Riverside now has its own marker as a site of significance to the state of Illinois.
Village officials, Olmsted Society volunteers and Riverside residents came together on Friday, Dec. 12, for the unveiling of a plaque from the Illinois State Historical Society that is dedicated to Riverside and explains its history as one of the first planned suburbs in the country.
The plaque is situated next to the west well house in Centennial Park. Over two paragraphs, it describes the origins of Riverside’s design at the hands of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux and lauds the village’s aesthetic focus on nature and other “unique” features, stating the “curving streets” and “abundant greenery” promote a more mellow way of life.
Cathy Maloney, a member of the Olmsted Society board, told the Landmark she had the idea for the plaque in the course of researching for her most recent nonfiction book, “Olmsted’s Riverside,” which was published last December.
“I was thinking about the [National Historic] Landmark status of Riverside and noticing, obviously, we have the national landmark stone, which, frankly, I didn’t know until I started looking for it where it was,” she said. “Then, I thought, ‘Isn’t there an Illinois equivalent?’ and looked it up, and, lo and behold, there is, and they’ve been doing it since the 1930s. I guess we just never did it, so I thought, ‘Why not?’ I brought it up to the Olmsted board, and they were appreciative of the idea to do so and very encouraging. That’s where we started.”
Maloney presented the plan, including the Olmsted Society taking on the $5,000 in costs to get the plaque to Riverside’s village board on April 17, and trustees and staff were supportive. The village has agreed to maintain the plaque now that it’s been installed.
In the spring, Maloney said she expected it to take “at least two months” for the plaque to be created and sent to the village. That process took a bit longer in reality, which Maloney attributed to a change in the creation process on the State Historical Society’s end.
“It was either the foundry or the type center … they changed the ones that the Illinois State was using. They changed the people who do this,” she said. “There were two different entities that are involved in doing that, and as part of that process, it took a little bit longer.”
She also took some of the blame due to the back-and-forth nature of finalizing the plaque’s text.
“Every time I’d submit a minor change or something, five more things would pop up, and that’s so typical of the proofreading process. You notice something here, you notice something there, and we had a bunch of eyes on it,” she said. “I’m sure the state was tearing their hair out with me saying, ‘Just one more thing that we have to fix,’ and they were very gracious.”
The unveiling, which drew a crowd of nearly 30 residents, Olmsted Society members and village officials alike, felt like a moment of unity, Maloney said.
“Last minute, I realized, ‘Oh, I really can’t have [the reception] outdoors because it’s freezing out,’ and [Parks and Recreation Director] Ron Malchiodi was so helpful in offering the reception area” at the west well house, she said. “Then, there I am, the shortest person in the group, and I suddenly realized, ‘I don’t think I can take this thing off [the plaque],’ and he came up with the idea of those little pincers.”
Maloney said she hopes the placement and content of the plaque will help more people, be they residents or visitors, understand the history of Riverside as its 150th anniversary year draws to a close.
“This is in a nice, central place where a lot of our known monuments are, and the two paragraphs say why Riverside is so important historically and so relevant today,” she said. “It’s nice to know that it will be there for a very long time.”
