Chicago Heights Historic Preservation Advisory Committee

 

Chartered: 1917

Architect: Benjamin F. Olson, 1937

Building campaigns: 1918, 1921, 1937

Period of Significance: 1937-1990

Harold Colbert Jones Memorial Community Center, located at 220 E. 15^th Street is being nominated for Landmark status based on it meeting criteria 1, 7, and 8.

Significant features: All exterior features including windows and roofline.

 

Harold Colbert Jones Memorial Community Center is an example of the Art Deco style of architecture and exhibits the common style characteristics of vertical orientation and geometric ornamentation. A limited number of examples are found in Chicago Heights.  Art Deco style of architecture first appeared as a result of the Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industrieles Modernes in 1925. Thereafter, in the 1920s and 30s, Art Deco and Moderne achieved great popularity as modern architectural styles. Although somewhat different in their overall appearance, both styles share stripped down forms and geometric-based ornament.

By virtue of its location or activities held there, the structure(s) or site(s) is a current or former focal point of life in the city. Its unique location or singular characteristics make it an established or familiar visual feature.

Not only has it become an established and familiar visual feature to the City of Chicago Heights, but the Harold Colbert Jones Memorial Community Center remains a focal point of the city today. The Community center was chartered November 16, 1917. It grew out of a mission organized by Eugenio De Luca directed toward the Italian immigrant community.  On May 1, 1910 Mr. De Luca organized night school classes in a hotel on Twenty-Second Street in the Hill to teach citizenship and English. As the number of participants grew, it became obvious that rented rooms and church spaces were no longer adequate to house the classes. A fundraising campaign for $15, 000 was successful and a building to house these programs was completed in 1918 on East 15^th Street. 

 Throughout the ensuing years the Center, renamed the Harold Colbert Jones Community Center in 1938, has served Italians, Poles, Lithuanians, Germans, African Americans and migrant laborers teaching them English so they could become citizens and introducing them to American customs. Staff lived in the Center in the spirit of Settlement Houses such as Hull House. The goal of these organizations was to help others, not by patronizing them, but by joining their communities. These houses became the key means by which immigrants and the less fortunate would be welcomed, enriched, and encouraged toward self-sufficiency. A second story was added to the building in 1921 to provide more sleeping quarters for staff and additional clubrooms to accommodate the Center’s increasing number of activities. Hot showers, the first on the East side of town, were available and were especially important to the men who did the hardest and dirtiest work in the factories but whose homes lacked hot water or indoor plumbing.

In 1938 George Colbert Jones made a gift to the Center of 1500 shares of Inland Steel Company stock in memory of his son Harold Colbert. It was designated for the construction of an addition to the building that was to have a full size gymnasium, among other facilities.

The structure(s) have significant character, interest, or value as part of the development, heritage or cultural characteristics of the community, county, or state.

Since the 1890’s immigrants have come to Chicago Heights to find jobs and build better lives. Immigration continued after WWII when war refugees brought with them an urgent need for basic language training and an introduction to this country’s culture. The Center has served not only as a meeting place for the foreign born but also a neighborhood service designed to meet any and all family needs and problems, and to direct families to sources of help. Today it continues to provide services for members of the community as well as those who live in the neighborhood.

Above: Lobby 1980/90s

Jones center Schnable Hall small auditorium 1963  

Atrium (left, and above 1990s)

Halloween -late 1960s /early 1970s (left)