USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > History of Chicago : historical and commercial statistics, sketches, facts and figures, republished from the "Daily Democratic press" ; What I remember of early Chicago, a lecture, delivered in McCormick's hall, January 23, 1876 (Tribune, January 24th) > Part 16
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21
98
HISTORY OF CHICAGO.
Eastern cities should resume gladly their dealings with houses already competent to transact the business of the West, and within a few years scarcely a trace of the great fire of Chicago will remain to bear testimony to its record upon the pages of history.
AN OPENING FOR EASTERN CAPITAL.
A large number of men with more or less capital and living all over the country have been deterred from going to Chicago because the business and manufacturing of that city were concentrated in the hands of well-established houses. There lias not been a time in twenty years when such persons could establish themselves in business there so easily as now. With the exception of a few of the larger houses, stranger and citizen will start even in the race for the business of the Great West. Farmers, merchants and capitalists at the East who have sons whom they wish to put in as partners with men of integrity and business knowledge, will find no op- portunity like the one which Chicago offers to-day. Men of the very best char- acter and of the best business qualifica- tions, thoroughly acquainted with the trade and commerce of the West, would be only too glad to place their energy and business knowledge against the money furnished by the sons of Eastern capital- ists. The men who in part have built up Chicago and walled her streets with business and residence blocks among the finest on the continent, have ever been distinguished for their far-seeing shrewd- ness, their energy and integrity, and now all they need is the capital to set the labor of the city vigorously at work. The capi- tal and labor working together with the intelligence and energy of the citizens, will in a very few years rebuild Chicago and reproduce her with increased magnificence and power. I tell you that within nve years her business houses will be rebuilt, and by the year 1900 the new Chicago will boast a population of 1,000,000 souls. You ask me why? Be- cause I know the Northwest and the vast resources of its broad acres. I know that the location of Chicago makes her the centre of this wealthy region, and the market for all its products.
WHAT CHICAGO HAS FOR A FOUNDATION ON WHICH TO BUILD.
Though Chicago itself has been de -* stroyed in a whirlwind of fire, the im- mense fertile country which is tributary to it for hundreds of miles around has the wheat and the corn, the· beef and the pork, and the other products to pay for the merchandise of the East. While some of
her wooden pavement has been injured, the greater part of it is in good condition. The streets have been raised several feet, giving good drainage. The foundations of most of the consumed buildings are uninjured. The gas and water pipes are laid through all the streets of the city, The sewerage was nearly complete before the conflagration, and was uninjured by it. The damage to the water works was very slight, and within a few days they will be in operation again. The bridges are nearly all preserved. The lake tunnel by which the city is supplied with water, the tunnel under the main river, and that under the south branch are all uninjured. These works alone may be counted as constitu- ting from 20 to 40 per cent. of the cost of rebuilding the city. The Chamber of Commerce and several of the leading business houses have already determined to rebuild immediately upon the former sites. There can be no doubt but that the · business centre of the city will be re-es- tablished at once upon its old foundation. The dozen or more railways branching off in all directions through the Mississippi Valley will soon be pouring the wealth of the country into the city as rapidly as ever. It is true that two large depots have been burned, but they had long since become too small for the business of the roads. Others of larger dimen- sions and better accommodations will immediately take their places. That indomitable perseverance and genuine " grit " which made Chicago in the past will in a very few years raise up the Chicago of the future.
This, so far as I know, was the first con- siderable statement in regard to the fire made to the New York press by any one direct from Chicago. Their special dis- patches had been very full and in the main entirely accurate. I spent Sabbath with my friend Bowles, of the Springfield (Mass.) Republican, and several hours on Monday with the President and Secretary of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, then and now Chicago's largest creditor and among the very best friends the city ever had. I gave them my views as to the best means to make their large investments here available. On Tuesday afternoon, the 17th, by invitation, I delivered the following address to the relief commit- tee of the Chamber of Commerce, Ex- Mayor Updike in the Chair. Though much that is in the Tribune's interview is repeated, I insert it here just as it appeared in all the papers next morning.
99
HISTORY OF CHICAGO.
CHICAGO'S NEEDS.
EX-GOVERNOR BROSS' ADDRESS BEFORE THE NEW YORK CHAMBER OF COMMERCE RE- LIEF COMMITTEE.
Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the New York Chamber of Commerce :
A few of you may remember that in 1866, I had the honor to address you on the subject of the Pacific Railroad. I then took rather a brighter view of the location and of the facilities for building the road; of the extent of its business, and its influence upon the travel and the traffic of this country and the world, than many of you probably believed could be warranted by the facts; but I think you will now agree that what may then have seemed to be bold if not improbable spec- ulation, has been more than realized. And if fresh from that terrible baptism of fire which has swept over and destroyed the best portion of the city of Chicago, I ven- ture to take a hopeful view of her future, provided you, and the capitalists of New York and the East generally, render her stricken business men that material aid which I trust you will feel it both safe and a pleasure to give, my best judgment and most careful study of the whole sub- ject convince me, at least, that the views you may permit me to present will also be fully realized.
THE EXTENT OF THE LOSS.
Of the extent of the calamity that has desolated our city I need not speak in detail. Your newspapers of last Friday morning had correct maps of the burnt district. Some 3,000 acres are covered with frightful ruins, or swept by the devouring fire, maddened by the fury of the hurricane, as bare as they were when the Indian roamed over them forty years ago. It is safe to say that all that remains of Chicago is not worth half as much as the fire has destroyed. All our banks; all our largest and best hotels, and a score or two of lesser note; all our largest and lead- ing grocery, jewelry, dry goods, hardware, clothing and other business houses; all our newspaper offices; most of our churches and school houses; our Historical Society's building, with all its valuable treasures; the Library Association, containing among other works some 3,000 volumes of the Patent Office reports of Great Britain; thousands of dwellings; the homes of the rich, filled with priceless treasures, and with heir-looms of hundreds of years; and the abodes of humble poverty by the ten thousand-all, all have been swept as by the fell besom of destruction from the face of the earth. Only a single house on the north side of the river-that of Mah- lon D. Ogden, Esq .- is left standing, and
probably 75,000 people spent the morning and most of Monday crouching in Lincoln Park, or half immersed in the waters of the Lake, to save themselves from the heat and the showers of burning cinders driven upon them by the tempest. Both the losses and the sufferings of that day can never be fully known or described- no mind can possibly comprehend them. They have not been and can not well be exaggerated.
UNBOUNDED SYMPATHY.
If our calamity in its kind has been un- equaled in the world's history, the response it has met in the sympathy, the outpour- ing and unbounded liberality of the entire American people, is grand, sublime, God- like. It throbs in the lightning's flash through three thousand miles of the deep, dark caves of the old ocean, and makes our hearts glad. I may say for our people, brothers and sisters of generous free America, honored sons and daughters of our sires across the Atlantic, with the pro- foundest emotions of our hearts, we thank you. Strong men in Chicago weep at midnight, not over their losses of thou- sands, aye, many of them even of mill- ions, but with joy and gratitude at the noble charity you have shown us. God will reward you for it, and our children and children's children shall bless you.
THE NEXT THING NEEDED.
The millions of dollars in clothing, provisions, and money already raised and being subscribed, have relieved the imme- diate necessities of the poor, and thou- sands who have been made so by the fire. But, gentlemen, the next imperative necessity is to place funds in the hands of the leading business men of Chicago to enable them to rebuild the city, to handle the products of the vast fertile country that is tributary to it, and to set all the laborers of the city to work. Do this and the poor can support themselves; withhold your capital and they must starve or your charities will continue to be severely taxed to support them, for you can not see them die of starvation. In making this appeal to you, and through you to the cap- italists of the country and to the business men and capitalists of England and Ger- many, for means to rebuild and do the busi- ness of Chicago, I must deal with the two elements of security and profit. I have still another: those who liave now loans on real property and credits in the hands of our leading houses should continue those credits and make loans on the same property on second mortgage, in order to make what they now have available. Nearly all the central portion of the city has been swept by fire, and the land is not
100
HISTORY OF CHICAGO.
worth as much as so many acres of prairie, unless made valuable for business by re- building it. The men, whose splendid marble palaces once occupied it, are still there. In most cases their property is all gone; but sterling integrity, unbending energy, a thorough knowledge of the finan- cial, commercial, and manufacturing in- terests of the West-all those qualities which have made Chicago the wonder and admiration of the world-are still left to them. Nay, more, all their best powers are enlarged and intensified by a deter- mination to regain and restore all that has been lost. Braver and truer, nobler and better men do not live, than the leading business men of Chicago. I ask not for them-they would scorn to ask-charity; but I do ask that you intrust as much as you can of your surplus capital to their management, for your own' and their profit.
A BOLD POLICY SAFEST.
1
But to repeat and to be more specific. Let insurance companies and individuals who have loans on Chicago real estate take a second mortgage with policies of insur- ance for money enough to build a sub- stantial building upon it. Such must be the demand for places of all kinds to do business, for several years to come, that the rentals will surely pay the interest on both the mortgages and leave a fair sur- plus to the owner to pay the principal. A bold policy, in all such cases, it seems to me, is the only safe and really conserva- tive one for capitalists to pursue. They can in this way, within a year at most, make safe and productive all their invest- . ments. Any other course must subject them to great and inevitable loss. Unin- cumbered Chicago real estate-and there is a vast deal of that-offers the very best possible security to capitalists. Take a mortgage on property, to-day, that two weeks ago would have sold for $2,000 per front foot; for, say $500 per front foot; in three years, so rapidly is the city sure to grow, it will be worth twice as much, and in five years it will have reached its former value of $2,000 per front foot. The point I make is, that Chicago real estate must rapidly appreciate from its present nom- inal values, and this renders all loans upon it entirely safe,
Again, there are thousands of Chicago business men who have friends East who know them to be honest, energetic, and capable. If they have no other security to give, take a life policy and a note of honor, and lend them money enough to start business .. They have lost one for- tune, and with a little of your help on the start they can soon make another. As to the large class of merchants and manu- facturers who have done business with
Chicago houses, I know they will extend all the aid in their power by large and liberal credits. By doing so, they will be sure to collect what is now due them, and to secure large orders and profits in the future. The mercantile community are proverbially liberal in their dealings with each other, and in our overwhelming calamity Chicago merchants will doubt- less receive the most generous treatment from Eastern merchants and manufac- turers.
GOOD TIME TO COMMENCE BUSINESS.
There has not been, for the last twenty years, so good a time for men of capital to start business in Chicago as now. Thousands anxious to locate. in this focus of Western commerce have been deterred from doing so for the reason that the business in each department had become concentrated in comparatively a few hands. With few exceptions, all can now start even, in the race for fame and fortune. The fire has leveled nearly all distinctions, and the merchants and deal- ers who have heretofore purchased in our older and larger houses will buy where they can get their goods the cheap- est. Now, therefore, is the time to strike. A delay of a year or two will give an im- mense advantage to those who start at once. True, a location must be found, perhaps a store built; but a couple of months, at most, are all that is needed to start business with the best prospects of success.
Again, there are thousands of people all over the country with considerable means who wish to start their sons in business. Of course they are without experience. Furnish them capital to go into business with an experienced Chicago merchant, who will gladly put his knowledge and energy against the capital, and in a few years these sons will be men of wealth and honor. Such opportunities, my word for it, can be found in abundance. Bet- ter a thousand fold encourage the sons of the rich to honorable exertion than to allow them to waste their energies in ease and luxury.
RATE OF INTEREST.
While the rich, populous States tribu- tary to Chicago, through which our rail- ways are running in all directions, must make the business of the city, as it has been in the past, exceedingly profitable, I trust what I have said has convinced you that it is one of the best cities in tlie world in which to make safe investments of capital. Its rapid growth must insure tliat beyond a contingency. And now for the matter of profit. The legal inter- est in Illinois is ten per cent., a much larger figure than is allowed anywhere at
101
HISTORY OF CHICAGO.
the East. Millions of money would gladly be taken by our leading business men at that rate; but I beg to say that I hope you will be satisfied with eight. I might add that our people sometimes pay com- mission's, but I beg you also to forget all about that. Our citizens are poor enough now in all conscience, and it is to be hoped Eastern capital will be satisfied with a reasonable percentage above what it can realize at home.
WHAT THE GOVERNMENT CAN DO.
Of course the Government can do nothing directly for us; but as soon as Congress meets, liberal appropriations should be made to build a large, substan- tial Post Office. The old building had become far too small to accommodate the immense business of the Northwest. The Chicago office was, if I mistake not, the second distributing office in the United States, and it should have a building of corresponding dimensions. The import- ing business direct to Chicago was just fairly commenced, and a large Custom House and several bonded warehouses are needed for that. Perhaps United States Court rooms can be provided in these; but in any event large accommodations are at once of imperative necessity. The building of them as rapidly as possible would employ a large amount of labor, and distribute corresponding sums of money, thus affording a most important stimulus to the entire business of the city.
WHAT IS LEFT.
Although the all-devouring fire has swept over us, we have still much remain- ing on which to build the city. All our banks, though doubtless somewhat crip- pled, will resume business at once. Their books, currency, notes and exchanges are safe. The notes, though not as good as they might be, will mostly be paid, in whole or in part; and what is worthless, it is to be hoped, will not seriously affect their stability and usefulness. Our score or more of railways will at once pour the produce of the upper half of the Missis- sippi valley into the city for distribution among all the cities and States of the sea- board. Our Water Works are soon to be in good order, and the water pipes all over the city are intact. Many of our bridges, and of course our lake tunnel and our two tunnels under the river, are all right. The streets are raised several feet in many places, affording good drain- age; the pavements are very little injured,
and the gas pipes and sewers are of course complete. These with other things that might be named constitute from twenty to forty per cent. of the original expense of building the city. And what is far better, our honest, brave, plucky people are there, ready and willing to work. Their strong hands and iron wills yield to no disasters. The men who have turned the waters of Lake Michigan into the Miss ssippi-in common phrase "made the Chicago river run up hill "-can turn back the tide of misfortune, and in a few years make their city more prosperous and populous and powerful than ever before. True, they need your assistance, and you will give it. The capitalists, the mercantile and business interests of this country and of Europe cannot afford to withhold the means to rebuild Chicago. The vast teeming country west of her, her position at the head of the Great Lakes, with more miles of railway centering there than any other city upon the conti- nent, have made her one of the vital forces that give life and vigor to the com- mercial energies of the nation. What she has been in the past she must become in the future, and a hundred fold more. Help her with capital, and it can soon be done ; but in any event she has to wait only a few short years for the sure de- velopment of her "manifest destiny."
The above had the advantage of appear- ing in all the morning papers. The Tri- bune, Herald, and Times gave it an im- mense circulation. Most of the evening papers copied or gave a synopsis of it, and the papers of other cities did the same. I was assured that it had done much to inspire confidence in the early restoration of the city. If in this or any other way it did any good, I did only what every good citizen should always do, the best he can for the interests and the prosperity of Chicago. It should be noticed that what I predicted would be accomplished in five years was mostly done in three, and much of it in two. The unsightly acres still to be seen on State street, Wabash avenue, and sonie portions of Michigan avenue, were burned over by the disastrous fire of July 14th, 1874. Nearly all the open spaces made by the great fire of 1871 are now covered with buildings.
102
HISTORY OF CHICAGO.
1873.
TRANSPORTATION.
FACTS AND FIGURES IN REGARD TO IT - THE GEORGIAN BAY CANAL.
The following address at Des Moines is inserted for the facts and figures it eon- tains, posted up to the time it was de- livered:
Special despatch to the Chicago Tribune.
DES MOINES, Ia., Jan. 22 .- The Iowa Industrial Convention convened to-day, with full delegations from all parts of the State, also delegates from Illinois and Canada. Governor Carpenter called the Convention to order. Officers were chosen as follows: Mayor W. T. Smith, of Os- kaloosa, President; one Vice President from each Congressional District of the State; A. R. Fulton, Secretary, and S. F. Spofford, Treasurer. The afternoon busi- ness was a discussion on the amendment to the Collection laws in operation in the State. The Convention resolved to me- morialize the Legislature to limit the stay of execution to ninety days; to abolish the Appraisement law; to limit the right of redemption to six months.
The motion to limit the value of home- steads to $5,000 did not carry.
The Convention is composed of leading representative men from all parts of the State. It is large in numbers, and em- braces an unusual amount of practical business talent, and valuable results may be anticipated. Ex-Lieutenant Governor Bross, of Chicago, is speaking. this even- ing to a very large audience, composed not only of the members, but of the Sen- ators, Representatives, and others in at- tendanee upon the Legislature. His sub- ject is the transportation question. The following is the substance of his remarks: Mr. President and Gentlemen :
I am here by request, to address you on the transportation question. The subject involves an estimate, as near as may be, of the surplus farm products of what are commonly known as the Northwestern States ; the cost of freights between the producers and the consumers; the capacity of the channels of transit; the means by which that capacity can be .en- larged, and the cost of freights thereby
reduced to the lowest possible limit; and lastly, the numbers and the wants of the - people among whom we expect to find a profitable market for that surplus.
The people of our Atlantic seaboard, especially those of the New England States, are our largest and best customers. The steady increase of manufacturing industry there, creates a larger demand for our products every year; but that de- mand has long since fallen far behind the production of cereals and provisions in the States that surround and lie west of Lake Michigan. This fact has become the more apparent every year since 1865, when at least 200,000 men ceased to be consumers, and, scattered all over these States, have been steadily adding to our surplus. In the meantime, thousands of people from the different nationalities of Europe have made their homes among us, thus adding largely, not only to the num- bers of our population, but to the develop- ment of our resources, and the intellectual and the moral power of the nation. . If our surplus products are already so great, and the cost of their transit to the sea- board is so enormous, that corn is used in Iowa for fuel, the question what is to be done with that surplus a few years hence, when it has increased in almost a bewil- dering ratio, becomes a matter of the most serious concern. Let us consider for a few moments the extent, the resources, and the prospective development of the Northwestern States, nearly all of whose surplus products must find their way, either by rail or the lakes and canal, to the seaboard.
Look at the map. If you draw a line west from Alton, the territory lying north of that and between Lake Michigan and the Rocky Mountains, throwing out the small seetions that are valueless, embraces about 700,000 square miles. Here we have space for fourteen States as large as Ohio, and he knows little of its climate and resources who is not convinced that they will be vastly more productive and more populous than that noble State. The rapid progress of this territory may be inferred from a few facts. The fol-
103
HISTORY OF CHICAGO.
lowing table shows the increase of popu- lation in six States between 1860 and 1870:
P
1860.
1870.
Illinois
1,711,595
2,539,891
Iowa
674,913
1,191,792
Kansas
107,206
364,399
Minnesota
172,023
439,706
Nebraska
28,841
122,993
Wisconsin
775,881
1,054,670
Totals
3,470,459
5,713,451
These figures, taken from the Govern- ment census, show a ratio of 64 per cent. increase between the years 1860 and 1870. The same ratio, continued to the year 1900, only twenty-seven years' hence, would give these States 25,450,000 people; but, granting it can not be kept up in them, can any one doubt, with the rapid exten- sion of our railways in all directions through this vast fertile country, that at least 20,000,000 of people will in the year of grace 1900 find their homes between Lake Michigan and the Rocky Mountains? With only a little more than half the ratio I have named, your own beautiful Iowa will in that time have a population equal to that of Pennsylvania in 1870, then and now the second State in the Union. As another element to help us to judge of the immediate future, I may mention that Chicago had in 1860 a popu- lation of 111,214, and in 1870, 298,977. The ratio of increase in this case-170 per cent. - would give her a population in 1880 of 800,000. I dare not say that Chicago will have that many people in a little more than seven years hence, but I will say that she has far outstripped the predictions that I or any one else have ever had the courage to make.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.