At the age of 49, Ohio-born J. Herman Hardebeck had earned a gilt-edged reputation as a real estate developer in Kankakee. In the spring of 1891, to the north of Kankakee and south of Bourbonnais, lay a flat, mile-wide prairie. The land stretched eastward from a grove of Kankakee river timber, past the Illinois Central Railroad into the watershed of Soldier Creek. In May, Hardebeck signed agreements with Alvah Perry and Hiram Goodwin for the purchase of 340 acres of this property. He had taken options on additional tracts. Here Hardebeck would establish an industrial community first named North Kankakee and later renamed Bradley in honor of farm implement manufacturer David Bradley.

The village name Bourbonnais is attributed to Fran§ois Bourbonnais. He was a 19th-century French Canadian fur trader who maintained a post in a grove of trees along the east bank of the Kankakee River. This location became known as Bourbonnais Grove. Noel LeVasseur, a former American Fur Company employee, bought two sections of land in the grove in 1834 and established a settlement of immigrant French Canadians. At first, the village was called variously La Point, La Ville, and Vasseurville. A post office named Bourbonnais Grove opened in 1838. The village was known as Bourbonnais Grove until 1875, when it was incorporated as Bourbonnais. By the 1860s, Bourbonnais Grove had 1,719 inhabitants, a blacksmith shop, livery stable, hotel, and a new church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Nativity and built of native limestone. The images in this book depicting life in Bourbonnais have been gathered from local private and museum collections.

A 1997 bibliography of American fiction from 1901-1925.

Part 1, Books, Group 1, v. 20 : Nos. 1 - 125 (Issued April, 1923 - May, 1924)