Paul
P. Harris
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The Early Years
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Today, Rotary is well known throughout the world for its dedication to
service and international goodwill. Changing the world through service,
however, was hardly uppermost in the mind of Paul P. Harris when he
founded
the organization in 1905. Harris, a lawyer in Chicago, Illinois, USA,
had
been raised in a rural village in Vermont. He envisioned a new kind of
club
for professionals that would kindle the fellowship and friendly spirit
he
had known in his youth.
On the evening of 23 February 1905, Harris invited three friends to a
meeting. Silvester Schiele, a coal dealer, Hiram Shorey, a merchant
tailor, and Gustavus Loehr, a mining engineer, gathered with Harris in
Loehr's business office in Room 711 of the Unity Building in downtown
Chicago. They discussed Harris' idea that business leaders should meet
periodically to enjoy camaraderie and to enlarge their circle of
business and professional acquaintances.
The club met weekly; membership was limited to one representative from
each
business and profession. Though the men didn't use the term Rotary that
night, that gathering is commonly regarded as the first Rotary club
meeting.
As they continued to convene, members began rotating their meetings
among their places of business, hence the name Rotary. After enlisting
a fifth member, printer Harry Ruggles, the group was formally organized
as the Rotary Club of Chicago. The original club emblem, a wagon wheel
design, was the
precursor of the familiar cogwheel emblem now used by Rotarians
worldwide.
The Grand Island Rotary Club was
chartered by the Hastings club on April 1, 1920.