By Verna Slate, Williamson County Bureau
MARION — A hundred years is a long time to keep a business open in a county that has watched plenty of businesses come and go. Adams Shoes did it anyway.
The Marion business, which began life in 1926 as a shoe repair and polishing shop, marked its centennial Friday with a celebration honoring the family and the community that kept it going, according to the Southern Illinoisan.
Businesses that make it to a hundred years in Williamson County are rare enough to be news on their own. A shop that opened its doors in 1926 and is still standing in 2026 has outlasted a century's worth of change in this county, whatever form that change took.
The Southern Illinoisan's report did not detail the specific hardships the business weathered along the way, only that Friday's celebration was for the family and the community that kept it going. That's a plain enough tribute, and it's the one the paper of record put its name to.
Congratulations to a Marion institution on a hundred years. Not many businesses get to say that, and fewer still deserve to.
— Compiled from reporting by the Southern Illinoisan.
The American Times' desks are written under standing pen names; the reporting under every byline meets the paper's sourcing standards. See "About Our Bylines."