City of Blue Island Think Outside the Loop
William H. Weber came to Blue Island from Tinley Park in 1889. Weber served as President of the Blue Island Board of Education and was a member of the board of directors at the Commercial Bank, later the First National Bank of Blue Island. Active in the Republican Party for many years, he was the longest serving member of the Cook County Board of Assessors a delegate at several Republican national conventions.
The home is also significant for its architect, George Washington Maher (pronounced: “Mayer”), who designed homes primarily for the affluent of Chicago and the North Shore suburbs. Maher was considered an architectural philosopher and innovator who sought to redefine the American home and was widely read. A confident designer with a uniquely personal style, Maher’s views found common cause with the architects of the Prairie School, and his later work is often compared to the pre-eminent Prairie architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. It was in Maher’s studio that Blue Island’s own architect, Robert Seyfarth, went to work in his early career.
Listed on the Inventory of Historic Structures in Cook County.
continue the tour –> 28. Walter P. Roche House
Photo Credits: Christine L. Hawley
