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In 1856, five leading citizens gathered in the Marine Bank Building office of J. Young
Scammon at Lake and LaSalle Streets "for the purpose of organizing a Historical Society."
Early the following year, one of these men, state representative I.N. Arnold,
successfully introduced a bill to the legislature incorporating the Chicago Historical
Society--only twenty years after the city itself had been incorporated. With its collections
growing, the Society formed a Building Committee in November of 1864 that soon
purchased from Arnold a lot at the northwest corner of Dearborn and Ontario, on which it
proposed to erect a headquarters that would be "solid, substantial, and fireproof." The
architects Burling & Company prepared the design at the upper left, facing along Ontario
Street, though only the west third was finished by the time of the opening on November
19, 1868. This structure, and virtually all of its contents, were lost to the fire. The balance
was stored in property owned by Scammon that was destroyed by the fire of 1874.
The Society was inactive for three years following the fire of 1871, and it was not until
1877 that it opened a "temporary" building on the old site, which was its home for the next
fifteen years. In 1892 the cornerstone for the new "permanent" home at Ontario and
Dearborn (now occupied by the nightclub Excalibur) was laid. In 1932 the Society moved
into a much larger Georgian building (photography by Hedrich-Blessing) on its current
location at Clark Street and North Avenue. The front entrance then faced east into Lincoln
Park. In 1971, in time for the centennial of the fire, a modern addition (photograph by
Harr, Hedrich-Blessing) was placed on the Clark Street side, which became the main
entrance, and in 1986 this addition was expanded and considerably modified by a
brick-and-glass facade.
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Tending the Fire 