Over dinner on Feb. 23, 1905, Chicago attorney Paul P. Harris asked his close friend, coal dealer Silvester Schiele, if he wanted to form a club to socialize and exchange business.
Schiele agreed. The Rotary Club of Chicago was born.
Two years later, the club bought a horse for a traveling preacher or doctor–accounts differ–and built the city’s first “public comfort station,” or outhouse.
Now, ROTARY/One, as the Rotary Club of Chicago is called, is financing surgery for ailing children and creating hundreds of paid internships for city high school students. And Rotary International, created in 1910 by the original Rotarians from Chicago, is trying to eradicate polio across the globe.
On its 100th anniversary Wednesday, at a time when many service organizations are struggling to stay vital, ROTARY/One, the world’s oldest service organization, continues to provide important services to the city. It has an active membership of about 250, including Mayor Richard Daley, and that doesn’t include the six other Rotary clubs within Chicago’s boundaries.
“From that little meeting came nearly 32,000 clubs in 166 countries with 1.3 million members worldwide,” said Robb Knuepfer Jr., president of ROTARY/One. That makes it the largest service organization in the world.
Knuepfer presided Wednesday over the unveiling of an honorary street sign proclaiming the southeast corner of Randolph and Dearborn Streets as “Rotary Club of Chicago Way,” one of many efforts to honor the club’s centennial.
Rotarians from Chicago, New York, Tokyo and Seoul were on hand for the unveiling, done within view of Block 37, the former site of the Unity Building at 127 N. Dearborn St. That’s where Harris, Schiele and merchant tailor Hiram Shorey first met in Room 711, the office of mining engineer Gustavus Loehr.
“That is where our roots are, in service to the community,” said Rotary International General Secretary Ed Futa, between the organization’s International Assembly meetings in Anaheim. “I think that’s something Chicago should be very proud of. It was the birthplace of this idea that just took off.”
To honor that accomplishment, ROTARY/One entertained about 500 at a black-tie ball Wednesday night, and 60,000 Rotarians are expected to come to Chicago in June for Rotary International’s annual convention. There are about 5,000 Rotarians in the Chicago area, a spokesman said.
In March 1905, the club began holding weekly meetings, rotating the location among members’ offices, thus the name Rotary. The organization also rotates leadership positions each year.
In 1910, with 16 Rotary clubs stretching from New York to San Francisco, the National Association of Rotary Clubs was formed, which later became Rotary International. Its motto soon became “Service Above Self.”
From 1910 to 1942, Rotary International was led by Chicagoan Chesley R. Perry, who became known as the builder of Rotary.
Women were accepted as members in 1987. Ten years later, E. Loretta McKeon, vice president of a funeral home, became ROTARY/One’s first president.
Through its JobStart program, launched last fall at Daley’s urging, ROTARY/One has created about 300 paid summer internships for Chicago Public Schools students. It hopes to create 1,000 by summer, Knuepfer said.
The club has provided five Ukrainian children with life-saving cardiac surgeries and over the last 25 years has given $2.5 million and a like value in volunteer time to the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.
Under its PolioPlus program started in 1985, Rotary International has raised more than $500million to eradicate polio worldwide. It hopes to complete that effort this year.
