EGGLESTON — The Winnebego disgorged its passengers on Village Street, where they seemed to skulk around The Palisades Restaurant.
Owner Shaena Muldoon wondered what they were looking for.
When she asked, she got one of many history lessons this place has to teach.
The family had traveled from Indiana and Kentucky to see where their great-grandfather practiced medicine in the once-booming town of Eggleston Springs, Muldoon said.
On the same floor with a cellar and a coal chute, the doctor had offered his services in Pyne General Store. Today it is the basement of Muldoon’s 2-year-old restaurant and music venue.
From boom to bust to new stirrings of revitalization, much has changed in Eggleston.
In the 1830s, the supposed healing properties of Eggleston’s sulphur spring built a tourist destination, followed in the 1880s by the railroad.
A thriving transport hub, the community built a high school, a general store and a Chevrolet dealership. But, as with many rural communities, the Great Depression of the 1930s pointed the town’s fortunes downward.