituitary gigantism, doctors explained to his parents about a dangerous operation that could be attempted on his pituitary gland. They could do it, they explained, but didn't recommend it. It was simply too dangerous and because of this, it was never attempted.

    

Despite Robert's new celebrity, he attempted to live a normal life. He joined the Boy Scouts, ran a soft drink stand in front of his home and enjoyed most anything that average boys liked. He attended the local elementary schools and graduated from Alton High School. Throughout his short life, he was known for his very quiet, sedate manner and was called the "Gentle Giant".

Robert with two young women from college. 

Although Robert was a good student and from all accounts, a likable and remarkably well-adjusted young man, he began to realize that his dreams of a normal career were impractical. The idea of becoming an attorney appealed to him when he entered college, but on campus, he began to run into problems with his size. In 1936, he was 18 years old and stood eight feet, three-and-a-half inches tall. He found it hard to keep up with the other students when taking notes as even the biggest fountain pen was dwarfed by his massive hand. He also ran into trouble in the biology lab, where the delicate instruments were impossible for him to handle and use. His monumental size dominated his relationships with other students and new people that he met. A chair, an automobile and every object around him that was made for someone of average height posed a barrier to him. He was also plagued by the weather. When the ground was covered with ice, he had to gingerly work his way along, flanked by his friends, holding onto their shoulders as he walked. His weight was enormous and his bones fragile. If he fell, it could mean a long stay in the hospital, or worse.

     

Realizing that earning a living in a normal career was impossible to him, he turned to the only avenue that was offered, promotion and entertainment. For years, Robert's shoes had been specially made for him by the International Shoe Co. and the company agreed to not only supply Robert with shoes (which cost more than $150 per pair to make), but also to pay him to make appearances that promoted the company. He soon began traveling and appearing in the company's print and film advertising. Obviously, Robert's height was being exploited to draw large crowds, but he refused to think of it that way. He preferred to see the exhibitions as advertising work instead. He also began to think of this "advertising business" as a way into a new career for him.

One of the show company ads used to promote Robert’s appearances

By his next birthday, Robert had shot up another two inches in height and he found himself making quite a bit of money from his shoe promotion work. The idea struck him that he would open a shoe store of his own, or even a whole chain of them, which would serve as a career that did not involve exhibitions and freak shows. To do this however, he would need some seed money.

In 1937, Robert began making appearances for the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus in Boston and New York. Many circus and carnival showman had approached Robert and his parents in the past about appearing in shows but the answer to them had always been an emphatic "no". The salary offer was very enticing, though, and as Robert had recently suffered some problems with his health, he decided to join the circus. One of his conditions was that the Ringling organization would provide a hotel suite for Robert and his father and take care of all of their expenses. He also maintained that he would not be a part of the circus sideshow, but would appear in the center ring of the show, three times each day.

In all of the appearances that Robert made, whether for the circus or promoting shoes, he always dressed in an ordinary business suit. He refused to wear tall shoes, a high hat or any of the other devices used by showmen to exaggerate his already tremendous height. He even objected to attempts by photographers to create the illusion of greater height by shooting at low angles to make him look taller. He attacked overblown press accounts - one widely circulated story stated that he ate four times the amount of a normal person - as "deliberate falsehoods". He turned his back on this but still managed to become a popular icon.

He continued to make more and more appearances, always accompanied by his father. He operated concessions at fairs, to the delight of the general public, where great crowds of people turned out to see him. He also developed an entertaining routine that he and his father used during their public appearances. Dr. Frederic Fadner, a professor at Shurtleff College in Alton, wrote the book The Gentleman Giant in 1944 and reproduced a joke that Robert's father often told at their appearances.

"The greatest trouble that I ever have with Robert," said Mr. Wadlow, "is trying to keep him from walking down the hallways in hotels and peeking over the transoms above the doors".

"Yeah, maybe, I did," Robert would admit, "but the only thing wrong with Dad was he got mad when I quit lifting him up for a peek."

Robert's refusal to cooperate with showmen often extended to doctors, many of which hounded the young man continuously. His father even stated that Robert was usually more concerned with how physicians would present him than how circus showmen would. In June 1936, Dr. Charles D. Humberd made an unannounced visit to the Wadlow home, requesting to see Robert. The young man, disheveled by a rain storm, was surprised to find Humberd sitting in his living room when he got home. The doctor became disgruntled when the family refused to cooperate fully with his requests for perform a physical examination and stormed out of the house.

The next February, an article by Dr. Humberd appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association that greatly upset and embarrassed the Wadlows and produced a deluge of telephone calls, letters and unwanted attention. The article, entitled "Giantism: Report of a Case", did not mention Robert by name but it did state that the subject was from Alton, Illinois, with the initials "R.W.". He was referred to as a specimen of "preacromegalic giant". The Wadlows understandably felt violated because, as they put it, they had not realized that any person in the name "of science had a right to come into a home, make whatever cursory observations he could, and then broadcast these observations to the world." Robert had always resisted being cast as a "freak" and he was also adamant about not being labeled as "sick" either. He wanted to be seen as a normal person, albeit a larger than ordinary one.

Robert was also extremely embarrassed by the way that he was described in the article, which noted that "his expression is surly and indifferent and he is definitely inattentive, apathetic and disinterested, unfriendly and antagonistic… his defective attention and slow responses hold for all sensory stimuli, both familiar and unexpected but he does manifest a rapid interest in seeing any memoranda made by the questioner. All functions that we attribute to the highest centers in the frontal lobes are languid and blurred."

Not only were these remarks insulting and humiliating, but from the descriptions of Robert's personality and intellectual talents given by his teachers, friends and those who knew him best, they were also grossly inaccurate. The comments were nothing more than a vindictive assault by an egotistical doctor who had been angry over Wadlows’ refusal to cooperate with him.

The Wadlows filed suit against Humberd and the American Medical Association, seeking damages for the article's libelous inaccuracies. Robert did not seek a large financial settlement but rather merely wanted to be vindicated from the published presentation. In the first legal hearing, the case was presented against Humberd in his home state of Missouri. The American Medical Association defended Humberd by providing him with two of their attorneys. Witnesses verified that the description that had been published of Robert was a blatant distortion of his condition but the case was lost on a technicality. The judge ruled that the doctor's observations might have been accurate on the day the young man was examined. The action against the American Medical Association never went to trial. After three years of legal maneuvering, it was dismissed after Robert passed away.

Unfortunately, even though he was never dressed in a giant suit or had to endure the barbs of the crowd who came to the see him at the freak show, the article served as a realization of Robert's worst fear -- he had been exhibited like a sideshow attraction.

Robert and his father continued to make personal appearances and to work with the Ringling operation. They traveled extensively, visiting 41 of the 48 states and the District of Columbia. They logged more than 300,000 miles and visited over 800 cities. Door frames, elevators, awnings and hanging lights still bedeviled the young man and to ride in an automobile, he almost had to fold himself in two. Three beds, turned crossways, provided him the only sleeping arrangements suitable in a hotel room.

Robert greeting the crowds during one of his appearances. 

In 1940, Robert reached his greatest height at eight feet, eleven-point-one inches. His weight was at a massive 490 pounds and he was forced to walk with a cane. He was traveling and making personal appearances throughout the year and on July 4 was in Manistee, Michigan at a lumbermen's festival. He and his father were scheduled to ride in a parade but at lunch, Mr. Wadlow noticed that Robert was not eating. Later, he complained that he didn't feel well but as their car was trapped in the parade route, it would be several hours before they could get to a doctor.

By the time the parade was over, Robert's condition had worsened and his father rushed him to the hospital. When they arrived, the doctors found that Robert was running a very high fever. He was wearing a new brace on his ankle and it had scraped through the flesh and had become infected. Robert never noticed because one of the consequences of his enormous size was that the sensation in his legs was defective. He would often be unaware of an object in his shoe or a wrinkle in his sock until a blister had formed and began causing him problems. In this case, the ankle had become seriously infected and the doctors insisted that Robert be admitted to the hospital. He refused but a nurse was stationed at his bed side, where he lay in great pain. The fevers and bouts of agony continued for the next several days and his mother was called. Finally, after 10 fever-wracked days, doctors performed an emergency surgery on his foot but it was too late. His temperature continued to rise, hovering near 106 degrees.

In the early morning hours of July 15, 1940, Robert Wadlow passed away in his sleep.

Robert's remains were returned to Alton and huge crowds came to the Streeper Funeral Home and lined the streets in his honor. A special casket was constructed for his body that was 10 feet long and 32 inches wide. The casket was too big to fit through the doors of the church, so the services were held at the funeral home. Robert was a Freemason and he was buried with full honors in a local cemetery. It required 12 pallbearers and an additional eight men to manage his casket.

Strangely, at Robert's request, special measures were taken to protect the coffin. At some point, Robert had read the story of Charles Byrne, the Irish Giant, and John Hunter, the anatomist who coveted his bones and had stolen his body to get them. He was not taking any chances with his own remains and so a thick shell of reinforced concrete was used to encase the coffin for eternity.

Over time, the city of Alton, Illinois has embraced Robert as a native son and local folk hero. Have a passing thought about this kind young man on his birthday and remember that no matter how much fame he achieved during his lifetime, it was a life that he considered only half-fulfilled. He would gladly have exchanged all of the money and attention for a single day of what he really wanted – an ordinary life.