Illinois Business Hall of Fame was founded in 1971 by faculty members at various Illinois Universities. The purpose was to identify inspiring historical Illinois business leaders whose stories could be used in high school, college and university classrooms to create awareness, understanding and appreciation of the Illinois heritage of positive business leadership.

For the first three decades of its work, the IBHF relied on materials, visual displays and classroom presentations to carry out its mission. Once the World Wide Web had reached a dependable level of maturity the mission of keeping the stories alive was moved to the web in the form of this online museum. A perpetual grant was awarded to the Western Illinois University Libraries to maintain the museum in perpetuity. Visitors are encouraged to browse the plethora of information about the laureates. You are welcome to download any material on this web site at no charge. And we encourage you to use what you download to make others aware of these historical business role models.

The ARCHIVES section of this web site provides background Information about the history and functioning of the Illinois Business Hall of Fame.

This site is no longer actively accepting new Laureate nominations.