The Boy Who Built Chicago

Long before it became a fortress of local history, the ground beneath Gardiner Place held a promise made by a hometown boy who conquered the western frontier. Ever heard of the man who built Chicago? Well, he came from Walton and you're standing at his legacy.

William B. Ogden was born right here in Walton in 1805. He started out simple enough, working as the local postmaster, but his ambitions stretched far beyond the quiet banks of the Delaware River.

When he headed west in 1835, he walked straight into a swampy, mud-slicked frontier settlement called Chicago — and immediately set about building it into an empire.

First Mayor of Chicago: Elected in 1837 during the Panic of 1837. At just 32 years of age he successfully kept the young city solvent, drafted its initial charter, and funded the construction of early streets and the city's very first swing bridge.

The Railroad Titan: He spearheaded the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad — Chicago's first rail line, launched in 1848. He later cobbled regional lines into the Chicago and North Western Railway as its first president, and was named the first president of the Union Pacific Railroad under the 1862 Pacific Railroad Act.

Industrial Pioneer: He co-founded the Chicago Board of Trade, helped finance Cyrus McCormick's revolutionary reaper works, and almost by accident, created Chicago's Goose Island. Talk about a résumé, right?

Even as he became known as 'the Astor of Chicago' and accumulated a massive fortune, Ogden never forgot his roots. When he passed away in 1877, he left a portion of his estate back to his hometown.

In 1892, his trustee arrived to ask the community what they wanted to do with it. The answer was a sanctuary for the mind. Backed by an initial construction fund of $13,500 — equivalent to over half a million dollars today — the grand design came together through blueprints by New York architects Morris and Walker and builder Alexander Carman of Binghamton.

But the soul of the building? Purely local. Stonecutters quarried native bluestone straight out of Marvin Hollow and Shepard Hill, while regional sawmills and blacksmiths provided the heavy timber and hand-pinned hardware. Every piece of this building came from this valley.

Construction wrapped up by 1897, but the building famously sat vacant for nearly two years. The bottleneck wasn't a crisis — it was classic New York State bureaucracy. It took months of slow mail coaches and telegraph wires to secure a formal state charter, acquire books, and outfit the interior before the doors finally opened on January 29, 1899.

Over a century later, that grand bluestone structure stands proud on the National Register of Historic Places, operated as a vital nonprofit community anchor. But its endurance has been tested. True to the valley's grit, the library survived the catastrophic June 2006 flood, which swamped its lower level and threatened irreplaceable historical records. Through fierce preservation, grants, and community support, those archives were salvaged and digitized.

Today, step inside past those bluestone walls and you'll find Ogden's portrait still hanging above the fireplace — watching over the town that raised him. A living bridge between a boy who left this valley and a legacy he made sure came back home.

Directions to Next Stop

If you are in front of the Library, turn around and head on down to 30 Gardner Place to the Walton Theater.