The Illinois & Michigan Canal Visitors Center is located in the F.W. Koenig Building on 1st Street in downtown LaSalle. The two-story, brick commercial building was constructed in 1910 by F.W. Koenig, whose Koenig Brothers business sold buggies, harnesses and later automobiles at this site through 1929. Starting in 1932, Gamble Stores Auto Accessories occupied the building. The store was renamed Gambles Hardware in 1954, and continued to operate until 1959. Several other LaSalle businesses have since called the building home.
The F.W. Koenig Building was designed by Victor Andre Matteson (1872-1951), a Chicago and LaSalle based architect. The Visitors Center opened in 2008, with canal boat tours beginning later that year.
LaSalle is located in north central Illinois. The estimated population of LaSalle in 2019 was 8,986.
Tags: LaSalle LaSalle County Illinois IL Commercial Architecture Architect Victor Andre Matteson F.W. Koenig Building Koenig Brothers Illinois & Michigan Canal I&M Canal Visitors Center Lock 16 Cafe & Visitors Center 754 1st St. Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
A view of The Volunteer, a 76-foot replica of a 19th-century canal boat that operates on a restored section of the Illinois & Michigan Canal which once connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. Visitors who board the canal boat at Lock 14, located just steps south of downtown LaSalle, are treated to a ride on this mule-pulled 1840s replica canal boat.
When it opened in 1848, the Illinois & Michigan Canal helped establish Chicago as the transportation hub of the United States. Its function was largely replaced by the wider and shorter Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in 1900, and it ceased transportation operations with the completion of the Illinois Waterway in 1933.
In 1964, the Illinois & Michigan Locks and Towpath, a collection of eight engineering structures and segments between Lockport and LaSalle-Peru, was designated a National Historic Landmark (NHL). In 1984, the Illinois & Michigan Canal was designated by Congress as the first of what are now 55 National Heritage Areas (aka National Heritage Corridors) in the United States.
LaSalle is located in north central Illinois. The estimated population of LaSalle in 2019 was 8,986.
Tags: LaSalle LaSalle County Illinois IL Canal Waterway Illinois & Michigan Canal Canal Boat Lock Lock 14 Basin Illinois & Michigan Locks and Towpath National Historic Landmark NHL Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage Area Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
Hegeler Carus Mansion, LaSalle, Illinois
The Hegeler Carus Mansion is one of the Midwest's great Second Empire structures. The 57 room mansion was designed in 1874 by noted Chicago architect William W. Boyington. Among Boyington's other contributions are the Chicago Water Tower (which survived the Great Chicago Fire), Joliet State Penitentiary (Blues Brothers shooting location) and completing the Illinois State Capitol Building.
This magnificent structure was built for Edward C. Hegeler, a partner in the nearby Matthiessen Hegeler Zinc Company, and is an example of high artistic achievement in architecture and interior design. The Hegeler Carus Mansion was initially home to Hegeler, his wife Camilla Hegeler, and their large family. In 1887, Hegeler launched the Open Court Publishing Company to provide a forum for the discussion of philosophy, science and religion, and hired the German scholar Dr. Paul Carus to serve as managing editor. The company was located on the first level of the house.
In 1888, Carus married Hegelers’ daughter Mary. The mansion is where Carus wrote over 70 books, countless articles and served as editor of two scholarly publications, The Open Court and The Monist. Carus invited editorial contributions from the likes of Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, Leo Tolstoy, F. Max Muller, Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell. Carus hosted a historical meeting of East and West immediately after the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, bringing together eminent Oriental religious scholars. This led to Open Court's publishing program emphasizing classics of eastern religious thought. Zen scholar D. T. Suzuki spent 11 years in LaSalle working with Carus on this program.
After Carus, who had lived with his family in the mansion for many years, died in 1919, the house was occupied mainly by his children. In 2001, its sole resident was 99-year-old Alwin Carus, one of six children of Paul and Mary, who died in 2004.
In 1995 the Hegeler Carus Foundation was created. That year, the mansion was put on the National Register of Historic Places. In recent years, members of the Carus family and others have done much restoration of the mansion. In 2007, the Hegeler Carus Mansion was designated a National Historic Landmark for being of national significance because of its architect, William W. Boyington; its interior designer, August Fiedler, and as the birthplace of Open Court Publishing Company, an American center of philosophical, scientific, and religious dialogue.
In 2008, the foundation launched a project to reassemble the mansion's gymnasium and its apparatus, considered to be a unique surviving example of a late 19th-century physical culture facility. In celebration of the 2018 Illinois Bicentennial, Hegeler Carus Mansion was selected as one of the Illinois 200 Great Places by the American Institute of Architects Illinois component (AIA Illinois).
LaSalle is a city in north central Illinois that was originally platted in 1837. The population of La Salle was estimated to be 9,064 in 2018. LaSalle and its twin city, Peru, make up the core of the Illinois Valley. Due to their combined dominance of the zinc processing industry in the early 1900s, they were collectively named "Zinc City."
Source: Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegeler_Carus_Mansion
Tags: LaSalle LaSalle County Illinois IL Hegeler Carus Mansion Edward C. Hegeler Matthiessen Hegeler Zinc Company Open Court Publishing Company Dr. Paul Carus Hegeler Carus Foundation National Register of Historic Places NRHP Reference # 95000989 National Historic Landmark Architectural Style Second Empire Architect William W. Boyington