What began as a hobby for Les Tucker and the late John Mattox became a teaching tool for the people of Crete, and today serves as a reminder of a time long gone.
During the 1980s, the two friends combined their collection of arrowheads and invited the residents of Crete to an Native American relic show. Today, a vast collection of those arrowheads can be viewed until the end of March at the Crete Public Library.
The Crete Historical Society is displaying several cases of the various arrowheads found by Tucker and Mattox to show residents the tools Native Americans used when they came through Crete.
“The Indians came to camp and hunt before settlers arrived in the late 1830s,” said Phyllis Monks, head of the historical society. “We thought it would be interesting for young people to see these tools that the Indians made themselves to hunt for food. It’s part of our history.”
Tucker, now 73, said that from 1980 to 1986 he headed up the show that was held each July at Crete-Monee High School and sponsored by the Illinois Archeological Society.
“I was the chairman of the society, and John helped me. The show was open to everybody, and it was free,” Tucker said. “Most of the collection is mine. It is what my wife, Carol, and I collected since the 1950s, five to 10 miles all around Crete and the Crete area.”
Tucker, whose grandmother’s grandmother was Potawatomi, said the area around Raccoon Grove Forest Preserve in Monee was a Potawatomi village at one time.
“John and I wanted to do the show to present American Indians and show what was found in the area,” Tucker said. “The Indians used modes of transportation for thousands of years, using the rivers. Most are from campsites where they were passing through. Indians have been walking over this ground for 20,000 years. They came to Crete to hunt and then left.”
John’s son, Raymond Mattox, said it has been 25 years since his father and Tucker’s last relic show and he wanted an anniversary event to make sure the people of Crete remember the work the men did.
“I figured as his son, I would bring that history back and let the public know what we did for fun,” Mattox said. “The show was educational. Sometimes my dad would dress up as an Indian at the show.”
Raymond Mattox said his father would have been 79 this year; he died in 1994.
“My father was 100 percent German but got into learning about Indians when he was a boy in the Scouts,” Raymond Mattox said.
The men put on a total of seven shows that drew about 400 people each time.
“It was very popular,” Tucker said. “We displayed our artifacts for their benefit, but anyone could bring in anything they found, and we had a lot of experts that could tell them the value or age of it or any information they wanted to know.”
Author: Anna Tesauro | Source: Southtown Star [February 11, 2011]