Urn adornment from pre-Chicago Fire Cook County Courthouse - Chicago, IL
Posted by: 
adgorn
N 41° 55.133 W 087° 38.170
16T E 447246 N 4640965
Finial from pre-Chicago Fire Cook County Courthouse, located east of N. Lincoln Park West and southwest of the Lincoln Park Cultural Center.
Waymark Code: WMX45T
Location: Illinois, United States
Date Posted: 11/24/2017
Views: 0
In 1835, at the northeast corner of Clark & Randolph Streets in Chicago, stood Chicago's first courthouse. Chicagoans demanded a far grander county courthouse and city hall as the city's population swelled over 30,000. The answer was a tall two-story building erected in 1853 from plans by John M. Van Osdel, Chicago's first architect. It stood in the center of the block bounded by Randolph, Clark, Washington, and LaSalle Streets, the site of all future Chicago city halls. It was the bell atop this building that sounded the alarm of the Great Fire of 1871, until the building itself was consumed. All county records from the inception of the city to that date were lost.
Installed in Lincoln Park sometime before 1901, this limestone finial survived the Chicago Fire. A whole series of such finials once lined the upper parapet of the old 1853 City Hall and County Court House Building. They were part of an addition built in the late 1869s and designed by architects Jenney & Loring. Although the walls of the “fireproof” wings were still standing after the Great Fire of 1871, the interior was entirely destroyed.
Since the time of the Great Fire of 1871, the City Hall and County Building has been replaced twice. Today, a matching surviving finial can be found at Wilder Park in Elmhurst, and other adornments of the old City Hall and County Court House rooftop can be found near the Charles Dawes House in Evanston, IL.
I waymarked the other two as well. See:
(
visit link)
and
(
visit link)