Samuel Houston Singleton was born on May 28, 1848, in Shelbyville, Tennessee, one of six children of carpenter Henry Richard Singleton [1827-1903] and Minerva Porter [1824-1912].  By 1860 the Singleton family had moved to Keokuk, Iowa, along the Mississippi River where Iowa, Missouri and Illinois come together.  The eight Singletons were among the only 1,069 Black people who had recently moved to Iowa, the majority of whom were in Keokuk. After sending thousands of white Iowa men into the Union army during the first two years of the Civil War, that state’s governor agreed to form a regiment of Black men to represent the state. 

 On October 11, 1863, the first recruits of the Iowa African infantry were mustered in Keokuk.  When federalized, they became the nucleus of the 60th United States Colored Troop and moved out for duty in Arkansas.  On August 17, 1864, the Daily Gate City newspaper in Keokuk announced that “Huston Singleton,” now sixteen years old, was one of forty-one local Blacks to enlist in the newly-formed Iowa Colored Home Guards, a military company for home defense.     

   About this time Houston also worked in Keokuk’s Deming House hotel under the management of Samuel Egbert.  When the war ended, Houston’s parents and siblings returned to Tennessee while Houston instead came to Decatur in 1865 with E.G. Egbert who took over the Revere House hotel just east of the new Central Park.  Egbert died in 1866 but Singleton remained working there until the hotel burned down in 1871.  During that time Houston was the head porter - tending to fire places, oil lamps and mopping, and learning the basics of fine dining service and business management.  After leaving the hotel he quickly learned the tonsorial trade which was practiced by a number of former enslaved Black immigrants.  By October 1875, the multi-talented Singleton was active in St. Peter’s A.M.E. church, joined and became a leader of the “colored” Masons, created a popular music ensemble, and had opened his first “Little Gem” barber shop with future entrepreneur James Hollinger working for him.

    Singleton moved his barber shop to several locations in downtown Decatur and his “Bon ton” shops became quite popular.  In November 1877, the Daily Republican was already reporting that “Houst is one of the institutions of Decatur, and deserves well of our people.”  Soon “Houst” became known as “Hue” in town, and early on he saw the value in advertising his business in both the annual city directories as well as local newspapers.  His 1881 daily classified advised men: “For a first-class shave, hair-cut or shampoo, go to Singleton’s barber shop on Prairie Street.”  He kept upgrading his furniture and fixtures in each location and his last shop was in the basement under the National Bank on the corner of Water and Prairie Avenue.  In August 1884 he sold his barber business and rented a failed rat-infested café on the northwest side of Lincoln Square.  Within three weeks he transformed that location into the Singleton Café which featured fresh oysters and full meals for twenty-five cents.  On Christmas Eve that year he catered his first big event as he served one hundred couples at the Draymen’s Ball.  In 1885 he ran ads in the Daily Review every day that boasted he had “the neatest, cleanest, best-kept restaurant in the city.”

    Singleton constantly ran classified and display ads in various city and county newspapers over the years and often made small upgrades to the interior of the café.  In 1907 he bought ten acres of farmland northwest of the city limits and both sold feed crops and began his version of farm to table production.  In 1909 he built a large ten-room house on the north edge of this property at what today is the 800 block of West McKinley Avenue. In May 1911, he was also able to purchase the 111 North Main Street building housing his restaurant, and the following year closed the restaurant for the first time in November for one week in order to make major improvements inside, the first great change in twenty-eight years of round the clock business. 
 

    In the early morning hours of Wednesday, April 21, 1915, the Decatur and Arcadia Hotels, just to the north of the Singleton Café, caught fire and both burned to the ground.  The Singleton restaurant suffered an estimated $7,500 damage from water and debris falling through the roof and destroying the second floor and front wall. Hue soon decided to build a completely new brick building, matching the rebuilt Decatur Dairy abutting it to the north, and have his name carved in stone on the façade in front of his new second-floor banquet hall.  His new restaurant opened better than ever on August 28, 1915.  The following week the Chicago Defender’s Decatur correspondent wrote that Singleton’s “serves both white and colored and tries to treat his people right.”

     The Singletons went on for another six years serving pay-by-the week boarders, regular diners and special events.  In January 1921, at age 72, Hue retired to his country home and sold the restaurant to Thomas W. Johnson of Cleveland. The business turned over several times during the next four years until the Singletons bought it back in November 1925. They ran large back in business newspaper display ads promoting “complete Sunday dinners with all the trimmings” now costing forty cents, and with “the kitchen under the personal supervision of Mrs. Singleton.” Hue went into the hospital the following March.  He died of pneumonia on March 15, 1926, after a week’s stay.  A day later the Decatur Review opined: “If establishing a name as a good business man is to be commended, then Hue Singleton made for himself in Decatur a record for which no one need apologize.  Better than the mere name of businessman, he demonstrated that his character was one of sterling worth.”

     But over his sixty years in Decatur, Houston Singleton was so much more than just a highly successful businessman.  His personal talents included the ability to play several musical instruments, give orations, and to organize bands and events of all types, including many Emancipation Day celebrations and parades.  He was a loyal and devoted member of St. Peter’s A.M.E. Church.  He joined and became a local and state leader in a variety of Black Masonic organizations. He not only helped form and run Black Republican political clubs, he was for several years in the 1890s on the Illinois Republican State Central Committee, rubbing shoulders with governors and other high ranking officials.  He was the second Black man to serve on the Macon County Board during the era when township supervisors, and in Decatur Township, their assistants, formed the county board.  When he was one of the three Macon County men sent to the January 1892 state meeting in Peoria, he reported – “I happened to be the only colored supervisor in attendance and this fact perhaps made me more of a subject of curiosity than most of the others who were unknown before the convention.” Hue went on to be elected and appointed several more times as assistant township supervisor and was serving as such on the County Board when he died. 

      Hue Singleton was also a great proponent of the views of Booker T. Washington, met him when he visited Decatur, and corresponded with him until Washington’s death.  Singleton often gave talks about how young Blacks in the North needed to apply themselves and learn a useful trade or business, which he felt would help reduce possible racial tensions and problems.  He also thought it very important for Black men to serve in the military.  Thus he tried to recruit local youth to enlist during the Spanish-American War and World War I, and he hosted receptions for them when they went off and when they returned.

      Mrs. Singleton was born in Ohio on September 2, 1864, and was often visited by relatives when she lived in Decatur.  She was also involved in Black Masonic auxiliaries, Republican women’s groups and St. Peter’s A.M.E. Church.  On August 12, 1930 she married Samuel Finger of Decatur and they lived in her house on West McKinley until her death, at the age of seventy-one, on June 30, 1935.  She and Houston both rest in Decatur’s Greenwood Cemetery.