Henry Rockwell Baker
Memorial Community Center
101 S. 2nd St.

This Tudor style building was dedicated on May 1, 1926, to the memory of Henry Rockwell Baker, and to St. Charles veterans of World War I. Henry Baker (1891-1914), the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Edward J. Baker, had been a star football player for the St. Charles High School team. He died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-three. Henry Baker's portrait, painted by Paul Trebilcock, hangs in the main lounge of the Baker Community Center near portraits of his parents.

When the Community Center opened in 1926, it contained a lounge, a kitchen, a women's club room, a meeting room for Boy Scouts and Campfire Girls, an auditorium with a stage, and a swimming pool. The pool was later covered and a three-lane bowling alley took its place. The bowling alley was removed to make way for a youth center called "The Keg" which flourished in the 1960s.

Today, the Baker Community Center houses St. Charles Park District offices. It still provides meeting rooms for clubs and for some Park District activities.

For additional photographs, see these sources, more fully described in the Bibliography.

Reflections of St. Charles p 110
Celebrating History p 12-13, 85
St. Charles Illinois p 122

Also see...

Baker Memorial Park
Baker Memorial Methodist Church
Doc Morgan
Hotel Baker
Municipal Building
St. Charles National Bank

Sources

• Architectural Survey, St. Charles Central District, St. Charles, IL. 1995.
  
• Dewitte, Dorothy. "Henry Rockwell Baker, We Hardly Knew You." St. Charles Republican 22 April 1999: 16.
  
• Grondin, Kathryn."Happy Birthday: Baker Community Center Celebrates 70 Years of Activities in St. Charles." St. Charles Republican 1996.
  
• The Henry Rockwell Baker Memorial Community Center.
  
• Krapf, Paula and Monnet, Michelle. "Birthday Salute: Baker Community Center's 70th Year Cause for Celebration." Kane County Chronicle 6 Oct. 1996, A:1:1.
  
• 70th Birthday Celebration, Thursday, September 5, 1996.