Galena in 1860
Looking South on Main Street, c.1860
Imagine living in Galena in 1860. Herman Henry Kohlsaat was six years old. A brand new school was being built on the crest of Quality Hill. J Russell Jones' mansion, completed in 1857, was the largest and most beautiful home most had ever seen. The DeSoto House, only five years old and still five stories tall, loomed large in the center of town.
The US Post Office and Customs House, made from a special limestone quarried in Nauvoo, Illinois, and designed to resemble the one in Washington, D.C., had just opened. Construction on the US Marine Hospital was near completion, constructed from materials imported from far and wide. These projects were brought to Galena by Elihu Washburne, a prominent citizen and representative in Congress who was poised to win his fifth term as a third-party "Republican" candidate. He was also campaigning for fellow Illinoisan Abraham Lincoln, whose speech from the DeSoto in 1856 was celebrated.
In this environment, an unassuming man arrived on the steamboat Itasca from St. Louis, Missouri, with his wife and children. They had brought with them all the worldly possessions they could pack, a permanent move to start life anew in this prosperous town where his father owned a leather store. The store was managed by his brother, who was slowly dying of consumption. Retired Captain Ulysses S. Grant went directly to work for his brother, silently preparing to take over the family business when Orville was no longer able, while dutifully taking his orders and filling in where he was needed.
What transpired would change Galena - and the world - forever. But most of those iconic structures stand today. The Belvedere, as they now call J Russell Jones' mansion, still stands as Galena's largest - and most beautiful - mansion. The Customs House and Post Office still stands in the center of town. The DeSoto, now only three stories, is the most iconic downtown building. The Quality Hill School sadly burned down in 1904, but the Central High School that replaced it still towers over Galena.
Captain Grant would become General and then President Grant. And Herman Henry Kohlsaat would go on to be a very wealthy man. In his later years, he would commission and donate to the City of Galena two of our most precious artifacts: the "Grant, Our Citizen" statue in Grant Park, and the "Peace in Union" painting at the Galena History Museum.