Grundy County IL Archives Biographies.....Armstrong, Charles G 1858 - 
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Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com March 25, 2006, 9:25 am

Author: Bio/Gen Record LaSalle/Grundy, 1900

Charles G. Armstrong

In a profession where advancement is dependent upon knowledge and skill, 
success is achieved only through individual merit. It is a wise provision of 
nature that learning cannot be inherited, that we enter this world on an equal 
intellectual basis, and therefore are dependent upon our own labors and 
application for the learning which fits us for life’s practical duties. Each 
individual masters the same rudiments of knowledge as all others, and when 
this is accomplished it will then be found that he has developed the ability 
to carry his labors still farther along special lines, fitting him for a 
particular work. It is true that with only an elementary education some may 
enter certain lines of business and attain success, or by inheritance or 
influence secure control of a prosperous enterprise; but in professional life 
progress and success depend solely upon the efforts of the individual, — his 
close application, his mastery of scientific principles and his ability to 
apply them to the affairs of life.

Greater credit is therefore due one who owes his prosperous and enviable 
business standing to his own labors, as does Mr. Armstrong, who is numbered 
among the most capable electrical engineers in the entire country.  Steadily 
he has advanced step by step until he has long since left the ranks of the 
many to stand among the successful few, and material evidences of his marked 
ability are seen in some of the finest buildings throughout the land.  He has 
his office and maintains his residence in Chicago, but as consulting 
electrical engineer he has traveled throughout the greater part of the Union, 
and has gained a reputation scarcely second to any in the country.

Charles Goold Armstrong is one of the “native sons” of whom LaSalle county, 
Illinois, has every reason to be proud. He was born there August 23, 1858, and 
in the public schools acquired his preliminary education. His boyhood days 
were spent upon the home farm, and he early became familiar with the labors 
that fall to the lot of the agriculturist. His early school training was 
supplemented by a course in the University of Illinois, at Champaign, having 
made his own way through college, thus showing forth the elemental strength of 
his character, which in later years has enabled him to work his way steadily 
upward.

For two years after leaving the university Mr. Armstrong was engaged in the 
drug business, and then devoted three years to civil engineering.  Since that 
time he has given his entire attention to electrical engineering, and in 1890 
opened an office in Chicago. During the ten years which have come and gone 
from the time he first began business in Chicago he has served as consulting 
electrical engineer in connection with the equipment of many of the finest 
buildings in the city and throughout the country. He served in that capacity 
for the Auditorium, the Schiller Theater, the Great Northern Theater and the 
Stock Exchange Building, of Chicago; the Union Trust Building and the St. 
Nicholas Hotel, in St. Louis; the Commercial Building of Louisville, Kentucky; 
the City Hall, the Milwaukee Public Library and the Pabst power plant, of 
Milwaukee, Wisconsin; the plant of the Marquette Placer Mining Company, in 
central Colorado; the Guarantee Building, in Buffalo, New York; the Grand 
Central Depot and the Union Loan & Investment Company Building, in New York 
city; and the St. Anthony Falls Water Power Company, at Minneapolis, having an 
electrical plant of ten thousand horse power, this power being transmitted ten 
miles, — a marvelous piece of electrical engineering. These serve to indicate 
the marked ability of Mr. Armstrong, whose close study of electricity and his 
thorough understanding of its uses have made him one of the leaders in his 
profession in the United States.

In 1881 was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Armstrong and Miss Frances Lowry, a 
daughter of Colonel Francis Lowry, who was the commander of the One Hundred 
and Seventh Regiment of Illinois Volunteers during the civil war, and was 
killed at the battle of Franklin, Tennessee. To Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong have 
been born four children: Florence, Frances, Clara and Charlotte. In his 
political views Mr. Armstrong is a Republican.  Socially he is connected with 
the Union League Club of Chicago. His own life, in its splendid success, 
illustrates most clearly the opportunities which this land, unhampered by 
caste or class, offers to those who really desire advancement. His social 
qualities, courtesy and kindly manner have won him many friends, and the 
circle of his acquaintances is very extensive.

Additional Comments:
Source:  Biographical and Genealogical Record of La Salle and Grundy County, 
Illinois, Volume 11, Chicago, 1900, p485-487

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