Buckingham Place

From HistoryWiki

Buckingham Place Soundex Code B252

3332 N., from 600 W. to 888 W.

This street was named for Ebenezer Buckingham, (1829-1912) who was a Chicago businessman and banker for whom the Buckingham Fountain is NOT named.

He was born in Zanesville, Ohio and moved to Chicago in 1859 to join his brother John Buckingham, in the grain elevator business. He made a fortune by buying and managing several Illinois Central Railroad grain elevators at the mouth of the Chicago River. Twenty-five years later he was named president of the Northwest National Bank.

After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, Buckingham joined Chicago's new-money elite on Prairie Avenue, a street of imposing mansions.

But, for all his personal success, Buckingham's name is linked in Chicago with the beautiful Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park. The fountain was modeled after the Latona Fountain in Versailles, France, and was given to Chicago in 1927 by Ebenezer's daughter, Kate. It measures 208 feet across, holds 1.5 million gallons of water, and shoots water 135 feet high.

Kate Buckingham commissioned the fountain to honor her brother, Clarence, a director of the Art Institute of Chicago.