Atop the perimeter of the roof on the east and west wings of the pre-fire Court House were about two dozen urn-shaped limestone finials, most of which remained precariously in place even though much of the building was destroyed by the flames. Following the fire, about a half dozen of these were salvaged and placed in different locations in the Chicago area. The one here stands today on the edge of Lincoln Park in front of the Matthew Laflin Memorial Building, home to the Chicago Academy of Sciences from 1894 to 1999. The Academy then moved north and east in the park to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, located just north of Fullerton and west of Lake Shore Drive. The Academy had been founded in 1857 and housed its splendid natural history collections in a South Division building at Wabash and Van Buren that fell before the fire.
To the left and behind the finial is the intersection of Clark Street and Lincoln Park West, which is another Landmark, the site of the Relic House.
