January 12, 1881 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that Mr. John D. Parker has been
successful in “obtaining the signatures of all the property-owners on La Salle
street as far north as Madison, and also of three or four between Madison and
the river, to a petition to the City Council urging that body to declare vacant
that portion of La Salle street between Jackson and Van Buren.” Parker is a prime mover in the effort to
re-locate the Board of Trade to the property that the petition concerns. Three other sites are possibilities for the
new headquarters – one on Wabash Avenue between Van Buren and Harrison; another
at the corner of State Street and Van Buren; and the third on the block bounded
by Jackson, Van Buren and Third and Fourth Streets. How different any of these areas – especially
the site Parker and his allies favored – would look today if the critics of the
plan had found a sympathetic hearing at City Hall and the politicians had
refused to go along with the plan. In a little over four years the vacated section of La Salle Street would give rise to the 1885 Board of Trade building, the opening of which is heralded in the announcement pictured above.
Also on this date from an earlier blog . . .
January 12, 1924 -- D. C. Davies, director of the Field Museum of Natural History for ten years, announces that the museum's new building has been completed. The original four million dollar gift of Marshall Field had, with interest, grown to $6,300,000 which was somewhat less than the cost of the seven million dollar building south of Grant Park. The shortage was made up with donations from some of the wealthiest members of Chicago society -- Captain Marshall Field, Stanley Field, N. W. Harris, James Simpson, and Edward E. Ayer. The architectural firm that designed the beaux arts building on the lakefront, Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, also made a contribution. More than a quarter-century after it was first proposed, after years of political wrangling over its location, the museum was finally complete.
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1 comment:
Mistake in your headline. I think you meant 1881, not 1891
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