Ulysses S. Grant and reflections on the teardown of the Chicago Reagan home

Last month Mrs. Marathon Pundit snapped the photograph below of U.S. Route 20 in Marengo, which in Illinois is designated as the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial Highway. The road enters Illinois at East Dubuque and leaves the state on Chicago's Southeast Side.

That photo got me thinking...

After resigning his Army commission in 1854, the Ohio-born Grant endured business failures and hard times; in 1860 he ended up in Galena, Illinois--where he worked as a clerk in his father's leather shop. U.S. 20 also passes through Galena, which is in the northwest corner of the state.

A few months after leading the Army of the Potomac to victory over Robert E. Lee's Confederate forces, the general briefly returned to Galena, On that occasion the city presented him with an Italianate home that still stands--it is now maintained by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.

But Grant quickly returned to the Army and Washington, where he spent most of the next 12 years.

U.S. Grant home in 2009

After leaving the presidency in 1877, Grant and his wife went on a two-year long world tour; in 1880 he waged an unsuccessful candidacy for the Republican nomination. His remaining years were spent mostly in New York City and upstate New York. He died in 1885.

Ronald Reagan, who was born in Tampico in northwestern Illinois, lived in Chicago in 1915. Critics of preserving the apartment where he resided often complained that the four-year old "Dutch" lived there for only ten months. Our second Republican president likely lived in the Galena home for about, well, ten months. Grant's family owned the house until 1904--when they donated it to the city of Galena.

I've visited the Grant home twice--and yes, it's worth seeing, And of course it's worthy of preservation, just as the Reagan apartment, which the University of Chicago demolished last week, should have maintained and turned into a museum.

Grant marker, Tampico, IL

But as legendary Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko once quipped, "I figure that anyone who tries to save landmarks in Chicago is goofy enough to teach celibacy in a Playboy Club or nonviolence to Dick Butkus."

Chicago hasn't changed that much.

Related posts:

• (Exclusive photos) Mourning in America: Univ. of Chicago completes demolition of Reagan home
• Chicago Magazine on Reagan home teardown: "We’re going to regret this"
• Marathon Pundit's Ronald Reagan Trail
• Midwestern Presidential Pathway: Where Grant worked as a clerk
• Midwestern Presidential Pathway: Ulysses S. Grant Home