October 26, 1905 – A crowd of several hundred
people watch as the cornerstone for the new Illinois Athletic clubhouse on
Michigan Avenue is laid. The president
of the club, Second Ward alderman William Hale Thompson, introduces the current mayor,
Edward Dunne, who with a silver trowel in one hand touches the cornerstone
twice with a silver mallet. The
dignitaries move across the street to the Art Institute’s Fullerton Hall where
“addresses prophesying a bright future for the young club” [Chicago Daily Tribune, October 27, 1905] are made. Colonel Frank Lowden, who in the future will
become a U.S. representative from Illinois and, later, the state’s governor,
says, “The poor man with health and physique is far richer than the millionaire
with dyspepsia. Health is a man’s chief
asset. Men live cleaner and better lives
if they are addicted to athletics.
Nothing means more to Chicago morally or physically than the institution
which tends to promote the resources of the body.” The building, designed by Barnett, Hayes, and
Barnett, will cost a half-million dollars to complete. Eighty years later $25,000,000 will be spent
on a six-story addition, and in 1992 the Art Institute of Chicago will purchase
the structure. In the 1910 photo above the Illinois Athletic Club building stands to the right of the Lakeview Building.
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