Photograph as originally submitted to this page in the Historical Marker Database www.HMdb.org. Click on photo to resize in browser. Scroll down to see metadata.

Photographer: Allen C. Browne
Taken: November 13, 2016
Caption: The Chicago Cultural Center
Formerly the Chicago Public Library
& GAR Hall
Additional Description: “The Chicago Public Library was established in 1872, after British citizens (including Queen Victoria) sent a care package of thousands of books to our famously burned-out town. The library collection was initially kept in a water tank on LaSalle Street, and then in a series of temporary quarters. In 1883 the City Council picked a plot of land, on Michigan Avenue between Washington and Randolph, as its future site. Then a small park, the plot was already historic—it had once been the home of early Chicago settler Jean Baptiste Beaubien. It was also contested: the state legislature gave a Civil War veterans' group part of it as the site for a memorial hall. The dispute, which went to court, ended in an agreement that the building would be shared, split into one part library, one part Grand Army of the Republic War Memorial.” — Deanna Isaacs, A vanity plate for the Chicago Cultural Center?, The Chicago Reader, December 30, 2013.
Submitted: November 20, 2016, by Allen C. Browne of Silver Spring, Maryland.
Database Locator Identification Number: p370007
File Size: 2.170 Megabytes

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