PEORIA MAGAZINE October 2022

P E O R I A R E T R O

PEORIA’S ARCHITECTS AND THE JEWELS THEY LEFT BEHIND

BY LINDA SMITH BROWN

REEVES

HEWITT

KLEIN

BAILLIE

DOYLE

FOLEY

W e go by them every day, the treasures left to us by professionals of a bygone era. Peoria has been home to many architects who left their professional mark on this city by creating public buildings still in use for governing, learning, entertainment and worship.

The city had invited al l local architects to submit plans for the new municipal building and seven firms responded, said Tim Hartneck, who has been studying local architectural history as an avocation for 50 years. He tells of the original design from William Reeves and John Baillie being more in the Italian Renaissance style, with a flat roof. The city went back to the duo, asking them to resubmit their renderings with a raised roof. The firm respondedwith ornamented gables and a cupola bell tower, giving it a Flemish Renaissance design. Reeves and Baillie got the job. Made of red sandstone from Lake Superior, construction on what would become Peoria City Hall began in 1897 on a budget of $100,000. The building was dedicated Jan. 5, 1899, at a final cost of $235,000 – almost $8.4 million in today’s dollars. “Looking at architectural periodicals from that time and what was popular,

the building could have been anything, from Romanesque to Beaux Arts,” said Hartneck. “They chose big and showy.” Besides Peoria City Hall, the Reeves and Baillie firm designed the McLean County Courthouse (now housing the McLean County Museum of History), Spalding Institute, the coliseums at the Illinois and Iowa state fairgrounds, St. Bernard’s Church, Douglas School (no longer standing) and the original Harri son School. In all, they designed at least 60 schools throughout central Illinois, said Hartneck, as well as a number of Peoria homes that are still standing. Another structure of histor ic significance that periodically hits the news is the Madison Theatre. Designed by Peoria architect Frederick J. Klein, the building opened at Main Street and Madison Avenue in 1920 as a silent picture theater, with an Italian Renaissance exterior and classically beautiful plasterwork on the interior walls.

OFTEN THESE ARCHITECTS 'CHOSE BIG AND SHOWY'

— Tim Hartneck

The local public building getting the most glory in recent years is Peoria City Hall. In 2017, it was chosen “best city hall” in the country via an online competition conducted by the group Engaging Local Government Leaders. Coincidentally, it was through a competition that the original architects of the esteemed building were chosen.

54 OCTOBER 2022 PEORIA MAGAZINE