Jacksonville attorney Larry\u00a0Kuster has received a certificate of excellence from the Illinois State Historical Society for his research and book about inventor Fred Francis.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur judges begin reviewing the nominations, which come from all over the state and around the Midwest, beginning in October,\u201d said William Furry, the historical society’s executive director. \u201cThe diversity and breadth of this year\u2019s nominations reveal that Prairie State history continues to delight and engage audiences across all demographics.\u201d<\/p>\n
The society handed out its 2026 Best of Illinois History Awards this weekend in Springfield, recognizing more than two dozen “history heroes” and 13 authors of books or mongraphs published in 2025, according to the society.<\/p>\n
“Receiving a Best of Illinois History Award for my biography of ‘Fred Francis: A Prairie State Genius’ is a distinct honor, and I feel very privileged and humbled to have received that award,”\u00a0Kuster said.<\/p>\n
The book dives deep into Francis’ life, including how he created a new way to tighten watch springs for Elgin Watch Co.\u00a0Kuster argued that Francis steadily collected royalties \u2014 $1 for every watch made \u2014 for years because of how competitive the design allowed the company to be. That money gave Francis the ability to build a home for his wife and himself.<\/p>\n
“This is a very nice honor that was not expected at all,” Kuster said. “My intent was to write as a complete and definitive biography of Fred Francis as I could based upon the sources that I had available because, not only was he an inventor, the house that he built \u2014 Woodland Palace \u2014 had innovative designs and features for a house in the late 1890s, but he was a philanthropist. He was a mathematician.”<\/p>\n
Francis and\u00a0Kuster are from the same area of Henry County in northwestern Illinois \u2014 Kewanee. Kuster said his grandfather knew Francis, and his own parents were interested in the life of the town’s rich inventor.<\/p>\n
When the COVID-19 pandemic began, Kuster made the book his “pandemic project.”<\/p>\n
“This is the book that my mother wished she had written,” Kuster said. “And she was not able to do it because of health and other reasons, and so this was always kind of on my bucket list.”<\/p>\n
Kuster is president of Jacksonville Center for the Arts’ board, an advisory member of\u00a0MacMurray Foundation & Alumni Association, and is involved in numerous historical initiatives in town.<\/p>\n
“This incredibly researched book is a full-length biography about Fred Francis (1856-1926), an engineer, inventor and overall\u00a0unique individual from Kewanee, Illinois,” according to the Illinois State Historical Society. “It tells the story of Francis\u2019 time and legacy at the University of Illinois, the construction of his unique house, the story of his unique marriage, the mystery of his unique death, and the lasting impact Francis has on the Kewanee community.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacksonville attorney Larry\u00a0Kuster has received a certificate of excellence from the Illinois State Historical Society for his research…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4613,116,118,117,115,278],"class_list":["post-250010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-breakingnews","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-news","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}