Connecting the Windy City

Saturday, February 1, 2020

February 1, 1900 -- Graceland Cemetery Receives Philip D. Armour, Jr.

February 1, 1900 – Phillip D. Armour, Jr. is buried in Graceland Cemetery following a funeral held in the family residence at 3700 South Michigan Avenue where the casket is placed in the library and the public is allowed to enter and pay its respects.  The Chicago Daily Tribune reports, “Hundreds of persons filed past the casket, among them many employés of Armour and Co.  The entire faculty and students of Armour Institute attended the funeral in a body.”  Reverend Frank W. Gunsaulus conducts the services and a quartet from the Second Presbyterian Church sings, “Nearer, My God to Thee.”  The funeral cortegé passes down Michigan Avenue to Fortieth Street where a special train waits to take the funeral party to Graceland.  The youngest son of Philip Danforth Armour began his career at Armour and Company at the bottom, working in the stockyards.  At the age of 25 he became a partner in the company his father, who was to outlive him, started.  He was 31-years-old at the time of his death.

February 1, 1911 – The United States engineer stationed in Chicago, George A. Zinn, speaking at an Association of Commerce luncheon at the La Salle Hotel, condemns center pier bridges “as a serious obstacle to the advance of Chicago commerce.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, February 2, 1911] Zinn says, “Until the center pier bridge is removed over both the Chicago and Calumet rivers, the manufacturers whose plants line the river banks will be unable to receive the full advantage these rivers offer in a commercial way.  They will be unable to ship by water to any great advantage.”  He added that it was his intention to make certain that every bridge on the river maintained a height of at least 16 feet over the water.  On the same day the attorney for the Pennsylvania Railroad, speaking at a meeting of the Chicago Real Estate Board, offers his opinion that the river should be closed to navigation except for small vessels, carrying light cargo from an outer harbor, assuming that such a harbor could one day be built.  According to the Tribune’s coverage of the meeting, the attorney, Frank J. Loesch, “contended that fixed bridges with an adequate lighterage system would solve the problem which would place Chicago in a line with other cities that have been confronted with river conditions similar to those in Chicago.”  The above photo shows the Madison Street center pier bridge in the process of giving way to its trunnion bascule replacement in 1922.

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February 1, 1928 – Moving vans line up on Wells Street as all the furniture is removed from the Briggs house and taken to an auctioneer’s warehouse.  It is, the Chicago Tribune reports, “… like carrying out the history of Chicago.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, February 2, 1928]  As the furniture is being moved from the building, someone apparently drops a cigar butt into the air shaft above the kitchen, setting off a grease fire.  The Tribune observes, “With the smoke that poured out into the surrounding streets came the savory odors of roasts cooked in Briggs house ovens for more than two generations.  It was probably the odors of the buffalo steaks, venison chops, bear steak, and mallard ducks for which the old grill was famous.”  The Briggs House hotel was completed at the corner of Randolph and Wells Street in 1856.  It was in Parlor A that Abraham Lincoln received word of his nomination for the presidency of the United States.  Although it was not as luxurious as its chief competitors, the Palmer House and the Sherman House, the hotel was one of the top tier of hotels in the city and, being close to the courthouse and the business sections of the city, it became a gathering place for businessmen and politicians.  Designed by John Mills van Osdel, the five-story hotel was razed to make way for a skyscraper that would house the Steuben Club.  The tower that replaced the Briggs House is today the 45-story Randolph Tower at 188 West Randolph Street, finished in 1929 and designed by Karl M. Vitzhum in a Gothic Revival style.  It was added to the Register of National Historic Places on May 22, 2007 and today serves as an apartment building with 312 apartments.  The black and white photo shows the original Briggs House. The second photo is today's Randolph Tower.

February 1, 1955 -- Daniel Ryan (there is a name that sounds familiar), president of the Cook County board and William J. Mortimer, county highway superintendent, report that the first completed portion of the Congress Street "super-highway" is taking as many as 11,596 motorists a day from other highways. The 2.5 mile stretch from 1st Street in Maywood to Mannheim Road, is dubbed "the road to nowhere," but Ryan observes, "What we are finding is that motorists definitely will go out of their way to enjoy safe, continuous travel afforded on an expressway."

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Labels: 1900, Chicago History, Chicago Places, Stockyards

Friday, December 6, 2019

December 6, 1953 -- Congress Hotel Check in 1,005-Pound Guest

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December 6, 1953 – There was a time, lasting nearly a century, when Chicago boasted of the largest stockyards and most concentrated collection of packing houses in the world.  That era was nearing an end in 1953 when, on this date, Lone Star, the grand champion steer of the 1953 International Livestock Show, registered as a guest at the Congress Hotel.  The steer “implanted a neat hoof print on a specially prepared register and was escorted to a special ‘stall suite’ in the lobby.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, December 7, 1953]  The managing director of the hotel announces that Lone Star will receive visitors in the lobby for the next five days and will pose for pictures in his suite.  The 1,005-pound Lone Star was purchased for $20,100 by Albert Pick, Jr., the president of Pick Hotels Corporation after being named Grand Champion at the show.  The steer’s owner is 18-year-old Sue White of Big Spring, Texas who paid $189 for the 140-pound calf in 1952.  The money Ms. White earns through the sale will allow her to return to college after giving up her major in business administration when her father’s cotton crop failed.  Pick’s bid means that “hamburger made from the steer would cost $35 a pound; stew meat, $44 a pound; T-bone steak, $225 a pound, and standing rib roast, $64 a pound.  Pick says, “I’m thrilled to be able to do this for these wonderful 4-H club young people.”  Ms. White and Lone Star are pictured above.

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December 6, 1978 – Henry Moore visits Rolling Meadows to approve the location for “Large Two Forms,” a work he completed in 1969, one of four casts of the work.  The sculpture, 17 feet 6 inches at its highest point, will be located atop a specially constructed mound at Gould Center, the corporate headquarters of Gould, Inc., an electronics firm that no longer exists.  To make way for the sculpture a sculpture by Pablo Picasso and Carl Nesjar, known as “the Bather,” was moved.  Moore says, “I am very happy.  You can see the piece against one of the best backgrounds you can have for sculpture – the sky.”  [Chicago Tribune, December 7, 1978]  He adds that he had “nothing to do” with the move of the Picasso.  When Gould, Inc. was purchased by Nippon Mining Co. Ltd. of Tokyo in August of 1989, the corporate headquarters moved to Eastlake, Ohio. Both the Picasso piece and “Large Two Forms” were bought by a private developer.  I am not completely sure of this, but it appears that the large sculpture is today displayed in Bonn, Germany.

December 6, 1953 – The Chicago Daily Tribune runs the fourth in a series of articles discussing the “origin, history and significance of some of Chicago’s principal thorofares.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, December 6, 1953], and some interesting tidbits turn up.  Wells Street, for example, was named after Billy Wells who was raised by the Miami Indians and died in the 1812 massacre near Fort Dearborn.  It became such a tawdry byway that the section of Wells south of the river was changed to Fifth Avenue in 1870, the name it carried until 1918 when the name was changed back to Wells Street.  The first jail in Chicago was on LaSalle Street on the southeast corner of Randolph Street.  The last bear that was shot within the corporate limits of the city was killed at the corner of LaSalle and Adams on October 6, 1834.  LaSalle Street also had the city’s first bank, the Illinois State Bank, which was chartered on December 5, 1835.  At the corner of LaSalle Street and Washington Boulevard the first courthouse was built in 1837.  Just before the Chicago fire in 1871 the first tunnel beneath the river was finished on LaSalle, a bore that could carry “50,000 vehicles and 1,000,000 pedestrians” each day.  The tunnel served as the only passage between the north and south sections of the city for three months after the fire destroyed all of the bridges downtown.  Clark Street may possibly be the oldest street in the city, the result of an old trail from the south.  “Clark Street,” the Tribune repored, “early became known as a street of contrasts, alternating fine residences and substantial businesses with shanties and dives, and that character seems to cling to it.”  Chicago’s first newspaper, the Chicago Democrat, was published at the corner of Clark Street and Water Street.  It was in a cigar store on South Clark Street that Bathhouse John Coughlin and Hinky Dink Kenna held forth, the place “where they swapped handouts to the impoverished for votes.”  At the turn of the century a section of Halsted Street was populated by Italian immigrants, “crowded into lodging houses which advertised rates of ’20 cents a day, bath and two meals included.’”  Clark Street angles off to the west just north of North Avenue, eventually connecting with Ridge Road and the Green Bay trail, making it a street that from the beginning of the city’s history leads into the city from the south and north.  Any connection on Clark Street between the south and the north sections of the city has long since disappeared, but for a long time the street followed Rush Street to Chicago Avenue where it turned to the northwest for about a mile to the junction with North Avenue.  The above sketch shows the city, looking south, in 1888.

December 6, 1892 – In the wake of the United States Supreme Court deciding for the State of Illinois and Chicago in its suit against the Illinois Central Railroad over the right to submerged lands, the Chicago Daily Tribune tempers elation with a warning:  “This decision does not give the Lake-Front to the city for Aldermen to speculate with and enrich themselves.  It is given to the city for ‘public uses’ . . . The land south of Monroe street, including that which may be reclaimed from the water between the government dock line and the shore, should be converted into a beautiful park.  There should be no building there except the Art Institute which is now erecting . . . Boodle Aldermen must keep their hands off.  They must not be allowed to make private profit out of this property of the people, the use of which they have been deprived of for nearly a quarter of a century, but which has been saved to them.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, December 6, 1892]  The above photo shows the Lake-Front park two years later, a year after the Art Institute was completed.

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Labels: 1953, Hotels, Stockyards

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

November 27, 1910 -- Michael Cudahy Dies

Michael Cudahy findagrave.com

November 27, 1910 – Michael Cudahy, the president of the Cudahy Packing Company, dies at Mercy Hospital at the age of 68.  The Chicago Daily Tribune reports the death, noting that “With the passing of Mr. Cudahy the last of the old time ‘beef barons’ who included Nelson Morris, Gustavus F. Swift and Philip D. Armour, is dead.  Cudahy probably enjoyed the friendship of each of the others to a greater extent than any other of the four.  No matter how hard business competition became the packers were always friendly to “Mike’ Cudahy.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, November 28, 1910]  Cudahy came to the United States from County Kilkenny, Ireland in 1849 at the age of eight.  When he was 14-years-old he began working at a meat packing house in Milwaukee, making $6.00 a week.  By 1872 he was the Chicago superintendent for Philip D. Armour, a position he held until 1891.  When he left to start his own company, Armour offered him $2,000,000 to stay with the firm for two more years, an offer that Cudahy refused, prompting Armour to remark, “He leaves me after a connection, honorable throughout, devoid of any cash, rich, prosperous and with an enviable reputation in the business world.”  Upon learning of Cudahy’s passing, Arthur Meeker of Armour and Co. said, “I have grown to regard him, as the rest of the men in the packing industry do, as one of the strongest figures in a class of strong men.  He has been recognized as one of the staunchest, most sturdy, and aggressive of them for the past twenty years.  All of his friends and associates knew him as a man of great force of character.”  Cudahy was laid to rest in Evanston’s Calvary Cemetery.

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November 27, 2012 – Alderman Brendan Reilly, representing the Forty-Second Ward, pulls a proposal to build three towers on Wolf Point from the agenda of the Chicago Plan Commission. Reilly says, “Unfortunately, the ‘final’ documents sent to my office yesterday afternoon did not accurately reflect all of the many changes made to the proposal and also introduced a particular blend of uses never previously discussed with my office or community groups.” [Chicago Tribune, November 28, 2012]  A major issue concerns hotel rooms, which in the proposal could be as high as 1,800 units.  Developers of the ambitious project deny that there will be anywhere near that number.  A spokesman for the developers also denies that there was an attempt to “blindside” Alderman Reilly.  Neighbors, already concerned about traffic and density in an already crowded area, began contacting Reilly’s office upon learning of the 1,800 hotel rooms.  The developers, which include Christopher Kennedy, whose grandfather bought the site in the 1940’s, state that the figure of 1,800 refers only to the number of units that could be built under current zoning regulations.  It all worked out. The second tower on the site, Wolf Point East (shown above), is nearing completion.  

November 27, 1954 – The extension of Lake Shore Drive from Bryn Mawr Avenue to Hollywood is opened to traffic as representatives of four government levels join in the ribbon cutting ceremony.  Chicago Mayor Martin H. Kennelly who calls the new road “a monument to co-operative enterprise.” [Chicago Tribune, November 28, 1954] is joined by representatives of Cook County, Illinois and the Chicago Park District as a hundred onlookers “shivered from a cold wet wind off the lake.”  A Cook County commissioner, Arthur Elrod, says that he hopes one day “to attend such a ceremony opening a lake front drive as far north as the Wisconsin line.”  When the barricades are removed at noon, motorists take one of three choices as they continue north.  They can head west on Foster toward the south end of the new Edens Expressway.  They can turn onto Bryn Mawr and head for Peterson Avenue and Ridge Avenue.  Or they can continue north to Hollywood and Sheridan Road, heading through Rogers Park and Evanston.  The choices are pretty much the same today, over sixty years later.  The top photo shows the area north of Foster Avenue in the late 1930's.  The photo below that shows the same area 20 years later after the Lake Shore Drive extension  opened.  Easily seen is that the new road was not good news to the owners of the Edgewater Beach Hotel, the building in the foreground of each picture.

November 27, 1953 – Colonel Frank F. Miter, Commander of the 45^th AAA brigade, a battery of 120-millimeter anti-aircraft guns, announces that the battery will be moved from its site at the north end of Meigs Field to a “safer Chicago park district site.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, November 28, 1953]  The site, in the direct path of planes landing and taking off, was never terribly appropriate, but a realignment of the entire air defense structure of the city made it possible to initiate the move.  There was more than that, though.  It was becoming apparent that the guns were out of step with the next generation of air defense.  According to the Tribune article, “Actually the transfer, it was learned was fitted into a large realignment of Chicago’s ground defense facilities.  The new AAA pattern, it was reliably reported, will include sites for the location of batteries of missile men trained in firing the army’s new Nike guided missile [rocket] which is reported to be more accurate and have a longer range than the big 120 mm. guns.”  The photo above, although taken at Montrose Harbor, shows the guns that protected the city as the Cold War began to heat up.

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Labels: 1910, Chicago Event, Stockyards