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Photograph of Haish Memorial Library
Photograph by IvoShandor at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Haish Memorial Library

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

From the record

“The Haish Memorial Library was designed by Chicago architects White and Weber and built in the art deco style of the 1930s with funds left to the library by Jacob Haish in his 1928 will. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.”

Wikipedia article Haish Memorial Library, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 19 National Register listings published here for DeKalb County · listed in 1980 · category: Building.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

  • What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
  • Address. 309 Oak St., De Kalb, 60115
  • When was it listed? October 1980
  • Category. building
  • Township. DeKalb township
  • Architectural style. Moderne architecture
  • National Register reference number. 80004319 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

The ground it stands on

5,161 words

The chapter on DeKalb Township in Past and Present of DeKalb County, Illinois, published 1907 names De Kalb. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

As has been stated in a previous chapter of the County History, in 1832 the army under General Whiteside, numbering about twenty-two hundred, consisting of one regiment of regulars and tin.' balance of volunteers, marched from Stillman's Run to the month of the Kishwaukee, thence following the south side of that stream to the Pottawatomie village mi section one. where they camped and found some of the plunder taken from Stillman's men by the savages. The Indians had been taken from this locality in about 1S35, lint many marks are found today of their village. When the white men first came to Coltonville they found buried, while a number of papooses were wrapped in bark and suspended among the branches of the trees. It has been stated that a company of United States mounted troops at about 1835 escorted the Indians from this village to Paw Paw grove in the southwest corner of the county, preparatory to removal, and it is also stated that this same company, while marching to their destination, camped on the site of the present village of De Kalb. "While here one of their number attempted to desert ami he paid McClellan a sum of money to secrete him ; but. being threatened by the officer in command. McClellan gave him up again and he was tied to the rear of the army wagon and dragged on foot through the remainder of the route. The neighbors, indignant at McClellan*s treachery, threatened to lynch him and he was obliged to fly the country to secure safety."

Passage source: Past and Present of DeKalb County, Illinois, published 1907.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on DeKalb Township - 5,161 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Mines and quarries near this property

3 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 3 workings within 5 miles of Haish Memorial Library: 2 producers, 1 past producer. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Vermiculite, Perlite, Stone. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Mica Pellets Inc. PlantPerlite, VermiculiteProducer
Sycamore City PitStonePast Producer
Mica Pellets Inc. Vermiculite PlantVermiculiteProducer

Every working recorded in DeKalb County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph PropertyDistance Listed
George H. Gurler Houseunder 500 feet1979
Egyptian Theatre0.2 miles1978
Ellwood Mansion0.2 miles1975
President John Williston Cook Mansion0.4 miles2025
Joseph F. Glidden House1.2 miles1973
Elmwood Cemetery Gates4.4 miles1978

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 80004319 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
DeKalb CountyAll 19 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

  • Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
  • Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
  • How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
  • Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.