It's Your Business: Antique shows returning to Douglas County

Deb Pressey, The News-Gazette, Champaign-Urbana, Ill.
·5 min read

Oct. 24—Here's a chance to spend a day antique shopping/browsing in three Douglas County communities.

Four antique shows will be returning to Arcola, Arthur and Tuscola on Nov. 11-12.

Jill Mattingly, the co-owner of one of them, Country Spirit Antique Show, said these events attract shoppers from across the country.

The Country Spirit show will be in three Arcola locations:

* Arcola Center, 107 W. Main St., 1 to 5 p.m. Nov. 11 and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nov. 12.

* Arcola Masonic Lodge 366, 123 S. Locust St., 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Nov. 11 and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nov. 12.

* Best Western Plus Green Mill Village Hotel & Suites conference center at the Interstate 57 Exit 203 from 5 to 9 p.m. Nov. 11 and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nov. 12.

The Arcola locations will also have refreshments, the Belle Vie coffee truck and the Highway Heartburn food truck, Mattingly said.

She and her husband started Country Spirit Antique Show in 2011 with a single building, and it's grown to house 50 dealers from 17 states in three buildings, she said.

The focus is on early country and primitive American antiques in their original condition — for example, an early painted cupboard from the 1800s with its original surface.

"Our customers are collectors that live with these things in their homes," she said.

If this is what you love for your home, Mattingly said, "it is booth after booth, building after building, show after show."

Here's where to find the other antique shows the same weekend:

* Tuscola: Rural Life Antique Show, Nov. 11-12, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Tuscola Community Building, 122 W. North Central Ave., and Main Street Center, 601 S. Main St.

* Arthur: Homesteaders Antique & Folk Art show at Arthur Sale Barn, 1204 Vine St., from 2 to 6 p.m. Nov. 11 and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nov. 12.

* Arthur: A Gathering on the Prairie at the Otto Center, 2058 County Road 1800 East, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nov. 12 only.

Friendly competition

Visit Champaign County's Chambana Proud store has two new designs of T-shirts on sale, and they're the subject of a friendly competition between Champaign Mayor Deb Feinen and Urbana Mayor Diane Marlin.

One of the shirts is "Team Champaign-Urbana" and the other is "Team Urbana-Champaign."

The order of the names in the two cities, Champaign-Urbana or Urbana-Champaign, is a question the visitors bureau gets about once a week, said Terri Reifsteck, vice president of marketing and community engagement.

"There seems to be a divide based on whom you ask, so we thought a T-shirt might serve as an informal poll on what the community thinks," she said.

Based on T-shirt sales through the end of the year, either Marlin or Feinen will get a trophy.

The shirts were designed by local artist Ralph Roether, and a portion of the sales will benefit the Champaign County History Museum.

The T-shirts can be purchased at the Chambana Proud store at 17 E. Taylor St., C, which is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays, or ordered online at chambanaproud.com.

Check out new careers

Parkland College will hold an open house from noon to 2 p.m. Friday Oct. 28for its health professions programs.

It will be held at Parkland's Student Union atrium and in its L building on the main campus, 2400 W. Bradley Ave., C, and at Parkland's H building at 1309 N. Mattis Ave., C.

The L wing will feature programs in dental hygiene, nursing, practical nursing, radiologic technology, respiratory care, surgical technology and veterinary technology, and the H building will feature emergency medical services, fire service, massage therapy, medical assisting, nursing assistant and occupational therapy.

To register for the open house: bit.ly/3CKXQg4.

Home sales up

Home sales in Champaign County rose for the first time in seven months in September, according to the county Association of Realtors.

There were 288 home sales in September, up nearly 4 percent from September 2021. It was the highest number of September home sales since 2005, when there were 309 home sales that month, the Realtors group said.

For the year to date, sales were down 7.6 percent.

More to know from the Realtors group on September sales:

* The average number of days on the market was 27, up five days from September 2021.

* The median home sale price rose 2.08 percent to $181,625 compared to the same month a year ago.

* The average home sale price was $227,008, up 9.2 percent from September 2021.

* The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage in September was 6.11 percent, up from 5.2 percent in August and up from 2.90 in September 2021. For the week ending Oct. 13, the average fixed-rate, 30-year mortgage stood at 6.92 percent.

Going up

As temperatures drop, home heating bills are headed in the opposite direction, and Citizens Utility Board continues to warn it's going to be a painful winter, cost-wise.

Ameren Illinois' natural gas supply rate for October, 89.08 cents per therm, is 33 percent higher than it was in October 2021.

It's not the highest natural gas rate of the utility bunch, either. Four out of nine natural gas utilities CUB compared had October prices above a dollar per therm, with Nicor Gas's $1.24 per therm up about 97 percent from last October.