Our Pick
Posted on @rawstates
The Larkin Home, an orphanage built to look like a house
1912
Elgin, Illinois
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The Elgin Children's Home Society started in 1898 in a donated building and ran out of room, so in 1912 it built this Georgian Revival house on Larkin Avenue to a design by George Morris. The point of the architecture was the Progressive argument that children did better in something resembling a home than in a state institution, and the society raised the money privately to prove it. Sick children were hard to manage under that model, so a hospital went up on the grounds in 1926. Children lived here until 1966 and the organisation closed in 2013.
That was 1 of the hidden places.
Location: documented spot
This place has its own thread on r/rawstates
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