One of the many casualties of the state budget disaster has been the closure of the Illinois State Museum, which is scheduled to reopen next month, with an admission charge. It is not the only time in its history that the state museum has been subjected to such treatment.
In 1887, the museum was thrown out of its quarters in the Illinois State Capitol during a dispute over space. Some of the museum collections were tossed into the basement, where they were buried in garbage.
Construction on the current state Capitol, which had begun with groundbreaking in 1867, halted a decade later when the state ran out of money. Many state offices and departments moved into the unfinished building anyway, including the Illinois State Library, which was slated to occupy a large room on the third floor of the west wing, behind the enormous painting of George Rogers Clark. Among other recent uses, that space was occupied as headquarters of the minority party.
However, on May 25, 1877, the legislature voted to establish the Illinois State Museum of Natural History in the west wing space intended for the state library. As a result, the library spent the next decade in temporary quarters.
This arrangement angered a string of secretaries of state, who by law also served as state librarian. During his years as secretary from 1873-81, George Harlow shrilly called for new quarters and more money for the state library, chiding the legislature that “not a day passes…that the library is not visited by a number of citizens who express surprise and regret that the state library is not such as to be worthy of the name it bears.”
Meanwhile, the state museum flourished in its new surroundings under curator Amos W. Worthen, who was well respected in state and national scientific circles. Worthen strongly opposed any move of the museum in favor of the library, challenging Harlow’s successor, Henry Dodge Dement.
Like Harlow, Dement was a devoted state librarian, and continued to increase the size and depth of the book collection despite the inferior housing. He also implemented a card catalog, much like those used in 20th-century libraries.
Still, the library was relegated to temporary facilities, and Dement’s patience was running out. When Worthen left town for an extended period in the summer of 1887, Dement directed the Illinois State Museum collections to be thrown out.
With a furniture moving company, Dement ordered the holdings of the museum to be moved out and dumped practically anywhere that space could be found in the Capitol. When Worthen returned, he found some of his collections sitting on the main floor of the building (today’s second floor).
Much of the rest, including the geological collections, was strewn around the basement. Some became buried by garbage piled by building workmen. Other portions of the collections were shoved into drawers and cases, with little regard for labels that identified the specimens.
Some researchers believe that Worthen was so distraught at the spectre of his beloved collections in such disarray that it actually contributed to his death the following May 6.
While the state museum was pushed aside, the long-suffering state library had evened the score, and would spend 36 years in its lovely new home. Still, there were plenty of problems, including a badly leaking roof, which then-Secretary of State James Rose compared “to a sieve.” Both the library and museum moved to the newly completed Centennial Building (now the Howlett Building) in 1923.
The unwitting rivalry between the library and museum for space would flare again in the decades to follow. Before the completion of the Centennial Building, it was believed that the library would be allowed to expand to the fifth and sixth floors of the new structure. But that space was instead given to the State Museum as “a temporary measure” that became permanent.
There, the museum established its famous Mammal Hall exhibits. In the state library, the floors of the new building buckled under the weight of the massive collections, proving early on that the Centennial Building was ill-suited. In 1924 – just a year after the move – the library was already calling for improved quarters.
By the 1950s, both the library and the museum had their eye on a piece of property south of the State Archives Building (now the Norton Building). Gov. William Stratton supported the museum’s need for a new facility, and on Jan. 5, 1961, ground was broken for the current Illinois State Museum.
The museum had originally wanted a building of $6-$10 million but settled for a structure half that size. Though the library gained the space left behind by the museum in the Centennial Building, it had again lost the fight for a new facility, which would not come until the dedication of the current library quarters, across Second Street east of the Capitol, in 1990.
Tom Emery is a freelance writer and historical researcher from Carlinville. He may be reached at 217-710-8392 or [email protected].