Harris soon began talking with friends and business associates about the idea of forming an organization for local professionals. In 1905, he and three other men gathered at an office in downtown Chicago for the first meeting of a new club called Rotary—the name came from the group’s early practice of rotating meetings between members’ offices. The initial vision for the club was simply to provide “fellowship and friendship” for urban businessmen, and they eventually developed a tradition of noon “luncheon meetings” to accommodate professionals’ routines.
