Untitled Document

ROCKFORD CHAUTAUQUA ASSEMBLY

It has fallen to the lot of few Rockford institutions to meet with such success in a comparatively short time as to the Rockford Chautauqua, now known the breadth and width of the Chautauqua world as one of the largest and most influential in the entire country.

The Rockford Chautauqua assembly was organized in the year 1902. The promoters felt there was a need of such an institution in this city and believed that their efforts would be strongly aided by the Rockford public.

A stock company of loo shares was organized with a capital of $5,000, and the work was taken up with a will. The Rockford and Interurban Company erected the handsome and capacious auditorium at Harlem Park, seating 5,000 people. and made other improvements upon the grounds.

The 1902 assembly was a record breaker for a first year gathering. A program such as has not been arranged but for few gatherings of the sort sufficed to attract thousands and the reputation of the assembly was established.

The season of 1903 broke all records in point of attendance for short-term Chautauquas, the artistic arrangement of many kinds of trees ; beautiful groupings and massing of numerous varieties of shrubs and flowers ; a boys' athletic field ; a girls' athletic field ; little folks' play ground ; and experimental gardens for all the children. The new building was erected at a cost of about $6,000. The credit of this innovation belongs to Superintendent O. J. Kern, who labored four years and a half to accomplish this result. This school promises to be the connecting link between the farm and the college of agriculture. These enormous figures were a surprise even to the management itself and other Chautauquas in the country saw they had a powerful rival in the point of popularity. These attendance figures have only been surpassed by the mother assembly at Jamestown, New York.

The season of 1904 was as highly successful in every respect as that of the previous year, the attendance figures being about the same.

With a confidence born of this unprecedented attendance the management looks forward to the season of 1906 with_ hope, and does not hesitate to say that the program will be unquestionably the strongest ever presented by any assembly in the west.

No expense has been spared in past years to gratify every desire of the public for pleasing, as well as educating, programs, and the Chautauqua association will continue on this same broad plan in the years to come.

The officers of the association are :

President—D. Lichty.

Nice President—George Stansbury.

Secretary—Frank S. Regan.

Treasurer—Miss Mary I. Beattie.

Superintendent—A. C. Folsom.

Directors—A. E. Elmore, J. B. Whitehead. August Peterson, H. S. Whipple, L. A. Williams, W. W. Bennett, C. H. Knapp, J. H. King, E. M. Breckenridge.

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