Photo Record
Images
Metadata
Object ID |
H723 |
Object Name |
Print, Photographic |
Description |
726 Eleventh Street, H.H. Holmes house -- built in 1892, torn down in 1997. Murderer H. H. Holmes's connection with Wilmette consisted of the house he built on what is now 11th Street for himself, his wife and child, and his wife's parents, in the early 1890s. Holmes met Myrta Z. Belknap in Minneapolis; they were married on January 28, 1887, and moved to Chicago, living above the drugstore in Englewood. The couple had one daughter named Lucy, born in July of 1889 and named after Myrta's mother. In 1888 or 1889 Myrta's parents moved to Wilmette, buying a cottage on John Street; John S. Belknap is listed there in the 1890 Wilmette directory, the earliest the Museum has. It was on that site that Holmes built his house, at what was then 38 N. John Street and was later 726 11th Street, between Lake and Central, next to the Congregational church. Holmes first built an addition on the north side of his in-laws' cottage, then tore down the cottage and completed the house. The Belknaps - Myrta's parents and her 23-year-old brother, John - appear to have lived in one side of this duplex, and the Holmeses in the other. The house, done in a distinctive Queen Anne style with turrets on either side of a wide veranda, was set far back from the street and painted dark red. Descriptions and partial sketches of the Holmes house ran in the Tribune and other Chicago papers in July of 1895, when press interest in Holmes and the murders was at its height, and due to many rumors it was searched by Chicago police to determine if there were any secret chambers or other incriminating evidence. After Holmes's execution, his wife and child and her family were forced to leave the house, which was encumbered with liens and was sold at auction. A 1901 Tribune article called it "one of the handsomest houses in Wilmette." In the 1920s one-half of the house operated as the Wilmette Inn, later the Wilmette Apartments. The Levon Kashian family owned the house for many years and rented the apartments to long-term tenants. The Kashians sold the house to a developer and it was demolished in 1997 to make way for townhouses. H. H. Holmes appears in only the 1892 and 1894 Wilmette street directories. He seldom visited the Wilmette house, but sent money to his wife. He set in motion various fraudulent transactions connected with the Wilmette property, with the result that it was entangled in mechanics' liens and ultimately deeded to one of his victims, Minnie Williams. After Holmes's trial and execution, the house was sold. The 1898 directory shows "Mrs. M. B. Holmes" as a teacher, living with her parents on the northeast corner of Kline Street and Central, but by the fall of 1897 she had already moved with Lucy to Hinsdale to teach school. The Belknaps remained in Wilmette until 1903, living on what is now Park Ave. Myrta continued her career as a teacher in the Midwest, first becoming a principal and then a school administrator in Duluth. She never remarried, and died in 1924. Daughter Lucy died in Los Angeles in 1956. |
Date |
1997 |