December 14, 1937 – Kate Sturges Buckingham dies at her home at 2450 Lake
View Avenue at the age of 79. The Chicago Daily Tribune observes, “To tell
the life story of Kate Buckingham would be to tell the story of Chicago.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, December 15, 1937] Buckingham’s great uncle, Alvah Buckingham,
built the first grain elevator in the city in 1850. In 1855 her maternal grandfather, Solomon
Sturges, founded the storage elevator business that lay at the heart of the
family fortune. That empire crashed to
the ground in 1971 when the Great Fire destroyed the elevators on the
river. Rebuilding followed and in 1877
the family moved into a new home on Prairie Avenue, soon to become the most
prestigious street in the city. When Buckingham’s
father died in 1911, he left an estate of over four million dollars. Two years later Buckingham’s brother,
Clarence, died, followed seven years later by her sister, Lucy Maud. Kate Buckingham became involved in the Art
Institute of Chicago partly as a result of her brother’s influence. Clarence Buckingham had been a governing
member of the institution for 30 years and a trustee for a dozen at the time of
his death. Lucy Maud Buckingham had also
assembled a collection of over 400 pieces of Chinese art, which Kate Buckingham
presented to the Art Institute in Lucy’s name.
She also presented a collection of medieval sculpture, tapestries, and
decorative arts to the AIC in 1924 in memory of her sister. Her greatest gifts – Buckingham Fountain and
the Alexander Hamilton monument – were given as a memorial without her name
attached. At the dedication of the
Hamilton monument not far from her final home on Lake View Avenue, Chauncey
McCormick said of Buckingham, that she had “a possessive love of Chicago, and
she wanted to beautify the city for the people.” [Schultz
and Hast. Women Building Chicago
1790-1990: A Biographical Dictionary] You can find additional information on Buckingham and her family here.
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