Top Ten Most Endangered Landmarks in Galena
- Galena City Beautiful
- Nov 19, 2020
- 3 min read
The Museum Estimates Another 80-100 Historic Properties Are also Threatened and in Jeopardy of Imminent Destruction "It’s simply shocking neglect, ignorance, and disregard on behalf of city officials,” states Ioannis Karalias, Museum Vice President, The Chicago Athenaeum
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS (DECEMBER 1, 2019) —In a city that prides itself for historic preservation, and with one of the largest collections of architecturally significant buildings listed on the U.S. National Parks Service's National Register of Historic Places, it is astonishing to comprehend that many historic city properties are tragically under the threat of deterioration and eventual loss and decay.
Founded in 1826 in the Northwest corner of the State of Illinois, the City of Galena is celebrated as one of the most well-preserved cities in the United States.
Galena escaped the plight of “urban renewal” during the 1960s and 1970s, which devastated most 19th-Century American cities, particularly in the Midwest, reducing thousands of towns to empty, boarded-up Main Streets and mostly ruble.
Galena’s leaders during the 1950s through the 1970s, Mayor Dr. Ray Evan Logan and Mayor Frank Einsweiler, in particular, fought heroically to save the City of Galena from total destruction, while initiating a well-orchestrated plan to restore and preserve several thousand homes and commercial buildings and saving the city’s rich architecture and historical heritage.
That was an era of great civic pride and great civic responsibility.
The visionary efforts by Galena’s past Mayors Logan and Einsweiler are responsible for the development of Galena as the second largest tourist attraction in the State of Illinois. The city attracts approximately 1.2 million visitors a year, making tourism the city’s first and primary commercial industry.
TripAdvisor lists Galena among its top-ten "Charming Small Towns” in the United States.
However, in a recent three-year study of Galena’s historic properties, conducted by The Chicago Athenaeum for a new 400-page book to be published this coming January, entitled Landmark Galena, the Museum’s curators have determined that many key Galena buildings, monuments, and city infrastructure are in a deplorable state of disrepair and threatened with ultimate extinction.
Entering this second decade of the 21st-Century, vacant properties, vacant lots, eroding houses, derelict commercial buildings, and crumbling infrastructure have signaled an urban crisis in the historic town of Galena.
From the study, the Museum has issued a “List of Galena’s Top Ten Endangered Landmarks.”
The Top Ten Endangered List includes:
• St. Mary's Parochial School (Young Street) designed by architect Samuel Charles Mazzuchelli, circa 1856
• U.S. Marine Hospital designed by architect Alexander Hamilton Bowman, 1857-1869
• Single Gable Cottage Residence at 505 Dewey Avenue, circa 1880
• River Boat Storage Building at 423 Broadway Street, 1837
• Atchinson Row House at 606 South Bench Street, 1830-1839
• 505 Park Avenue Residence, circa 1860
• Interstate Street and Residential Light and Power Plant ,1909
• Captain Nicholas Dowling Tomb, St. Michael’s Cemetery, 1861
• John Burton Flour Mill, West Stagecoach Trail, circa 1830-1850
• Historic Perry Street, circa 1850
In addition to the Top Ten, the Museum estimates that there are approximately 30-40 other neglected landmark properties under the threat of disintegrating and falling into ruin and decay—not to mention the tragic and wasting-away condition of Galena’s historic cemeteries.
"These dying landmark buildings in their continued and years-long endangered state are also a public eyesore and contribute to unwanted and unwarranted urban blight within the historic city," states architect, Ioannis Karalias, Museum Vice President, The Chicago Athenaeum.
“Unlike in previous decades, there is a leadership vacuum in Galena today,” he continues.
"The City and its administration have inadequently policed the preservation of these important historical buildings. There is neither supervision nor even a slight awareness of any problem."
“And combined with an uncertified city engineer, who is directly responsible for all city landmarks, and an lame Galena Historic Preservation Commission, this formula makes for an ultimate urban disaster in the town's near future.”
“Many of these vacant buildings have long-time, expired building permits on their doors and fines should have been accessed years ago on derelict property owners to prohibit further and future deterioration.”
“In the majority of cities today, violation fines are first issued and imposed; and if the property neglect continues, ultimately the buildings are seized by eminent domain and resold to new, responsible individuals who will take care of these properties: restore, renovate, and preserve them for the public good.”
“This is not the case in Galena,” states Karalias. "It’s simply shocking neglect and disregard on behalf of city officials.”
“All of this is very contrary to the ordinary citizens of Galena who respect, love, and cherish the city’s architecture, history, and heritage,” Karalias adds.
“For years, the community in general has complained to the city administration about the condition and state of many of these endangered buildings, which has fallen totally on deaf ear.”
“What the City of Galena needs today is another visionary Mayor Einsweiler to reverse the trend of these endangered landmarks and to enact a real preservation and restoration plan to rescue and maintain the city’s most beloved buildings and monuments.”
“And until that leadership arrives, Galena’s rich architectural gems and its irreplaceable historic treasures will only continue to regretfully sink, crumble, decline, and one day might disappear.”
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