Shelbyville Chautauqua Auditorium
Tax deductible
THANK YOU ALL WHO HELPED SAVE THIS BUILDING!!! Due to your voices and your support, the Shelbyville City Council committed up to $800,000 to save and restore this incredibly unique and special building! But we still need your help! The money took care of the structural repairs to 8 water-damaged trusses / columns, and a brand new metal roof, which will be going on soon! But we STILL need donations for interior outfitting. Some of the big items are a new stage curtain, new lighting, stage floor recovering, restoring the artwork over the stage, some electrical work, and interior painting. We aim to outfit the building in style, to make it BEAUTIFUL for weddings, receptions, class reunions, musical and stage performances, school events, festivals and get-togethers of all kinds! My name is Mark Shanks, and I’m chairman of the Save Our Chautauqua Committee. We operate under the Shelbyville Foundation, a not-for-profit organization, dedicated to improving and enhancing the community of Shelbyville Illinois.
About the Chautauqua Building
Shelbyville’s Historic Chautauqua building is a truly one-of-a-kind building, unique in it’s architecture and construction, and recognized as the world’s only remaining example of this ingenious type of construction. This 20-sided, round, wooden structure, with it’s incredible radial roof, and beautiful performance stage was built in 1903, in our City park, at the height of the Chautauqua religious revival movement. In it’s heyday, up to 5,000 people (the entire population of modern day Shelbyville) would gather in the park, staying for weeks in tents and cabins, to attend Chautauqua events and performances here.
The building has continued to serve as a gathering place for countless community events, musical performances, political and educational speeches, festivals and celebrations for over a century. It serves as the focal point of our city park, and the very symbol and logo for our community.
Robert Root Sculptures
Above center stage, sit the three muses. These sculptures represent Art, Music and Drama, and are the theme for which the stage and building were originally built. They were created by famed local artist and sculptor Robert Marshall Root https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Marshall_Root when the building was built. These beautiful works of art alone make the building worth saving.
Efforts to Save the Building
Our group has been working hard for many years to save and restore this incredible building, after it began falling into disrepair, due to city budget constraints and neglect.
In 2009, Landmarks Illinois placed the building on it's list of most endangered structures in Illinois. Sadly, it's still on there.
We’ve raised, and spent, nearly $200,000 over the past several years, and used both hired and volunteer labor for various repairs, including replacement of windows, painting the exterior, a temporary roof surface, major structural repairs to the roof truss system, electrical upgrades and various restoration projects.
Until recently, we were progressing nicely on the path needed to secure and save the building, with our next major undertaking to be replacing the roof, which has leaked for many years, and is decades past its useful life-span.
Then, unfortunately, we suffered a major setback.
A few years back, we noticed sagging in a few of the tension rods which act as the “spokes” of the “bicycle wheel” roof. This concerned us greatly, since our recent structural reinforcement work had included tightening and tensioning all of the spokes. We immediately contacted our engineer, whose inspection revealed severe moisture rot at a few of the critical joints where the 20 roof trusses meet their support columns that surround the building, which bear the weight of the entire roof.
One column is literally split in half, and the joint has completely failed. This is all the result of our neglecting to replace the roof in a timely manner, and the many ensuing years of moisture running down these roof joists, and into the joints. Not all joists are affected. Three were discovered to be badly damaged, and three more show concerns. The rest are unaffected, since no roof leaks were directly over those beams.
As an emergency measure, we immediately authorized $5,000 in engineering work, and then $40,000 to install temporary steel shoring posts for the 3 most significantly damaged trusses. This work has been done, depleting most of our current funds, in an effort to buy us more time to raise money for the permanent repairs.
The upshot. We need $400,000 - $500,000 to replace the damaged columns, cut out, and repair the water damaged ends of the joists, and to replace the roof. This is a bigger expense than we can undertake on our own. If not addressed very soon, the roof beams will fail, possibly with the next heavy snow load. At that point, demolition of the building will be the only option. UPDATE: THIS WORK HAS BEEN COMPLETED, AND WE HAVE SAVED THE BUILDING!!! We just need to finish the interior and we can begin USING the building again!!!
Using the Building
A few years back, when the health of the building became in question, much public discussion centered around the ultimate fate of the building. Most people in the community were in favor of saving the building, with some concerned about where the money would come from, and many voicing the opinion that if we are going to save the building, we need to use it, since it had been underutilized in the recent past.
Our group developed a viable Business and Use plan, and began scheduling many events and cultural activities in the building, as we began bringing the building back to life. We also included in our plan, a proposal for historical displays to line the interior walls of the building, depicting the history of Shelbyville and Shelby County, and highlighting our Abraham Lincoln heritage. We plan to then have this Historical Museum open to the public regularly, as a further use and income stream for the maintenance of the building, along with income from rentals, and public and private events.
Please Help Us
We believe strongly that it’s each generation’s obligation to be stewards of our community’s assets and infrastructure, and that we are responsible to hand over those assets to the next generation, in the best manor and condition we can. The communities which strive to preserve what is unique and special about themselves, are the communities that are most successful and prosperous in the future.
Please consider helping us, by donating to preserve this wonderful, unique, grand and historic structure. Your contribution is tax deductible.
Thank you,
The Shelbyville Chautauqua Committee
About the Chautauqua Building
Shelbyville’s Historic Chautauqua building is a truly one-of-a-kind building, unique in it’s architecture and construction, and recognized as the world’s only remaining example of this ingenious type of construction. This 20-sided, round, wooden structure, with it’s incredible radial roof, and beautiful performance stage was built in 1903, in our City park, at the height of the Chautauqua religious revival movement. In it’s heyday, up to 5,000 people (the entire population of modern day Shelbyville) would gather in the park, staying for weeks in tents and cabins, to attend Chautauqua events and performances here.
The building has continued to serve as a gathering place for countless community events, musical performances, political and educational speeches, festivals and celebrations for over a century. It serves as the focal point of our city park, and the very symbol and logo for our community.
Robert Root Sculptures
Above center stage, sit the three muses. These sculptures represent Art, Music and Drama, and are the theme for which the stage and building were originally built. They were created by famed local artist and sculptor Robert Marshall Root https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Marshall_Root when the building was built. These beautiful works of art alone make the building worth saving.
Efforts to Save the Building
Our group has been working hard for many years to save and restore this incredible building, after it began falling into disrepair, due to city budget constraints and neglect.
In 2009, Landmarks Illinois placed the building on it's list of most endangered structures in Illinois. Sadly, it's still on there.
We’ve raised, and spent, nearly $200,000 over the past several years, and used both hired and volunteer labor for various repairs, including replacement of windows, painting the exterior, a temporary roof surface, major structural repairs to the roof truss system, electrical upgrades and various restoration projects.
Until recently, we were progressing nicely on the path needed to secure and save the building, with our next major undertaking to be replacing the roof, which has leaked for many years, and is decades past its useful life-span.
Then, unfortunately, we suffered a major setback.
A few years back, we noticed sagging in a few of the tension rods which act as the “spokes” of the “bicycle wheel” roof. This concerned us greatly, since our recent structural reinforcement work had included tightening and tensioning all of the spokes. We immediately contacted our engineer, whose inspection revealed severe moisture rot at a few of the critical joints where the 20 roof trusses meet their support columns that surround the building, which bear the weight of the entire roof.
One column is literally split in half, and the joint has completely failed. This is all the result of our neglecting to replace the roof in a timely manner, and the many ensuing years of moisture running down these roof joists, and into the joints. Not all joists are affected. Three were discovered to be badly damaged, and three more show concerns. The rest are unaffected, since no roof leaks were directly over those beams.
As an emergency measure, we immediately authorized $5,000 in engineering work, and then $40,000 to install temporary steel shoring posts for the 3 most significantly damaged trusses. This work has been done, depleting most of our current funds, in an effort to buy us more time to raise money for the permanent repairs.
The upshot. We need $400,000 - $500,000 to replace the damaged columns, cut out, and repair the water damaged ends of the joists, and to replace the roof. This is a bigger expense than we can undertake on our own. If not addressed very soon, the roof beams will fail, possibly with the next heavy snow load. At that point, demolition of the building will be the only option. UPDATE: THIS WORK HAS BEEN COMPLETED, AND WE HAVE SAVED THE BUILDING!!! We just need to finish the interior and we can begin USING the building again!!!
Using the Building
A few years back, when the health of the building became in question, much public discussion centered around the ultimate fate of the building. Most people in the community were in favor of saving the building, with some concerned about where the money would come from, and many voicing the opinion that if we are going to save the building, we need to use it, since it had been underutilized in the recent past.
Our group developed a viable Business and Use plan, and began scheduling many events and cultural activities in the building, as we began bringing the building back to life. We also included in our plan, a proposal for historical displays to line the interior walls of the building, depicting the history of Shelbyville and Shelby County, and highlighting our Abraham Lincoln heritage. We plan to then have this Historical Museum open to the public regularly, as a further use and income stream for the maintenance of the building, along with income from rentals, and public and private events.
Please Help Us
We believe strongly that it’s each generation’s obligation to be stewards of our community’s assets and infrastructure, and that we are responsible to hand over those assets to the next generation, in the best manor and condition we can. The communities which strive to preserve what is unique and special about themselves, are the communities that are most successful and prosperous in the future.
Please consider helping us, by donating to preserve this wonderful, unique, grand and historic structure. Your contribution is tax deductible.
Thank you,
The Shelbyville Chautauqua Committee
Organizer
Mark Shanks
Organizer
Shelbyville, IL
Shelbyville Area Community Foundation
Registered nonprofit
Donations are typically 100% tax deductible in the US.
