FORSYTH - Officially, at least, about the most exciting thing to emerge from the history of Forsyth is Hickory Point Mall and the triumphant rise of retail prosperity and some very nice homes.

Even as far back as the turn of the century, the place cultivated a reputation for being uneventful. "Forsyth and Its People," a 49-page history compiled in 1910 by "Mrs. H.C. Mowry, Mrs. Mabel Thrift and Miss Maud Benton," put it like this:

"Forsyth has been celebrated in neither song nor story," the ladies wrote. "? It has never sent forth a transcendent genius to startle the world and shed luster on the place of his beginning."

Now, as Forsyth celebrates its 50th year of incorporation as an official village and reflects on the past, maybe it is time to shed a bit more luster on that seemingly quiet background.

The actual settlement of Forsyth dates around 1854, when the Illinois Central Railroad came through Macon County. The place is named for Col. Robert Forsyth, the first general freight agent of the Illinois Central Railroad.

He was sober, upright and rather boring and leads off the book penned by the three women, which they dedicated to the "Ladies Aid Society of the M.E. Church of Forsyth."

They go on to list a bunch of other early and noble worthies, too, but nowhere is there a mention of the 19th century Forsythian whose name was known coast to coast and the mere mention of which gave the owners of the Wells Fargo bank a bad case of indigestion: Charles E. Boles, alias "Black Bart," the notorious highwayman.

Born in England, he had settled with his wife, Mary, in Forsyth in the 1850s, farming at various locations in the Forsyth/Warrensburg area. He joined the Union Army during the Civil War, was wounded while serving with distinction and honorably discharged with the rank of 2nd lieutenant. He headed back to his Forsyth farm but soon grew tired of grubbing about in the dust of the prairie.

So, lured by gold, he left his wife and went West to try his hand at mining. What happened next isn't clear, but Sandy Lynch, a member of the Forsyth/Hickory Point Township Historical Society who still farms where Boles did, has a theory: "We think Wells Fargo might have taken over his stake somehow," she said.

"So that's why he decided to get 'em back."

And how. While living in San Francisco and posing as a wealthy mine owner, he robbed some 29 stagecoaches between 1875 and 1883 and got a reputation for being a kinder, nicer bandit. He never fired a shot, dressed well, never robbed passengers and only took the contents of the Wells-Fargo cash box, often leaving behind some pungent poetry in its stead:

"I've labored long and hard for bread, for honor and riches,

But on my corns too long you've tread,

You fine-haired sons of bitches.

Black Bart, the PO8 (poet)," gives you a nice flavor of his style of cash withdrawal.

Lynch, who has made a major study of Bart, says his sartorial flair proved his undoing. "At one robbery, he got shot at, got away but dropped his handkerchief," she explains. "It had a laundry mark on it, and because every Chinese laundry in San Francisco had its own mark, detectives tracked him down."

Bart tried to convince the law that he was really someone else, but a Bible dedicated to "Charles E. Boles" that had been given to him by his wife on their Forsyth farm proved his undoing. He wound up getting five years in San Quentin, was released in 1888 and promptly fell off the pages of history; no one knows what happened to him.

Lynch says his story defibrillates Forsyth's past with a much-needed jolt of excitement and, besides, she just kind of likes this latter-day Robin Hood who robbed the rich and gave to himself.

"A lot of people don't know our history that far back but, well, we're not ashamed of him or anything," she said, gazing at a reproduction Black Bart wanted poster. "And he was described as having manners, grace, wit and charm."

Also essential qualities for a good storekeeper, which means Bart would probably do very nicely these days putting down his guns and selling his farm produce: Forsyth still doesn't have a grocery store. The village does, however, have just about every other kind of retail, a gift of the mall and all the development inspired by it.

Hickory Point Mall opened in 1978 after Decatur made its fateful decision to circle the economic wagons to save its downtown and told the mall to get lost, a tactical error on a par with George Custer's decision to pursue the Sioux at Little Bighorn.

The mall developers looked north and found a warm welcome a few miles up U.S. 51. Sleepy Forsyth already had gotten a development fillip in 1976 when I-72 came calling, and then came the mall and the opening of the sales tax spigot.

Successive Forsyth administrations carefully managed the money and have always had a reputation for thinking ahead. The current mayor, Harold "Hap" Gilbert, says one of the driving forces behind wanting to incorporate as a village was to clear the way for upgrading its water supply, which abandoned wells in favor of a mains water system in 1966.

Sales tax money has since helped pay for some major upgrades, such as two water towers and a $6 million treatment plant (a state grant-assisted sewer system arrived in 1984). Meanwhile, the original village water pump, once part of a well system that made the place attractive as a cattle station for the railroad, is still preserved on Ruehl Street.

"The gentleman who became our second mayor, the late Howard Walters, took it upon himself every other year to paint the pump, to make sure it stayed in good condition," said Gilbert. "But no one ever told me that was part of my job; maybe after I retire."

Blessed with the cash to make things happen - sales tax revenue is running around $4 million annually - Forsyth has avoided the slow, atrophied death that has overtaken similar Central Illinois burgs without its advantages. The community now has a pleasant parks system, an expanded library and is spending $15 million to build a new grade school, funded by a special half-cent sales tax.

The Maroa-Forsyth School District enjoys a sterling reputation and is one of the lures that has seen the village population leapfrog to more than 4,000 residents in the latest special census Forsyth commissioned.

All this growth and prosperity will no doubt be part of what people talk about Saturday when they gather at the village park for the official Forsyth 50th birthday party, with U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Peoria, as guest speaker. Milling amongst the crowds you won't find anybody who knew Black Bart personally, but you will find the occasional resident who remembers village life in the post-Bart, pre-mall days.

People such as Norman Lehman, 65, who was born there. He looks back on a quiet, cozy place with a population of a few hundred and where kids made their own naughty entertainment.

"At Halloween, we'd tip over people's outhouses," he recalled with a smile. He also remembers it was tough to get away with much for very long, however.

"When I was a kid, you could almost say you knew everybody in town, and they knew you and where you lived," he added. "And I don't think anyone ever locked their doors."

His wife, Cheryl, believes rising gas prices could be the catalyst for re-creating the kind of village community that used to be, only this time centered about a shopping center that has everything within strolling range. The retail of the future will be shopping with nearby accommodation to suit aging consumer demographics, she says.

"I think we are going to see a trend toward that because, well, look at the price of gas," said Cheryl Lehman, 62, a former village clerk and administrator. "The car dictated how we lived before, but now I think we're going back to something different."

Head east from her house to North Home Avenue in the original part of the village across U.S. 51 from the mall, and you can find some of the oldest living memories still able to recall a very different Forsyth, when nobody had cars or much of anything else. Eighty-five-year-old Bill Current, his brother Jim, 82, and their sister, Mary Gardner, belong to a family that arrived way back in 1926.

Their spacious yard had room for a cow, pigs and chickens, which came in handy. For while Forsyth boasted several grocery stores back then, nobody had much money to spend in them as the Current kids grew up hungry during the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Jim Current remembers out-of-work guys pitching horseshoes downtown near where the post office is now and square dances every Saturday night. And there were rail-riding hobos who knocked on the back door, offering to sharpen knives in return for a meal. "Mom would say 'Go out there in the coalhouse and sit down,' and she'd make them an egg and bacon sandwich," Jim Current said.

Bill Current remembers President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a national hero and the slow upward trend of life as things got better. Bill Current is a retired bricklayer, his brother a retired electrician, and they would help build each other's houses next door on land that used to be part of the family's pasture.

Bill Current's wife, Barbara, has no nostalgia hangover, however, and no regrets about the coming of the mall and the prosperity it brought with it. She also celebrates mains water and sewer and all that shopping just a stone's throw away.

"No, I wouldn't want to go back to the past," said Barbara Current, 82, who was Forsyth's first village clerk. "And my favorite thing now is the mall."

The Currents have been amazed at some of the changes, however, particularly the kinds of homes being built on spacious lots on the mall side of U.S. 51, where the grass these days is clipped by top-of-the-line John Deere riding mowers, not cows. There are families moving into palaces valued at $1 million and with enough bathrooms that you can answer nature's call in a different one Monday through Friday.

"We used to call our part of Forsyth the poor part, with the rich part over there," said Bill Current, nodding toward the mall. "But the other day a lady said, 'No, that's not right, you live in the historical part.' Well, that sounds better."

David Williams, another member of Forsyth/Hickory Point Township Historical Society, says if Black Bart were around today, he'd be better off abandoning the idea of both crime and selling produce as career options. In the Forsyth of the 21st century, the easiest road to riches is land you develop for housing or retail.

"His farm would now be worth enough he wouldn't have to worry about robbing stagecoaches," Williams said.

Tony Reid can be reached at treid@herald-review.com or 421-7977.