Margaret Cross Norton Building - Springfield IL

City:: Springfield, IL
Site Type:: Civic Facilities, Auxiliary Civic Facilities
New Deal Agencies:: Public Works Administration (PWA), Public Works Funding
Started:: 1936

Description

The records building housing the Illinois State Archives, now known as the Margaret Cross Norton Building, was built during the 1930s with New Deal funds.

SJ-R.com: “A bunch of World War I records were burned up [in a 1934 fire],” said David Joens, director of the Illinois State Archives. “The archivist at the time, Margaret Cross Norton, who was the first director of the State Archives and a real leader in the archives field, had been lobbying to get our own archives building and that certainly served as the impetus to get it.”

The building was constructed for $820,000, with help of $500,000 the state legislature appointed and $320,000 the federal Public Works Administration provided.

“At the time, there were only two other buildings in the country that had been built specifically to be archives: National Archives on the mall in Washington and the Maryland Hall of Records,” Joens said. “This became the third. She was involved in every phase of it.”

P.W.A. Docket No. IL W1490

Source notes

National Archives: Record Group 135: Public Works Administration; Projects Control Division; Entry 52: Indices to Non-Federal Projects; Report No. 5: Status of All Completed Non-Federal Allotted Projects, page 48.

https://www.sj-r.com/article/20131213/ENTERTAINMENTLIFE/131219746

Site originally submitted by Evan Kalish on October 31, 2017.