USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Historical review of Chicago and Cook county and selected biography, Volume III > Part 26
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When he was fifteen years of age Charles Fargo drifted westward to Buffalo, where he entered the offices of the American Express Com-
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pany, thus inaugurating a service of nearly half a century's duration with that great corporation. When twenty years of age he was sent to Detroit, Michigan, and after remaining there for two years removed to Toledo, where (in 1863) he established the first agency of the company in that city. Upon his return to Detroit in 1856 he was appointed superintendent of the district of which that city was the center, and thus continued until 1865. During this period he per- sonally established the Lake Superior Express, an enterprise which then reached an isolated district, and in behalf of the company which he represented he did for Michigan what Wells, Fargo & Co. have accomplished for California. . In 1865, after twelve years of splendid work in Michigan, Charles Fargo was transferred to Chicago, suc- ceeding his brother, James C., as general superintendent of the north- western division, the latter going to New York to assume the eastern general superintendency of the company's business. In August, 1881, when James C. Fargo succeeded his brother, William G., as president of the American Express Company, Charles Fargo was made vice president and general manager of the business west of Buffalo. Two years after Charles Fargo became president himself, and so remained until his death, in 1896. The deceased was a man of remarkable per- sistency of character and great executive ability, and under his leader- ship the American Express Company made immense strides in the west. For twelve years he was also a director in the Elgin National Watch Company and the Northwestern Horse Nail Manufacturing Company, of Chicago, and during a period of nearly thirty-one years' residence in the metropolis of the west he was prominently identified with various public interests. He was an earnest member of Christ Reformed Episcopal church, and an old and active member of the Commercial, Chicago, Calumet and Washington Park clubs. In poli- tics, he was an old-time Republican, but it was chiefly as a broad- minded business man, one of the founders and developers of a vast institution which has greatly enhanced the name of Chicago for enter- prise and substantial success, that he will longest be remembered. In 1854 Charles Fargo married Miss Mary J. Bradford, daughter of Harvey Bradford, of Cooperstown, Otsego county, New York, and the children of their union were Livingston W., Irene, Adelaide P. and Florence B. Fargo.
Livingston W. Fargo was first educated in the Detroit schools,
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and then attended Williams College, Massachusetts, soon afterward becoming identified with the company which owes so much of the pros- perity and standing to the united labors of his father and two uncles. Advancing through several minor positions, he reached the position of assistant general manager of the western department, and in 1906 succeeded Albert Antisdel as vice president and general manager of the company. It was a promotion which was thoroughly merited and generally anticipated, and one by which the familiar name of Fargo is still prominently stamped upon the corporate life of the American Express Company. Mr. Fargo is popular in club circles, being identi- fied with the Chicago, University and Caxton organizations. In poli- tics, he is a Republican.
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Real Estate in Chicago-Hn historical Review
Speaking from the simple standpoint of territory, the total real estate of Chicago is represented by the area of the city, and it is a well recognized economic truth that, in a general way, the growth of a city is indicated by the expansion of its site. As this expansion is chiefly determined by the pushing out of the population from the central to the suburban districts, it is largely an index of the increase of its substantial prosperity, and the progress in the values of real estate.
The original town of Chicago, as incorporated in 1833, was lim- ited by Madison and Desplaines, Kinzie and State streets, and em- braced an area of about three-eighths of a square mile. Within the following two years its territory had been extended so as to include an area of two and a half square miles, bounded by Twelfth street on the south, Wood street on the west and Chicago avenue on the north. At the incorporation of the city, in March, 1837. its territorial bounds were extended to Twenty-second street on the south and North ave- nue on the north, and increased in area to more than ten and a half square miles. The population embraced within the original city lim- its was 4,170. The first increase of municipal territory was made in 1847, nearly ten years from the date of the city's incorporation, and was an extension of its western boundary from Wood street to West- ern avenue and the addition of a narrow strip east of Clark street and above North avenue and Center street, to Fullerton avenue, which was afterward developed into the main body of Lincoln Park. Six years afterward, when the city had reached a population of 60,000. the second addition was made to its landed estate, comprising nearly four square miles and extending the entire northern
CITY LIMITS. boundary to Fullerton avenue (with Ashland ave- nue as the western boundary), while the addition to the south comprised the territory between Twenty-second and Thirty- first streets, the lake and Halsted street. These additions made the total area nearly eighteen square miles. In 1863 the boundaries of the city were extended south, west and north, so that its continuous southern line was Thirty-ninth street, its western boundary Western
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avenue and its northern, Fullerton avenue. Its area was now more than twenty-four square miles and its population 160,000. Six years later, almost to a day, more than eleven square miles of territory were added to the west and northwest, the annexed territory being between Western and Fortieth avenues and North avenue and the Illinois and Michigan canal. The municipal domain was thus increased to 35.6 square miles, within which limits was a population of 273.000. Tivo years after came the great Chicago fire, razing the buildings from three and a third square miles of real estate and sweeping away all identifying marks from more than seventy miles of streets. This nat- urally retarded the outward expansion of the city for some years, and the next addition to its area was not made until 1887, and that was only the square mile between Fullerton and North avenues, Kedzie and Western. This addition was taken from the town of Jefferson, and two years thereafter (April 29, 1889) another square mile was annexed to the north, the western boundaries were extended to Forty- sixth and Forty-eighth avenues and, by the addition of a triangular section to the southwest (south of the canal), Thirty-ninth street was made the continuous southern boundary. Although this increased the area over seven miles, and brought its total up to 43.8 square miles, the year 1889 was still new. Just two months after the exten- sion above noted, the climax of such acts was reached in the annexa- tion of Hyde Park on the south, the Town of Lake and the Town of Jefferson on the northwest, a part of Cicero on the west and the city of Lake View on the north. This territory embraced 126 square miles and gave the city an area of 169.78 miles, with an approximate population of 1,200,000. The additions of 1889 virtually established the present site of the municipality, although in 1890 South Engle- wood, Washington Heights and smaller corporations toward the south were absorbed; Rogers Park became a portion of the city in 1893; a portion of the town of Calumet came in during 1895, and Cicero and a part of Austin increased its area toward the west. This last addition was made April 4, 1899, increasing the total municipal area to 190.63 square miles, which embraces a population of 2,000,- 000 souls. Contrasting the original city of Chicago with the present. it is certainly impressive to remember that seventy years have wit- nessed the development of a municipality covering 10.63 square miles
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and containing 4,000 people, into a metropolis with an area of 190.63 square miles and a population of at least 2,000,000.
It is also of historic interest and significance to compare the valu- ation of property within the city with the progress of its territorial growth. In 1837, the year of its incorporation, the
REAL ESTATE VALUATIONS. value of its real estate was $236.000, and ten years thereafter, when the first addition was made to the city, these figures had mounted to $5,849,000. In 1863, when Chi- cago was somewhat more than twenty-six years of age and had more than doubled in territory, her real estate and personal property were valued at $42,660,000. In 1869 the valuation had increased to $266,- 920,000, this being the year of the greatest addition of territory up to that time, and in 1889 (the banner year) the valuation of all prop- erty listed for taxation was $201,000,000. These figures have since doubled. As, under the law, this sum is but twenty per cent of the full, or real, valuation, the value of Chicago property may be safely placed at $2,000,000,000, as against $6,000,000,000 for New York and $1,200,000,000 for Philadelphia.
The real estate interests of Chicago are the most important, from a financial standpoint, which exist in the city. but as they have for their field of activities over 190 square miles, it is obviously impossible to do more than glance at their general features. Prior to the incor- poration of the town of Chicago in 1833, many of the pieces of prop- erty which in after years reached the highest value were purchased of the canal commissioners, and afterward from the United States land office which commenced operations at this point in May. 1835. In September, 1833, all the Indian lands in Cook county and adjoin- ing territory were thrown open to settlement, which also had an ef- fect of "booming" real estate in Chicago. The building of the canal, the sale of over 2,000,000 acres through the land office during the eleven years of its existence, and the incoming of thousands of new settlers to Cook county, had a most stimulating effect upon real estate within the corporate limits of the town and city; and this, notwith- standing the panic of 1837, which was the first general setback expe- rienced by the young city. In 1833, to meet the expenses of the town so recently organized, all but four lots of its school section were
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sold at an average of $25 per lot. This tract was numbered 16 and
SCHOOL embraced the territory within the present limits of
Madison and Twelfth streets and Halsted and State
SECTION. streets. Section No. 9, immediately north, belonged to the canal, and upon the southern portion of this was platted the original town. Its present bounds are Chicago avenue on the north, Madison street on the south, State street on the east and Halsted street on the west. Fractional section 15, lying east of 16 to the lake and embracing land on the south side, was also canal property. In June, 1836, all the lots remaining unsold in these sections were auc- tioned off to the highest bidders. This unsold property comprised seven blocks on the north side between the river and Kinzie street, eighteen blocks on the west side, and sixteen blocks on the south side, lying east of the present State street between South Water and Madison streets. This general sale was effected at the height of the land craze, which preceded the panic of 1837, and realized nearly $1,360,000. The prices ranged from $800 to $3,000 per lot, the most valuable property being the real estate fronting on South Water, Lake and Randolph, while the lots on Kinzie street commanded a higher price than those between Randolph and Madison, on either the south or west side.
The panic and hard times of 1837-38 caused almost a paralysis of the real estate business, both at the land office and among private dealers, and really normal conditions were not resumed until the late forties ; but from 1850 to 1855 the growth of the city was marvelous, and the real estate men insisted that the facts in the rise of property values during that period always outstripped their brightest prophe- cies. Two years thereafter came the panic of 1857, with the after years of depression, and then the disturbances of all values caused by the Civil war. The first effect of the great fire was to depress all real estate prices, but with the tremendous influx of eastern capital and the widespread speculation in the great area of vacant property thrown upon the market, prices took a decided upward turn and the sales during the year following the fire exceeded more than $75,- 000,000. The subsequent panics and depressions marked by the years 1873, 1893 and 1908 have all had a temporary effect on real estate values, but the city's life is now too broad and virile to be permanent- ly affected by any conceivable influence for bad. Since the financial
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depression of 1893-94 the real estate business has not shown such a marked rate of increase as in many former years-in fact, one of its leaders has gone so far as to call the period from 1894 to 1906 "the dark ages of Chicago real estate." In 1892 the sales were valued at $153,000,000, but the following year they dropped to $101,000,000, reached as low an ebb as $87.900,000 in 1900, and in 1908 did not greatly exceed those of 1892. For the past three years, however, the tendency has been uniformly upward. The Chicago Real Estate Board has been in existence since 1883, and has since fittingly repre- sented these great local interests.
Space prevents the presentation of but few illustrations of the · hundreds at hand showing the marvelous increases in value of specific pieces of property. The first deed recorded in Cook county was filed December 2, 1831, and conveyed lots 5 and 6, block 29, lying between Lake and Randolph streets, on the west side, for the consideration of $109. Governor Reynolds conveyed this property to Robert Kinzie. William Bross, journalist, public man and historian, has placed on record an interesting list of purchases made by such Chi- cago fathers as Mark Beaubien, J. B. Beaubien, John Kinzie, James Kinzie and Alexander Wolcott. They bought various pieces of real estate in what are now business sections of the city, as early as 1832, the prices for which are of record. In 1853 Mr. Ross, with the assistance of local dealers, fixed a valuation upon the same real estate, and in the late nineties, or nearly three quarters of a century after the time of the original purchases, a third valuation upon the property was placed by expert real estate dealers. In the early thirties J. B. Beaubien purchased eight lots in the vicinity of South Water, Lake, Clark and Dearborn streets for $346; they were valued at $450,000 in 1853, and would now bring anywhere between $3,000,000 and $4,000,000. About the same time James Kinzie bought four lots be- tween Clinton, Jefferson and Fulton streets and Carroll avenue, on the west side, and seven lots in the vicinity of Lake and Franklin streets, Washington street and Fifth avenue, south side, paying $418 PAST AND PRES- for the entire property. These parcels of real estate were held at fully $130,000 in 1853. and ENT VALUES. could not now be purchased for $1,000,000. In the Kinzie purchase was included the triangle bounded by Lake, Franklin and South Water streets, which marks the western terminis
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of the great commission district of Chicago. Oliver Newberry pur- chased two lots (of eighty feet each) on South Water street, at the southeast corner of Dearborn and Clark streets, for which he paid $78 in the thirties, which had advanced to $39,000 in the fifties, and which now, with improvements, would bring at least $1,000,000. This property is located at about the center of the commission dis- trict. Jesse B. Browne also purchased eighty feet on South Water street, near Franklin street, in the vicinity of the Kinzie lots, for which he paid $100. In 1853 the land was held at $46,000, and for some years has hovered around the $1,000,000 mark. John Noble, the packer, bought an eighty-foot lot for $170 (a portion of which is now occupied by the Chicago Opera House), which could have been sold for $83,000 in the early fifties, and which would readily sell fifty years afterward for half a million dollars. He also became the original owner of eighty feet on Lake street near La Salle by pay- ing $So. If Mr. Noble had held it until 1853 he might have realized $100,000 on his investment, and his heirs in recent years could have sold it for some $350,000. Eighty feet on the southeast corner of Randolph and Clark streets was bought by Calvin Rawley during the period immediately preceding the formation of the town of Chicago, for which he paid $53. It was valued at $50,000 twenty years later, and possibly $500,000 would buy the property at the present time. Mark Beaubien paid $102 for the 160 feet at the northeast corner of Lake and Market streets, which in 1853 was held at over $100,000, and now could hardly be purchased for five times that amount. In the early days Stephen Mack paid $53 for fractional lots 7 and S, on Market street between Randolph and Washington streets, and in 1853 the property had risen in value to $57,000. This locality is now in the northwestern section of Chicago's great wholesale mercantile district, and the property would be placed at fully $400,000. It is said that William Jones, father of Fernando Jones, was the first non-resident to buy vacant lots in Chicago from the original pur- chasers. They were lots 2 and 7, block 17, one fronting on South Water street and the other on Lake street, and the price paid was $100 each. Benjamin Jones, the uncle of Fernando, was the original owner of the block upon which now stands the United States Gov- ernment building. At the sale of the school section in October, 1833, he paid $505 for this piece of raw prairie land, and immediately after
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the fire of 1871, less than forty years afterward, the United States government paid $1,250,000 for the same land, which then had upon it only the ruins of the Bigelow House, but recently completed. Real estate experts have long discussed the question as to which piece of real estate in Chicago, of a given size, has proved of greatest value in the history of local real estate. A conclusion, based on reliable data, seems beyond the bounds of probability, but through the efforts of one of the leaders in real estate (F. R. Chandler) and the Chicago Real Estate News, an ingenious and valuable contribution to the sub- ject has been made. Public and private records, market reports and expert opinions were collected, covering the most productive pieces of real estate in the great business districts of Chicago, and, although no precise piece could be settled upon, a careful collation of the data (which reached back to 1830) located the most valuable "quarter of an acre" of the city's real estate in the vicinity of State and Wash- ington streets. As finally completed, this "History of Values of a Quarter of an Acre" includes parallel statistics covering the popula- tion of Chicago, by years, with its annual increase; the changing values of the quarter acre, with its annual yearly increase or decrease ; the number of average Illinois farms (valued at $2,050) necessary to buy the quarter acre, and the number of years' work, at $1.50 per day and 300 days to the year, necessary to buy this most valuable quarter acre of Chicago real estate. The rise and temporary falls in value are traced year by year, through the periods of panics, depres- sions, wars and fires. In 1830, when the population of Chicago num- bered fifty people, this quarter of an acre of raw prairie land near the mouth of the river was worth $20 in money, a trifle over thirteen days of unskilled labor and less than one-hundredth the value of the present average Illinois farm. In 1861, the first year of the war, when the population was 120,000, it had increased to $28,000, was worth over thirteen and a half Illinois farms and represented more than sixty-two years of a laborer's life. When the great fire swept the district. Chicago had a population of 325,000, and the quarter of an acre was valued at $100,000, and could only be purchased with 48.78 Illinois farms, and the labor of more than 222 men, each working a year. At the present time, with the city's population 2,000,000, this composite quarter acre, valued at nearly $2,000,000,
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represents 600 average Illinois farms, and one man's labor extended over nearly 3,000 years.
At the time of the Chicago fire it was feared that the destruction of public and private records relating to real estate would prove a blow to the business, by hopelessly confusing titles, from which it would never fully recover. But, although the destruction in this particular was something appalling, the leading abstract firms com- bined their records, with the result that no city in the world has now a more complete and accessible system of real estate abstracts than Chicago. The history of this important feature of the real estate business follows.
Abstract Business In Chicago.
Chiefly on account of the great fire of 1871, which swept away the early real estate records of Cook county, the few firms in Chicago which had the foresight to collate a system which is at all complete have come into unusual prominence in the local business world. A running sketch of the abstract business in the county is therefore par- ticularly material to a complete local history.
The first deeds in Cook county were recorded about November, 1831, and the first man to engage in the abstract business was Edward A. Rucker, who in 1847 made a small set of books in which convey- ances were so classified that all which related to the same property could be found on one page. At this time there were less than fifty books of record in the county. Mr. Rucker soon formed a partnership with James H. Rees, the latter soon assuming the conduct of the busi- ness alone and continuing it for about five years. Afterward Horace G. and Samuel B. Chase carried on the business, and were subse- quently joined by a lawyer, John B. Adams, the firm of Chase Broth- ers & Co., thus formed, being in the field at the time of the 1871 fire, theirs being one of the three complete sets of tract books then in the city. The second set was started by J. Mason Parker, of Boston, a few years after the advent of Mr. Rucker. The former afterward sold his business to Thomas B. Bryan and John Borden, and, under the firm names of Bryan & Borden, Greenebaum & Guthmann, Shortall (Jolın G.) & Hoard, and Handy (Henry H.), Pasdeloup & Co., the records were brought down complete to the time of the great fire of 1871. The third original source of the abstract business
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of Chicago was Fernando Jones, who about 1864 compiled a complete set of books and started out in business as Fernando Jones & Co. Alfred H. Sellers entered into partnership with him about 1867, and the resulting firm of Jones and Sellers continued the business until the time of the fire.
Besides the proprietors of these three complete series of indexes, there were a few other persons who, from time to time, without any books of their own, undertook to furnish abstracts compiled directly from the public records. The court house was destroyed by fire on October S and 9, 1871, and all the records of the courts and books of the recorder of deeds were burned. Fortunately, or perhaps providen- tially for the owners of real estate, however, the three sets of complete abstracts were saved virtually intact ; at all events, they were so little impaired that, when combined, they formed a substantially complete index of the burnt records. And by act of the legislature shortly after the great fire copies from these private records were made admissible as evidence in litigation in place of the destroyed public records.
The firms whose records were thus saved soon found they could give the public better service by uniting all their records and data as one concern ; this merger was soon brought about by means of a lease of all of their records to Handy. Simmons & Co., and later to Handy & Co.
In 1888 the Title Guarantee and Trust Company became the ab- solute owner of all these sets of books, and the only concern that could supply original ante-fire abstracts.
Immediately after the fire, Haddock. Coxe & Co. (Charles G. Haddock. Edward D. Coxe and Frank H. Vallette) opened a set of books to cover all conveyances recorded since the fire. Mr. Coxe sold his interest some years later to George E. Rickcords and the business was conducted until 1891 as Haddock, Vallette and Rickcords, and from the latter year until 1895 under the incorporate title of the Had- dock. Vallette and Rickcords Company, and from 1895 to 1901 as the Security Title and Trust Company. In 1884 Jerome J. Danforth, then connected with the recorder's office, promoted the organization of the Cook County Abstract Company, whose records extended from the fire down : in 1891 its business was taken over by the Cook County Abstract and Trust Company, and in December, 1891. on a much
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