Funk family

The Funk Family is composed of Midwestern United States pioneers who did business in the fields of agriculture, politics, finance and civic life.

[3] Funk and Lincoln were also responsible for bringing the Chicago & Alton Railroad through Bloomington-Normal in McLean County, detouring it from its originally planned route through Peoria.

Frederick Funk was born in Germany and emigrated from The Palatinate, a section of the Rhineland, to the United States on the Pink Mary in 1733.

[6] Isaac Funk raised livestock and drove it to market on foot and later served in the Illinois House and in the Illinois Senate; his sons and their descendants were mostly involved in banking, politics and agricultural businesses such as Funk Brothers Seed Company and seed farms.

His youngest son, Isaac II, took over the sirup production around 1860, when demand for maple sweeteners rose during the Civil War as Northerners used them in place of Southern cane sugar.

Isaac II's son Arthur opened the first commercial maple sirup camp at Funks Grove in 1891.

[8] The little peaked cabin that Arthur and Lawrence had used as a cooking house was moved to its present location on the farm, where Hazel used it as a guesthouse and as her summer home.

Hazel also protected her land for the future: in her will, she placed her timber and farmland in a trust, for use by the family maple sugaring business.

A billboard erected alongside the new interstate ensured that the maple business lost no customers due to the new highway.

Today, Funks Grove Maple Sirup has both a mail-order business and an online ordering system, thanks in part to the increased popularity that came with resurging interest in Historic Route 66.