The Chicago Bee Building is a historic building on Chicago's South Side. It originally housed the '' Chicago Bee'', a newspaper serving the African Americans of Chicago. The building now houses the Chicago Bee Branch of the Chicago Public Library. The building was named a

Chicago Landmark Chicago Landmark is a designation by the Mayor and the City Council of Chicago for historic sites in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Listed sites are selected after meeting a combination of criteria, including historical, economic, archite ...

on September 9, 1998. It is located in the Black Metropolis-Bronzeville District in the

Douglas Douglas may refer to: People * Douglas (given name) * Douglas (surname) Animals *Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking *Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civil W ...

community area of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

. The ''Chicago Bee'' was founded by the African American entrepreneur

Anthony Overton Anthony Overton Jr. (March 21, 1865 – July 2, 1946), was an American banker and manufacturer. He was the first African American to lead a major business conglomerate.Harvard Business School. American Business Leaders of the Twentieth CenturyAnth ...

in 1926. This building was Overton's affirmation of his confidence in the viability of the State Street Commercial district. This three-story building was one of the most picturesque in the district, and the one designed in the Art Deco style of the 1920s. All of Overton's enterprises shared this building until the early 1940s when the newspaper went out of business. The cosmetics firm continued to occupy the building until the early 1980s. The City of Chicago purchased the building and it is now a Chicago Public Library. It originally had upper-floor apartments. It also housed the offices of the Douglass National Bank and the Overton Hygienic Company, during the 1930s. The Overton Hygienic Company was nationally known as a cosmetics firm. Overton Hygienic went out of business in the early 1980s. In the mid-1990s, the building was reused as a branch of the Chicago Public Library. It is one of nine structures in the Black Metropolis-Bronzeville Historic District. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

on April 30, 1986.

Gallery

Image:20070601 Chicago Bee Building (2).JPG Image:20070601 Chicago Bee Building.JPG

Notes

Chicago Bee Building
Tour Black Chicago

External links

* {{Registered Historic Places Douglas, Chicago Office buildings in Chicago Chicago Landmarks Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Chicago Commercial buildings completed in 1929 Art Deco architecture in Illinois African-American history in Chicago