USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Chicago then and now : a pictorial history of the citys development and a reprint of the first city directory published in Chicago by J.W. Norris in 1844 > Part 12
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Meanwhile the city was contemplating its physical as- pect. Street levels were literally lifted out of the mud, in some instances being raised four or five feet above the old level. The ground floors of homes took on the nadir stance of sunken gardens. People on the street walked on a level with second stories. There were no "keyhole" col- umnists in those days to intrude upon personal privacy. Then began the experiment of making basements of these old first stories and building another story above. A young man, by name George M. Pullman, remarked that he actually could lift business buildings from their oozy foundations,
The River in 1857, looking east toward the Rush street bridge from State street. Even then river traffic was a problem.
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build solid foundations under them, and lower the structures again undamaged. Of course he was laughed at, as are most iconoclasts ; but he did it, and Chicago became known around the world as the city that "lifted itself out of the mud by its own bootstraps." In fact, Chicago was commencing to be taken seriously by the rest of the world because of the in- genuity and energy of its citizens. "I Will" began to bear fruit beyond the city limits, by cracky.
River traffic became so dense about that time that tun- nels under the river were built to relieve traffic congestion at bridges. The first was opened in 1869, the second in 1871. Evidently employers were becoming slightly weary of employes punching in half an hour after starting time and offering the "bridge open" bromide.
Early in the 50's-1851 to be explicit-the city built a new water pumping plant at the foot of Chicago avenue and connected it to a crib 600 feet out in the lake where a con- stant supply of pure water could be assured. But it proved too small. The city was growing too rapidly. So in 1867 a new pumping plant and tower was erected half a block west of the old one and purer water ushered through a tun- nel from a point two miles out. That water system cost the young city more than three millions of dollars, but its citizens were assured an unlimited supply of pure aqua. The tower, incidentally, is a Chicago landmark today, spot- lighted to prominence in the middle of Michigan avenue at Chicago avenue, one of the few survivors of the Fire of '71.
By 1856 the city had grown tremendously. Eighty-six thousand people lived in an area of eighteen square miles and transportation became a vexatious problem. In that year a franchise was granted for a street railway system us- ing horses as motive power. The horses must have balked, or something, because nothing was done. Two years later another franchise was issued, tracks were laid along State street from Madison to Randolph, and by next year cars were trundling over the two-block stretch. That innovation met with some opposition, just as in later years the elevated railway was fought by hot and bothered vox poppers indit- ing indignant letters to the newspapers. But progress was not to be denied, and by '71, with several companies func- tioning, the horse-car system was operating over more than twenty miles of track, and to a gold-rush business. Even the horses accepted the "I Will" spirit of service to the community and did their bit.
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The Water Tower is the principal survivor of the Great Fire of '71. It was built in '67, part of the city's new-then-water system.
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In 1866, the year of a cholera outbreak, Cook County Hospital had its inauguration. A medical staff of famous names-Bevan, Lyman, Hamill, Freer, Bogue, et al-was formed and the institution entered a notable career of scien- tific research, care of the poor, and triumph over disease that has won for it recognition and fame all over the world. Other hospitals, such as Mercy, followed in short order. Even in those early days the city's health was jealously, and generously, guarded. "I Will" insisted upon keeping its enormous vim, vigor, and vitality, including surplusage of vitamins A to Z, intact.
Chicago in the 60's saw the top of the rise of Abraham Lincoln, largely through the efforts of one Joseph Medill. History has it that Medill and his Tribune did more to nominate Lincoln for the Presidency and assure his election than any other force or forces. Too, Medill supported him through the trying days of the Civil War and kept the Great Emancipator from being retired in 1864. The latter feat was ingenious. Medill's influence forced a vote through Congress permitting soldiers in the field to vote. That vote alone saved Lincoln for a second term-and martyrdom. What would have happened had Lincoln been retired in '64 and another placed at the head of the Federal government in the closing, weary days of the War is difficult to imagine.
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In the 50's State and Lake streets was a commercial center, with various commodities on display from beverages in barrels to saddles. In the distance is seen the State street bridge.
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But it is enough to know that Illinois gave Lincoln to the nation and a Chicagoan was mainly responsible for his ul- timate success-and immortality.
Lincoln was nominated in Chicago-at the historic Wig- wam, erected for the purpose at Lake and Market streets. There, championed by Medill and his Tribune, the gaunt Illinoisan triumphed over New York's favorite son, Wm. A. Seward, and went forward to write history on the time- less pages of the memory of a grateful people.
Chicago, naturally, was a staunch supporter of Lincoln. It shared his anti-slavery sentiments and helped to further his policies to the end. So strongly, in fact, did Chicago feel about slavery that it is recorded that when a negro escaped from his owner and took refuge in the city, and having no papers to prove his freedom, he was arrested. According to law the man was advertised for sale to pay the expenses of his arrest and detention. No one offered to buy him, and he was about to be remanded to jail indefinitely when a younger brother of Chicago's first mayor, Wm. B. Ogden, bought him for twenty-five cents and promptly set him free. That revealed the attitude of the city on the slavery question. Too, regiment after regiment poured out its best blood in the Northern cause until the day when Ulysses Grant of Illinois accepted the sword of Robert E. Lee of Virginia with the grandest words ever spoken by a victor to a de- feated opponent : "Tell your men to keep their horses, they will need them for the spring plowing." With but 18,000 registered voters in 1860, Chicago gave 15,000 men to the Union forces. It is likewise recorded that a Chicago regi- ment engaged in the first official action of the Civil War at Cairo, Illinois, key city to river control.
Then came the "tragic deed of a disordered mind" with the assassination of Lincoln by Booth. For a short time Chicago claimed the body of the mighty Illinoisan she had helped to elevate to immortality. His body was brought back to the city on May 1, 1865, and lay in state at the Court House to permit a quarter of a million mourning citi- zens to file past and look their last upon his familiar face.
The names of Lincoln and Chicago are inseparably link- ed. He practiced law here, he achieved his opportunity for national service here, he received unwavering support here during the darkest days of the War, and he was borne to his final resting place from here. Chicago reveres Lincoln with almost idolatrous devotion. Which is as it should be.
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President Lincoln's funeral cortege entering Court House Square on May 1, 1865. Solid ranks of soldiers filled the square and every street leading to it was packed with citizens waiting to pay their last respects to the martyred humanitarian.
His memory is kept alive here by the finest collection of Lin- colnania extant-at the Chicago Historical Society, one of Chicago's really noteworthy cultural centers. In its new building at Clark street and North avenue the history of Chicago from trading post to metropolis is unfolded in a marvelous array of relics. That institution is a credit to its founders and present directors.
One of the most forceful proofs of Chicago's phenomenal growth is the fact that its post offices never have been large enough to serve its needs adequately. From John Hogan's store at Lake street and Wacker drive to the present block- square Federal Building, sufficient space and equipment to handle the mail expeditiously have always been lacking. The fault, if any, lies probably not so much in government short- sightedness as in the rapidity and extent of the city's expan- sion. After Hogan's store the post office was moved to larg- er quarters at Franklin and South Water streets. Three years later-1837-it occupied the Saloon Building at Clark and Lake streets. At last "Long John" Wentworth, then Chicago's aggressive and determined congressman, forced the erection of a post office building at Monroe and Dearborn streets ; but by the time its second edition was ready for occu- pancy in 1860 it proved too small. However, there it remain- ed until the Fire of '71, the second post office in the country in
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volume of business transacted on a revenue basis and exceed- ing all other offices in the amount of mail handled. Now, hope springing eternal in the human breast, the new twenty- million-dollar post office at Van Buren and Canal streets, dedicated this year as the "largest in the world," may do while Chicago is working on its fourth million. In passing, be it recorded that the first railway mail coach was put into service out of Chicago in 1864 over the Northwestern sys- tem. It ran from Chicago to Clinton, Iowa, and proved an instant success.
Always the perfect host, Chicago created further reason to be proud of its hospitality during the '50's and '60's. About then the fame of its hotels became world-wide. From Miller's Green Tree and Beaubien's Sauganash Tavern to the present world's largest and scores of other similarly beau- tifully appointed hotels, the city has been favored with a suc- cession of superb caravansaries reflecting its reputation as the Convention City. To list and describe them would require a volume, but mention should be made of the Richmond House at South Water street and Michigan avenue where royalty was entertained in 1860; the Tremont House at Lake and Dearborn streets where usually the wealth of the city congregated and from the balcony of which Lincoln and Douglas began their historic debates; the Sherman House
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Even in 1855 the Post Ofice, at Dearborn and Monroe streets, wasn't big enough to handle the government business of the growing city. It was replaced with a larger building in 1860, due chiefly to the efforts of Congressman "Long John" Went- worth. That, too, proved inadequate.
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Miller's Green Tree Tavern was built by James Kinzie at what is now Canal and Lake streets in 1833. It was the first real hotel Chicago ever had stressing low rates and top-notch service.
where, immediately after the Great Fire, in a temporary building with mattresses on uncarpeted floors and tin plates and cups, the proprietors cleared ninety thousand dollars in ninety days with ninety rooms-without a single raising of prices; the Briggs House, where Lincoln planned his cam- paign in '59 and '60; and so on to the Richelieu of sainted memory and the Auditorium of later day. "I Will" never permitted travelers to go hungry, thirsty, or bedless. Hotel Accomodations in Chicago now are spelled with a capital A.
So with theatres. Both before and after the Fire the cream of American and European talent visited the fine houses Chicago interests had built. The Academy of Music on Halsted street near Madison with names like Joe Jeffer- son and John McCullough; Aiken's theatre at Wabash ave- nue and Congress street that opened in '72 with Theodore Thomas and his Orchestra; Haverly's, with Henry Irving and Ellen Terry at Monroe and Dearborn; McVickers, originally built on the site of Rice's theatre in 1857 at a cost of $85,000, rebuilt after the Fire of '71 and remodeled twice since, and probably the most successful of the lot ; Hooley's on Randolph street near LaSalle, offering every- thing from opera to minstrelsy; and, later, the Audi- torium, Louis Sullivan's grand house and still Chicago's well-spring of culture. There's a far longer list to be sure, but this indicates the growing city demanded the best in tal- ent and equipment-and got it. "I Will" had a way, fre-
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NS
State and Lake streets looked rather prosperous in the late 60's, but after the Great Fire every building added a couple of stories and "skyscrapers" became the vogue.
quently, of looking at the world through rose-colored glasses and making the dreams come true.
Sports gained impetus during this period. In 1844 a race track was opened by W. F. Myrick near his Tavern at Indiana avenue and Twenty-sixth street and enjoyed a short season thereafter for many a year. A decade later the Gar- den City track went into operation and became the city's favorite sport resort. Yachting clubs, rifle shooting organi- ations, curling, croquet, cricket found popularity among the mustached young bloods of the day, and in 1856 the Union Baseball Club was organized. Whether it won any pennants or not history sayeth nothing, but the fact remains the young city was fast becoming sport-minded and took time out now and then from its job of expanding and pro- gressing to laugh and play. Even in early-day sport "I Will" put Chicago into the winning column, as did the Cubs and Sox in later years.
At the close of the Civil War young George Pullman, who had astounded the city fathers by pulling the city out of the mud a decade before, sold berths in his first sleeping car. The car, filled with notables, left Chicago and journeyed
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to Springfield for the Lincoln funeral, with passengers un- animous in their praise and agreement upon a good night's rest being enjoyed by all. Just another beginning of a giant industry that dumped a golden stream of wealth into the city.
With the close of the second cycle of Chicago's great- ness in 1871 the city sprawled over a territory of thirty- six square miles housing a population exceeding 300,000. It was built exclusively of wood excepting a few blocks of brick and stone in the business center. Withal a city of homes, chimneys of industrial plants pointed smoky fingers to the sky. Spires of churches reflected glints of glorious sunlight. A forest of masts weaved in serried array in the harbor and on the river. Masses of homes of an industrial people lay contentedly to the north, south, and west. Pic- ture the young city, the powerful city, stretching its wings to the stars . . . ambitious to outdo whatever any other municipality had ever done in the industries, the arts, the sciences, in literature and religion. Such was the city in the fall of '71 when a cow kicked over a lamp.
The Great Fire of 1871 really separates the Chicago of old from the Chicago of day before yesterday. Truly a dire calamity, the Fire proved to be the most precious blessing the city has ever known. Readers will not be particularly in- terested here in an exhaustive description of the debacle, but rather in the influence it had on later-day Chicago.
For purposes of record be it assumed that the fire began in a cow stable back of Pat O'Leary's home at 137 DeKoven street. History isn't quite clear on the point. For years there have been complaints and kicks on moot points other
By 1865 the Stock Yards had grown to appreciable proportions and moved to their present location, about two miles south of the old Myrick Tavern. Chicago, on the hoof, was becoming plu- tocratic.
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than that of the cow. But the summer of 1871 was terrific- ally dry and hot. The whole city was brittle with heat. Only the merest spark was needed to set it flaming. So, to recount the most popular version, on Sunday night, October 8, a thirsty, irritable cow in the process of being milked kicked into the straw that bedded her stall a kerosene lamp standing nearby to illuminate the operation. In half an hour the flames reached an adjacent lumber yard along the river. Due to a mixup in signals the firemen did not reach the scene until the flames had a head start. By that time some brands from the blazing lumber yard shot across the river and ex- ploded a gas tank, extinguishing the street lights. Then the high wind carried sparks to the water works, destroyed it, and cut off the water supply. Unrestrained, and fed by the wind, the flames swept everything before it like the discharge of a blast furnace. Marble fronts as well as frame houses actually melted before the sweeping fury. In twenty-four hours Chicago was a mass of charred beams and smoking debris, with here and there a column of brick standing gaunt amid the ruin. In round numbers, 2200 acres of territory were devastated, more than 15,000 buildings destroyed, and close to 100,000 persons turned out of house and home. There were 300 dead. Nearly two hundred millions of dol- lars' worth of property was wiped out, practically a third
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The frenzied rush for life and safety over the Randolph street bridge during the Great Fire of '71. On these ashes a Greater City was built.
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of the city's total valuation. A holocaust, indeed.
But Chicago's "I Will" spirit came through again, this time with a rush as irre- sistible as the flame at its height. Before the fire even had ceased to burn, plans were under way to rebuild a new city on the ashes of the old. The job of keeping or- der, caring for the injured, feeding the hungry, and shel- tering the homeless-all this became mere detail, but a de- tail quickly and capably car- ried out. The thing upper- most was the ironclad re- solve, the steadfast purpose to carry on the spirit and tradi- tion of Chicago. That success attended the herculean efforts put forward in the next decade proved the disaster to be, in reality, a blessing.
Where a cow kicked over a lamp that started the Great Fire of '71: Pat O'Leary's cot- tage and milk depot at 137 DeKoven street.
Reconstruction became a fact overnight. The first build- ing erected on still smoking ruins was Kerfoot's real estate office, a shanty 16x20 feet at Washington and La Salle streets. A sign board tacked at one end illustrates the spirit of the times : "All gone but wife, children, and ENERGY." Such high resolve simply couldn't be denied fruition. With the "I Will" spirit its greatest asset, Chicago rolled up its sleeves and went to work.
A month after the Fire Joseph Medill was elected Mayor ... the same Medill who had championed Abra- ham Lincoln and still published the Chicago Tribune. In a message to the people at the time he sought to prevent a re- currence of the catastrophe: "The outside walls of every building in Chicago should be composed of materials as in- combustible as brick, stone, iron, or slate." He likewise saw to it that the fire limits of the city were extended, that only buildings of safe construction be permitted within them, and that an adequate water system was installed. So heartily did Mayor Medill throw himself into his job that the first year after the Fire permits were issued for new, safe build- ings covering a street frontage of more than eight miles. The contract price of these buildings totaled, roughly, more
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W.D.KERFOOTS BLOCK BURNT DISTRICT
FIRST IN THE
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89Washington Street
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This is the first building erected after the Great Fire-the day after. Note the sigu ou the left: "All gone but wife, children, and ENERGY." So, perforce, the gentlemen register nonchalance.
than thirty-eight millions of dollars. Mayor Medill prov- ed to be the right man in the right place at the right time, the very incarnation of his city's "I Will".
That the new Mayor's wise counsel was heeded is seen in the fact that of the new buildings erected immediately after the Fire, rather more than 75 per cent were of brick, 20 per cent of stone, 2 per cent of iron, and less than 3 per cent of frame. They ranged in height from one to five stor- ies, with occasionally a six or seven story structure lending emphasis to the decor.
Architecturally, the new Chicago marked a definite ad- vance over the old. The city became quite famous as the in- stigator of the structural iron skeleton with stone, brick, con- crete or tile facing known as the "skyscraper". For a while the more ornate European styles of architecture were fol- lowed, with results not always harmonious. But this soon was remedied and the city as a whole reflected a decided improvement over the Chicago of the Civil War era.
Also, the city fathers did hew closely to the time-honored policy of permitting no permanent buildings along the east side of Michigan avenue between Roosevelt Road and Ran-
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dolph street. This policy had its effect in later years in the "City Beautiful" Plan, responsible for so much in making the city of today a thing of proportion and beauty, and giv- ing impetus to the dream city of a century hence.
Business revived with incredible speed after the Fire. The city fathers, the Chamber of Commerce, various indus- trial clubs, and the Board of Trade, while the ruins still were warm, put into effect plans to help businesses and busi- ness men to rehabilitate themselves. For instance, Field, Leiter & Co., predecessor of the huge Field store of today, sustained a loss of more than three and a half millions in the Fire. The firm collected from staggering insurance com-
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The first temporary structures built immediately after the Great Fire of '71 were of frame construction along the lake front at Adams street. They were removed within a few months.
panies less than a tenth of that huge sum. Yet the house, with the aid of the civic bodies mentioned, opened for busi- ness immediately after the Fire in the stables of the street car company at 20th and State streets, while they rebuilt their retail store at State and Washington streets and their wholesale house at Madison and Market streets. In a short time "Field's" was doing a greater business than ever before at the old stands and building up a reputation for integrity and enterprise that has conferred upon it the accolade, "world's finest department store." "I Will" received an Order of Merit that remains in force to this day.
J. V. Farwell & Co .; Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett & Co .; Mandel Brothers; the Fair-all swept into oblivion by the Fire-came back "bigger and better than ever", as the ad-
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vertising slogan has it, to win new customers, new friends, and new dollars with their indomitable will to carry on in the face of what would have utterly defeated lesser charac- ters. And what is true of them is true of nearly the com- plete roster of business men in Chicago at the time. It was their will-to-win, their refusing to concede defeat, their un- swerving confidence in the future of the city that rebuilt it on its ruins after the blessed calamity of '71.
Another industry that suffered mightily in the Fire was meat packing. "Everything used but the squeal", the in- dustry's slogan, lost about everything including the squeal in the Great Burning. But names like Armour, Swift, Hutchinson, Nelson Morris, and Libby, known the world over then as well as they are now, refused to admit defeat in the face of the flames. In common with other forthright Chicagoans of the day, the Fire only offered them oppor- tunity to expand and enlarge their businesses to world-wide proportions. All these men drew major roles in the task of rebuilding the city and all filled them ably with unselfish devotion to the common cause. Chicago owes as much to the men themselves as to the industry they founded.
So Chicago dug itself out of the ashes, tidied up, and went to work. Citizens "put their shoulders to the wheel" as the bromide puts it, and promptly reared a city that knew no parallel at the time. Then another conflagration struck
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IC HOU
The Relic House, a popular beer and food dispensary at Clark and Center streets, was a favorite spot of the playboys for sixty years. It was built right after the Fire of '71 of blocks of mol- ten iron, glass, and china salvaged from the wreckage.
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it in 1874 that had all the earmarks of another '71. Fif- teen blocks and a thousand buildings in the region just south of Van Bur- en street and Wa- bash avenue went up in smoke and consuming flame. But the lessons in fire fighting learn- ed in '71, coupled with the fact that stone and brick and iron comprised Chicago's first City Library, established in 1871 with a gift of 8,000 volumes from people in England, was housed in an abandoned water tank at La Salle and Adams streets. One might call it the first truly "circulating" library. the new buildings of the new city, held the fire to the area mentioned and which was composed chiefly of temporary wooden structures erected after '71. In a short time the district was rebuilt along the new lines of construction and materials. Again a calamity proved a blessing in disguise, with "I Will" supplying the incidental music and gestures of ironclad determination.
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