Landmarks Illinois Announces Historic Preservation Grant Recipients for First Half of 2019

Landmarks Illinois Announces Historic Preservation Grant

Recipients for First Half of 2019

Landmarks Illinois, the only statewide nonprofit in Illinois dedicated to helping people save historic places, has awarded $35,250 in grant funding to historic preservation projects across the state. The nine individual grants were awarded through Landmarks Illinois Preservation Heritage Fund and the Barbara C. and Thomas E. Donnelley II Preservation Fund grant programs between January and June 2019.

Individual grant amounts range from $950 to $6,000 each. Landmarks Illinois grants provide funding to nonprofit- and government agency-led preservation projects in Illinois communities. All grants are matching grants, which requires the recipient to raise funds equal or greater to the Landmarks Illinois grant amount. A recent impact study revealed that, while relatively small, LI grants often serve as a catalyst for major transformation at Illinois historic sites. Every $1 a grant recipient receives from Landmarks Illinois is matched by more than $16 from other sources, according to the study.

Below are eight Perseveration Heritage Fund grants LI awarded between January and June this year. You can read more about each recipient at www.landmarks.org

Bolingbrook Historic Preservation Commission, Bolingbrook: $950 for headstone restoration at the Boardman Cemetery, established in 1832.

Washington Historical Society, Washington: $2,500 for necessary repairs to the Greek Revival-style Dement House, built in 1858 and set to become a historical museum.

Campton Township, Kane County: $5,000 for structural repairs to the historic, one-room Whitney Schoolhouse that LI’s young and emerging professionals committee the Skyline Council is helping to restore.

Heritage Preservation Foundation, Beardstown: $4,400 for a new HVAC system at the 1872 Beardstown Grand Opera House, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Beverly Unitarian Church, Chicago: $4,000 for structural repairs to the turrets at the Irish castle-like former Givens House, constructed in 1886 and located within Chicago’s Longwood Drive Historic District and the Ridge National Register Historic District.

Blue Island Historical Society, Blue Island: $4,000 for exterior restoration at the 1878 Albee House, which serves as the headquarters of the Blue Island Historical Society.

St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Country Club Hills: $4,000 for restoration work on the 90-foot steeple at the 146-year-old church.

Vermillion County Museum, Danville: $4,400 for roof and masonry repairs at the Fithian House, famous for hosting Abraham Lincoln during his 1858 U.S. Senate campaign.

Landmarks Illinois also awarded one Donnelley Preservation Fund grant in the first half of 2019.

Save Piety Hill coalition, Rockford: $6,000 to hire a professional architectural historian to research and assess the eligibility for creating a historic district in Rockford’s Signal Hill neighborhood and other potential historic properties in Rockford. LI included Piety Hill properties on its 2019 Most Endangered Historic Places in Illinois.

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