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TO: Mayor Richard C. Irvin
FROM: John Russell, Grant Writer
DATE: Aug. 27, 2019
SUBJECT:
Requesting approval to accept a grant for $750,000 from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources Public Museum Capital Grant program to complete the restoration of the Aurora Grand Army of the Republic Memorial Museum.
PURPOSE:
This grant will allow for the completion of the restoration of the GAR Memorial Museum. This work will include the build-out of the Lower Level of the Museum as a space for local veterans to meet, just as they did when the GAR Hall opened in 1878. It also will involve: creation of new, rotating Museum exhibits with artifacts from the Museum collection focusing on the nation's conflicts from World War I through today; restoration of the four large, smoke-covered murals on the Main Level of the Museum; restoration of the Stair Tower section for further displays; creation of a model of the Sentry Statue, to be placed once again on the top of the Museum; and other work.
BACKGROUND:
This grant was originally awarded to the City of Aurora in Summer 2014, but was put on hold by Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner when he took office in January 2015. Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who took office in January 2019, has since released the funding. The City filed a new grant request, and the State approved the new Grant Agreement in August 2019.
The Aurora Grand Army of the Republic Memorial Hall, Post 20, was built in 1878 as a gathering place and tribute to Union Army veterans of the Civil War -- and as Aurora's first free public library. Its construction was funded entirely by donations from a grateful community, and it was built on land donated by one of Aurora's earliest settlers, Joseph Stolp. Over the years, more than 700 Union Army veterans were members of Aurora GAR Post 20. The Museum is on the National Register of Historic Places and in the Stolp Island Historic District. The GAR Museum was closed in the late 1990s because of concerns over the building's ...
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