Cecil L. Golden, present mayor of Sidney, has built up a large hardware business in that Champaign County town, and has proved himself one of the live and energetic factors in the civic community. Mr. Golden is a veteran of the Spanish-American War.
He was born in Champaign County March 12, 1879, a son of Eugene S. and Mary E. (Mullen) Golden. His father was born in Menard County, Illinois, and his mother was a native of Pennsylvania. His father came to Champaign County when a young man, followed farming and afterwards engaged in the hardware business at Urbana. He was a merchant in that city for about sixteen years and then retired to Sidney, where he died October 4, 1913′. The widowed mother still lives at Sidney. They had five children. Leonard M., deceased; Archie S., a resident of Champaign County; George A., a farmer in Jefferson County, Illinois; Cecil L. and Ross Burr, deceased.
Cecil L. Golden attended the public schools at Urbana, and then learned the trade of tinner in his father’s store. At the age of nineteen he enlisted as a non-commissioned officer in Company M., organized in Champaign County for service in the Spanish-American War. He spent most of the period of his enlistment in concentration camps and was also for a time on duty in Cuba. After the war he followed farming three years, then went to work at his trade in Peoria. While there he was foreman of the Twentieth Century Heating and Ventilating Company about two years.
After his marriage Mr. Golden removed to Sidney and built a brick building 30×100 feet, which houses a very complete stock of general hardware implements and also furnishes quarters for the undertaking business.
On April 25, 1905, Mr. Golden married Miss Edna Rado Jones, of Jefferson County, Illinois. They are the parents of two children, Karma Ellen, who was born November 2, 1907, and Stanley Jones, who died in early childhood. Mr. Golden is a Republican in politics and is now serving as a member of the Republican Committee. He was village treasurer of Sidney two years and is now mayor of the village and in that office has done much to influence wise and conservative improvement and economical handling of the municipal revenues. Mr. Golden is affiliated with the Masonic Order, being past master of Sidney Lodge, No 347, with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Lodge No. 473, the Modern Woodmen of America, and he and his family worship in the Methodist Episcopal Church.