By Jared Olar
Library Assistant
In her 1902 account of the Pekin Public Library’s early history, Miss Mary Gaither tells of how the library board planned the construction of Pekin’s new $15,000 Carnegie library. In Miss Gaither’s words:
“In January, 1902, a building committee, consisting of four members of the Board, namely, Mr. C. G. Herget, Mrs. Emily P. Schenck, Mr. W. J. Conzelman, and Mr. F. L. Velde, were duly authorized to proceed to the selection of a suitable plan, and the recommendation of an architect. Mr. Paul O. Moratz of Bloomington was chosen as the architect, at a subsequent meeting, and the plans were submitted to the Board on March 13th, 1902.”
Even 119 years later, it is not difficult to find out who the building committee members were, for they all came from the old, prominent Pekin families, leaders of Pekin society and civic life. “Mr. C. G. Herget” is Carl Herget (1865-1946), nephew of George Herget who had donated the land where the new library was to be built. The Carl Herget mansion at 420 Washington St., which Carl Herget built in 1912, is a well-known Pekin historical landmark – and was (as we noted last week) built at the former site of the Thomas N. Gill residence, where the meeting took place in 1866 founding the Ladies Library Association. We also recalled last week that Carl Herget in early 1901 made a matching donation of $1,000 to supply books for the new library.
Mrs. Emily P. Schenck (1846-1904) was Emily A. (Prettyman) Schenck, daughter of prominent Pekin pioneer settler Benjamin S. Prettyman, a former mayor of Pekin. Her son Ben P. Schenck (1871-1930), that is, Benjamin Prettyman Schenck, was a cashier at the German-American National Bank of Pekin and a long-time library board member, serving in the past as board secretary.
Mr. W. J. Conzelman was William John Conzelman (1865-1916), who served two terms as mayor of Pekin, from 1901 to 1904 and again from 1909 to 1911. Conzelman purchased the grand brick mansion that had been built by John Herget, located at 800 Washington St. As for Mr. F. L. Velde, that was Franklin L. Velde (1866-1963), a partner with William J. Prettyman in the Pekin law firm of Prettyman & Velde. Velde was a long-time library board member who often served as the board president.
When considering an architect for Pekin’s Carnegie library, the building committee did not limit itself to the Pekin-Peoria area, but selected Bloomington architect Paul O. Moratz (1866-1939), who had risen to prominence among central Illinois architects when he became one of three architects chosen to rebuild downtown Bloomington following a terrible fire there in 1900 that destroyed four and half city blocks (45 buildings).
Moratz was a German immigrant, born in Prussia’s Grand Duchy of Posen (today Poznan in Poland) on April 14, 1866, the son of Herman and Emelie (Eisner) Moratz. Paul’s father, a carpenter, came to America in the 1860s, finding work and a place to live in Bloomington, and then in 1868 he sent for Emelie and Paul, then age 2. The three of them are listed in the 1870 U.S. Census as the Bloomington residents “Harmon Moratz,” 29, “Amelia Moratz,” 26, and “Powel Moratz,” 4.
Paul grew up helping his father at carpentry, by which he learned building and construction skills, and conceived an interest in architecture. He studied architectural drawing at an industrial school in Illinois from 1888 to 1889, taking over his father’s business around that time. Moratz oversaw the constructing of planing mills and woodworking factories in Bloomington. In 1893, Paul married Emma Riebsame, a daughter of German immigrants. During their life together, they had two sons, Roland and Armin, and together they lived in homes that Paul built on Wood Street in Bloomington.
In 1897, he received his architect’s license from the State of Illinois, and the same year he built Bloomington’s original “Coliseum” convention center. During his career, Moratz built numerous homes in Bloomington, as well as several schools, libraries, and churches (including Old St. Patrick’s Catholic Church on Locust Street in Bloomington).
His work on the Coliseum came to the attention of the Lincoln, Neb., convention center building committee, which hired him in 1899 to design the old Lincoln Auditorium. Years later, in 1911 he was hired to design the Carnegie library in Neligh, Neb. Because of these projects, a biographical sketch of his life, on which this column in part relies, was included in “Place Makers of Nebraska: The Architects.”
By the time the Pekin library board’s building committee named him as the architect for our Carnegie library, Moratz had designed or built eight homes, two churches, a convent, three schools, a park bridge, iron and rock gates for a subdivision, two auditoriums, a public library for Loda, Ill., and an addition to Withers Public Library in Bloomington.
After designing Pekin’s Carnegie library, Moratz went on to design or build 11 more Carnegie public libraries in Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, and Nebraska. Moratz also operated his own planing mill in Bloomington, and he invented and patented his own ready-to-install hardwood flooring. Despite the setback of a couple fires in 1925 and 1931, he continued to operate his plant until his death in Bloomington on March 4, 1939. He is buried in Evergreen Memorial Cemetery, Bloomington, with his wife Emma, sons Roland and Armin, and granddaughter Betty (Moratz) Singh Purewal (1920-2007).
Next week we will continue the story of the construction of Pekin’s Carnegie library and tell of the laying of the library’s cornerstone and sealing of its time capsule.
