Kate Sturges Buckingham was one of the great women in Chicago's history.

Kate Buckingham died in her home at 2450 North Lakeview Avenue on December 12, 1937, at 79. She was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Zanesville, Ohio, alongside her parents, brother, and sister.

Kate Sturges Buckingham

In announcing Miss Kate Sturges Buckingham's passing, the Chicago Tribune noted, "She was godmother to the Art Institute; the collections for which it's most famous were her gifts. She was the godmother of the opera; at the time of her death, she was a guarantor. She was godmother to some 200 or more music and art students. She was a heavy donor to the Field Museum, numerous Chicago charities, and many nameless Chicagoans."

Despite being one of the wealthiest women in the United States and one of the most generous individuals in a city blessed with a long procession of altruistic citizens, Miss Buckingham preferred that no credit come to her for her many contributions. Later in life, she ordered her name removed from the Social Register, severely limiting her circle of friends.

Miss Buckingham was born on August 3, 1858, the eldest daughter of Ebenezer and Lucy Buckingham in Zanesville, Ohio. Her mother's father, Solomon Sturges, brought the family to Chicago in the 1850s. At that time, the Sturges and Buckingham families controlled a string of grain elevators in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and along the Erie Canal. It was sound business sense to move to Chicago, and in 1850, Miss Buckingham's great uncle, Alvah Buckingham, constructed the first grain elevator in the city.

Everything that the Buckingham and Sturges families owned was obliterated in the Great Fire of 1871, their homes on the north side of the city, their grain elevators along the river, the first of many tragedies that would become a motif that ran through Miss Buckingham's life.

A second Chicago Fire in 1874 gave rise to one of the earliest examples of Miss Buckingham's generosity. After that second conflagration, the 15-year-old Kate launched a drive to raise funds for a Christmas party to bring some measure of joy to children in the Cook County hospital.

The Tribune describes the effort... "On Christmas Eve, the Christmas tree, heavily laden with gifts, was set up in the children's ward, and its many candles were lit. Tragedy swiftly followed. The burning candles started a fire through some mishap, and the tree and all its Christmas largesse burned down. Bur young Miss Buckingham, nothing deterred, set forth to raise a new amount of money, enough for gifts for each child. And did."

The family relocated their home to Prairie Avenue, the city's most select street, and the family business, J & E Buckingham, prospered beyond measure. In 1882, Miss Buckingham's father also built a grand home in Lake Forest. Still, despite its location on a bluff above Lake Michigan, the family continued to make its principal home in Chicago.

It was in the Prairie Avenue home that Kate and her sister, Lucy Maud, were educated. It was in this home that Lucy Buckingham died in 1889, and it was there that Kate's sister became increasingly incapacitated. From the house, Clarence Buckingham, Kate's brother, and their father expanded the family's enterprises to include banking, insurance, steel manufacturing, and real estate.

The family's affiliation with the Art Institute began in the 1890s when Clarence, impressed by the Japanese art exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, began collecting Japanese prints. Ebenezer died in 1911, Clarence died just over a year later, and Lucy Maud lived in increasingly poorer health until 1920. All the losses must have further isolated Kate, a woman left alone in a house that her mother, father, sister, and brother had shared for her whole adult life.

She continued to collect art, though, following her brother's lead. Clarence had been a governing member of the Art Institute of Chicago for three decades and a member of the Board of Trustees for a dozen. [Scultz & Hast] After her sister's death, Kate Buckingham gave her entire collection of Japanese prints, etchings and engravings, Chinese pottery and porcelain, Persian miniatures, Chinese ritual bronzes, and Italian silver, and English lusterware to the institute. [The Frick Collection.]

She also furnished the Art Institute's Gothic room in memory of her sister and finished the Jacobean Room at the museum in the name of her parents. In 1925, she also gave her brother's entire collection of fourteen hundred sheets of Japanese prints to the museum.

Miss Buckingham also wrote a check to the Art Institute to be used for a great monument to Alexander Hamilton. Of course, her most memorable contribution was the donation that allowed the construction of the great [Buckingham] Fountain in Grant Park, dedicated to her brother, along with a $300,000 endowment to provide for its maintenance.

The Buckingham Fountain was donated by Kate Buckingham in honor of her brother Clarence in 1927. The fountain was the largest in the world when it was built and is still one of the largest. Edward H. Bennett designed the monument with French sculptor Marcel Loyau and engineer Jacques H. Lambert.

The fountain was meant to represent Lake Michigan and the four states that touch the lake - Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. The fountain is constructed of Georgia pink marble. To give a vision of the fountain's size - the bottom pool is 280 feet in diameter, and the 2nd basin is 103 feet. The upper basin is 25 feet wide, and the basin is 25 feet above the lower basin.

But here is something else that resulted from her generosity, which most people are unaware of. On February 12, 1912, Kate Buckingham bought a property of 81 acres in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts. It was not far from where a 55-room "cottage," which her father had built near Pittsfield, Massachusetts, stood until it burned to the ground in 1899.

On the new piece of land, Kate Buckingham built Bald Hill Farm. After her death, the farm, to which another 80 acres had been added, was sold to Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky. Mr. Koussevitzky was the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a man who dreamed of creating a summer musical festival for the symphony. In 1978, after the death of Koussevitzky, the organization purchased the property, and it now lies at the heart of the Tanglewood Music Festival.

When she died, Kate Buckingham left a half million dollars to friends and relatives. She left another $126,000 to her maid, chauffeur, children of her caretaker, her nurses, doormen, and elevator men at the Lakeview cooperative building. In today's dollars, those gifts would total over nine million dollars. She left another $3.1 million for art and cultural organizations, including two million for the Art Institute of Chicago.

The Tribune article that conveyed the news of Kate Buckingham's death ended with "a well-authenticated anecdote" dealing with "one of her rare visits to the Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company, in which she was an important stockholder."

"On this occasion," the story went, "she stopped at the cashier's cage to get money. She had no identification papers, and the teller asked if anyone in the bank could identify her. She cast a brief, flashing glance around the nearby desks. 'They're all dead,' she snapped."

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Chicago's First Roller Skating Rink.

The first roller skating rink in Chicago was the "Chicago Roller Skating Rink" located at Congress and Michigan which is in the Chicago Loop area. It opened in November 1880.

Rumor has it that the Chicago Roller Skating Rink was the roller skating venue during the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition because there was no rink on the fairgrounds.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

A Manual 'Ferris' Wheel at the Old Catlin Illinois Fairgrounds Kills a Young Girl in 1876.

The Ferris wheel[1] originally called 'Ups and Downs,' among other names, was without power and was operated by men who manually pushed the cars around as they came to them. The directors of the fair were afraid the “contraption,” as they termed it, was unsafe and refused to give the owner permission to operate it on the fairgrounds.

The man who had charge of the wheel placed it just outside the fence which enclosed the fairground and on the first day an attempt was made to operate it — it collapsed.

An 'Ups and Downs' ride at an unknown location. The arms extend a couple of
feet beyond the carriages served as handles for manually turning the ride.

One person, a young girl, was killed and several other people were injured. The owner escaped by mounting a horse and riding swiftly away. He was never apprehended and escaped facing a charge of manslaughter.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

---

[NOTE] The first Catlin Fair was a one-day event organized in 1850 and held on the site of the First Presbyterian Church. It was moved for the third year to Butler’s Point [2], and continued there for 40 more years without profit. 

[1] Although this article is about 1876, I use the term "Ferris wheel" (aka Observation Wheel) which was 1st coined at the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, is used for the benefit of the readers visualization. 

[2] Butler's Point - James Butler settled on land which lay just to the west of Catlin in 1819 and the area became known as Butler's Point. When a railway station was built where Catlin is now located, trade and residences drifted to better facilities, and Butler's Point was lost in Catlin. This village was named Catlin on account of that being the name of one of the officers of the Wabash railroad. 

A downtown Chicago museum no one seems to know about, and, you can just walk-in!

The Chicago Cultural Center at 78 East Washington Street opened in 1897 as Chicago's first central public library. 

The Main Chicago Public Library. Circa 1898

The building is a Chicago Landmark that houses the city's official reception venue where the Mayor of Chicago has welcomed Presidents and royalty, diplomats and community leaders. It is located in the Loop, across Michigan Avenue from Millennium Park. It was converted in 1977 to an arts and culture center at the instigation of Commissioner of Cultural Affairs Lois Weisberg.

The city's central library is now housed across the Loop in the spacious, post-modernist Harold Washington Library Center at 400 South State Street which opened in 1991.

The Harold Washington Library Center.

As the nation's first free municipal cultural center, the Chicago Cultural Center is considered one of the most comprehensive arts showcases in the United States. Each year, the Chicago Cultural Center features more than 1,000 programs and exhibitions covering a wide range of the performing, visual and literary arts. It also serves as headquarters for the Chicago Children's Choir.

The stunning landmark building is home to two magnificent stained-glass domes, as well as free music, dance and theater events, films, lectures, art exhibitions and family events. Completed in 1897 as Chicago’s central public library, the building was designed to impress and to prove that Chicago had grown into a sophisticated metropolis. The country’s top architects and craftsmen used the most sumptuous materials, such as rare imported marbles, polished brass, fine hardwoods, and mosaics of Favrile glass, mother-of-pearl and colored stone, to create an architectural showplace.

Located on the south side of the building, the world’s largest stained glass Tiffany dome ― 38 feet in diameter with some 30,000 pieces of glass ― was restored to its original splendor in 2008.

On the northside of the building is a 40-foot-diameter dome with some 50,000 pieces of glass in an intricate Renaissance pattern, designed by Healy & Millet.

FURTHER READING: The History of the Main Chicago Public Library.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

---

PHOTO GALLERY

---

On a personal note: 

In the late 1960s I visited the Main Chicago Library to complete a grammar school assignment. For those who remember, there were two hallways running north-south from entrance to entrance. In those hallways were displays of cultural arts; sometimes paintings, sometimes display cabinets lined both hallways with collections of "stuff." I was lucky enough to be there during the exhibit of Cracker Jack (1896) toys thru time. I was a vast collection, over 2,000 toys, and took all the cabinets in both long hallways. 

Pot Metal Toys

Cracker Jack originally included a small "mystery" novelty item referred to as a "Toy Surprise" in each box. The tagline for Cracker Jack was originally "Candy-coated popcorn, peanuts and a prize." Prizes were included in every box of Cracker Jack beginning in 1912. Early "toy surprises" included rings, plastic figurines, booklets, stickers, temporary tattoos, and decoder rings.

1960s-70s Plastic Toys

The prizes attained pop-culture status with the catch-phrase "came in a Cracker Jack box," particularly when applied sarcastically to engagement and wedding rings of dubious investment value.

The Bloody Autumn at Nauvoo (Mormon Town), Illinois in 1845.

---

In historical writing and analysis, PRESENTISM introduces present-day ideas and perspectives into depictions or interpretations of the past. Presentism is a form of cultural bias that creates a distorted understanding of the subject matter. Reading modern notions of morality into the past is committing the error of presentism. Historical accounts are written by people and can be slanted, so I try my hardest to present fact-based and well-researched articles.

Facts don't require one's approval or acceptance.

I present [PG-13] articles without regard to race, color, political party, or religious beliefs, including Atheism, national origin, citizenship status, gender, LGBTQ+ status, disability, military status, or educational level. What I present are facts — NOT Alternative Facts — about the subject. You won't find articles or readers' comments that spread rumors, lies, hateful statements, and people instigating arguments or fights.

FOR HISTORICAL CLARITY

When I write about the INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, I follow this historical terminology:

• The use of old commonly used terms, disrespectful today, i.e., REDMAN or REDMEN, SAVAGES, and HALF-BREED are explained in this article.

Writing about AFRICAN-AMERICAN history, I follow these race terms:

• "NEGRO" was the term used until the mid-1960s.
• "BLACK" started being used in the mid-1960s.
• "AFRICAN-AMERICAN" [Afro-American] began usage in the late 1980s.

— PLEASE PRACTICE HISTORICISM —

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PAST IN ITS OWN CONTEXT.

 

---

Joseph Smith, who founded the Mormon Church in 1830, lived with his followers in Missouri, where they had various conflicts with locals, including an armed skirmish with the state militia. In 1838, Governor Lilburn Boggs signed a military order directing that the Mormons be expelled or exterminated: "The Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be driven from the state or exterminated, if necessary, for the public good."

Smith and the Mormons fled across the Mississippi to Nauvoo, Illinois (aka Mormon Town), quickly becoming the second most populous town in the 1840s. The population was such that Nauvoo rivaled Chicago for the "biggest city in Illinois." One statistical comparison is that in the fall of 1845, Nauvoo's violent crime rate likely surpassed Chicago's.

Nauvoo: The Mormon Temple is in the background. Date unknown.

In 1845, crime in Chicago was such that the city had only four men responsible for keeping the peace: one marshal and three assistants. The Nauvoo police force, in January of 1845, numbered 500 men. While there were extenuating circumstances in Nauvoo necessitating many peacekeepers, in the fall of 1845, Nauvoo's policemen were often the source of violent crime.

There were conflicts and tensions in Nauvoo as well. When a local newspaper printed editorials claiming that the religious leader was a fraud, Smith sent a group of followers to destroy the newspaper office. He was then arrested and sent to jail, where a lynch mob tracked him down and killed him.

The Mormon Temple in Nauvoo, Illinois. c.1845

Brigham Young quickly took command of the church and its followers and tried to stifle dissent and banish his rivals. The killing of Phineas Wilcox was part of his consolidation of power. 

In his book, One Nation Under Gods, Richard Abanes details some of these events from September 1845. He writes:

“A halt to the violent conflict between Mormons and anti-Mormons lasted but a brief period of time after Smith was killed. Armed mobs of Illinoisans, incited by endless newspaper articles covering Mormon issues, soon began to conduct raids against isolated church settlements. Mormons were threatened, Latter-day Saints' homes were burned, rumors about various Mormon atrocities circulated, and militias were called out by the governor. Church dissenters and critics, meanwhile, continued to expose aspects of Mormonism that church leaders did not want revealed. The Saints retaliated with verbal intimidation, religious condemnation, and acts of physical violence… More disturbing were the many murders, vicious beatings, and intimidating assaults perpetrated by the Nauvoo police against perceived enemies of the church. Policeman Alan J. Stout summed up the rational of the Saints on these matters, explaining that to his mind such activity was nothing more than avenging the blood of Joseph and Hyrum. In reference to the Mormon dissenters remaining in Nauvoo, Stout expressed a common sentiment: ‘I feel like cutting their throats.’” 

Here are just a few accounts of those violent crimes from September of 1845:

On September 14, the Nauvoo police had three men flogged because they were not in good fellowship with the church.

On September 16, Phineas Wilcox was stabbed to death by fellow Mormons in Nauvoo because he was believed to be a Christian spy. Wilcox was last seen as he was led toward the Masonic Hall by three Mormons. Wilcox's stepfather, Orrin Rhodes, inquired after him and searched for him for a week, concluding, "Wilcox has been murdered by… Mormons."

Phineas Wilcox

Frank Worrell, a Carthage Jail guard who failed to protect Joseph Smith, was murdered on September 16 and shot out of his saddle by Porter Rockwell.

Again on September 16, Rockwell also killed four unnamed "anti-Mormons" at Highland Branch, near Warsaw.

Andrew Daubenheyer disappeared on the road to Carthage on September 18. He was later found buried in a shallow grave near a campsite on the Carthage road "with a musket ball through the back of his head." In due time Daubenheyer was given a proper burial with a headstone that reads, "Killed by the Mormons."

The Andrew Daubenheyer Headstone.

Later in September, "several Saints captured a young man called McBracking," accused of burning Mormon homes. McBracking's friends found his body the next day and reported, "After shooting him in two or three places, they cut his throat from ear to ear, stabbed him through the heart, cut off one ear & horribly mutilated other parts of his body."

Mormon apostles Heber C. Kimball and Orson Hyde ordered the killing of apostate Lambert Symes, who subsequently "disappeared without a trace."

Nauvoo's bloody autumn of 1845 could have been much worse, but as it was, it clearly demonstrated that the Mormons and non-Mormons of Hancock County would never learn to live together in peace. "Therefore," wrote Brigham Young, "we propose to leave this county next spring, for some point so remote, that there will not need to be a difficulty with the people and ourselves…." 

Tensions with other communities continued to escalate, and a year later, over 2,000 armed anti-Mormons marched on Nauvoo. Young decided it was no longer wise to stay in the area, leading his flock west in 1846. 

Completing a treacherous thousand-mile exodus, an ill and exhausted Brigham Young and fellow members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints arrived in Utah's Great Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. 

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.