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Visit our Tour Destination: Illinois page to see the entire tour of the state’s Save America’s Treasures sites.
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| Carlson Cottage at Lincoln Park Zoo. Photo courtesy of Lincoln Park Zoo. |
Carlson Cottage
Website: Lincoln Park Zoo
The Treasure: One
of the oldest buildings in Lincoln Park , Carlson Cottage is a picturesque survivor of Victorian-era Chicago.
Accessibility: The
exterior of Carlson Cottage can be viewed every day at Lincoln Park Zoo, where
it can be found near the historic Café Brauer.
Background: With
its charming architecture, its prime location in Lincoln Park, and even a tantalizing whiff of violence to
flavor its past, Carlson Cottage is a small yet potent reminder of Chicago’s colorful past and undeniable ambition. This is a city where even the public restrooms can be architectural gems, resonating with stories!
Today, Carlson Cottage is a part of Chicago ’s famous Lincoln Park Zoo. The zoo
came first, starting small with the 1868 donation of a pair of swans from New York City ’s Central Park .
Two decades later, the zoo’s first director,
Cyrus DeVry, was hired. And in that same year (1888), Carlson Cottage was built.
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| The historic restoration of Carlson Cottage was led by preservation architect Paul Steinbrecher of InterActive Design, Inc. in 2008. Photo courtesy of Lincoln Park Zoo. |
The first public restroom facility in Lincoln
Park , Carlson Cottage has a delightful Victorian design, courtesy
of notable Chicago
architect Joseph Lyman Silsbee. This was a relatively minor commission for
Silsbee, an architect who often worked on much grander projects — such as the Lincoln Park Conservatory — and served as a mentor to up-and-coming
architects Frank Lloyd Wright, George Maher, and George Elmslie. Known simply
as a Comfort Station in its early years, Carlson Cottage was constructed of
brick and stone and capped with an attractive cedar shingle roof.
The restroom function of Carlson Cottage was abandoned long
ago. In 1995, Lincoln Park Zoo began using the building as a center for its
volunteer gardening program. Coinciding with the Save America’s Treasures restoration in 2008, the volunteers
planted new gardens around Carlson Cottage to reinforce an appropriate late 19th-century ambience.
As for the whiff of violence mentioned above, here’s all we
know: During the restoration, a rusty 19th century pistol was discovered in a plumbing vent pipe. That’s not much to go
on, but it’s sufficient to summon up an image of the Chicago underworld,
already a potent force in the 1880s, dominated by shady figures like John
“Mushmouth” Johnson and Giovanni “Johnny” Torrio. Unfortunately, imagination must take over at this point. With only a
single artifact to go by, it’s highly unlikely that the real story behind the abandoned gun will ever come to light.
Other Recommended
Sites: For another impressive building by the architect of
Carlson Cottage, visit the nearby Lincoln Park Conservatory which Joseph Lyman
Silsbee designed in collaboration with fellow Chicago architect Mifflin E. Bell. A docent program jointly sponsored by the Chicago Park District and the Lincoln Park Conservancy offers free tours of the historic building and its important
horticultural collections on weekends.
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| An 1888 historic engraving of Carlson Cottage by architect George Maher provided significant information regarding the original appearance of the building. Photo courtesy of Lincoln Park Zoo. |
Tour America's History Itinerary
Monday’s (11/26) destination: Glessner House Museum
© 2012 Lee Price
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