Daily Herald: Des Plaines weighs its history against maintaining budgetThis is a terrible place to look to fix the budget, ESPECIALLY when next year is our 175th anniversary, when the historical society is poised to grow and become even more important. When you cut out all the things that make your city special, you take away any reason to live there and not somewhere else. The Historical Society does important work to archive our heritage and educate. It is worth more than the TWO-TENTHS OF ONE PERCENT of our budget. If we as a city have that little pride, it is truly shameful.
But Historical Society President John Burke does say something that gives me pause. "There's an awful lot of people in town who have seen with their own eyes the visible reminders of our past are disappearing so rapidly."
Except for the Kinder House itself, the historical society has never made much of an effort to save historic places, including Kinder Hardware. The society's job is to record and archive history and artifacts, and to educate. Des Plaines is 175, it's time we do something to encourage saving our heritage. Des Plaines has 0 protected historic places. Des Plaines has 0 historical markers. Des Plaines has 0 incentive to restore anything. Is it any wonder we've watched it hauled to the landfill?
The city needs create a Heritage Conservation Commission to encourage keeping our history outside the walls of the historical society alive, encouraging investment and making Des Plaines a better place to live. A city without a history is hardly worthwhile.
