A MEMORIAL TO JACQUES MARQUETTE AND LOUIS JOLLIET

Placed by the COLONIAL DAMES OF AMERICA.  Artist Unknown.

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The Michigan Avenue Bridge opened to traffic some ninety years ago in May of 1920. Ornamental sculpture and memorial plaques followed to commemorate the local legends of the River and the City. In 1925 the Colonial Dames of America and the Chicago Historical Society placed a Memorial to Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette on the east side of the bridge. A Memorial to Rene Robert Cavalier Sieur de LaSalle and Henri de Tonti was placed on the West. All of these explorers are reputed to have "slept here." Link to PUBLIC ART IN CHICAGO for very good descriptions of the Bridge (link HERE) and these Memorials in General (link Here).

Neither of these Placques are credited to an Artist. And both go largely unnoticed by the thousands of pedestrians that pass them each day. (And no wonder. They are mounted below waist level. There is no opportunity to step back for a better look. And they are dark.) Still, their quality is remarkably good and very much worth a second look. Today's detail photographs show the characters of the Jolliet and Marquette bronze relief

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This is quite a cast of characters.  Considered.  Well-rendered. 

The portrait directly above is (I'm guessing) Louis Jolliet. And I have to wonder what brought on that little smile. And what that unknown artist was thinking.  Just before this placque was cast.  In the spring of 1925.

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