Old Illinois Houses (Classic Reprint) - Hardcover

Drury, John

9780265570159: Old Illinois Houses (Classic Reprint)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0265570158 ISBN 13: 9780265570159

Publisher: Forgotten Books, 2019

Excerpt from Old Illinois Houses

As almost all Of us know, half Of the population Of Illinois lives in Chicago. To this half belongs John Drury. It took considerable foreign and domestic travel in his earlier years, however, to make him realize that his native heath is just as good a place to write about as any other spot on earth. As a romantic-minded young man, he lived in New York's Greenwich Village, worked as a cub reporter in los Angeles, served on merchant ships to South America and London, traveled in Canada, and cruised the Spanish Main aboard a luxury liner. In time, though, John Drury felt the call of his native Midwest and here, after returning to it, he began his writing career. In addition to his Chicago residence, he now maintains a summer home at Chesterton, Indiana.

It was just after the University Of Chicago Press published his Old Chicago Houses in 1941 that John Drury began work on the articles which form the contents Of this book. One day in the early spring Of 1941, when snow floated down between gloomy Loop buildings and hissed on the cold surface of the Chicago River, he loaded into his car his Wife, his dog, and his typewriter, and began the first Of three circular motor tours through southern, central, and northern Illinois, totaling some miles. His quest was historic Illinois houses. The results Of his journeys appear in this book Where they are reproduced from a series Of weekly articles published in the Daily News. Having covered thehistoric-house field in his native city and native state, Mr. Drury, quite naturally, expanded his horizon again, and thus there appeared, in 1947, his Historic Midwest Houses. This volume involved a -mile tour Of the Midwest which was made possible by a Regional Writing Fellow ship awarded him by the University Of Minnesota.

Readers of Old Illinois Houses will find this book a rather complete, though informal, history Of our state. Here are described houses that represent the French period. Other chapters deal with dwellings used during the English occupaiion, and here, too, are residences Of the American aristocrats appointed in Washington to administer the frontier government. How can anyone understand the enterprising bankers who came early to Illinois, without seeing the house Of John Marshall at Shawneetown? On Rock Island stands the mansion Of George Daven port, fur trader, and this expresses his affluence better than can be done in a thousand words.

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