Cindy, Like the backlash against the Old Slave House, professional historians have long derided the story of the Shawneetown bank turning down the loan to Chicago. Even eminent historians such as Paul Angle claimed that bit of Southern Illinois folklore simply a myth. However, the problem with folklore is that it's usually based around a kernal of truth. In this case that kernal is a whole ear of corn. Between bank records from Jacksonville (the last of the state bank branches to operate) and, I believe, old Chicago City Council minutes, historians have pieced together the real story, which does entail the Shawneetown bank board turning down a delegation from Chicago. A couple of different researchers have worked on the story. The young historian who put together the history of the People's National Bank of McLeansboro, is/was putting together a piece for publication on the story. I haven't seen the records, but have heard the historian give a presentation last year at the living history days at Shawneetown. I can't think of his name right now, but his parents live in Eldorado. Jon Musgrave www.IllinoisHistory.com P.S. Now that we've proved the Old Slave House stories, another researcher has proved the Chicago loan story, now all we need is for someone to tackle the Thebes Courthouse story involving Dred Scott. Folklore has long said Scott was imprisoned in the county jail there on the ground floor before his famous court case in the 1850s. Historians have long said the story is hogwash. However, I've never seen any evidence that someone has ever really researched the issue. Here are some other "myths" from the region's folklore that historians will someday probably prove as true. 1) The French fort at Equality - I believe it, but I've never seen documentation) 2) Knights of the Golden Circle in S.I. - Hyped during the Civil War, then claimed false afterwards 3) Dr. Anna Bigsby - She's real, but not a doc and a writer as claimed. Who was the real Anna? 4) Wetaugua - Either a Shawnee chief on the Trail of Tears, or a clan of the Cherokee. 5) Americans at the saltworks before the 1803 treaty - I'm working on it, it's true, but how far back? 6) Old Silver Mine - Not the known one in Saline Co., but an earlier one used by counterfeiters. 7) White's Massacre - vague remnant of Indian massacre of whites? by Gen. White? west of Equality. 8) Stoneforts built by a) DeSoto, b) Col. Clark, c) French, or d) Madoc. If not built by them, did they use them? 9) Logan's secret negotiations with the Confederacy - no proof, but what was he doing in the spring of 1861? 10) Charlie Birger's role in the murder suicides of two judges and their families - what's behind the two stories? If you have any more myths/unproven stories let me know. Most stories past down in people's families do have a basis of truth, the details may be off, but something happened to start the story in the first place. Sometimes, even ghost stories are the only thing that's left of a historical tragedy or death, that remains in the common memory. The ghost stories involving Anna Bixby surely kept her story alive to the present day.