After 11 terms, Mayor Ed Woodruff was defeated in 1945 by a reform candidate. It was the beginning of the end of Peoria’s “wide-open” days.
Peoria
A digital companion to the biography Becoming Richard Pryor
Woodruff Tells AP That Crusaders Caused His Defeat
Date: 2/14/1945
Citation:
"Woodruff Tells AP That Crusaders Caused His Defeat," Peoria Journal-Transcript, Feb. 14, 1945, p. 1.