On your left, look for the big, blocky red sandstone building with rows of arched windows and a little domed cupola perched on top like a hat it refuses to take off.
This is Peoria City Hall, and it’s been holding down the civic fort since the late 1890s. Reeves and Baillee designed it in 1897, and the city paid about $271,500 at the time... which is roughly $10 million in today’s money, give or take. Not bad for a building whose job description is basically “meetings, paperwork, and occasional drama.”
The style is Flemish Renaissance, and here’s the clever bit: it was designed so ANY of its four sides could be the “front.” Handy if you want your government to look important from every angle... or if you can’t decide where the main entrance should be. The exterior stone came all the way from the Lake Superior region, quarried back in 1890, and it still gives the place that warm, reddish glow in daylight.
Tilt your eyes up to the cupola. That bell up there weighs about 4,300 pounds, and it was already old when this building went up... cast in 1865. Inside, if you ever step in, there’s a marble staircase, iron railings, stained glass, and even a statue called “Love Knows No Caste.” The builders also left a cornerstone open so residents could drop in personal items to be sealed up-like a time capsule with better manners.
In the 1960s, the place hosted big-name speeches-Adlai Stevenson III, Edward Kennedy, even Lyndon Johnson. And in 2017, it won the Leslie B. Knope Trophy for “Best City Hall,” which sounds made up... but is very real.
When you’re set, Peoria Marriott Pere Marquette is a 3-minute walk heading northwest.
