Robert Jordan

Class of 1938 Robert (Bob) Jordan graduated from Oberlin College in 1943. He then spent four years in the United States Air Force, commissioned as a weather officer, and stationed among other locations at Saipan and Iwo Jima. After beginning graduate school at the University of Chicago, Bob Jordan returned to Ottawa to partner with his brother Bo in running Jordan Hardware as the 4th generation running the family retail hardware business. When the business was sold in 1983, Jordan Hardware was the oldest retail business in Illinois to be operated by the same family in the same location, having been established in 1840. Bob Jordan was active in bowling and tennis and was a founding member of the Ottawa Tennis Club. He was instrumental in raising funds to replace two tennis courts in Allen Park with three new ones constructed with the proper north-south directional orientation. After retirement from the hardware business he developed an interest in genealogy, joining the LaSalle County Genealogy Guild and later donating a building to house original county probate records dating back to 1831. The Jordan Hardware property on Main Street was ultimately destroyed by fire, but the area is still referred to as the Jordan block.