Connecting the Windy City

Sunday, November 3, 2019

November 3, 1863 -- Rush Street Bridge Tender Breaks Bridge in Half

November 3, 1863 – While the regular bridge tender at Rush Street is away “peddling copperhead tickets in the Sixteenth Ward,” his replacement manages to break the bridge in two in one of the stranger incidents ever to take place on the river.  At 5:00 p.m. a hundred head of cattle are driven onto the bridge which was already occupied by “J. H. Dole, esq., with a horse and buggy, a teamster with a horse and wagon belonging to Mr. C. H. McCormick, a drover, and a young girl, a sister of the drover”. [Chicago Daily Tribune, November 4, 1863] At this point a tug whistles for the bridge to swing on its turntable to allow passage and “the reckless substitute of the tender swung the bridge” away from the banks of the river.  Almost immediately the north end of the bridge lifts 20 feet and “there was a snapping of iron, a cracking and crashing of timbers, a shriek of horror from the bystanders, and Rush street bridge, breaking in two across the centre pier, fell into the river, a total ruin.” The young girl was given up for lost after a search that lasted into the evening; everyone else was rescued.  About two-thirds of the cattle were either drowned or crushed to death by the falling bridge.  The paper’s account of the event ends with a question: “Hasn’t the city had about enough of Mayor Sherman’s bridge tenders … Cannot men be found, even amongst the Copperheads, who are competent to perform the simple duty of managing a turn bridge? Three years ago, there was no trouble at the bridges. Men were appointed then because they were honest, faithful and competent.  Since Mayor Sherman’s advent, how different has been the policy.”  The above photo shows the Rush Street bridge in 1860.

November 3, 1897 –A crowd of horrified spectators looking on from the Randolph Street viaduct and the Lake Front Park watch as Stuart Young, perched helplessly on the trapeze of his hot air balloon, rides it to his death in Lake Michigan.  Young, “the Dauntless King of the Air,” begins his ascent from Hubbard Court and Wabash Avenue at 2:05 p.m. as a large crowd looks on.  Clad in a suit of pink tights, he swings himself on the bar of the balloon’s trapeze and waves.  The crowd follows the balloon as it drifts toward the lakefront. Young has a parachute in the event the balloon drifts too far over open water, but he makes no attempt to leave the airship, and “the crowd in the park and on the viaduct shouted with horror as they saw the balloon swoop down into the lake and the figure in pink tights dragging through the waves” off Randolph Street. [Chicago Daily Tribune, November 4, 1897] A boat is immediately launched from the Life Saving Station at the mouth of the river and the tug W. J. McCarty cuts loose its tow and heads to the scene, but there is no sign of the aeronaut.  Young had begun making balloon ascensions ten years earlier and a week earlier had begun making ascensions from the scene of his last lift-off.  On the previous ride he landed safely on the Twelfth Street viaduct. As he prepared for what would be his final ride his manager cautioned him about letting the balloon get too near the lake, “but the balloonist laughed and said: ‘Never worry about me. I’ll always come down right.’” 

November 3, 1933 – Good news arrives in the city as the Federal Public Works Administration sends an $8,000,000 check to the Chicago Sanitary District as a down payment on the work that must be done in order to meet a U. S. Supreme Court mandate that the city cut its diversion of Lake Michigan water from 10,000 cubic feet per second to 1,500.  Another $130,000,000 for the project remains pending.  The contract accompanying the allotment runs to 33 pages and will ultimately lead to the employment of more that 3,000 men in the completion of sewer work, primarily on the south and west sides of the city, necessary to make the system ready for the impending drastic reduction in lake water running through the river, the primary system for more than three decades for cleansing the channel.  Begun in 1922 the Calumet Sewage Treatment Works, pictured above, was expanded significantly with the money that came from the Federal Public Works Administration.

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Labels: 1863, Chicago Bridges, Chicago RIver, Rush Street

Monday, August 12, 2019

August 12, 1863 -- Bridgeport Gets Sympathy from Tribune Editorial

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August 12, 1863 – Two years before the Union Stock Yard and Transit Company opens the Union Stockyards on 375 acres of marshland in an area bounded by Halsted Street on the east, South Racine Avenue on the west, Thirty-Ninth Street on the north and Forty-Seventh Street on the south, the Chicago Tribune is already editorializing about the conditions in the area around what is today Bridgeport.  The paper observes, “It is said that the stench that is now complained of as arising from Bridgeport, or in that direction, is from several slaughterhouses which continue to spread their putrescent matter broadcast, inflicting the nauseating and unhealthy atmosphere upon the inhabitants.”  [Chicago Tribune, August 12, 1863].  The piece constitutes, “No man should be considered a good citizen who will thus outrage the feelings and endanger the health of others.”  For good measure the editorial states in full the law governing businesses such as the ones creating the nuisance:  No person shall hereafter, throw, place or conduct, or suffer his or her servant, child or family to throw, place or conduct into any street, alley or lot, any putrid or unsound beef, pork, fish, hides or skins, of any kind, or any filth, offal, dung, dead animal, vegetables, oyster shells, or other unsound or offensive matter whatever or anything like to become offensive.  Nor shall any person allow such filth, offal, dung, or other offensive matter as aforesaid, to be or remain upon any premises, or n any out-house, stable, privy or other place owned or occupied by them, or in any alley or street in front of such premises, in such manner as to be offensive to the neighborhood.  And every person who shall violate any of the provisions of this section, shall be fined in a sum not exceeding twenty-five dollars.”  The conditions against which the writers protest would get much, much worse as the Union Stock Yards would eventually hold 2,300 separate livestock pens with enough room, at a single time, to hold 75,000 hogs, 21,000 cattle, and 22,000 sheep.

August 12, 1900 – A few carriages are seen making the entire circuit of Chicago’s boulevard system after the bridge on Diversey Boulevard is completed and the boulevard project is finished.  There are only two breaks in the 30-mile “ring of parks” that runs around the city on three sides – one between Humboldt Boulevard and Humboldt Park and the other south of Douglas Park leading to the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.  The latter is particularly notable … “a drive of more than a mile over rough cedar pavements, car tracks, through unpaved streets filled with mudholes and through a big ditch near the drainage channel would almost dispel the favorable impressions gained.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, August 13, 1900] Lake Shore Drive in Lincoln Park is the least impressive part of the completed system, a route on which “A carriage lurches along through holes that are half a foot deep, wheelmen dodge in and out to avoid them.  Water from sprinkling collects in the holes and splashes carriages and riders.”  There are only ten railroad crossings in the entire 30-mile system.  Although there are rough patches along the way, the Tribune concludes, “A trip over the system now that it is made possible serves to show most of all at what a comparatively slight expenditure the whole thing might be put in shape … When it is finished Chicago will have the longest boulevard drive in the world.”

August 12, 1999 – A power failure leaves the city’s Greek Town neighborhood and 30 square blocks of the Loop from the center of downtown southward in the dark, sends workers tumbling from high rise office buildings and busses packed with people trying to get home moving slowly through intersections where the traffic lights are not working.  Mayor Richard M. Daley says, “I firmly believe this company better get down to ground zero.  Someone should tell [utility executives] about that infrastructure.  Infrastructure is the key.  They’ve neglected it for too long and it’s come home to roost.”  [CNN.com, August 13, 1999] The Board of Trade stops trading because of the service disruption.  Banks in the heart of the city lose power, and the downtown police headquarters operates on emergency generators.  Weather is not involved in the blackout.  Three of four transformers at a downtown substation go offline.  One had been undergoing repairs in the preceding week, and another two shut down while, at the same time, two high voltage cables also fail.  This problem comes less than two weeks after a power failure on July 30 that left 100,000 people in the city without power on the hottest day of the year as temperatures climbed to 104 degrees.  Commonwealth Edison spokesman Keith Bromery engages in an epic feat of understatement when he says, “Basically, we know that we have a reliability problem.” [Los Angeles Times, August 26, 1999] The substation at 868 South Jefferson, shown above, is the area in the south Loop at which three out of four transformers failed.

August 12, 1952 – Ground is broken for the 35-million dollar Prudential building on Randolph Street, east of Michigan Avenue.  Mayor Martin Kennelly and Valentine Howell, the executive vice-president of the Prudential Insurance Company of America scoop up the first shovels of earth for one of the 260 caissons that will support the 41-story building as Holman D. Pettibone, president of the Chicago Title and Trust Company, officiates at the ceremonies.  For an in-depth look at the origins of the Prudential building and what it take to get the thing built, you can turn to this blog entry from 2012.  The above photo shows the area east of Michigan Avenue before Prudential was begun.  It would stand just about where the Pabst Blue Ribbon sign is located.

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Labels: 1863, Chicago Neighborhoods, Chicago Places, Stockyards

Saturday, July 20, 2019

July 20, 1863 -- Palmisano Park, the Early Days

jbartholomewphoto

July 20, 1863 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports of a gruesome accident at the lime quarry of Stearns and Company, about a half-mile west of Halsted Street.  At about 5:00 p.m. a foreman, Michael Gaven, makes preparations to blast a section of wall, calling workers away from the area and setting the fuse.  After waiting nearly ten minutes, he moves to the site of the intended blast to figure out what has gone wrong.  Just as he reaches the area, the explosion comes, “tearing Mr. Gaven’s body into fragments.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 20, 1863].  The 45-year-old leaves a wife and three children.  The 27-acre site was used as a limestone quarry from 1833 to 1969 by the Illinois Stone and Lime Company, after which it was used as a landfill for clean construction waste from 1969 to 1974.  During its run as a limestone quarry, enough rock was removed to carry the space 380 feet below the street level.  After the dump site was shut down the City of Chicago and landscape architecture firm Site Design Group began planning an “environmentally-sustainable design … inspired by the natural history of the site.” [www.chicagoparkdistrict.com]. The landfill was capped with more than 40,000 square feet of clean topsoil, culminating in a 33-foot hill that offers spectacular views of the city to the northeast.  The new park was named after Henry Palmisano, the owner of a bait shop at 3130 South Canal Street, who passed away in 2005 during construction of the park.

July 20, 1984 – Strolling through Millennium Park today, it is difficult to imagine what the area was like before the transformation began.  Back in 1984 Cindy Mitchell, the president of Friends of the Park, had this to say about the area east of Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Monroe Streets, “This could be the premier spot of the downtown area, a real tourist attraction and a place for Loop workers to enjoy a lunch, but it needs a great deal of work and some creative thinking.  [Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1984] In a stroll through the garden with a Tribune reporter and photographer, Mitchell pointed out that “The flower beds have no flowers.  Benches are in need of paint.  Workmen were trying to start up the two large decorative and long-dry water fountains. When the water was turned on in the first fountain, a huge leak sprang through the deteriorated masonry.  The second fountain proved more of a challenge and refused to flow.”  That wasn’t the worst of it.  Grass along the Michigan Avenue sidewalk is nonexistent; what little grass there is in the “park” is parched.  Stairways are deteriorating at an alarming degree and most of the wiring in the park lights is so far gone that few of them work.  “Deeper in the park, the pigeons munch on piles of debris and share the lawn and benches with dozing derelicts, bag people and other itinerant-looking characters, some of whom frequent the back reaches of the park along the balustrade esplanade and dissuade visitors from using the area.” Commander Robert Casey of the First Police District says of the park that, although it is generally safe, “Office workers go there to smoke marijuana, and the bums sleep there during the night.  We run the wagons in there early in the morning to get rid of the rummies.” Mitchell asserts, ‘When you’ve got a problem, you can’t just throw up your hands and say, ‘It’s impossible.’ You have to say, ‘Let’s attack this problem. We can lick it.’ It takes some vision, some planning, some creative thinking. It takes determination. After all, Chicago’s motto is, ‘I will.’” Two decades later creative thinking paid off when Millennium Park opened and the city received a beautiful new front yard. The before and after pictures tell the story.

July 20, 1881 – The Directors of the Board of Trade receive assurances that an ordinance vacating a portion of LaSalle Street between Jackson Boulevard and Van Buren Street will be valid and, based upon this information, vote to purchase the property at this location for $10,000.  The next step will be to organize a Building Association since Illinois law prohibits the Board from erecting a building exceeding $100,000 in valuation.  It is anticipated that the new building will cost at least $800,000, but the matter of the building itself is left for another day.  The Chicago Daily Tribune summarizes the results of the meeting in this way, “The Board of Trade purchases the property for $10,000.  This it leases to a Building Association for a term of fifty or one hundred years at a fixed rental.  The Building Association erects the edifice, and leases to the Board of Trade what may be required at a certain rental, yet to be determined upon.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 21, 1881] This would be a decision that would produce a huge impact on this area. According to Homer Hoyt in his One Hundred Years of Land Values in Chicago, "From 1881 to 1883 the value of land on Jackson, Van Buren, Wells, and LaSalle streets near the Board of Trade advanced from $200 and $400 a front foot to from $1,500 to $2,000 a front foot .. the total increase in the value of land and buildings within half a mile from the Board of Trade from 1881 to 1885 was estimated by current observers at from $20,000,000 to $40,000,000."  The first Board of Trade building to stand on this site is pictured above.  Barely visible above the front entrance at the base of the tower are the two statues of Agriculture and Industry that still stand in the plaza outside the present day Board of Trade building.

July 20, 1913 – The Chicago Daily Tribune’s art critic, Harriet Moore, writes an opinion piece in which she supports the City Club in its campaign against billboards.  Her argument begins with a single question, one she asked at a previous hearing in which a City Council committee was listening to testimony from both advocates and opponents of the signs, “Is it your opinion that beauty has neither health value nor financial value in a modern metropolis?”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 20, 1913]  She then answers the question with three separate responses:  that beauty is a health producer (“Hideous objects and harsh sounds, assaulting eyes and ears in a manner not to be escaped, destroy the harmony of life by introducing discords, and reduce the joy of life by insulting the senses with ugliness.”); that beauty is a commercial asset in any community (“Without beauty a city is merely a place to make money in and get away from.”); and, beauty is a great investment (“Why does the whole world flock to Italy, spending there millions every year?  Because, a few centuries ago a few hundred artists builded and carved and painted beautifully.”)  Moore concludes, “Chicago has the opportunity to become one of the most beautiful cities in the world.  The lake, the long stretch of park which is to border it, Michigan avenue widened to the river and adequately connected with the Lake Shore drive, the widened Twelfth street, the new railway terminals, the enlarged business district—these and other conditions and projects will create a beautiful metropolis.  Along with these large plans for civic beauty should go eternal vigilance against all kinds of defacement and in favor of all kinds of minor improvements.  The fight against billboards is an important detail of the general campaign.”

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Labels: 1863, Chicago History, Chicago Neighborhoods, Chicago Parks, Chicago Places, Halsted Street

Saturday, February 16, 2019

February 16, 1863 -- Chicago Tribune Decries Lakefront Burial Site

hidden truths,northwester.edu

February 16, 1863 – An editorial in the Chicago Tribune laments the conditions at Camp Douglas, an area of the city that lies along the lakefront south of the business district in which a camp has been established to imprison Confederate prisoners-of-war. The editorial points with alarm at the fact that “The great increase of mortality at Camp Douglas … now brings another source of impurity to light, of a most alarming nature, and one which threatens the most alarming consequences, unless it is immediately remedied.” [Chicago Tribune, February 16, 1863]   Since the establishment of Camp Douglas in early 1862, the editorial observes, 640 bodies of rebel soldiers have been buried in Potter’s Field, an area that today we know as the green space of Lincoln Park – this despite an 1859 ordinance that forbade the sale of family plots in the city cemetery just west of Potter’s Field.  On top of this the county poor house, located several miles west of the city, has been sending its deceased residents to the cemetery.  “It must not be forgotten,” the editorial states, “that our cemetery is intersected, north and south, by this slough, which drains the whole cemetery; and that it discharges a little north of the City Water Works, which supply the entire city, north, south and west, with the water they daily consume.”  A strongly worded conclusion to the piece cries out for action, “It has been enough to endure the yet unremedied impurity and corruption of the river.  But the wisdom of our City Fathers, inadequate, as yet, for the relief of that foul source of corruption, is now willing to add to the already corrupted waters we daily drink, the yet more foul and subtle elements of death, exuding from our cemetery, almost into the very pipes which carry the element of life or death into every household.”  It is difficult to believe that in the quiet park land of Lincoln Park today there once were in excess of 15,000 bodies buried in this Potter's Field. 

February 16, 1879 – The Chicago Daily Tribune prints a special dispatch from the London Telegraph in which the British paper is “highly eulogistic of the City of Chicago.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, February 16, 1879] Pointing out the city’s amazing growth – from wilderness 50 years earlier to a city of 500,000 inhabitants – the paper observes, “…the record of Chicago leaves San Francisco, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Melbourne far in the lurch … It is, indeed, the proud boast of some among its aspiring citizens that, within the lifetime of children recently born, Chicago will in population be the second city of the Anglo-Saxon race, and will be surpassed in this respect by London alone.”  The article speaks in amazement of the city’s commerce … in the preceding year 130,000,000 bushels of grain were handled in the city, along with 1,200,000,000 feet of lumber and 6,200,000 hogs. Despite its impressive growth and commerce, the Telegraph points out two fatal flaws at the end of the article.  First, is the city’s financial position. “We read without surprise,” the paper reports, “that the ‘City Fathers’ have piled up so big a municipal debt that, in a community as sanguine and progressive as any in the world, no more money can be borrowed on any terms.”  Also mentioned is the crime that plagues the city.  The Telegraph observes, “…  the question asked again and again by our Chicago contemporaries, ‘Have we a police force?’ derives additional significance from the street robberies, which seem to be of constant occurrence.”  Given those two negatives, the London paper concludes that the city “…cannot yet be regarded as an attractive home for civilized Europeans.”

February 16, 1944 – Gordon L. Pirie, vice-president and general manager of Carson Pirie Scott and Company, dies of heart disease in the Presbyterian Hospital.  Pirie’s condition has been dire for several days, and as he lingers near death his sister ALSO dies at her winter home in Plymouth, Florida.  Pirie graduated from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and worked in various retail stores before he came to Chicago to join his father, the founder of the store in which his name played a prominent part.  Pirie was a member of the executive committee of the American Retail Federation, treasurer of the North Shore Property Owners association, chairman of the committee on transportation and traffic of the State Street Council, and former director of the Association of Commerce.  He was also a trustee of the Winnetka Congregational Church.  [Chicago Daily Tribune, February 17, 1944]

F

ebruary 16, 1954 -- Ralph Budd, chairman of the Chicago Transit Authority, proposes a plan for extending the city's rapid transit system. The greatest share of the plan involves adding to the city's rapid transit system by constructing rights of way for rail operation as part of the network of proposed super-highways. Mayor Kennelly calls the proposal "remarkable." Arthur T. Leonard, president of the Chicago Association of Commerce, calls the plan "both challenging and constructive." Observe the Red Line as you drive on the Dan Ryan or the Green Line along the Kennedy or the Blue Line running parallel to the Eisenhower, and you will see Budd's proposal at work today, the first time, at least in this country, when rapid transit was planned as an integral part of an urban highway system.

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Labels: 1863, Chicago Places, Lake Michigan, Lincoln Park

Sunday, December 30, 2018

December 30, 1950 -- Chicago Fire Statistics for 1863

encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org

December 30, 1863–The Chicago Tribune publishes a set of statistics that illustrate the extent to which fire menaced the city in 1863.  Altogether there were 200 fires in the city during the year, only one provided “any great degree of destitution and suffering.”  [Chicago Tribune, December 30, 1863] That was a fire on September 5 in which 22 buildings were destroyed on or around State Street and 50 families were left without a home.  Two dozen fires were the result of “gross and criminal carelessness—playing with combustibles with lighted matches, overturning candles in hay and straw …” while 15 fires were incendiary.  Three were caused by lightning.  As might be expected, July was the month with the heaviest concentration of fires while February held the least.  The loss of property amounted to $608,492 with the heaviest loss coming as a result of the burning of Turner and Mitchell’s Packing House on December 22 at a loss of $45,000.  The article also advocates for the establishment of a central fire alarm and police telegraph system, stating, “In a city so widely extended, a system, whose object is to give an instantaneous, universal and definite alarm in case of fire, and to afford facilities for instant police communication with some central station from every portion of the city, cannot fail to be regarded with favor.”  The above photo shows the city in 1860 at the Rush Street bridge, about the point where Trump International Hotel and Tower stands today.

December 30, 1929 – A large American flag is hoisted to the twenty-fifth floor of the Merchandise Mart as the highest piece of steel is placed, and the massive building rockets toward completion.  What makes this especially amazing is that ground was broken on the project just 16 months earlier on August 13, 1928.  The first 200 tenants will move into the building on May 1, 1930.

December 30, 1950 – The National Arts Foundation announces that Frank Lloyd Wright has been chosen as the contemporary artist “who would be most highly regarded in the year 2000” in a selection process in which “prominent artists, writers and musicians from 17 countries” [Chicago Daily Tribune, December 31, 1950] participated. In the same selection process Albert Schweitzer is named the “Man of the Century.”

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Labels: 1863, State Street

Saturday, June 30, 2018

June 30, 1863 -- McCormick Theological Seminary Dedication

June 30,1863 –The cornerstone of the Theological Seminary at the corner of Halsted Street and Fullerton Avenue, takes place in a ceremony which opens with the assembled guests singing “I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord.” Reverend Dr. Matthews of Monmouth, Illinois then presents the past history of the Seminary, after which he lays the cornerstone. Today’s McCormick Theological Seminary is the descendant of this seminary which, according to the McCormick website, “was born in a log cabin” in Hanover, Indiana with a faculty of two and a “handful of students.”  Seeking a Presbyterian seminary in Chicago, Cyrus McCormick provided a $100,000 donation to endow four professorships, allowing the Seminary to move to 25 acres in today’s Lincoln Park.  In 1975 the seminary moved to Hyde Park, a move that allowed the school to share resources with the Jesuit School of Theology and the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.  The above photo shows the Halsted Street entrances of McCormick Hall, built in 1883; Ewing Hall, built in 1863, and the seminary chapel, built in 1875.  

June 30, 1941 – Superior Court Judge Ulysses S. Schwartz awards $1,275 to A. F. Cuneo, the owner of two three-story buildings at 933 and 939 North State Street, an amount that covers the cost “of protecting the buildings against possible collapse as the result of subway excavation” [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 31, 1943] related to the 8.75 mile subway we know today as the Red Line.  The case is seen as a precedent, impacting “millions of dollars” that are involved in the dispute between the city and property owners over damages incurred during the construction of the subway.  City officials plan on appealing the ruling to the Supreme Court, but a clause in the Illinois Constitution does not appear to support their case.  It reads, “Private property shall not be taken or damaged for public use without compensation.”  Already 50 suits have stacked up, amounting to a million-and-a-half dollars, mostly costs associated with underpinning buildings to protect them from collapse as the subway tunnel is bored beneath them.  Construction of the State Street subway is shown in the photo above. 

June 30, 1950 – The formal dedication of Merrill C. Meigs Field takes place on the lakefront.  Although the airport has been open since December 10, 1948, it carried no name.  Speaking from prepared notes, Meigs, who had served as the head of the city’s Aero Commission, said, “When my name was brought up last year before the city council, there were objections that no airport should be named for a living person.  I was honored at the original suggestion but felt that the sacrifice involved—in order to qualify—was too great a price, even for that glory.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 1, 1950]   Special guests were drawn from 30 states—the Flying Farmers of Prairieland and the National Flying Farmers.  It is estimated that 890 of their planes, carrying 2,047 persons, landed at Chicago area airports.   

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Labels: 1863, Halsted Street, Houses of Worship

Monday, June 11, 2018

June 11, 1863 -- First Brick Building in Chicago Successfully Moved

June 11, 1863 – The Chicago Tribune reports that Mr. John McAuley has successfully moved the first brick building, a two-story structure that will become the New York Dye House.  Safe in its new location at 208 Clark Street, the building is “now in a s good condition as before it was moved,” reports the Tribune.  In a rapidly growing city with lots and lots of room to build, house movers perfected their craft quickly. The Encyclopedia of Chicago notes that the industry had become so common in the middle of the nineteenth century that the Chicago City Council passed ordinances prohibiting more than one building at a time to stand in the streets or for any one building to stand in the streets for more than three days.  Over a period of a few years Chicago building movers became, perhaps, the best in the world, mostly because of the city’s attempt, beginning in 1855, to raise itself out of its own sewage by jacking up a significant number of buildings anywhere from four to fourteen feet.  By 1890 1,710 permits were issued for the movement of structures throughout the city.  That was the year that 33,992 linear feet, or 6.4 miles, of building frontage changed locations within the city.  For more on the ability of Chicago to move its buildings around you can turn to this blog entry in Connecting the Windy City.  The above photo shows the raising of the Robbins Building in 1855, a building 150 feet long, 80 feet wide and five stories high, located at the corner of South Water Street and Wells Street. 

 

June 11, 1892 – A curious coincidence is noted in the Chicago Daily Tribune, “remarked upon by numerous people in marine circles ...” [Chicago Daily Tribune, June 11, 1892] On the previous day in Chicago as Benjamin Harrison was being nominated for re-election as President of the United States at the Republican convention in Minneapolis, “the schooner Benjamin Harrison was passing through Harrison street bridge in Chicago, the Protection towing her and the Union astern, with the barge Sunshine following in tow of the Satisfaction.” 

June 11, 1861 – An editorial in the Chicago Tribune once again screams at the foulness of the Chicago River . . . “Cross the river at nightfall and see what an odor of nastiness prevails there.  It will breed a pestilence, this huge, filthy ditch, which reeks with the garbage of distilleries and slaughter houses, sewers, and cesspools, and the odorous refuse of the Gas Company.  We do not remember to have ever before seen it as abominably unclean as now.  The hot season is at hand.  What shall be done?  The question is an easy one to answer.  Set the big pumps at Bridgeport at work, and in twenty-four hours time, fresh, pure water from the lake will take the place of this infamous broth concocted of all uncleanness and pent under the very nostrils of our citizens.  Let the river be pumped out; it is high time.”  [Chicago Tribune, June 11, 1861]  It would be another 39 years before the river would be “pumped out” with the opening of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, but this piece does show that the idea for reversing the river had been under consideration for decades before the 1900 completion of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

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Labels: 1863, Clark Street, Down They Forgot as Up They Grew