Category Archives: History

Palmer Square, Chicago

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Saturday started cool, but evolved into a pleasant, almost warm day. A good day for walking around in a light jacket, which is what we did. We participated in the 31st Logan Square Preservation House & Garden Walk, during which seven houses, one church, and two gardens were open for inspection with the assistance (and under the watchful eyes) of volunteer docents.

Though named for Logan Square, the walk actually focused on structures in Palmer Square, which is a smaller neighborhood within the larger Logan Square neighborhood, and some blocks south of Logan Square itself – the place with the Illinois Centennial Memorial, described last week – and north of Humboldt Park, described in late August.

The focus of the Palmer Square neighborhood is Palmer Square, a rectangular park a few blocks long with a circular running track, a charming little playground with figures from The Velveteen Rabbit, and a lot of shade trees. The city, with money from the state, redeveloped the park in the mid-2000s, and I understand tree planting has been going on vigorously since well before that. A previous generation of sheltering elms had been lost to Dutch Elm Disease.

This is at the eastern edge of Palmer Square, looking west. On either side to the north and south are streets, and across those streets mostly are handsome residential structures that date from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. More about those later.

Palmer Square, Chicago, Sept 2014On Saturday, walkers, joggers, and a lot of dog walkers were using the park. A fair number of parents and children were enjoying the playground. Pretty much everything Saturday in the park should be.

Palmer Square and Logan Square (the urban feature, not the neighborhood), are both part of the Chicago Boulevard System, a series of boulevards that connect parks and encircle the central part of the city – a 28-mile chain of parks, or an emerald necklace, to be more fanciful. The system dates to the late 1800s, and as usual with such things, suffered from neglect during much of the 20th century.

I haven’t confirmed it with my own eyes, but I’ve read that the section in Logan Square (the neighborhood, not the urban feature) is the best preserved of the original lot. I know that no one I knew in Chicago in the 1980s ever mentioned the boulevards, so it’s likely that they were largely forgotten by that time. (Or maybe I didn’t hang out with the right people.) These days, there’s some awareness.

This is a view of Humboldt Blvd. from Armitage Ave., looking north, and a good number of blocks north of Humboldt Park, and a bit south of Palmer Square. To the left of the narrow parkland is the main street, and to the left of that is another strip of narrow parkland.

Humboldt Ave Sept 13, 2014Flanking both strips of narrow parkland are small streets, where it seems mostly residents park their cars. It’s a lot better than many major Chicago streets, which may have six lanes, but two of those are parked up on either side.

The Illinois Centennial Monument

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Rain in the morning, sun in the afternoon, drizzle in the evening. At least that’s variety. And it isn’t cold yet.

Illinois Centennial ColumnHenry Bacon’s well known for the Lincoln Memorial, as well he should be. He isn’t very known for the Illinois Centennial Memorial Column, a.k.a., the Illinois Centennial Monument, in Logan Square in Chicago, which is on the Northwest Side. I’d never taken a look at it up close until recently.

It’s a little forlorn. One of those monuments with passed by thousands daily, noticed by few if any, and marked with a little graffiti just to drive home the point. Then again, it’s been quite a while since the 100th anniversary of Illinois’ statehood, which was in 1918.

It’s a Doric column, and according to one source at least, made up of 13 solid marble segments based on the same proportions and scale as the columns of the Parthenon colonnade in Athens (or Nashville, come to think of it). The eagle on top, done by sculptor Evelyn Beatrice Longman, evokes the one on the Illinois state flag.

She did the reliefs along the base of the column as well, depicting Indians, explorers, farmers and laborers.

Illinois Cenntenial MemorialPlus a few figures from Antiquity. I’m pretty sure that’s Hermes holding a train and a steamship, maybe offering them to the laborer holding the hammer, and it looks like Ceres is to the workingman’s left. On Hermes’ right – is that Eratosthenes? He looks Greek enough, and he’s got a globe, fitting for the father of geography and the first person to more-or-less figure out the circumference of the Earth.

It’s too much to expect an Illinois Bicentennial Memorial in a few years, but may this one can be cleaned and restored for the occasion.

Humboldt Park

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The day before we went to Millennium Park, which was full of people, I went by myself to Humboldt Park, which is also in Chicago, for about an hour’s walkabout. Few people were there, even though it was the Friday before a holiday weekend, but maybe the population picks up on Saturdays and Sundays. Even so, the place seemed underused, considering how gorgeous parts of it are. Especially along the banks of the “prairie river” that runs through part of it – a landscape element by Jens Jensen, whom I’ve run across before.

Humboldt Park, August 2014Humboldt Park, August 2014Humboldt Park, August 2014“In 1869, shortly after the creation of the West Park System, neighborhood residents requested that the northernmost park be named in honor of Baron Freidrich Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (1759-1859), the famous German scientist and explorer,” the Chicago Park District says. “Two years later, completed plans for the entire ensemble of Humboldt, Garfield, and Douglas parks and connecting boulevards were completed by William Le Baron Jenney, who is best known today as the father of the skyscraper. Having studied engineering in Paris during the construction of that city’s grand park and boulevard system in the 1850s, Jenney was influenced by French design.

“The construction of Humboldt Park was slow, however, and the original plan was followed only for the park’s northeastern section. Jens Jensen, a Danish immigrant who had begun as a laborer, worked his way up to Superintendent of Humboldt Park in the mid-1890s… [Eventually], deteriorating and unfinished areas of Humboldt Park allowed Jensen to experiment with his evolving Prairie style. For instance, Jensen extended the park’s existing lagoon into a long meandering ‘prairie river.’

“He commissioned Prairie School architects Schmidt, Garden, and Martin to design an impressive boat house and refectory building which still stands at one end of the historic music court.”

The boat house is a fine structure.

Humboldt Park, August 2014The view of the lagoon from the boat house is nice as well.

Humboldt Park, August 2014A few people were fishing from the edge of the lagoon. I was looking at it. That was the entirety of the human presence there at that mid-afternoon moment. It was a little hard to believe that 9 million or so people live within 30 or 40 miles of this body of water except, of course, for the ambient traffic noise from nearby Humboldt Blvd. and Division St.

A National Champion Red Ash

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Not long ago I was tramping around a small section of Spring Valley that I’d never visited, and I found a plaque I’d never seen. That’s a minor thrill. Guess I’m peculiar that way about plaques. It says:

NATIONAL CHAMPION

RED ASH

Planted here April 29, 2001

The 450-year-old parent tree is in Dowiagiac [sic], MI

Schaumburg Park District

Alas, the park district misspelled “Dowagiac,” which is a town in southwest Michigan, in bronze. Further investigation reveals that this particular tree has descendants elsewhere, including on the grounds of the Pentagon. Sen. Carl Levin spoke at the planting of a red ash there on September 10, 2002, as a memorial. Excerpts from his speech:

“The tree we plant this morning, like the other eight planted over the weekend, are actual parts of the largest – and probably oldest – red ash tree in America. That champion tree is located in Dowagiac, Michigan.

“Buds from that tree were taken and propagated by the Milarch Family Nursery in Copemish, Michigan, which seven years ago launched an inspired initiative called the Champion Tree Project. The purpose of the project is to take buds from America’s “champion” or historically significant trees and propagate them in “living libraries” throughout the country.

“ ‘Champion’ trees are the largest of their species. There are 826 species of trees in this country; Michigan has 49 champions.

“The champion red ash that these trees are part of is 95 feet tall. The trunk is over 21 feet around. It weighs somewhere between 160 and 200 tons. Most impressively, the tree is estimated to be about 450 years old.”

Here’s the Spring Valley red ash. It’s got a ways to go to be so tall and so heavy, but maybe it will as the centuries pass.

Red Ash, Schaumburg, August 2014Apparently, the Champion Tree effort is still going on, though known as the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive.

Meanwhile, far from all red ash trees, large and small, I was happy to read the following from NASA yesterday: “The Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft has traversed the orbit of Neptune. This is its last major crossing en route to becoming the first probe to make a close encounter with distant Pluto on July 14, 2015. The sophisticated piano-sized spacecraft, which launched in January 2006, reached Neptune’s orbit — nearly 2.75 billion miles from Earth — in a record eight years and eight months. New Horizons’ milestone matches precisely the 25th anniversary of the historic encounter of NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft with Neptune on Aug. 25, 1989.”

Jupiter and especially Saturn are show-offs, but Uranus and especially Neptune have a quiet majesty. I remember well seeing the pictures of Neptune’s blue orb in the pre-Internet newspapers and magazines of 1989. These days, of course, you can find images of Neptune easily.

Team of Rivals

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Rain early in the morning, again in the afternoon, and more promised for Friday morning. You could call it a rainy spell. Just when the grass and other flora were looking a little thirsty from the intermittent August heat.

The other day I picked up Team of Rivals at a resale shop. Hardcover version, in decent condition. Cost: $1.75 plus tax. Considering my known interest in presidential history, it’s about time I got around to reading some Doris Kearns Goodwin. I haven’t gotten far yet, but so far so good. I’m looking forward to a detailed account of the Republican Convention of 1860. Remarkable how history turns on such seemingly small events.

And I’m going to wonder, where did I see Goodwin speak? I know I did, at some real estate convention or other in the early or mid-2000s, back when I used to go to such things more regularly. Can’t remember exactly when or where, though. Speakers I saw at one time or other included her, but also the elder George Bush (post-presidency), James Cavill, Newt Gingrich, James Lovell, and Colin Powell.

Come and Take It

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There probably aren’t too many Come and Take It flags flapping in the Illinois wind, but there’s one in my back yard. It’s along with a Stars and Stripes, one of many that a Realtor posted on our block – all near the street – for the Fourth of July this year.

Come and Take ItIt’s the flag I bought as a souvenir of my visit to Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site in April. It was a little long to take in a suitcase on an airplane – and it’s a little pointy, just the kind of thing that might alarm a literal-minded TSA agent and who might indeed take it – so I left it at Jay’s house, intending to pick it up in July, when I could take it back in my car. Remarkably, I remembered to do just that, though it’s been in the car for a few weeks.

Nothing like an obscure historic flag of defiance to brighten up your deck. Unlike the Gadsden Flag, it hasn’t been co-oped by anti-government radicals (anti-government, except for their Social Security and Medicare).

Mother Jones in Mt. Olive

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Gene Autry – the singing cowboy, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” Gene Autry – recorded “The Death of Mother Jones” early in his career: 1931, shortly after the death of labor agitator Mother Jones (Mary Harris Jones). It’s worth a listen.

For years I’ve been seeing the sign on the Interstate advising me that Mother Jones’ memorial is off Exit 44 in Mt. Olive, Ill., not far outside greater St. Louis, but it’s been a one-of-these-days destination. The day turned out to be July 27, 2014, our last day of the trip. I’d planned to have lunch at Crown Candy Kitchen in St. Louis, and remarkably enough, I didn’t have any trouble finding that establishment. But at about 1 on that Sunday afternoon, a line was out the door. Crown Candy might be good, but not that good.

So we pressed on into Illinois. I’d stopped for lunch in Litchfield some years ago, and had a good enough memory of that, so that was the target. But then I saw the Mother Jones sign, and a billboard for a diner in Mt. Olive, pop. 2,000-plus. A winning combo. We got off at Exit 44 and followed the signs to the Union Miners Cemetery, final resting place of Mother Jones and presumably a lot of mining men. This is the view from her memorial.

Union Miners CemeteryThe view of her memorial.

Mother Jones Memorial, July 2014Why Mt. Olive? The Illinois Labor History Society tells us that Mother Jones herself made the request a few years before her death.

A Special Request to the Miners of Mt. Olive, Illinois:

When the last call comes for me to take my final rest, will the miners see that I get a resting place in the same clay that shelters the miners who gave up their lives of the hills of Virden, Illinois on the morning of October 12, 1897 [sic], for their heroic sacrifice of [sic] their fellow men. They are responsible for Illinois being the best organized labor state in America. I hope it will be my consolation when I pass away to feel I sleep under the clay with those brave boys.

— Mother Jones

Mother Jones Memorial, July 2014The monument was dedicated in 1936, and according to the society, “The cash raised for the monument was $16,393.25. All of the labor involved was donated. It stands 22 ft. high on a 20 x 18 ft. base. It is built of 80 tons of pink Minnesota granite. The name of the sculptor is lost from the record.

“The dedication was, itself, a monumental event. Five special trains and 25 Greyhound buses brought celebrants to Mt. Olive. Others came in private cars or hitch-hiked to the town. The crowd was estimated at 50,000. There were 32,000 in the line of march.”

The memorial also includes plaques to men killed in the Virden Massacre, which Jones mentioned, a gun battle in 1898 between union men and company guards over whether strikebreakers were going to detrain at a major mine in Virden. The miners prevailed, in that no one got off the train, but a number of them died. The names of the dead I saw included E.W. Smith, E. Kraemmerer and Joseph Gitterle. “General” Alexander Bradley has a plaque too, though he died in 1918.

“Who were the miners who led this fight? The best known was Alexander Bradley, a 32-year-old mule driver who worked in the Mt. Olive mines,” says Illinois Labor History… By the mid-1890s, Bradley had traveled widely throughout the Midwest, tramping with other unemployed miners to Chicago and taking part in the famous march to Washington DC of Coxey’s Army of the unemployed of 1894.

“In the course of the strike, ‘General’ Bradley, as he became known, developed a well-earned reputation as a colorful and charismatic figure. Arriving with his ‘troops’ in Collinsville, for instance, Bradley sported ‘corduroy trousers, a light blue coat, white shirt, brown straw hat, toothpick (narrow and pointed) shoes, at least three emblems of secret societies and several rings on his fingers…[as well as] a light cane or a furled umbrella.’ ”

More about Virden – “Hotter than San Juan Hill” — is here.

The University of the Incarnate Word

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When I lived in San Antonio, we often drove by Incarnate Word College. I don’t ever remember visiting except (I think) one of its auditoriums for a high school mock UN one Saturday in 1978. (I was an Iraqi delegate, and eventually the Arab nations got together and walked out in protest over something or other.) These days the school is the University of the Incarnate Word, and it’s bigger than I realized: nearly 9,200 students, which makes it the largest Catholic university in Texas and the fourth-largest private university in the state.

The main campus measures 154 acres, and includes the previously mentioned Blue Hole, mainspring of the headwaters of the San Antonio River. On the way to the Blue Hole, we passed the mansion of George Brackenridge, which he called Fernridge. Brackenridge, a late 19th-century San Antonio business magnate, eventually sold the house and some land to the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word to found their school. (He also called the nearby area Alamo Heights, which he owned for a while, and donated the land for Brackenridge Park.) I assume the university uses it for events now.

Brackenridge Villa, July 2014Not far away is a bronze nun. Not something you see every day. She seems to be in teaching mode, for the benefit of the young lady bronze. According to the plaque, the work is called “Living the CCVI Mission” and is by Paul Tadlock of New Braunfels. It was dedicated in 2006.

Bronze NunA little further into campus is a grotto. I seem to be running across a fair number of grottos lately. The Incarnate Word grotto is a Lourdes-class grotto, built in 1904 by Fr. J.G. Bednarek, a priest from Chicago, to mark the 50th anniversary of the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. Apparently Fr. Bednarek taught at the school, but why he took an interest in building a replica of Lourdes there, I haven’t uncovered yet.

Incarnate Work grotto, July 2014Finally, there’s the first bridge over the San Antonio River, which is just south of the Blue Hole. The river’s pretty small at that point, where Olmos Creek joins the outflow from the Blue Hole. A rivulet in a ditch, really, but nice and leafy this time of year. Nearby is the 53-acre Headwaters Sanctuary. The sanctuary is the last remaining undeveloped property from the original 283-acres the sisters bought from George Brackenridge.

Incarnate Word campus, July 2014We decided it was too hot to walk on the sanctuary, which was still further. But since we’d come to the bridge, the thing to do was cross it.

Two Bridges of Madison County

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While in Winterset and environs, I took the opportunity to see two of the wooden covered bridges of The Bridges of Madison County fame. The movie, at least, seems to be relegated to a chick flick ghetto. Wrongly, I think. The story was at least as much about the visiting photographer – the man – as it was about the farm wife.

Movie or not, I liked the bridges. At least the two I saw.  It’s remarkable that such artful wooden construction has survived for more than a century, but they have. Ann was less impressed. When we visited the first structure, the Cutler-Donahoe Bridge, she said something like, “What’s so special about this bridge?” You have to be older to appreciate older things, maybe. (Though I’ve liked old things since I can remember. I’m peculiar that way.)

Cutler-Donahoe Bridge, July 2014

The Cutler-Donahoe Bridge dates from 1870, built by one Eli Cox. In 1970, it was moved to Winterset City Park, where we saw it. Length, 79 feet. Weight – and you’d think it would be lighter – 40 tons. Nice work, Eli.

Cutler-Donahoe Bridge interior

Not far from town is the Holliwell Bridge, in situ over the Middle River.

Holliwell Bridge, July 2014Ann stayed in the car for this one. The structure’s a little newer than Cutler-Donahoe, built by Benton Jones in 1880 and renovated in 1995 (on the occasion of filming the movie, I guess, but my sources don’t say so explicitly).

Middle River, Iowa, July 2014This is the view from the north end of the bridge, looking out on the Middle River, a tributary of the Des Moines River that runs through the county. Iowa’s nice and lush this year.

In the Midst of the Corn, the Middle of the USA

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In early August 1978, I took a bus from San Antonio to Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and back again, along with a busload of other high school students to attend the Mu Alpha Theta national meeting in that (seemingly) remote Wisconsin outpost. The route took us through Des Moines, which I only knew as the capital of Iowa from maps. We didn’t stop, but one of the teachers on the expedition, the admirable Paul Foerster, pointed out the Iowa state capitol as we went by – and noted the gilding on the dome, which he said was a very thin layer of gold. Indeed it is.

In later years, I figured I’d go back someday and take a look at the capitol more closely. Somehow, I never got around to it until July 12, 2014, our first day of driving, when I made a point of stopping there. We arrived just after 4 on that Saturday afternoon, right after the building closed (that’s what we get for having a leisurely lunch in Coralville). Ah, well. I had to make do with looking around the grounds, and seeing the magnificent gold dome up close from the outside.Iowa State Capitol 2014

The building was completed in 1884, repaired after a major fire in 1904, and exterior refurbishment was done in the last years of the 20th century. “The commanding feature is the central towering dome,” according to the State of Iowa (whose text, I note, was copied directly to Wiki). “This is constructed of steel and stone and covered with 23 carat gold. The gold leafing was replaced in 1964-1965 at a cost of $79,938.”Iowa State Capitol 2014

Since the capitol itself was closed, we took a look around the immediate vicinity. We would have done that anyway. The grounds sported a good number of memorials, as capitol grounds usually do. Including the modest and not-very-picturesque, such as this homely slab.

Spanish War memorial, IowaIt memorializes the Iowa men of the China Relief Expedition (you know, 55 Days in Peking), the War with Spain, and the Philippine Insurrection, and is dated April 23, 1898, to July 4, 1902.

This is a much larger memorial. It is, of course, the state Civil War memorial, or to use its correct title, the Iowa Soldiers and Sailors Monument.Iowa State Capitol soldier's memorial

The Iowa Department of Administrative Services tells us that “the State of Iowa erected this monument, funded partially by refunded war taxes, to commemorate Iowans who fought during the Civil War. The monument was approved in 1888, the cornerstone was laid in 1894, and the structure was completed two years later. Because formal controversy developed over the location and artistic details of the monument, nearly 50 years passed before its dedication in 1945.”

I didn’t realize it looking at the thing, but the equestrian statues – two of the four are visible in my picture – represent actual individuals: Marcellus M. Crocker, who led troops at Shiloh, Corinth, and Vicksburg; John M. Corse, who joined Grant at the siege of Vicksburg; Grenville M. Dodge, who built railroads to support Grant and accompanied Sherman on the March to the Sea, and Samuel R. Curtis, commander of the Union Army at Pea Ridge.

The other figures are allegorical, such as Victory at the top, common soldiers and sailors nearer to the base, and Mother Iowa.Mother Iowa 2014

Let’s just say that Mother Iowa, offering nourishment to Iowans in a way that only a mother can, looks a little odd to modern eyes.