McDoel History

The first decade of the twentieth century saw the expansion of housing in the Campbell and Dodds additions along the eastern side of the neighborhood, as more homes for working families were built in the gable-el style along Rogers, Madison, and Hillside.

Another residential event was the platting of the Hillcrest Addition in 1907, the small addition that runs from Rogers to Fairview, between Wylie and Dodds. This was the act of another forward-thinking developer, apparently; most of the houses were not built until the later 1920s.

Our neighbor to the north, Bloomington Hospital, first opened during this decade. It was in 1905 that the Local Council of Women acquired a two-story brick farmhouse and four-and-a-half acres of land on South Rogers north of First. The house was converted to an eight-bed hospital, Bloomington’s first and only.

Perhaps it was around this time that folks started a neighborhood trash dump at the corner of Allen and Madison, disposing of their household debris, broken cups and bottles, and clinker and ash from their coal burning stoves at this handy nearby location. The artifacts (“junk”!) found at the site when workers were preparing for the house move in April 2000 show that the dump was used from about 1900 to the 1950s.

McDoel History