Ask anybody: “Who are the great men in human history?” Likely you will hear names such as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, or perhaps even Ronald Reagan. What do these men have in common? What made them great? They were successful because they were powerful, and with this power they changed the course of history by their heroic actions, or by ruling countries or even whole continents. Ronald Reagan was born in 1911. I have said before I am not a Republican nor a Reagan fan, but it is significant history for northern Illinois and needs to be talked about. Today we see the Ronald Reagan Birthplace building. He was born in the second floor apartment of a commercial building in downtown Tampico, Illinois. Where did president Ronald Reagan go to college ? The Reagan’s lived in the second floor apartment. For a case of pareidolia, notice the apparition in the window, who could that be? From 1915-1919 the structure housed a bakery and from 1919-1931 a bank, First National Bank. Today the first and second floor have been restored. The first floor is a spot-on recreation of a 1920s bank that incorporates original elements from the building’s stint as a bank, such as the vault. The second floor is done as a period apartment from the era when the Reagan’s occupied the space. Interestingly, the apartment features a skylight in the center of its main room and is decorated to the period when the Reagans lived there, although none of the original Reagan furnishings are there. Did Ronald Reagan go to college ? The Graham Building matches up with the harmony of the rest of the district
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