Construction and World War I
Construction began in 1914 under the leadership of Charles Sumner Frost and took two years, at a total cost of $4.5 million. When it opened to the public in 1916, it was the largest pier in the world. The Pier was built both to handle shipping and as an entertainment site. The original Burnham Plan proposed five piers, but only one was commissioned. In 1917-18, during World War I (WWI), the Pier housed many Navy and some Army personnel, the Red Cross, and Home Defense units. It even had a jail for draft dodgers.
Read more about this topic: Navy Pier
Famous quotes containing the words construction, world and/or war:
“When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“Is it possible, after all, that spite of bricks and shaven faces, this world we live in is brimmed with wonders, and I and all mankind, beneath our garbs of common-placeness, conceal enigmas that the stars themselves, and perhaps the highest seraphim can not resolve?”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Combativeness was, I suppose, the dominant trait in my grandmother’s nature. An aggressive churchgoer, she was quite without Christian feeling; the mercy of the Lord Jesus had never entered her heart. Her piety was an act of war against Protestant ascendancy. ...The teachings of the Church did not interest her, except as they were a rebuke to others ...”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)