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Morris Library gets gems of SIUC'S past

BY SCOTT FITZGERALD, THE SOUTHERN

Friday, July 25, 2008 11:42 AM CDT

CARBONDALE - SIUC's Morris Library received two pieces of the university's heritage as if "out of the blue" when Herb Rieke from north-central Illinois called offering two carved pieces that were column tops from the university's original building.

"He called out of the blue," said Gordon Pruett, editor of the library's newsletter "Cornerstone."

"It is believed that these carved sandstone pieces were the tops of columns - Corinthian capitals - that divided windows on the buildings second and third floors," Pruett said in a news release.

Now Southern Illinois University Carbondale, SIU was chartered in 1869 and opened in 1874 as a one-building teacher training school, according to the university's Web site. It was called Southern Illinois Normal University.

The donated column tops adorned that first building, which was gutted by fire about nine years after opening. Oddly, its replacement, Old Main, fell to an arsonist's flames in 1969.

The column tops are thought to have been sculpted from stone that came from a quarry located a few miles south of Carbondale.

Finding a historical photograph that depicts the building's construction, Pruett used computer zoom capabilities to find exactly where the ornaments were set.

He also checked with Gail White, a founding member of White & Borgognoni, a Carbondale architectural firm specializing in historic preservation. He found the stone's source was likely the Boskeydell quarry, which also provided stone for the Baptist and Presbyterian churches built in downtown Carbondale in the early 1900s.

"There were more than 20 stone masons working on buildings at any given time," Pruett said. "These two pieces were hand-carved by stone masons."

Morris Library staff members are busy now with the final details that need to be put in place for the new Morris Library expansion, which is officially to open in January or February.

"We don't know yet how we're going to display" them, said Susan Tulis. associate dean for library information services.

The library is building its historical holdings with notable special book collections and now, historical remnants of SIUC's physical history, she said.

Rieke lives in Dunlap, which is in north-central Illinois near Peoria. He lived with his family in Carbondale in the 1930s and the 1940s, according to the university. His grandfather, Joseph H. Davis, was a former Murphysboro mayor who received many such items from his constituents.

scott.fitzgerald@thesouthern.com  

351-5076