Mark Heinz

Main Street Since 1928

October 28, 2026 · 2 min read

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Black-and-white aerial photograph: the street grid of a small town in the middle of farm fields and wooded ravines, with one long straight road cutting across the right side.
Collinsville from 18,500 feet on February 14, 1938, photographed by the Army Air Corps' 15th Observation Squadron out of Scott Field. U.S. National Archives, NAID 23939825, public domain.

The Collinsville Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1928, when coal was still king here and Main Street looked like the postcard below. Ninety-eight years later it still works from an office on that same street, at 221 West Main, with about three hundred member businesses and the two festivals that pull the whole town onto Main Street: Italian Fest since 1984 and the Horseradish Festival since 1988.

Black-and-white postcard view down a small-town Main Street: two-story brick storefronts with striped awnings, Fredman Bros. furniture store at left, a line of 1920s automobiles at the curb, and streetcar tracks in the pavement.
Main Street, Collinsville, on an E.C. Kropp Co. postcard from around the chamber's first years. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

I joined the chamber this summer. At Coffee Talk, the chamber's morning get-together at Verona Coffee Co., each person shares a recent win that came through the chamber, which beats any elevator pitch as an icebreaker. And the welcome at the chamber's front counter on Main Street belongs to Katie Slimick and Dalani Dalton, who make a new member feel expected.

Two photographic prints laid side by side with white borders. Left, in black and white: a brick wall painted with "Bull Durham, Best for Three Generations" and a bull. Right, overlapping it, in color: the same wall in 2023, with a boy in a brown coat and hat standing beside the painted bull.
The Bull Durham bull on Main Street, painted around 1908: a Historic American Buildings Survey photograph, and my youngest son Simon at the Fall Festival in October 2023.

A chamber is what its members bring to it, so here is my part, and maybe yours: attend at least one chamber event a month, ideally with one guest who isn't a member yet. The guest is how a chamber grows. A room is the only place a chamber makes sense to someone who isn't in it yet, and new members' dues help pay for the two festivals and the office that puts them on. So think of a friend who's in business, and ask them along.

The next three events are easy ones. The networking lunch is Wednesday, November 4, at World Wide Technology Raceway, 11:45, fifteen dollars. Coffee Talk on Tuesday, November 24, at Verona is free and doubles as a socks and toy drive, so bring new socks or a new toy. And on Wednesday, December 2, the C3 Community Awards at the Gateway Convention Center, put on with the school district and the City, honor the people who serve this town. Details for all three are at discovercollinsville.com.

Thanks to Katie and Dalani for holding the door.

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