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UNIVERSITY OF 

ILLINOIS LIBRARY 

AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGIM 

BOOKSTACKS 



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LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
URBANA 




THE INTER OCEAN BUILDING. 



CENTENNIAL HISTORY 



OF THE 



CITY OF CHICAGO 






ITS MEN AND INSTITUTIONS 



Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens 



ILLUSTRATED 



1905 

PUBLISHED BY THE INTER OCEAN 
CHICAGO 

PRESS OF THE BLAKELY PRINTING COMPANY 
CHICAGO 



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C#K 



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Prefatory. 



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URING the five years since the first edition of the Inter Ocean's his- 
tory of Chicago was presented to the public, the city has rounded 
out its first century. In presenting this volume the general plan of 
the original work has been followed. The progress made by the city 
in its various lines of activity has been carefully recorded. 

The claim is not made that it is a complete, comprehensive his- 
tory of Chicago's first 100 years, but the publishers believe it con- 
tains more important facts concerning the growth of the city during 
the first century of its existence than any other like publication. 

The superior arrangement of facts and events mlapped out by the 
Hon. Frank Gilbert, in the original edition, has been adhered to as 
closely as changing conditions warranted. Much of the matter is pre- 
served intact. Except where it has been necessary in bringing the 
work up to date, no material changes have been made. Mr. Gilbert's 
plans can be best outlined-" by quoting from the preface of the first 
edition: 

"It was his thought that facts and events would thus be placed 
before the reader more attractively and the book be better adapted 
for the purpose of reference. It is hoped that this method of treat- 
ment will find favor with readers. The great public undertakings 
which are closely connected with the life and growth of the city are 
especially exploited and the private and personal enterprises which 
have been great aids in the building of the citv are given the atten- 
tion they so justly deserve. The men, too, whose ability, genius and 
forethought have added to the city's character, wealth and renown 
have been remembered, and not the least interesting, historically con- 
sidered, are the biographies of these city-makers. This is not a pre- 
tentious or great work, but it is hoped that it will be found useful 
and be given a place in many libraries." 



CHICAGO, 1905. 



I I 76646 




VIEWS WEST CHICAGO PARKS. 



CHAPTER I. 



CHICAGO'S FIRST CENTURY. 




HE history of Chicago's first cen- 
tury is a record of stupendous 
contrasts. 

One hundred years ago a fron- 
tier fort with one white settler 
under the protection of its shelter- 
ing stockade 

To-day a community of over 
two million souls. 

A century ago unmarked on the 
country's map. 
To-day the second city in the United States and the 
fourth in wealth and commercial power in the world. 
In 1803 one Indian trader. 

In 1905 a commanding metropolis with a commerce 
more valuable than was known to Alexandria, Venice, 
Carthage and Tyre. 

Outstripping all competitors, the center of the most 
fertile region on earth, the great Middle West, from 
which the wealth of the nation is mainly drawn, Chicago 
at the beginning of its second century looks forward 
to a maturity that can be measured only by its unparal- 
leled past. 

Its massive buildings, its countless homes, its 
thousands of factories, its hundreds of churches, its 
palaces of art and industry, its great railroad systems, 
its magnificent parks, its splendid financial institutions, 
with their hundreds of millions of deposits, its boundless 
charities, its great thoroughfares and boulevards, its 
billions of commerce on land and lake, its schools with 
their army of 300,000 children, its colleges and great 
universities all these attest the work of Chicago's first 
one hundred years. 

While Chicago has not the traditions of the older 
cities of the continent, nor the poetry and romance of 
the historic centers of the Old World, it has taken its 
place among the great cities of the Globe with a rush 



that has set aside all records and set a new mark in the 
growth and development of municipalities. 

It was needed and it came. 

Chicago's entire history is record breaking. Its 
accomplishments, failures, disasters, experiences have 
all been of the superlative degree. It has always done 
things on a big, broad gauge, wholesale scale. Its 
growth in population, its expansion in area, its park and 
boulevard system, its strikes and riots, its fires, its 
World's fair, its universities and public schools, its 
drainage system, its tall buildings, its Americanism 
despite its polyglot population, its murder mysteries, 
its commerce, have all be epochal. There have been 
no half way possibilities for Chicago. It always "goes 
the limit." It is the busiest, richest, poorest, most 
advanced, and most backward, windiest, most growing, 
swiftest moving, and most aggressive city in the world. 

Chicago's commercial pre-eminence is due primarily 
to its geographical location. At the headwaters of 
Lake Michigan, which dips into the very heart of the 
great inter-mountain region of the nation, it is the 
natural gateway and centering point of most of its 
commerce. The great leaders in the early commercial 
activity of the city recognized this, as did the first white 
men who pierced the western wilderness. 

It is borne out by the great highways of commerce, 
the railroads that center here. Over their rails are car- 
ried two-thirds of the entire tonnage of the United 
States. No city on the face of the earth can compare 
with Chicago as a railway center. Chicago railways 
have under their control or directly tributary to them 
80,000 miles of tracks. They operate more trains in 
and out of Chicago daily than come into and leave any 
other city in the world. 

Chicago's downtown business section, a little more 
than a mile square in extent, comprises the life center of 



8 



THE CITY OP CHICAGO. 



the most gigantic freight traffic in the world. In this 
small congested area, hounded by Twelfth street on the 
south, the river on the north. Canal street on the west 
and the lake on the east, are handled daily over 300,000 
tons of freight. By teaming alone in the loop district 
100,000 tons are carried. The tense activities of 800,000 
people are carried on daily in this same territory. 
Along its thirty miles of streets and alleys these 800 
regiments of men, women and children buy, sell and 
labor during twelve hours of the day. The inescapable 
commercial destiny of Chicago is manifest nowhere more 
clearly than in this square mile of territory in the down- 
town district. The magnitude of this glut of commerce 
and business activity precludes a boast. Chicago mer- 
chants pay no less than $50,000.000 a year for the 
cartage on the raw material and finished products trans- 
ported through this district annually. The railroads 
take into this district and out of it more freight than they 
load and take from any similar area in the world, more 
than any other group of railroads give and take from 
any like district on earth. 

Chicago is the pulse of the world's food market. 
On the floor of the Board of Trade is gauged the 
nation's business in produce. It is the counting room 
of the western granary of the nations. The total cereal 
receipts of the city range from 250,000,000 to over 
350,000,000 bushels annually. The receipts of live- 
stock aggregate 15,000,000 head, making this the 
greatest cattle market the world has ever known. Its 
stockyards cover 500 acres and 300 miles of railroad 
tracks gridiron it. Here are employed 50,000 people 
and the value of the livestock handled is $300,000,000. 
The products of the great packing houses are sent into 
every land. 

The capital invested in Chicago's manufactories 
aggregates $625.000,000. An army of 300,000 workers 
is employed in these industries and the wages paid 
reach a total of nearly $165,000,000 annually. The 
output is valued at $1,000,000.000. For twenty years 
there has been no decrease to the titanic forward strides 
of the city's factories. Chicago's accessibility to cheap 
fuel and raw materials, its cheapness of land, its natural 
and inevitable advantages as a focal point for the trans- 
continental traffic of the country have all contributed 



to attract to the city capital and labor. While the 
greatest conflicts between these interests have been 
fought here, it has not deterred the steady influx of more 
money seeking investment and of more workers seek- 
ing employment. The very immensity of Chicago has 
furnished an element that has made for the freedom and 
interests of both sides. Here no aggregation of capital 
is great enough to hopelessly crush the workingman 
nor no labor organization so autocratic as to per- 
manently cripple a great industry. 

The second century of Chicago's existence opens 
up a magnificent vista of municipal development. No 
greater movement for the education and elevation of the 
people was ever planned. The schools of the city are 
adjusted to the needs of modern industrial life. Nor 
will Chicago be submerged in the intensified commer- 
cialism of the age. To teach the coming generations 
to work with their hands, guided by a trained intelli- 
gence, is the aim of the present educational mover, ent 
of the city. Manual workers and trained housekeepers 
is the product of citizenship aimed at, both fitted for 
home builders and useful members of the community. 

Co-ordinated with this central schools system are 
the parks, neighborhood houses, libraries, art galleries 
and other public institutions. Already have the park 
commissioners of the South Side built neighborhood 
club buildings in the congested districts. Fitted with 
gymnasiums, baths, swimming tanks, halls and reading 
rooms they have become the center of the citizen- 
building movement in the districts where before there 
was little to inspire the effort to rise above the dead 
level of depressing environment. The physical and 
intellectual stimulus can only make for the elevation 
of the civic life of the entire city. 

Nor are the schoolhouses any longer only places 
for the children five or six hours a day. These are now 
used as the rallying points for the entire neighborhood. 
Here the parents of the children and the older members 
of the family can meet for lectures, concerts and the 
discussion of questions affecting the community. 

Thus the workers in Chicago's industrial army are 
being fitted for their share in the upbuilding of the city, 
and influences started that will bear fruit during the 
city's second century. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 




EPTEMBER 26, 1903, Chicago 
began a week of celebration in 
commemoration of the arrival 
of John Kinzie, the first white 
settler, and the founding of 
Fort Dearborn. From all over 
the West the friends and ad- 
mirers of the city came to join 
with the two million Chicagoans 
in the festivities. For a time the 
present was forgotten, and every 
mind went back to the stockaded fort 
and the solitary white settler in his log 
shack across the river. The descendants of this pioneer 
and the officers who led the small company of United 
States regulars into the western wilderness and built the 
government outpost, together with the Indians whose 
fathers were the owners of the land where a city of two 
million souls now stands, met in a common reunion. 

Chicag, the grizzled chief of the Chippewas, older 
than the city itself, sat upon the platform with 
the little great-grand-granddaughters of Captain John 
Whistler and the descendants of Lieutenant Swearingen, 
and John Kinzie. Push-a-ta-nee-kah, chief of the Sac 
and Fox nation, delivered an address. These links with 
Chicago's past brought back the picture of the frontier 
post of a century before more vividly and emphasized 
the wonders that had been wrought from the wilderness 
more eloquently, than did the orators who told the 
story in rounded periods. 

Tablets were placed at historic spots. These will, 
in time, be wrought in bronze in commemoration of the 
men and events to whom Chicago owes its beginning 
and existence. At the public library was placed a repro- 
duction of the first Fort Dearborn built in 1803, and the 
stockade as rebuilt in 1816. Here the opening exercises 
of the celebration were held and Margaret Schuyler Joy 
and Catherine Whistler Joy, the great-great-grand 



daughters of Captain Whistler who built it, unveiled 
the memorial. 

Tablet No. 2 was placed on the Palmer House. On 
it was a map of the city in 1871, showing the extent of 
the great disaster, encircled by two allegorical figures 
symbolic of smoke and fire. It told the story of that 
tragedy, "The Chicago Fire 1871, burned four miles 
along the lake and one mile inland; 2,214 acres of 
ground, 13,500 buildings destroyed, 92,000 people made 
homeless $186,000,000 property lost." 

The tablet placed on the Masonic Temple bore 
this inscription. "Fort Dearborn Military Reservation, 
75 acres established 1824 sold for town lots 1839. 
This square reserved for Dearborn Park, City Library 
erected 1898." At Madison and Wabash a tablet in 
honor of Marquette was placed. The likeness of 
La Salle was placed on the tablet erected on the Board 
of Trade. On the city hall were shown in relief the first 
and second courthouses erected on the site by Cook 
County. A reproduction of the first railway station 
and "The Pioneer," the city's first locomotive, was put 
up at the Chicago and Northwestern depot, Wells and 
Kinzie streets. Chicago's share in the selection of 
Abraham Lincoln was recalled in the tablet at Market 
and Lake streets. On it were these words, "Here stood 
the temporary Republican wigwam in which Abraham 
Lincoln was nominated for the Presidency, May 
1 8, 1860. 

The second day of the celebration being Sunday, 
the greatness of Chicago was the theme in all the pulpits. 
Special commemorative services were held and the 
destiny of the metropolis of the West vividly portrayed. 
On the Monday following, a general holiday was 
declared and hundreds of thousands thronged to Lincoln 
Park to see the great Indian encampment located there. 
The scenes of early Chicago were portrayed in the 
Indian games and pastimes, and in the storming of Fort 
Dearborn, a realistic reproduction of which had been 



10 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



erected for the purpose. There was a notable gathering 
of old settlers in the evening at the rooms of the old 
Chicago Historical Society. 

The Indian festivities were continued on the next 
day, and throughout the entire week, and in the after- 
noon a reunion of the Kinzie, Whistler and Swearingen 
families was held at the Auditorium Hotel. These 
three names are more closely associated with the found- 
ing of Chicago than are any others. The day closed 
with a great parade in the evening, showing the com- 
mercial growth of the city. It was a spectacle surpass- 
ing anything of the kind ever seen in Chicago. All the 
military organizations, police and fire departments, 
including the old-time firemens' brigade, the Indian 
tribes and representatives of all the nationalities in 
Chicago took part. The crowds that had been arriving 
the previous days packed the downtown districts to 
witness the parade. On Wednesday the festivities were 



continued at Lincoln Park, the Indian encampment 
and rowing and swimming races being the attractions. 
The Daughters of the American Revolution held a 
reception at Memorial Hall in the evening, which several 
thousand attended. A great fire-works display on the 
Lake Front closed the program for that day. Thursday 
was known as "Mayor's day," and a banquet to visiting 
officials was held at the Auditorium Hotel in the even- 
ing. The head executives of New York, St. Louis, 
Philadelphia, Cincinnati, New Orleans, Toledo, and 
many other cities, including most of the Illinois towns 
were present. A civic mass meeting at the Auditorium 
followed the dinner at which Mayor Low of New York 
was the speaker. The week's festivities closed with 
another extensive display of fire-works on the Lake 
Front Friday evening, the visitors having spent the day 
at Lincoln Park, and viewing the great manufacturing 
and commercial attractions of the citv. 




GARFIELD PARK PAGODA. 



CHAPTER III. 



EARLY CHICAGO. 




' LITTLE ridge, only from eight to ten 
feet above lake level, just west of the 
present limits of Chicago, may be 
noted as nature's first entry in the his- 
tory of this city. It served as the 
starting point of an aquatic revolu- 
tion, or evolution. Gradually dry 
land was formed where hitherto the 
waters of our unsalted, mid-continent 
sea had held undisputed sway, making for 

, itself an outlet to the Gulf of Mexico. Slowly 

/_ 
the soil was prepared for one of the mightiest 

urban growths of the globe. 

But the rescue of a little patch of earth from the 
domain of water was not of itself enough to ever serve 
as the germ of a city. It was the short and sluggish 
stream now called the Chicago River which was the 
decree of fate. It is no exaggeration to say that the 
metropolis of the Middle West rests on the river which 
bears its name. How long the ridge stood and the 
river flowed before the first step was taken in the ful- 
fillment of this municipal destiny, science cannot deter- 
mine. The beavers and the Indians made some joint 
use of the property just enough to be a prophecy of 
what civilization would do when the time should come 
for their realization. 

Chicago may be said to have been discovered by 
Sieur Joliet. It is one of the more notable evidences of 
man's ingratitude that not even a street in the city 
bears the name of this prescient discoverer. La Salle, 
who came eight years later, had a vague yet inspiring 
vision of the heart of the continent. He caught fore- 
gleams of what might be and has been developed from 
the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, but the impor- 
tance of this portage escaped his observation. Joliet 
reached it December 14, 1674, and when he returned 
to Montreal he reported this portage as the most impor- 



tant discovery of his entire trip, extending as far west 
as the Mississippi River. 

The illustrious Frenchmen named, and their com- 
peers, Father Marquette and Tonty, were mere warfar- 
ing observers. The first settler who was in any sense 
a connecting link with civilization was a negro from 
Hayti. How he came to drift so far from his original 
moorings is a mystery, but here he was found, living 
solitary and alone, by Colonel Arent Schuyler de Puy- 
ster, commandant at Mackinaw, in the summer of 1779. 
The record of this curious find bears the date of July 4, 
1779. It is a noteworthy and suggestive fact that the 
military achievement which added the "Illinois coun- 
try" to the United States, preventing this vast prairie 
region from sharing the political fate of Canada, also 
dates from Independence Day. The name of this first 
settler was Jeane Baptiste Point de Saible. He is sup- 
posed to have lived here twenty years, but, tired of 
waiting, apparently, for the coming of the white man, 
he removed to Peoria, where his death occurred. The 
commandant described him as ''a handsome negro,''' 
and again as a Haytian mulatto, "well settled at Eschi- 
kagcu." The humble dwelling of this pioneer was at 
the corner of Pine and Kinzie streets, a spot hardly less 
deserving of commemoration than the site of Fort 
Dearborn. 

A little before Saible is supposed to have settled 
here the first Chicago real estate transaction occurred. 
One William Murray, then living in Kaskaskia, con- 
ceived a grand land speculation worthy of George Law. 
He organized "the Illinois Land Company" in 1773, and 
in its behalf made a purchase from the Indians of a 
tract. The vast tract bought had for its northeast cor- 
ner mete and bound, as described of record, "Chica- 
gou, or Garlick, Creek." The enterprising Haytian was 
just over the line, on the north bank of "Garlick Creek." 
Mr. Murray and his company would hardly have been 



11 



12 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



heard of more but for the casual mention of 
"Chicagou." 

The first white pioneer was John Kinzie, a name 
conspicuous in the early days of the city, and still 
familiar. In 1804 he bought the cabin of Saible. It is 
true that Major Whistler came here the year before and 
built the first Fort Dearborn, the log structure burnt at 
the massacre of 1812, but he cannot be said to have 



treaty of Greenville was that the United States govern- 
ment should have several isolated pieces of ground for 
trading posts. In this list is found the following entry : 
"One piece of land six miles square at the mouth of 
Chicago River, emptying into Lake Michigan, where 
a fort formerly stood." That treaty fixed both the 
geography and the orthography of the city. 

The first event to bring Chicago within the scope 




PROPOSED PLAN Q 

FOR IMPROVING THE MOUTHOF CHICAGO RIVER 

Drawn by 
F Harrison Jr U.S Assisf 

Feby * 

Wm. Howard U.SCivii Enomeer 



THIS SKETCH OF SURVEY OF CHICAGO SENT TO CONGRESS WITH REPORT IN 1830. 



been instrumental in promoting Chicago, as a mart of 
trade and center of population. 

Moving on and shifting our viewpoint, it may be 
fairly said that Chicago was born at Greenville. Ohio, in 
the year 1 795. It was at that point that General Wayne, 
the "mad Anthony" of military history, met the repre- 
sentatives of twelve Indian tribes, and, as the agent of 
the United States government, bought the original 
site of Chicago. One of the minor provisions of the 



of general observation was the Fort Dearborn massacre, 
if even that did it. Massacres quite as revolting and 
soul-harrowing were not so very unusual in pioneer days 
as to attract universal attention, and news traveled 
slowly. It was not. however, so much a part of the 
price of progress in national expansion as an incident 
of the second war with England. 

The United States declared war June 12. 1812, and 
on the pth of August succeeding Captain Heald. com- 



THE CITY Ol ; CHICAGO. 



13 



mander at Fort Dearborn, received orders from General 
Hull to evacuate the fort and take his women and chil- 
dren to Detroit by land. The departure was set for the 
fifteenth of the same month. Some of the women and 
children were sent by boat, notwithstanding the order. 
That they were not all quietly dispatched in the same 
way was one of the mistakes of Hull. The evacuation 
itself was due to indications that British emissaries from 
Canada had begun to tamper with the Indians. The 
party which started out to make that overland march 
consisted of no white men, ten women, twenty chil- 
dren and 100 Indians supposed to be friendly. This 
mixed company had proceeded only about a mile when 
a large body of Indian warriors fell upon them. The 
friendly Indians either joined in the attack or skulked; 
most of them were downright treacherous. In ten 
minutes every white man, woman and child was dead 
except fifteen. Many a heart-rending tale is still told 
of that massacre, slightly relieved by a rescue by one 
genuinely friendly red man. On that day of horror Chi- 
cago received its baptism of blood, as October 9, 1871, 
it received its baptism of fire. The slaughter occurred 
in the vicinity of Eighteenth street and Prairie avenue. 
A large elm tree was supposed to mark the spot as near 
as possible. The massacre tree survived until 1887, 
when it shed its last leaf, unable to respond again to 
the quickening call of spring. It was cut down and a 
fitting monument in bronze commemorative of the 
tragic event was erected in its place by Mr. George M. 
Pullman, who owned the ground. Many conflicting 
reports were made of the massacre, but the account 
here followed was set down, with many omitted details, 
by an eyewitness. 

For two years Chicago dropped out of sight, and 
it was four years that the bodies of the victims of the 
butchery remained unburied. John Kinzie left his 
home and the Indians had their own way in all this 
region. Chicago was a scene of desolation. No attempt 
was made to re-establish civilized life on the banks of 
"Garlick Creek" until after the second war with Eng- 
land was over. 

It was in July, 1816, that the order to rebuild Fort 
Dearborn was issued, and in accordance with said order 
Captain Hezekiah Bradley, with two companies of 
infantry, took possession of the old ruined fort and pro- 
ceeded to rebuild the same. One of the first duties, 
however, of the captain and the men under him was 
the burying of the skeletons of the dead victims of the 
massacre at the time of the evacuation of the fort. This 
done, they proceeded to rebuild their home, which was 
done in a more careful and substantial manner than 
before. John Kinzie and his family came back, and 
occasionally other settlers straggled in to renew the 
process of civilizing the six-mile tract belonging to the 
government. The Indians were still numerous, but so 



far as the record goes were never afterward unfriendly. 
In 1818 the American Fur Company established a 
branch office here, which enlarged the commercial 
transactions about the fort. By 1820 there was quite 
a village, a half dozen or more comfortable cottages, 
which, together with the soldiers of the fort and the 
Indians about, made things appear quite lively. About 
this time (1820) Chicago was honored with an unusual 
visitation. Governor Cass, with a number of other 
gentlemen, was making an official expedition through 
the Northwest and visited Chicago. Accompanying 
this expedition was Henry R. Schoolcraft, who seemed 
delighted with Chicago and its surroundings. Mr. 
Schoolcraft, although he went out as a mineralogist, 
seems to have been the scribe and reporter tor the 
party. He says that General Cass and party reached 
the village (Chicago) about 5 o'clock on the morning of 
August 29, 1820. "We found four or five families living 
here, the principal of which were those of John Kinzie, 
Dr. A. Wolcott, J. B. Beaubien and J. Crafts, the latter 
living a short distance up the river. The Pottawot- 
tamies, to whom this site is the capital of trade, appeared 
to be lords of the soil, and truly are entitled to the 
epithet if laziness and an utter insppreciation of the 
value of time be a test of lordliness." "We found the 
post, Fort Dearborn, under the command of Captain 
Bradley, with a force of 160 men. The river is ample 
and deep for a few miles, but is utterly choked by the 
lake sands, through which, behind a masked margin, it 
oozes its way for a mile or two till it percolates through 
the sand into the lake." Mr. Schoolcraft seems to have 
been something of an artist, and while he was there 
he took a sketch of the village, as he says, "from a 
standpoint on the flat of sand which stretched out in 
front of the place." The cut herewith presented is a 
copy of Mr. Schoolcraft's sketch, which he says, 
"embraces every house in the village, including the 
fort." Of the country he says: "The country around 
Chicago is the most fertile and beautiful that can be 
imagined. It consists of an intermixture of wood and 
prairies, diversified with gentle slopes, sometimes 
attaining the elevation of hills, and it is irrigated with 
a number of clear streams and rivers, which throw their 
waters partly into Lake Michigan and partly into the 
Mississippi River. As a farming country it presents the 
greatest facilities for stock-raising and grain, and is one 
of the favored parts of the Mississippi Valley. The 
climate has a delightful serenity, and it must, as soon as 
the Indian title is extinguished, become one of the most 
active fields for the emigrant. To the ordinary advan- 
tage of an agricultural market town it must add that of 
being a depot for the commerce between the northern 
and southern sections of the Union, and a great thor- 
oughfare for strangers, merchants and travelers." 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



From this it will be seen that Mr. Schoolcraft was 
much more enamored with the situation of Chicago than 
most of the early travelers through this region. He 
saw, too, the advantages of this location from a commer- 
cial point of view, and the years since have shown that 
he was correct in his estimates of the importance of 
this location for commerce and enterprise. It is in 
fact true of nearly all the early visitors of Chicago that 
they saw great commercial advantages for Chicago 
even when it was only a site it seemed to warm the 
imaginations of the Jesuit fathers, Marquette and Joliet, 
more than any other point they visited in all their 
wanderings. Already Chicago has more than justi- 
fied their far-sighted wisdom, but the present has more 
promise for the future than 1820 or 1830 had. The 



Up to 1823 the place was more generally known as 
Fort Dearborn than as Chicago, the military post being 
the principal feature of the settlement, but in 1823 the 
post was again evacuated and for five years continued 
vacant. During that time the designation "Fort Dear- 
born" almost entirely disappeared, and the place got its 
proper name, Chicago. After the evacuation of the fort 
the only government representative that remained was 
Dr. Alexander Wcflcott, the Indian agent, who still 
retained his office here. Chicago was then a part of 
Peoria County, and in the congressional election of 1826 
cast 35 votes. 

In 1830 William Howard, a United States civil engi- 
neer, made a survey of the general location of Chicago, 
with especial view as to its relations to the Chicago 




VIEW OF CHICAGO IN 1820, BY HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT. 



indications now are that in the next seventy years 
wealth, population, commerce, education, art and all 
things that relate to the higher life and civilization of 
a people will increase more rapidly than they have in 
the last seventy years. It will require more wisdom to 
prepare the present city to become the wonderful city 
Chicago should be in 2070 than was required of its 
founders and builders to produce the city of to-day. 
Faith and energy were the principal requirements of 
the founders, but the men that make this city what it 
should be at the end of the next seventy years must 
have, in addition to those qualifications, intellectual cul- 
ture, practical wisdom, high ideals and courage to do 
and dare. The place where Chicago stands was created 
for great things, and if citizens of the city and state do 
their duty that design will be realized before the close 
of the twentieth century. 



River and the lake. His drawing and report gave the 
best idea of the Chicago River of that early day that 
can anywhere be found. The sketch is here repro- 
duced, and the beach of sand from which Mr. School- 
craft drew his sketch of infant Chicago, ten years pre- 
vious, is plainly shown. The Commissioner of the 
General Land Office, at the time of reporting this sur- 
vey, sent the following letter to Congress in regard to 
the same, inclosing the sketch : 

"GENERAL LANDOFFICE, March 22, 1830. 
"Sir: I take the liberty to inclose you a diagram, 
exhibiting the survey of the public lands lying on Lake 
Michigan, at the mouth of Chicago Creek, and would 
recommend that an act be passed, authorizing the Presi- 
dent to lay off a town at this point. Section 9 has been 
allotted to the State of Illinois, under the act granting 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



to her certain lands for the purpose of making a 
canal. 

"Should the United States establish a town at the 
mouth of the creek, the state would probably derive 
much benefit by extending the lots into Section 9, as 
Chicago Creek affords a good harbor through the whole 
of this section. 

"It is understood that the waters of Lake Michigan 
may be drawn into the Illinois River, by a thorough cut 
of moderate length, and not more than seventeen feet 
deep at the summit ; when this is affected, and the bar 
on the outside of the mouth of Chicago Creek is so 
deepened as to admit into the harbor with facility ves- 
sels of the largest class navigating the lakes, Chicago 
must inevitably become one of the most important 
depots and thoroughfares on the lakes. 

''The government are about bringing into market 
a vast extent of country between Lake Michigan and 
the Mississippi River, which, as to advantages of local 
position, fertility of soil, healthfulness of climate and 
mineral resources, is not perhaps excelled by any other 
tract of country of equal extent in the United States. 
The deepening of the inlet of the harbor of Chicago 
would essentially facilitate the sale of these lands and 
promote the settlement of the country. 

* * * * * * 

"With great respect, your obedient servant, 

"GEORGE GRAHAM." 

It will be seen by the above that the writer took a 
great interest in the embryo city of Chicago, and that 
even then, when nobody ever thought of Chicago need- 
ing any other drainage receptacle than the lake, he 
called attention to the fact that the waters of Lake 
Michigan could be easily turned into the Illinois River 
by making a cut of moderate length and not more than 
seventeen feet deep at the summit ; in fact, nearly all the 
pioneers were especially attracted to Chicago on 
account of the ease with which a waterway could be 
made joining the lake with the Mississippi River through 
the Chicago, Desplaines and Illinois rivers. With this 
fact so prominent in the minds of the earlier explorers, 
it seem strange that such an enterprise should have 
been delayed so long as it was. Of course, in those 
days they did not have such big ships and boats as are 
now necessary on the lakes and rivers, and to make a 
navigable stream then required no such a great water- 
way as our present drainage board have provided. Now, 
however, that Chicago has spent $33,000,000 in begin- 
ning this great work, it will be stranger still if the 
national government does not follow it up and carry 
out the idea of the early pioneers and connect the great 
chain of lakes with the Mississippi River. In no other 
way can such an extent of navigable water communica- 
tion be created on the continent. 



After the evacuation in 1823, the fort remained 
unoccupied until 1828, when a new garrison was sta- 
tioned here, remaining until May, 1831. But it only 
remained vacant about one year. Owing to the emer- 
gencies of the Black Hawk war, the government again 
stationed a force at this port, and the action proved very 
fortunate, as the fort afforded a refuge for frightened 
settlers for long distances around. After the peace that 
followed the Black Hawk war had become apparently 
permanent, the troops were again, on December 29, 
1836, removed from the fort, and Chicago from that 
time on took care of herself without the assistance of the 
war department. Chicago now became a place of com 
parative activity, looking fonvard to a position in the 
commercial world. The year 1837 was quite an impor- 
tant year. Chicago was incorporated as a city and 
elected her first mayor. In later years the "old settlers" 
were those who had come to Chicago in 1837 or pre- 
viously. Anybody that came later was barred that 
title, or at least barred out of the association as ineli- 
gible to membership. In fact, however, it was as far 
back as 1830 that Chicago began to show evidence of 
ambition to realize the dream of Joliet and to display- 
signs of commercial life. Before that, however, it had 
gained very slowly. From 1816 to 1830 it had gained 
only twelve or fifteen houses and a population of about 
100. 

A side light is thrown upon the Chicago of that 
period by the records of the assessor of Peoria County 
in 1825, seven years after Illinois became a state. There 
were only fourteen taxpayers in the "Chicago precinct," 
including John Jacob Astor's Fur Company. More than 
one-half the assessable property of the place belonged 
to Astor, whose name now figures as that of one of 
the shortest but most aristocratic streets of the city. 
Astor's tax was $50, on a valuation of $5,000. The 
totals, without counting Astor's Fur Company, were : 
Valuations, $4,047; taxes, $34.47. 

It was not until the last vestige of Indian occupa- 
tion in bulk had disappeared from Illinois that Chicago 
began to grow. The Keokuk treaty of 1830 was 
designed to rid the state of these obstructions, but 
Black Hawk refused to go. His people occupied a large 
area of Northern Illinois. The Black Hawk war closed 
with his capture in 1833. Soon after in the same year 
not less than 5,000 Indians assembled at Chicago to 
treat for the sale of their remaining lands in Northern 
Illinois and Southern Wisconsin. It was a tedious 
process. The Indians did not want to sell, but the hour 
had come and the assembled red men finally bowed to 
the inevitable. 

The original town of Chicago was laid out in 1830. 
It extended from Chicago avenue on the north to Madi- 
son street on the south and from State street on the 
east to Halsted street on the west. All east of State 



16 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 




FORT DEARBORN IN 1853 FROM THE SOUTHWEST. 



street was subject to overflow from the lake. The West 
Side was substantially unbroken prairie. Real estate 
speculation began, in a mild form, not reaching the 
fever point until the red men were well out of the 
way. The first bridge was erected over the south 
branch. That was in 1831. Three years later a draw- 
bridge was erected which spanned the main river at 
Dearborn street. 

The first census of Chicago was taken in 1835. It 
was taken by the town authorities. It showed a popula- 
tion, in November of that year, of 3,255 souls. There 
were 398 dwellings, four warehouses, twenty-nine dry- 
goods stores, nineteen grocery and provision stores, five 
hardware stores, three drug stores, nineteen taverns, 
twenty-six saloons, seventeen law offices. The first 
Cook County courthouse was erected that year, and 
on the northeastern corner of the present courthouse 
square. Chicago was then beginning to get 911. 

The first step toward a city charter for Chicago was 
taken in October, 1836. The town trustees and dele- 
gates from the three divisions met in conference to 
frame a charter. Their work done, it was submitted 
to the people in mass meeting assembled. With slight 
changes it was approved. The charter was then taken 
to the General Assembly, which convened at the begin- 
ning of 1837. It was passed and approved March 4, 



1837, the same day that Martin Van Buren was inau- 
gurated President of the United States. That original 
city of Chicago had six wards. William B. Ogden was 
elected mayor. The whole number of votes cast at the 
first municipal election in Chicago was only 709. It was 
between the time that Chicago decided to ask for a 
city charter and the time it actually got it that it really 
ceased to be Fort Dearborn, for the garrison was with- 
drawn December 29, 1836. 

It was about this time that the great era of specula- 
tion in town lots and of internal improvement by states 
set in. Chicago was included in one, Illinois in the 
other. It was a wild storm of great expectations. Noth- 
ing could stand before it. Its fury was unabated till 
the crash of 1837 came. The city of Chicago was still 
in its cradle, its age counted by months, when the col- 
lapse came. Lots which had been bought only a little 
while before for a few hundred dollars were sold for 
thousands of dollars, and everything seemed to betoken 
wonderful prosperity. The collapse came and the fall 
was greater than the rise. From 1837 to about 1840 
was a period of great depression and hardship. Chicago 
was what the vernacular of to-day calls "a busted boom 
town.'' To make the misery more complete, drought 
fell like a blight upon the prairie farmers and an epi- 
demic of cholera visited the little poverty-stricken city. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



17 



It was not until 1842 that Chicago gave signs of recov- 
ery from the depression, and then only faint and feeble. 

The decade of the forties may be set down as a period 
memorable for its beginnings. In his "Story of Chicago" 
Major Joseph Kirkland makes this brief summary on 
this point : 

"The forties saw the beginning, in a small way, of 
nearly all the great institutions Chicago now enjoys. In 
1841 the first waterworks were built. The first propeller 
was launched in 1842, in which year the exports were for 
the first time greater than the imports. The first book 
compiled, printed, bound and issued is said to have 
been in 1843. The first meat for the English market was 
packed in 1844. The first permanent public school 
building was built in 1845. In 1846 the River and 
Harbor Convention met and Chicago was made a port 
of entry. In 1847 the first permanent theater was 
opened (Rice's; south side of Randolph street, between 
State and Dearborn streets), and McCormick's reaper 



factory was started. In 1848 the first telegram was 
received, being a message from Milwaukee, and later 
the 'Pioneer,' our first locomotive, was landed from the 
schooner Buffalo and started out on the Galena rail- 
way. In the same year the Board of Trade was estab- 
lished and the canal opened. In 1849 the Chicago & 
Galena Union Railroad was opened to Elgin." 

We have now reached a point in the history of 
Chicago where we must deal with a great city, not the 
beginnings of one. As the ground on which it stands 
was long in getting out from under the dominion of the 
lake, and our river was long a mere pool slowly rising to 
the dignity of a fresh water estuary, so the city itself 
made hard work of getting a start. There were at least 
three cities in the state, Shawneetown, Galena and Alton 
which gained no inconsiderable importance while 
Chicago was having a baffling struggle for bare exist- 
ence. But about the time the city charter was granted 
the municipality entered upon its career, and from this 




CITY HALL. 



18 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



time on we are not to deal with a rivulet. The municipal 
river is not only widening, but really has an ever-increas- 
ing number of branches, each of which invites to 
historical exploration. They will be explored, so far 
as practicable, in the order of their beginnings. This 
topical indistinction from chronological method seems 
best suited to a presentation of the past experiences of 
a great city, as the biographical method is to a presenta- 
tion of its present life. 

MILE STONES IN CHICAGO'S WONDERFUL 
GROWTH. 

1803. 

Fort Dearborn built by Captain John Whistler and 
Lieutenant James S. Swearingen of the United .States 
army, in command of a company of United States troops 
from Detroit. The post was named in honor of Gen- 
eral Henry Dearborn, then secretary of war. Popula- 
tion, seventy-five. 

1804. 

John Kinzie and his family become the first white 
s-ettlers under the United States, following the soldiers 
from Detroit to trade with the Indians. He brought 
with him his wife and young son. In that year Ellen 
Marion Kinzie was born, the first white child of the set- 
tlement. Mr. Kinzie died here in 1828. 

1805. 

The first lawyer, Charles Jewett, came to Chicago 
and was appointed the first Indian agent for the Potta- 
wattamies, and other nearby tribes. 

1806. 

Efforts made by Tecumseh, the famous Indian chief, 
and his brother, the Prophet, to form a confederacy of 
the Indians against the whites at Fort Dearborn and 
other western settlements. 

1810. 

The first doctor, John Cooper, surgeon mate. U. S. 
A., came to Chicago, being detailed for duty by the war 
department at Fort Dearborn. The Pottawattamies 
opened warfare against the settlement. First sugges- 
tion of government connecting the Chicago and Illinois 
river by canal by way of the portage. 

1812. 

August 5, occurred the massacre of the garrison of 
Fort Dearborn, together with a number of settlers on 
the south shore. Captain Nathan Head was ordered 
to evacuate the fort and retreat to Detroit, as a result 
of the hostilities between the United States and Eng- 
land. Fort Dearborn was burned by the Indians. Pop- 
ulation, one hundred and ten. 

1813. 

Phillip Fouche appointed as first United States mar- 
shall for the district embracing Chicago. 



1816. 

Captain Hezekiah Bradley arrived in command of 
two companies of infantry and rebuilt Fort Dearborn. 
The Indian agency and warehouse reestablished. Kinzie 
family returned. Population, one hundred and fifty. 

1817. 

Route between Chicago and Mackinac Island estab- 
lished by the schooners Baltimore and Hercules. 

1818. 

Illinois admitted to the Union as a state. The 
American Fur Company established agency here. 

1821. 

First government survey of the shore line of Lake 
Michigan off Chicago made. 

1822. 

Alexander Beaubien baptized by the Rev. Stephen 
D. Badin. 

1823. 

Fort Dearborn evacuated by federal troops. Dr. 
Alexander Wolcott remained in charge as Indian agent. 
His wedding to Miss Ellen Marion Kinzie celebrated, 
the first marriage in the settlement. Mrs. Wolcott died 
in Detroit in 1860. Illinois and Michigan canal bill 
passed by legislature. 

1824. 
Survey for the Illinois and Michigan canal is made. 

1825. 

The first Protestant sermon preached in Chicago 
October 9, by the Rev. Isaac McCoy, a Baptist clergy- 
man. Chicago still a part of Peoria County. Popula- 
tion, two hundred. 

1826. 

Election for congress and for governor held. Only 
thirty-five votes were cast. 

1827. 

First slaughter house built by Archibald Clybourne 
on north branch of the river, which was forerunner of 
great packing industry. First company of militia 
organized.. 

1828. 

Fort Dearborn is regarrisoned by Federal troops. 
John Kinzie died. 

1829. 

Wolf Tavern built at the forks of the river by Archi- 
bald Caldwell and James Kinzie. First ferry estab- 
lished near site of present Lake street bridge. 

1830. 

Chicago surveyed and platted and first bridge built 
over the river at Randolph street. Population, five 
hundred. 

1831. 

Cook County formed and Chicago made county 
seat. First county building erected. First postoffice 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



19 



established with Jonathan N. Bailey as postmaster. 
First Methodist church built and first government light- 
house established at harbor mouth. 

1832. 

First store built of boards, put up by Robert Kinzie 
on west side of river. First drug store established by 
Philo Carpenter. Four companies of militia volunteer 
for Blackhawk war and General Winfield Scott arrived 
July 8, with regular troops. First sawmill established 



mont house built. Block on which new postoffice stands 
sold for $550. Population, eight hundred. 

1834. 

The city floated its first loan. First Episcopal 
church, St. James, established by the Rev. Isaac YY. 
Hallam. First mail route established between Chicago 
and Detroit by Dr. John H. Temple. The first draw- 
bridge built across the river at Dearborn street. The 
first vessels to navigate river were the steamer Michigan 




THE GOVERNMENT BUILDING. 



and first meat packed and shipped. Steamer Sheldon 
Thompson brought cholera to town. 

1833- 

Chicago incorporated as a town. First newspaper 
established, The Democrat, by John Calhoun. The 
first public school opened with an enrollment of twenty- 
five. First log jail built, five trustees for town elected 
and code of municipal laws adopted. First shipment of 
merchandise from Chicago taken out by schooner 
Napoleon. First Roman Catholic parish, St. Mary's 
established by the Rev. Father John St. Cyr. First 
Presbyterian congregation formed by the Rev. Jere- 
miah Porter. First fire department organized with 
Benjamin Jones as chief. An appropriation of $25,000 
for the improvement of the harbor made. First Tre- 



and the schooner Illinois. The first piano brought to 
town by George J. B. Beaubien. The first divorce is 
granted, and the first murder trial concluded. Popula- 
tion, i, 600, number of votes cast at election, 528. 



The first courthouse, a one-story and basement brick 
structure, built on the southwest corner of Clark and 
Randolph streets. United States land office opened with 
a rush. The first Chicago bank opened, branch of the 
Illinois State bank. Board of health organized. 
School census taken. Population, 3,279. 

1836. 

First ground broken for Illinois and Michigan canal 
July 4. The Clarissa the first sailing vessel built in Chi- 
cago launched. The garrison quartered in Fort Dear- 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 




COLUMBUS MEMORIAL BUILDING. 

born since 1828, withdrawn and site abandoned as an 
army post. William B. Ogden's house built from archi- 
tectural designs, the first of its kind in the city. The 
Galena and Chicago Union Railroad chartered. Pres- 
idental vote of Cook County 1,043. 

1837- 

The City of Chicago incorporated and first city 
election held. Daniel Webster visited city. First census 
of city showed a population of 4,170. First theater 
opened. First financial panic. 

1838. 

First side-wheel steamer, the James Allen, built. 
First steam fire engine purchased. The first exporta- 



tion of wheat, seventy-eight bushels, took place. Con- 
gressional vote, 2,506. 

1839- 

First big fire cost the city $75,000. First job print- 
ing office opened, and first daily paper, The American, 
published. Thanksgiving publicly observed for the 
first time. First brewery established. 

1840. 

The public free schools were reorganized and made 
permanent. Scammon's reports were issued, the first 
book published in Chicago. First Clark street bridge 
built. Population, 4,470. 

1841. 

First wave of temperance struck the town and 150 
took the pledge in three days. Bridge built at Wells 

street. 

1842. 

Forty merchants pass through bankruptcy courts. 
Works of Chicago Hydraulic Company put in operation. 
The Independence, the first propeller launched. It was 
the first steamboat to navigate Lake Superior. Ex- 
president Van Buren visited the city. 

1843- 

Corn and wheat make low record in February, corn 
selling at 1 8 cents and wheat 38 cents a bushel. First 
Chicago directory published in book form. First ses- 
sion of Rush Medical College held. A tri-weekly 
express service established between Chicago and the 
East. 

1844. 

Tornado wrecks many houses and shipping in the 
harbor. Great boom in building, 600 houses erected. 
First fire alarm bell installed. St. Mary's of the Lake 
University established. Dearborn school, first perma- 
nent school building erected at a cost of $7,500. Popu- 
lation, 12,000. 

1845- 

First power printing press brought here by "Long 
John" Wentworth, editor of the Democrat. County 
court established. 

1846. 

July 13 Chicago made a port of entry. Holy Name 
St. Peter's, St. Patrick's, and St. Joseph's churches 
established. Recruiting for Mexican war kept town in 
ferment. First levy for special assessments made. 

1847- 

River and Harbor convention met in Chicago. 
Rice's theater first opened. First law school opened, 
and first patients received in hospital. 

1848. 

First telegram received in Chicago from Milwaukee 
on April 15. April 10 the first boat passed through the 
Illinois and Michigan Canal. October 25, an engine and 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



21 



two cars were run over the first five miles of track of 
the Galena railroad. First session of the new United 
States court was held. An epidemic of smallpox 
reigned and vaccination was general. 

1849 

Storms and flood damage shipping to the extent of 
$100,000. Waters of Desplaines and Chicago rivers 
unite in great flood, which tears away all bridges. Tre- 
mont house again burned, together with twenty other 
buildings. Another epidemic of cholera and thirty 
deaths occur on one day. Panic among banks. Presi- 
dential vote, 3,832. 

1850 

Galena and Chicago Union Railroad opened to 
Elgin. First gas is turned on in city mains. First 
opera is given. First streets paved with planks, 
Stephen A. Douglas made his great speech. Federal 
census gives Chicago 29,963 population. 

1851 

Trouble with Michigan Southern Railroad over its 
contentions of prior rights into Chicago was settled 
in an opinion by Douglas, which declared that the Illi- 
nois Central and the Rock Island roads were entitled 
to come into the city over their own tracks to their own 

terminals. 

1852. 

Chicago's first big loan floated for $250,000 for 
building the new waterworks. First train is run into the 
city over the Michigan Southern, arriving in Chicago, 
February 20. First train on Michigan Central arrives 
May ,!2i. City waterworks operated for first time. 
Northwestern University is located in Chicago, and 
superintendent of public schools appointed. Presiden- 
tial vote, 5,024. 

1853. 

Chicago had its first labor strike. New courthouse 
is occupied. Ole Bull given an ovation. Wreck at 
Grand Crossing in collision between Michigan South- 
ern and Galena road, killed eighteen persons. Douglas 
hooted down while attempting to speak in defense of 
Kansas-Nebraska bill. 

1854- 

First train on the Chicago and Rock Island road 
arrived June 5. Illinois Central makes Chicago head- 
quarters instead of St. Louis. Cholera epidemic. 

1855. 

First train on Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Rail- 
road run as far as Burlington, Iowa, May 30. Main 
road of Illinois Central completed. Attempt to enforce 
Sunday law caused riot, one man killed and several 
wounded. First state agricultural fair held October 9, 
on the canal near Blue Island avenue. Nearly 1,500 
deaths occurred from cholera. 



1856. 

First high school opened. The Chicago Historical 
society organized. First ordinance for street railway 
on State street from Randolph to southern limit of city 
passed. First sewers are laid and first iron bridge is 
swung across Rush street. Present grade level of street 




GREAT NORTHERN BUILDING. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



was established after strong opposition. First direct 
clearance for European ports by the schooner Dean 
Richmond. First steam tug in the river. Presidential 
vote, 11,615. 

1857- 

Great financial crisis, banks in panic and city orders 
went to protest. Great fire in South Water and Lake 
streets, caused $500,000 loss. McVicker's theater first 
opened. Population 93,000, and Chicago recognized 
as the metropolis of the Northwest. 

1858. 

The first street car was run in State street and the 
first paid fire department was organized. 

1860. 

Steamboat Lady Elgin was lost on September 8, 
and 293 persons perished. The United States census 
gave Chicago a population of 109,260. The presiden- 
tial vote was 18.985. 

1861. 

The famous Camp Douglas was established at 
Cottage Grove avenue and Thirty-ninth street, at the 
outbreak of the war of the rebellion. 

1862. 
The first internal revenue collector was appointed. 

1863. 

The city limits are extended to include Bridgeport 
and Holstein. Up to this time 400 miles of street had 
been improved and twenty-nine miles had been grav- 
eled. 

1864. 

Work was begun on the first water tunnel at the 
land shaft March 17. Special assessments were tied up 
for a year by court proceedings against the la\v. 

1865. 

The first tunnel crib was launched July 24. The 
Union Stock Yards were opened for business and the 
first fire-alarm telegraph was installed. 

1867. 

Lake water tunnel was completed and the pumping 
station and tower at Chicago avenue was built. 

1869. 

Great celebration held over the completion of the 
Washington Street tunnel. Courthouse built in 1851 
was enlarged by the addition of two wings and another 
story. The park act was passed. Total tax was $3,990,- 
373 and the bonded debt $7,882,500. 

1870. 

Bonded debt is increased to $11,041,000. United 
States census gave Chicago a population of 306,605. 

1871. 

The great fire occurred on October 7, 8, 9, 10 and 
1 1 , causing a loss of $290,000.000. Nearly twenty 



thousand buildings were destroyed. On the West Side 
194 acres were burned over, on the South Side 460 
acres, and on the North Side 1,470 acres. The La Salle 
Street tunnel was dedicated. 

1872. 

Over $30,000,000 is spent in rebuilding the city. 
Great influx of population because of labor required in 
building. 

1873- 

Great rebuilding operations continued. Financial 
panic which affected the whole country struck Chicago. 
The United States sub-treasury established. Public 
library opened. 

1880. 

Federal census gave Chicago a population of over a 
half a million or 503,185. 

1882. 

Cable trains first installed and operated on the Chi- 
cago City Railway, in State street and Wabash avenue. 

1883. 

Present city hall and county building were com- 
pleted. 

1885. 

First investigation made for building drainage canal. 

1886. 

Serious riots led by the anarchists took place in 
Haymarket square on the West Side, many policemen 
were killed by the explosion of a bomb. 

1889. 

Sanitary district of Chicago organized and the build- 
ing of the great drainage canal planned. 

1890. 

Chicago's population passed the million mark and 
according to the federal census the city became the 
second in size in the United States, with 1,105,540 
inhabitants. Sanitary district organized. 

1892. 

Columbian Exposition built in Jackson Park. First 
elevated railroad put in operation. Ground broken for 
the building of the drainage canal. Rockefeller rejuve- 
nates the University of Chicago. 

1893. 

World's fair opened and broke all records for 
magnitude and attendance. 

1894. 

Great strike inaugurated by the American Railway 
union under Eugene V. Debbs. President Cleveland 
called out federal troops to assist police and Illinois 
National guard in maintaining order. Moore Brothers 
become involved through operation in Diamond Match 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



23 



and National Biscuit stock, and fail for $5,000,000, 
causing temporary closing of Chicago Stock exchange. 

1896. 

Greatest political parade in history when 100.000 
sound-money Republicans and Democrats get into line. 

1897. 

New Public Library building dedicated. Joseph 
Leiter forces a corner in wheat and runs up the price to 
$1.87 a bushel on Board of Trade. Failure followed in 
which his losses aggregated over $5,000,000. Levi Z. 
Leiter comes to his relief and makes complete settle- 
ment. 

1898. 

Union Elevated loop built. 

1899. 

Drainage canal is dedicated and water is turned into 
the channel. Corner stone of the new postoffice and fed- 
eral building is laid by President McKinley, October 9. 

1900. 

Federal census gives the population of Chicago as 
1,698,575. Formal opening of drainage canal Janu- 
ary 17. 



1901. 

George H. Phillips cornered May corn and ran price 
up to sixty cents a bushel. Chicago teachers federation 
get supreme court decision for taxing property of cor- 
porations on same basis as property of individuals. 

1902. 
Movement for new city charter begun in October. 

1903. 

Centennial celebration of the founding of Chicago 
and the building of Fort Dearborn. New Iroquois 
theater pronounced absolutely fireproof burned, and 
575 men, women and children suffocated and burned 
to death. 

1904. 

Theaters all closed as result of Iroquois fire. Mayor 
Harrison, building commissioner and theater officials 
held to grand jury. New building ordinance passed pro- 
viding for complete fire protection in theaters and public 
buildings. Orchestra hall, permanent home for Thomas 
Orchestra, dedicated. 

1905. 

Theodore Thomas died in January. General team- 
sters strike. 







FLORAL DISPLAY, HUMBOLDT PARK. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE GROWTH AND THE MAYORS OF CHICAGO. 




municipality of Chicago has 
never fully kept up with its tre- 
mendous growth in commerce and 
population. The civic problems 
presented have no sooner been 
solved than others have developed. 
At the beginning of the city's sec- 
ond century it is still struggling for 
a wider and more comprehensive 
city government and for a munici- 
pal machinery capable of handling its affairs. The 
movement for the new city charter, begun in Octo- 
ber, 1902, has as yet (1905) borne but little fruit. 
That Chicago will come into her own by securing an 
adequate municipal code of laws and schemes of gov- 
ernment is a promise of the near future. The demand 
for such a charter is becoming more urgent every year, 
and in the gradual process of evolution such a plan will 
be worked out as will give the city a municipal machin- 
ery consistent with its greatness. 

Chicago first became a municipal entity on February 
11, 1835, when the original Town of Chicago was incor- 
porated. Its boundaries at that time were Twelfth 
street on the south, Halsted street on the west, and 
Chicago aveune on the north. The three sections of 
the city even at that early day were grouped about the 
Chicago river. On March 4, 1837, the City of Chicago 
was incorporated and the limits extended to Twenty- 
second street on the south, Wood street on the west, 
and North avenue on the north. The territory 
embraced within the original city limits was 10.635 
square miles and the population 4.170. At the end of 
the city's first century it had grown in territory to 
190.638 square miles, and contained approximately 
2,000,000 inhabitants. 

In the first ten years the city quadrupled in popula- 
tion and spread out further and further from the down- 



town business center. On February 16, 1847, tne 
annexation to the city was made, consisting of 3.275 
square miles of territory lying along the western 
boundary between Wood street and Western avenue. 
It also included the original tract from which Lincoln 
park has been developed. The second extension came 
five years later, the city having in the meantime 
increased to a population of over 60,000. The additions 
were made to all sides of the city, south, west and north. 
This increase was a little less than four square miles. 
From then on until after the war Chicago began to 
grow by leaps and bounds. By 1860 the city had gone 
beyond the 100,000 mark, and on February 13, 1863 
the boundaries were again extended in all directions, 
on the south to Thirty-ninth street, on the west to 
Western avenue and on the north to Fullerton avenue, 
the area taken in aggregating 6.284 square miles, giving 
the city 150,000 inhabitants. Six years later large addi- 
tions were made to the west and northwest sides, the 
boundaries on the west being extended to Fortieth ave- 
nue. The increase in territory at this time was 11.38 
square miles, making a total area of 35,562 squqare 
miles, an increase in area of 250 per cent since 1837. 
The population by this time had reached the quarter- 
million mark. In 1887 one square mile of the township 
of Jefferson was annexed to the northwest and two years 
later another square mile of the same township was 
added and the western boundaries were extended to 
Forty-sixth avenue and Forty-eighth avenue. This 
made the total area of the city, on April 29, 1889, 43.712 
square miles. The population of the city proper and its 
adjoining suburbs had reached the million mark. On 
July 15, 1889, Chicago's greatest gain in area was made. 
On the south the great village of Hyde Park was 
annexed, the town of Lake was taken in to the north- 
west, part of Cicero to the west, the town of Jefferson to 
the northwest and the city of Lakeview to the north, a 



24 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



25 



total of 126.07 f square miles of territory being added 
to the city. This brought the total up to 169.782 square 
miles and gave the city a population of approximately 
1,100,000 inhabitants. Since then numerous small 
additions have been made, the outlying suburbs being 
admitted whenever they knocked for admission. These 
annexations were made in the order named : The village 
of Gano to the south in the Calumet district, South 
Englewood, Washington Heights and West Roseland, 
admitted during the year 1890; the village of Fernwood 
admitted in 1891 ; the village of Westridge and Rogers 
Park and Norwood Park in 1893; part of the town of 
Calumet in 1895 and Cicero and a part of Austin in 
1899. This last addition brought the total area up to 
190.638 square miles. 

Chicago's longest distance, from One Hundred and 
Thirty-eighth street on the south to Howard avenue in 
Rogers Park on the north, is 25.5 miles. From the 
Indiana boundary line at One Hundred and First street 
and the lake, the shore line north to Howard avenue, 
including all indentations, is exactly 134,801 feet or 
25.23 miles. The city's greatest width from east to west 
is at Seventy-eighth street, the distance from the shore to 
Forty-eighth avenue being 10.5 miles. The greatest 
width on the North Side is at North avenue. From the 
shore line to North Seventy-second avenue on the west 
is 9.25 miles. Western avenue is the longest street in 



the city, extending from One Hundred and Seventh 
street on the south to Howard avenue on the north for 
a distance of 22.16 miles. Ashland avenue if cut 
through between the same points would be the same 
length. From One Hundred and Fifteenth street to One 
Hundred and Twenty-third street, Ashland avenue forms 
the western boundary of the city for one mile, which 
if added to it would make it 23.16 miles long. Halsted 
street comes next. Beginning at Calumet river at about 
One Hundred and Thirty-second street and extending to 
the lake on the north it covers a distance of approxi- 
mately 21.4 miles. 

As to the population at the present time (1905) there 
seems to be no accurate information. That it is well 
over the two million mark is generally admitted. The 
estimates for 1904 varied all the way from 1,714,144 to 
2,241,000. The school census was taken as the basis 
for the first estimate and the city directory for the latter. 
The census bureau in Washington for 1905 gave the 
estimate of Chicago at over 1,900,000. In compiling 
the city's vital statistics for 1904, the health department 
used as a basis the mid-year estimate of 1,932,315 inhab- 
itants. That it is well over the two million mark is 
believed by many competent judges. 

The last federal census taken in 1900 shows Chi- 
cago's population to be divided in point of nationality 
as follows : German, including those whose parents were 




HUMBOLDT PARK. 



THE CITY 01' CHICAGO. 



born in Germany, hut themselves in America, 534,083 ; 
Irish, figured on the same basis, 254,914; native Ameri- 
cans whose parents were also American, 384,122. The 



Colored, 30,150; Austrians, 29,760: Scotch. 28,529; 
French, 21,026. The rest of Chicago's cosmopolitan 
population is made up of from nearly every people on the 



native population of persons horn in the United States face of the earth. China, India, Finland, Japan, Rouma- 
was 1,111,463. Of these 769,882 were horn in Illinois, nia. Turkey, Wales, Switzerland, Hungary, Greece and 
This leaves 727,341 who were of foreign birth. Of this the Islands of the Sea are all represented. 




CHICAGO STOCK EXCHANGE BUILDING. 

number 170,738 were born in Germany and 73,912 in Chicago's city government consists of the following 

Ireland. Other nationalities are represented as follows elective officers, all chosen for a period of two years: 

by those of foreign birth and whose parents were of Mayor, city clerk, city attorney, city treasurer, and 

foreign birth: Swedes, 144,719; Poles, 167,383; Bohe- city council, consisting of seventy alderman, two for 

mians, 109,224; Norwegians, 59.898; English, 72,876: each of the thirty-five wards of the city. The mayor 

Russians, 61.974; Canadians, 48,304: Italians, 42.054; receives a salary of $10,000 a year, and the city clerk 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



27 



and city attorney each $5,000. and the city treasurer 25 
per cent of the interest allowed by the banks on the 
city's deposits. The aldermen are each paid $1,500 a 
year. Half of the aldermen are elected each spring. 

The total appropriation for the city for 1905 aggre- 
gated $34,084.910. Of this amount $23,525,193 was 
set aside for city purposes, $10,159,717 for schools and 
$400,000 for the libraries. The expenditure for city pur- 
poses for the year ending December 31, 1904, 
aggregated $22,806,949. The general government of 
the city for 1904, including all the departments outside 
of the public safety and public works department, cost 
$2,033,255. For public safety was spent $6,074,369. 
Under this head come the police department and minor 
courts, the house of correction, the fire department, 
health department, hospitals, public pounds and munic- 
ipal lodging houses. The public works department for 
1904 spent $8,449,049. Under this head come the 
bureau of streets, sewers, local improvements, electricity 
and water works. For public recreation and art was 
spent $20,201.31. This was mainly devoted to public 
play grounds. It cost the city to pay its judgments and 
damage claims, $5,1 18,897 f r I 94- 

The total bonded debt of Chicago outstanding 
December 31, 1904, was $22,618,000. This showed an 
increase of $7,495,000 over the preceding year. During 
1904 judgment funding bonds aggregating $5,225,000 
and permanent improving bonds of $3,000,000 were 
issued. 

The city of Chicago in its general government, pub- 
lic safety, public works, water works, board of education 
and miscellaneous departments employed during 1904 
17,029 persons, to whom was paid in salaries $16,270,- 
007.24. The greatest share of this was paid for educa- 
tion, $6,386,957 being the salary list of Chicago's 
school teachers. Public safety cost in salaries alone 
$5,332,969, three-fifths of this amount going to the 
police department. 

The city owns 341 school buildings, containing 4,905 
rooms. The value of these structures, with their sites 
and furniture, is $31.135.900. The board of education 
besides this rents buildings containing 138 rooms. 
This gives a seating capacity of 252,324. The board 
has under construction nineteen new school buildings, 
costing $2,735,000, including 414 class rooms. The 
usual seating capacity per room is forty-eight pupils. 
The construction of forty-two new school buildings to 
cost $5,300,000, and containing 658 class rooms, have 
been ordered built. The value of the board's property 
other than that used for school purposes is $9,221,- 

457-33- 

The total enrollment of schools for the school year 
ending in June, 1905. was 282,346. Of this number 
142,210 were boys and 140,136 were girls. The percent- 



age of attendance was 94.4. and the total membership 
of the schools at the close of the school year was 234,733, 
divided as follows: Normal school, 288. high schools, 
IO -356, grammar department, 76.370, primary depart- 
ment, 138,429, kindergarten, 9.1 1 1, and schools for the 
deaf, 179. The total number of teachers employed at 
the end of the school year was 5.716, or about one for 
forty-one pupils. The work of the schools in citizenship 
building is shown by the number of pupils in elementary 
grades studying manual training, cooking and sewing, 
cooking being studied at the end of the year by 6,818, 
sewing by 6,782 and manual training by 12,480 pupils. 

The police force consists of 3,135 men in uniform 
service, to whom are paid $3.331,147 in salaries every 
year. There are 1,275 members of the fire department, 
who are paid $1,523,212. The employees of the public 
works department number 2,914, and the salary list 
amounts to $2,603,331 annually. The water-works 
department employs 1,426 men at an annual cost of 
$1,207,402. The water system consists of ten pumping 
stations, five lake cribs with 37.7 miles of lake and land 
tunnels leading to the pumping stations. The water 
mains aggregated 1,978 miles in 1895, and the total cost 
of the system up to that time was approximately $37,- 
000,000. In 1904 the water pumped by the various 
stations in Chicago aggregated 146,280,598,353 gallons 
and the total revenue of the water system amounted to 
$4,000,462. In connection with the water-works sys- 
tem the city maintains seven free public baths for men, 
women and children. During 1904, 944,979 baths were 
furnished. The city maintains 24,775 g as lights, 6,386 
gasoline lights and 5,724 electric lights, aggregating 
in all 36,890 lights. This furnishes illumination equal to 
12,849,400 candle power. Up to January i, 1905, the 
city had built 8,543,055 feet of sewers at a cost of $23,- 
394,793. During that time 222,000 house drains were 
put in. The length of the intercepting sewers planned 
as an auxiliary system to the drainage canal amounts 
to 86,642 feet, to cost in the aggregate, together with 
large pumping stations at Thirty-ninth street on the 
south and Lawrence avenue on the north, $5,000.000. 
Up to January i, 1905. the greater part had been 
completed at a cost of $4,000,000. 

In track elevation Chicago leads the world. Plans 
have been drawn for the elevation of 709.95 miles of 
track, of which 138.10 are main track, to cost $51,860,- 
250. Of this amount on January i, 1905, 425.19 miles 
has been elevated, of which 82.84 were main tracks. Of 
the 735 subways to be constructed 360 has been com- 
pleted. The total cost of this work has been $28,725,- 
250, borne entirely by the railroads. The cost of the 
track elevation still to be done will aggregate $23,- 
135,000. 



28 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



These statistics show briefly the physical growth of 
the municipality of Chicago. In the following chapters 
are presented in detail the scope of some of the more 
important departments. 

The population, value of property for purposes of 
taxation, the taxes collected and the debt of the city 
since its incorporation in 1837 follow: 



DATE. 


Population. 


Total 
Valuation. 


Total Tax. 


Bonded 
Indebtedness. 


1837 


4. 17O 


$ 236,842 


$ 5,905 




1838 




235,996 


8,849 


$ * 9,996 


1839 




94,803 


4,664 


* 7,182 


1840 
1841 


4.479 


94.437 
166,747 


4.721 
10,004 


* 6,559 

12,387 


1842 




151,342 


9,181 


*i6, 372 


1843 
1844 
1845 
1846 
1847 
1848 
1849 
1850 
1851 


7,580 

12,088 
14,169 
16,859 
20,023 

23,047 
28,269 


J,44 I ,3M 
2,763,281 
3,065,022 
4,521,056 
5,849,190 
6,300,440 
6,676,684 
7,222,249 
8,562,717 


8,647 
17,166 
11,077 
15,825 
18,159 
22,051 

30.045 
25,270 
63 385 


'12,655 

* 9,795 
*io,6gi 
'16,045 
*I3,I79 
*2o,338 
*36,333 
93-395 


1852 

1853 
1854 

1855 
1856 
1857 


48,000 
60,652 
75,000 
80,000 
84,"3 


10,463,414 
16,841,831 
24,392,239 
20,992,873 
31,736,084 
36,335,281 


76,948 
135,662 
499,081 
206,209 
396,652 
572,046 


126,035 
189,670 
248,666 
328,000 
435,000 
535,000 


1858 




35,991,732 


430 190 




1859 




36,553,380 


543,614 


1,855,000 


i860 
1861 


109,206 


37,053,512 
36,352, 380 


573,315 
550 968 


2,336,000 
2,362,000 


1862 
1863 


138,186 


37,139,845 

42.677 ^24 


564,038 
Szi 346 


3,028,000 

3.422 ^OO 


1864 
1865 
1866 
1867 


169,353 
178,492 
200,418 


48,732,782 
64,709,177 
85,953,250 
195,026,844 


974,665 
1,294,183 
1,719,064 
2,518 472 


3,544,500 
3,701,000 

4,3D9,500 
4,757 500 


1868 
1869 


252,054 


230,247,000 
266 92O,OOO 


3,223,457 
3,990, 373 


6,484,500 
7,882 500 


1870 
1871 


306,605 


275.986,550 
289 746,470 


4,139,798 
2 807 564 


11,041,000 


1872 
1873 


367,396 


283,197,430 

312 072 995 


4,262,961 
5.617 3i 3 


13,544.000 

13 478 ooo 


1874 
1875 


395.408 


303,705,140 
173,764,246 


5,466,692 
5,108,981 


13,456,000 

13,457 ooo 


1876 
1877 


407,661 


168,037,178 
148,400, 148 


4,046,805 
4,013 410 


13,436,000 
13 364 ooo 


1878 
1879 


436.731 


131,981,436 
117,970 135 


3*778,856 

3 776 888 


1 3.57, 00 


1880 
1881 


503,298 


117,133,643 
119 151,951 


3,899,126 

4 I l6 7O8 


12,752,000 


1882 
1883 


560,693 


125.358.537 

132 2^O SO4 


4,227,402 


12,752,000 


1884 
1885 


629,985 


137,326,980 


4,872,456 


12,751,500 


1886 
1887 


693,861 


158,496,132 
161,204,535 


5,368,409 
5,602 712 


12,588,500 

12 588 500 


1888 
1889 


802,651 


160,641,727 
2OI, 104,019 


5.723,067 

6 326 561 


12,561,500 


1890 
1891 


1,105,540 


219,354,368 

256,599, 574 


9.558,334 
10,453 270 


13,545,40 

I 3 Kao "*<;O 


1892 

1893 
1894 


1,438,010 
1.567,727 


243.732,138 
245.790,395 


12, 142,448 
11,810.969 


18,515.450 
18,427,450 


1895 
1896 


1,616,635 


243,476,825 


14,239,685 


17,188,950 


1897 




232 O26 66O 


12 Q^Q *** 




1898 
1899 


11,851,588 


220,966,447 


I2,2O7.9O6 


19.922,460 


1900 
1901 


Ji, 698,575 


276,565,880 


17,086,408 


16,328,450 


1902 










1903 
1904 


1,873,880 


411,424,280 


14,815,388 


15,123.000 


1905 


2,000,000 



















Floating liabilities. 



School census. 



U. S. census. 



THE MAYORS OF CHICAGO. 

Since 1836 Chicago has had forty-eight mayoralty 
terms, which have been filled by thirty-two individuals. 
It is a little peculiar that ten men filled twenty-six of 
these forty-eight terms, and that twenty-two men filled 
the other twenty-two. B. W. Raymond served two 
terms; Augustus Garrett two terms; James Curtis two 
terms; W. S. Gurney two terms; John Wentworth 
two terms ; F. C. Sherman three terms ; John B. Rice 
two terms; Monroe Heath two terms; Carter H. Harri- 
son (the first) five terms, and Carter H. Harrison (the 
second) four terms. 

William B. Ogden, the first mayor of Chicago, was 
born in Delaware County, New York, in 1805. In 1834 
he was a member of the New York Legislature and took 
an active part in legislation in behalf of the Erie Canal, 
being an earnest advocate of that enterprise. He came 
to Chicago in 1835 and became extensively interested in 
real estate, and was one of the few men who weathered 
the great financial crash of 1837. He was for many 
years prominent in all important movements in Chi- 
cago, but later returned to New York City, where he 
made his home until the day of his death, which occurred 
August 3, 1877. 

Buckner S. Morris, the second mayor of Chicago, 
elected in 1838, was a Kentuckian and settled in this 
city to practice law in 1834. In 1840 he and Abraham 
Lincoln were chosen by the Whig convention as can- 
didates for state electors, and in 1860 he was a candidate 
for governor of the state. In 1864 he was arrested, 
among others, for conspiracy to release the rebel pris- 
oners at Camp Douglas, but was honorably acquitted. 

Benjamin W. Raymond, the third mayor, and also 
the sixth, being elected in 1839 an d afterward in 1842 
was born in New York City, and came to this city in 
1836. He erected the first woolen factory in the state 
at Elgin, and was afterward prominent in establishing 
the Elgin National Watch Company. Mr. Raymond 
was one of the pioneers in developing Lake Forest as 
a suburb of Chicago. 

Alexander Lloyd, fourth mayor, was elected on the 
Democratic ticket in 1840, and was a prominent figure 
in politics of the day. 

Francis C. Sherman was the fifth mayor and was 
twice afterward elected to the same office, being the 
twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh, his elections taking 
place in 1841, 1862 and 1863. He came to Chicago in 
1834; began business in a small frame hotel on Randolph 
street, near Fifth avenue. In 1860 he built the Sherman 
House. For a long period he was prominent in the 
affairs of the city. 

Augustus Garrett was seventh and ninth mayor, hav- 
ing been elected in 1843 and 1845. He came to Chi- 
cago in 1836 a very poor man, but amassed a large 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



29 



fortune before his death, which took place in 1848. He 
bequeathed a large portion of his estate to found the 
Garrett Biblical Institute of Evanston. 

Alson Smith Sherman was the eighth mayor, 
elected in 1844. He was born in Barre, Vermont, April 
21, 1811, was married February 26, 1833, and arrived in 
Chicago November i, 1836. He was a successful 
builder, making a specialty of masonry, and erected 
many of the early buildings of Chicago. He was a pub- 
lic-spirited man, was elected alderman twice, one time 
chief of the fire department, ten years on the board of 
water commissioners and also school trustee. He was 
one of the organizers- of the Illinois Stone & Lime Corn- 



in 1833. He was a member of the legislature in 1842, 
was elected to Congress in 1854 and assisted Stephen A. 
Douglas in obtaining the appropriation for the Chicago 
postoffice and customhouse. 

Walter S. Gurnee was the fifteenth and sixteenth 
mayor, being elected in 1851 and 1852. He was a 
prominent man for many years in Chicago, and one of 
the original directors of the Board of Trade. 

Charles M. Gray, the seventeenth mayor of Chicago, 
was elected in 1853. He was a pioneer in the manufac- 
turing of farming implements. 

Isaac L. Milliken, the eighteenth mayor (1854), 
began his career as a blacksmith, served two terms in 




HUMBOLDT PARK. 



pany. He retired from business in 1873, and resided at 
Waukegan until his death in September, 1904. 

John P. Chapin, the tenth mayor, elected in 1846, 
was a prominent commission merchant. He was a mem- 
ber of the city council previous to his election as mayor. 

James Curtis, the eleventh mayor, was also the four- 
teenth mayor, first being elected in 1847 and again in 
1850. He was a prominent lawyer, and. like Mr. Cha- 
pin, represented his ward, the Third, in the city council 
previous to his being made chief magistrate. 

James H. Woodworth was the twelfth and thirteenth 
mayor, being elected in 1848 and 1849. He was born in 
Washington County, New York, and came to Chicago 



the city council and was on the judicial bench when 
he was elected mayor. 

Dr. Levi D. Boone was the nineteenth mayor of Chi- 
cago (1855). He was a grandnephew of Kentucky's 
famous pioneer of that name. He came to Chicago in 
1836, and was made city physician in 1848. He was 
elected mayor in 1855 by the native American party. 
He also was arrested, like Mayor Morris, in 1864, for 
supposed conspiracy to free the rebel prisoners in Camp 
Douglas, but was honorably acquitted. 

Thomas Dyer, twentieth mayor (1856), had been a 
prominent citizen of Chicago for many years. In 1848 
he was president of the Chamber of Commerce. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



John \Yent\vorth ("Long- John") was the twenty- 
first and twenty-fourth mayor, being elected first in 
1857 and afterward in 1860. He was born at Sandwich, 
New Hampshire, in 1815, and came to Chicago in 1836. 
He soon became a well-known character. He was a 
lawyer and editor. He was a Democrat, but a strong 
anti-slavery man, and both times he was mayor was 
elected on the Republican ticket. He was a large man, 
standing six feet, six inches in his stockings. 

John C. Haines, the twenty-second and twenty-third 
mayor (1858 and 1859), was born in New York and 



elected mayor in 1865 on the ticket of the Union party, 
and was reflected in 1867. 

Roswell B. Mason was the thirtieth mayor (1869). 
Mr. Mason was elected on a People's ticket. Municipal 
affairs were in bad shape and there were charges of 
corruption and peculations by officeholders and con- 
tractors, and an aroused public sentiment brought about 
an era of reform, and Mr. Mason was elected as a reform 
executive. 

Joseph Medill, thirty-first mayor (1871), was elected 
011 the Fireproof ticket, while the city was still a mas.s of 




DOUGLAS PARK. 



came to Chicago in 1835. In 1848 he was elected a 
member of the city council and served for six years. 
He was a member of the constitutional convention in 
1869 and a member of the Illinois Senate in 1874. 

Julian S. Rumsey, twenty-fifth mayor (1861), was 
long a prominent man in business and municipal circles 
in the city. He was twice president of the board and 
occupied several important offices. 

John B. Rice, the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth 
mayor, elected in 1865 and 1867, settled in Chicago in 
1847. He built a theater on Dearborn street, near 
Randolph, which was probably the pioneer playhouse, 
which he managed until 1857. He was nominated and 



smoking ruins. He was for many years the principal 
owner and editor of the Chicago Tribune. He was born 
at St. Johns, New Brunswick, of Scotch-Irish parentage, 
in 1823. In 1873 he relinquished the office of mayor, 
and on account of his health took a trip to Europe. 
Lester L. Bond was elected by the council to serve out 
his term of office, which he did with great credit under 
embarrassing circumstances. 

Harvey D. Colvin was the thirty-second mayor 
(1873). He was elected on the People's ticket. He was 
one of the organizers of the United States Express 
Company in 1854, and was a long time its general agent 
in this city. His term of office was rather a stormy one. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



31 



Monroe Heath was the thirty-third and thirty-fourth 
mayor of Chicago, being first elected at a special elec- 
tion under the amended charter of the city in the sum- 
mer of 1875, and reelected April, 1877. He was born 
in New Hampshire in 1827 and came to Chicago in 
1850. He was a painter and a dealer in paint materials. 
His firm was first Heath & Hurd, and afterward Heath 
& Milligan. He was a man of good executive ability, 
public-spirited, taking an active part in municipal affairs. 
He died at Asheville, North Carolina, October 21, 1894. 

Carter H. Harrison, the first, was the thirty-fifth, 
thirty-sixth, thirty-seventh and thirty-eighth mayor, 
having been elected successively in 1879, 1881, 1883 
and 1885. He was born in Fayette County, Kentucky, 
February 25, 1825, and came to Chicago in 1855- He 
did not appear very much in public matters until 1871, 
when he was elected a member of the board of county 
commissioners. He soon became an active and influen- 
tial member of the board and developed great popu- 
larity with the Democratic party, and was elected to 
Congress, where he managed to increase his popularity 
with his party and secure a stronger hold on the political 
organization. In 1879 he was first elected mayor of the 
city, and, as said before, was reelected three times, con- 
tinuing mayor for eight years. While he was severely 
criticised during this time for his leniency toward gam- 
blers and other violators of the law, he was very .success- 
ful in managing the business and financial interests of the 
city, and, although a strong partisan, he never permitted 
politics to interfere with the character of the school 
board, and husbanded the earnings of the waterworks 
with great care, managing this branch of the city's busi- 
ness successfully. In 1887 he was not a candidate for 
reelection, but retired from the field. In 1893 he ran 
as an independent candidate and was elected, defeating 
both the Republican and regular Democratic tickets, 
thus becoming the forty-second mayor. He was mayor 
at the time of the World's Fair, and was given great 
credit for the very satisfactory manner in which he per- 
formed the duties of his office. In October of that year, 
just before the close of the World's Fair, he was assas- 
sinated at the door of his house by a half-crazy imbecile, 
who imagined that he had been slighted by the mayor 
in not receiving some political appointment. Upon the 
death of Mayor Harrison, the city council selected 
George B. Swift as acting mayor. A special election for 
mayor, however, was held in December. George B. 
Swift was the Republican candidate and John P. Hop- 
kins the Democratic candidate. Hopkins was elected. 

John A. Roche, the thirty-ninth mayor, was born in 
Utica, New York, August 12, 1844. He came to Chi- 
cago in 1869 as the representative of a manufacturer of 
machinery. \Yhile Mr. Roche was quite well known 



in business circles, still with the people his name was 
quite new when he was nominated in 1887. He was 
elected and made a very creditable administration. He 




JOHN A. ROCHE. 



made political mistakes, however, and though renomi- 
nated in 1889 was defeated by DeWitt C. Cregier, who 
was at that time the Democratic candidate. 

DeWitt C. Cregier was the fortieth mayor, elected 
in 1889. He was born in New York, June i, 1829, and 
came to Chicago in 1853, where he lived until his death, 
which occurred November 9, 1898. He had been quite 
prominent in municipal affairs. He was for many years 
superintendent of the waterworks of the city and made 
a very efficient and satisfactory officer. Afterward he 
was commissioner of public -works. He was a promi- 
nent Mason and had as many personal acquaintances as 
any man in the city. His administration, however, 
proved not only unsatisfactory to his own party, but 
especially so to the Republicans. He did not seem to 
have the firm hand or strong will of Mr. Harrison, and 
failed to keep the business of his office entirely under his 
own control. Though he was nominated by the Demo- 
cratic convention for reelection in 1891 he was defeated. 

Hempstead Washburne, son of the Hon. Elihu 
Washburne, and the forty-first mayor of Chicago, was 
born in Galena, Illinois, November 12, 1852. He fitted 
for college, but went abroad and entered the University 
at Bonn, Germany, in the fall of 1871, and remained 
there two years, returning in 1873, anc l began the study 
of law, graduating at the Union College of Law in 
Chicago in 1875. He then entered actively into prac- 



32 



THE CITY OP CHICAGO. 



tice. In 1885 lie was elected city attorney of Chicago, 
and in 1887 reflected to the same office. In 1891 he 
was nominated by the Republicans for the office of 
mayor. The administration of DeWitt C. Cregier, the 
Democratic mayor, had been displeasing to Democrats 
generally and to Carter H. Harrison, former mayor, 
especially, and upon Mr. Cregier's renomination Mr. 
Harrison announced himself as an independent candi- 
date. This divided the Democratic vote and elected 
Mr. Washburne mayor. He was appointed one of the 
municipal civil service commissioners in 1897, but in 
1898 resigned the position. He is still in active busi- 
ness in the city. 

John P. Hopkins, the forty-third mayor of Chicago, 
was elected to that position in December, 1893, defeat- 
ing George B. Swift, the Republican nominee, both 
being candidates for the unexpired term of Carter H. 
Harrison, who had been assassinated, as mentioned 
above. Mr. Hopkins was the youngest man that ever 
held the position of mayor of Chicago. He was born 
in Buffalo, New York, October 29, 1858, being just past 
his thirty-fifth year at the time of his election. His biog- 
raphers say that he is a self-made man. His father and 
brothers being deceased, he had to start out not only 
to make a living for himself, but to take care of his 
mother and family. His first employment as a mere 
boy was working in a foundry. Afterward he worked 
in the grain elevators at Buffalo. In 1879 he came to 
Chicago, bringing his mother and sisters with him. For 
a time he worked irij the Pullman works, and in 1883 
became the -paymaster of the Pullman interests, which 
position he filled until 1885. His administration of the 
office of mayor was much more satisfactory to the Dem- 
ocrats than to citizens generally. 

George B. Swift, the forty-fourth mayor of Chicago 
and now president of the contracting firm of George 
B. Swift Company, was born at Cincinnati, Ohio, 
December 14, 1845. While he was an infant his parents 
removed to Galena, Illinois, whence the family came to 
Chicago, in 1862. He received his education in the old 
Skinner School, the West Chicago High School, and 
later at the Chicago University, from which institution 
he was graduated with credit. He then went into busi- 
ness, and in 1870 became vice-president of the Frazer 
Lubricator Company, which position he still holds. 
From 1876 he took an active part in local politics, serv- 
ing several terms in the council and familiarizing him- 
self with the various municipal problems. During the 
administration of Mayor Roche, from 1887 to 1889, he 
served as Commissioner of Public Works. In 1893 he 
was nominated for mayor by the Republican party, for 
the unexpired term of Carter H. Harrison, who had 
been assassinated, but was defeated by John P. Hopkins, 
the Democratic nominee, by a narrow margin. He ran 



again in 1895, defeating- Frank Wenter by a large 
majority. When he assumed his executive duties he 
was thoroughly familiar with local conditions and the 
city's business affairs. He showed a capacity for munic- 
ipal management and gave the city an excellent adminis- 
tration ; he created the department system which has 
since proven a saving to tax-payers. He was popular 
as a mayor, and served a full term, but business interests 
prevented his accepting a second nomination. He has 
since devoted himself entirely to his extensive con- 




GEORGE B. SWIFT. 

tracting and building business. Mr. Swift was married 
in 1868 to Miss Lucy Brown, daughter of Joseph E. 
Brown, one of the pioneers of Chicago, who came here 
in 1835. They have seven children, four sons and three 
daughters. He belongs to the Masonic, Pythian, Royal 
Arcanum and Royal League orders, and is a member of 
the Methodist church. 

Carter H. Harrison, the son of the former mayor 
of the city, was the forty-fifth, forty-sixth, forty-seventh 
and forty-eighth mayor of Chicago. He was born in 
this city April 23, 1860, and so far as records show is 
the only mayor of Chicago who was born here. He 
was graduated from the public schools and from St. 
Ignatius College in 1881. From there he \vent to 
Yale Law School, getting his degree in 1883. He made 
little effort to practice his profession, but entered busi- 
ness with his brother. His father purchased The Times 
in 1891, and his son took charge of the editorial man- 
agement of the paper, assuming complete control when 
his father was killed at the close of the World's Fair. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



Shortly afterwards the paper was consolidated with the 
Herald. He was first elected mayor April 6, 1897, and 
re-elected in 1899, 1901 and 1903. 

Edward F. Dunne, the forty-eighth and present 
mayor of Chicago, is in many ways the most remarkable 
chief executive the city has ever had. Resigning his 
place on the Circuit bench of Cook County to become 
mayor of the second city of the United States, he 
brought with him an experience and learning possessed 
by few, if any, of the other chief executives this munici- 
pality has had. His personality, his family life, his char- 
acter as a citizen always have stamped him as a remark- 
able man. His campaign and election were character- 
istic. Opposed to him was a combination of news- 
papers and moneyed interests which would easily have 
swamped a less vigorous personality. The great traction 
issue was at stake. Mayor Dunne entered the fight 
when the opposition had lined up seemingly irresistible 
forces. His success and the defeat of John Maynard 
Harlan, the traction candidate, was in many ways the 
most remarkable political performance Chicago has 
ever witnessed. Judge Dunne in his campaign pledged 
himself to work out the idea of municipal ownership 
as applied to public utilities in Chicago and particu- 
larly to the public service corporations as typified by 
street car companies. The manner in which he has 
started to carry out his ideas fully justifies the faith 
that his friends and constituents have in his ability and 
integrity. 

Edward Fitzsimons Dunne was born at Waterville, 
Connecticut, October 12, 1853. His parents, Patrick 
AY. Dunne and Delia M. Dunne, came to New York 
from Ireland in 1849. Within a year after their son 
Edward was born they moved to Peoria, Illinois, and 
here the future mayor spent his youth and early man- 
hood. His father prospered in business and held a 
number of important offices. He served as alderman 
several years and was also a member of the Illinois 
legislature. 

The father's prosperity enabled him to send his son 
to Trinity College in Dublin to complete his education. 
The son's career at Trinity for three years was marked 
with success. He became the first honor man of his 
class and expected to be graduated with distinction at 
the close of another year. His father, however, suffered 
business reverses during the depression of the early 
7o's, and the son was forced to give up his work at 
Trinity. He returned to Peoria and entered his father's 
mill, continuing his studies, however, with the view 
of entering the legal profession. He came to Chicago 
in 1876 to continue his law studies and the next year 
was admitted to the bar. 

In partnership with such distinguished lawyers as 
Judge Scates. formerly of the Supreme Court of Illi- 
3 



nois, and Congressman Hynes, Mr. Dunne built up a 
large practice, to which he devoted his energies for fif- 
teen years. He withdrew from practice in 1892, upon 
being elected to fill a vacancy on the Circuit Court 
bench. Here he soon began to make a record for judi- 
cial ability and fidelity, which, strengthening as it grew, 
secured his re-election in 1897 and again in 1903. His 
nomination for the latter election was indorsed by the 
bar association and the various good government 
organizations and newspapers, and was confirmed by a 
popular vote which fell but slightly short only of the 




EDWARD F. DUNNE. 

highest that which was cast at the same time for the 
venerable and revered Judge Murray F. Tuley. 

Judge Dunne had meanwhile married with Elizabeth. 
J. Kelly of Chicago, at Chicago in 1881. They have had 
thirteen children, of whom ten are still living. These 
range in years from seventeen to two. 

In the course of his thirteen years' service on the 
bench, Judge Dunne decided many important cases, 
some of them involving clashes over partisan and class 
interests; but he never fell under suspicion of bias, and 
only a small percentage of his decisions were reversed. 
His judicial reputation, no less with the judiciary and 
at the bar than among the people, measured up to a 
high standard. Yet he always refused conformity to 
judicial conventionalities that tend to alienate the sym- 
pathies of judges from the common life and the common 
interests, and are therefore supposed to shield them 
from demoralizing influences. His insistence upon his 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



freedom as a citizen notwithstanding his judicial office, 
did not disturb his judicial balance. Throughout his 
career on the bench, he was a worthy example of the 
citizen-judge. 

Judge Dunne entered the municipal ownership 
movement when it passed from the academic to the prac- 
tical stage. He had been selected as a member of the 
committee of aldermen and citizens appointed by Mayor 
Harrison in 1902 to suggest plans for dealing with the 
traction question. In December, 1902, it recommended 
two bills for municipal ownership and operation, one for 
street cars and the other for gas, which were largely 



Dunne's work. The one relating to street cars came to 
be known in the City Council, to which it was presented 
for approval, as the "Finn bill." It was rejected by that 
body, and the "Jackson bill" was substituted for it for 
recommendation to the legislature. The Jackson bill, 
recommended by the Council in the interest of the trac- 
tion companies, was displaced in the legislature by the 
"Mueller bill," which became a law and is now in force 
in Chicago. The solution of the traction question in 
accordance with the Mueller bill is the large work which 
Mayor Dunne hopes to accomplish during his term as 
chief executive of the city of Chicago. 




GARFIELD PARK. 



CHAPTER V. 



c 


H 


I 


C 


A 


G 


O 


I 


N 


W 


A 


R. 






HE part taken by Chicago in the 
Civil war and the war with Spain 
deserves distinct recognition in any 
history of Chicago, however brief. 
It was wiped off the map by the 
war of 1812 and was too feeble to 
help much in the Black Hawk war, 
of which it was almost within can- 
non shot, and when the Mexican 
war came it was still too small to 
be taken account of. But by the spring of 1861 it was 
an important' city, and by the spring of 1898 it was a 
very great city. 

The first public meeting in Chicago, called out by 
secession, was held January 5, 1861, before the electoral 
colleges of the several states had met at their respective 
capitals to choose a president. The rebellion was ram- 
pant at Charleston. The people of Chicago, irrespec- 
tive of party, proclaimed their loyalty to the flag at that 
time. When the first call for volunteers came and Gov- 
ernor Yates issued his proclamation April 15, 1861, 
announcing Illinois' quota, Chicago lost no time in 
responding. At noon on the 2ist day of that month 
General Swift left Chicago with 595 men and four six- 
pound pieces of artillery, going directly to Cairo. 

Three clays before the first Chicago troops turned 
to the front a mass meeting was held in Chicago, at 
which a Union defense fund was started, which, before 
the close of the next day, reached $36.000. The banks 
of the city tendered Governor Yates a loan of $500,000 
in advance of the assembling of the legislature. Mili- 
tary companies, which had been organized in time of 
peace, sometimes sneered at as mere dress parade 
affairs, promptly tendered their services. The most 
conspicuous of these organizations were the Chicago 
Zouaves, who, under the gallant Ellsworth, won a 
renown hardly less than that of the Rough Riders in 



Cuba, although the Roosevelt of the organization did 
not survive to receive political honors at the hand of 
a grateful people. 

The first call for 75,000 volunteers for three months 
opened the way for six regiments from Illinois. Chi- 
cago had only about 110,000 inhabitants then, but had 
the spirit to gladly supply the entire quota, if allowed 
to do so. The six Illinois regiments were numbered 
seven to twelve. The state had sent six regiments to 
the Mexican war, and the enumeration was a continu- 
ance. Chicago contributed two companies to the 
Twelfth Illinois Volunteer Infantry ; the Zouaves and 
Swift's men were later incorporated in the Nineteenth 
regiment and mustered into the three years' service 
May 4, 1861. The Twenty-third was a Chicago regi- 
ment, led by the brave Colonel James A. Mulligan. 
That was the first Chicago regiment to see service on 
the battlefield. It was the Irish regiment of Chicago. 
Through it Chicago received its baptism of bloodshed 
in the holy cause of the Union at Lexington, Missouri, 
September 18, 1861. The German regiment was the 
Twenty-fourth, commanded by Colonel Hecker, who 
had fought for liberty in his native country. The Thir- 
ty-seventh was organized by a well-known and highly- 
honored Chicagoan, Julius White. The Thirty-ninth, 
known as the Yates' Phalanx was mustered in during 
the summer. A young Chicago lawyer, Thomas O. 
Osborne was elected colonel, but modestly chose to 
be major. He worked his way up to general. The 
Forty-second was organized in Chicago. It entered the 
service in September of the first year of the war, William 
A. Webb being colonel. The Chicago Legion, as it was 
called, the Fifty-first regiment, entered the service 
December 4, Colonel Gilbert W. Gumming command- 
ing. The Fifty-seventh, the last of the Illinois regi- 
ments of the first vear of the war, who were made up 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



in whole or in part of Chicago troops, was mustered in 
Decmber 26, Silas D. Baldwin, colonel. 

Hardly had 1862 opened before the "McClellan 
Brigade," as it was popularly called, came into military 
existence as the Fifty-eighth regiment. Colonel Will- 
iam F. Lynch commanded it. In May the Sixty-fifth, 
or Scotch regiment, was mustered in, Daniel Cameron 
at its head. In August the famous Board of Trade 
regiment, the Seventy-second, moved into battle line, 



Hundred and Thirteenth, "Third Board of Trade Regi- 
ment," commanded by Colonel George B. Hoge, and 
the One Hundred and Twenty-seventh, under Colonel 
John Van Arnam. All these were infantry regiments, 
and the latter won the distinction of having marched 
3,000 miles and been under fire in one hundred engage- 
ments. Every one of these regiments rendered gallant 
service on the field. 

Chicago was well represented in three calvalry regi- 




AUDITORIUM BUILDING. 



Colonel F. A. Staring in command and Joseph Stock- 
ton next in rank. The Eighty-second was called the 
"Second Hecker Regiment," being German in its 
make-up, and at first under the command of Colonel 
Hecker, who was succeeded by Colonel E. S. Soloman. 
This regiment entered the service early in the fall of 
1862. So did the Eighty-eighth, or "Second Board of 
Trade Regiment," commanded by Colonel Francis T. 
Sherman. Also the Eighty-ninth, or "Railroad Regi- 
ment," Colonel Hotchkiss; the Ninetieth, the "First 
Legion," under Colonel Timothy O'Meara; the One 



merits, which were early in the field, the Fourth, Eighth, 
Ninth, Twelfth, Thirteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth. 
They were mainly recruited from Northern Illinois, 
outside of Chicago, but this city was represented in them 
all, but more especially in the Eighth, which had for 
its major W. H. Medill of Chicago. The Board of 
Trade Battery was mustered in August i, 1862, and the 
Chicago Mercantile Battery four weeks later. No less 
than forty-six commissioned officers, who were either 
killed in battle or died soon after of wounds, entered 
the service from Chicago. These are dry facts, but 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



to go into further particulars without invidious dis- 
crimination would take too much space. For a city of 
only little more than 100,000 inhabitants it is a proud 
record to have been represented in so many regiments 
and batteries. 

But the most prominent feature of the military rec- 
ord of Chicago during the war of the rebellion was 
the Camp Douglas affair. That camp was designed 
to be a rendezvous for Illinois volunteers, but it was 
actually used as a military prison. Fort Donelson fell 
in February, 1862, and Island No. TO was captured 
about the same time. Between 8,000 and 9,000 prison- 
ers, who fell into our hands in consequence of those 
two victories, were sent here to Camp Douglas. Many 
of these prisoners died. The season of the year was 
unfavorable. Southern men were not accustomed to the 
rigor of the winter on the shore of Lake Michigan. 
Many died of pneumonia. Chicago raised a generous 
fund for providing the prisoners with the comforts 
required, and our physicians gave them medical care. 
But many died. Still later came smallpox. Out of 
12,000 prisoners, 1,150 died. 

But the feature which made it specially famous was 
the great conspiracy that was concocted in 1864. The 
funds for it and the details of it were attributed to 
Jacob Thompson, then in Canada, but formerly Secre- 
tary of the Navy under Buchanan. Knights of the 
Golden Circle were in the plot. The conspiracy had 
for its diabolical object not simply the delivery of 
the prisoners, but the burning of the town. Buckner 
T. Morris, the second mayor of Chicago, was arrested 
on the charge of being one of the conspirators, but he 
was acquitted. The plot was discovered only just in 
time to save the city. Colonel B. J. Sweet, the com- 
mander of the camp, has received a great deal of credit 
for saving the city, but not as much as he deserves. 
One of the parks should perpetuate the glorious rescue 
in fitting bronze, Colonel Sweet being the central fig- 
ure. Richmond fell only a few months after the great 
deliverance of Chicago. 

In the Civil war, as has been shown, Chicago boys, 
whether infantry or cavalry, were scattered through 
regiments largely rural, but in the Spanish war regi- 
ments were made up largely on geographical lines. The 
strictly Chicago regiments of infantry were the First, 
led by Col. Henry L. Turner ; the Second, commanded 
by Colonel George M. Moulton ; the Fifth, Colonel 
Culver's regiment; the Seventh. Colonel Marcus Kav- 
anaugh. The Eighth (colored) had four companies 
from Chicago and four from the rest of the state. Its 
gallant colonel. John R. Marshall, was from Chicago. 
All officers, from colonel down, were colored, and both 



the regiment as a whole and every officer made a good 
record. It was the first colored regiment in the country 
to be officered by men of the same race, and a great 
deal of interest was felt in the result. It was so satis- 
factory as to be highly creditable to all concerned. 

Chicago was well represented in the famous Rough 
Riders, and Companies E and F of the Second United 
States Volunteer Engineers were supplied by Chicago, 
and through them Chicago should have the honor of 
being the first to land in the province of Havana. 
Colonel Edward C. Young was commissioned by Gov- 
ernor Tanner to raise a regiment of cavalry, and of it 




CHICAGO SAVINGS BANK. 

Companies A, C, E, F, H, I and M were recruited 
in Chicago. Illinois took an honorable part in the 
naval battles of the war through the naval reserves, 
largely a Chicago orgaization. These "jackies" did 
not ask to be kept together, but patriotically consented 
to be distributed and placed where they could do the 
most good. 

These meager facts give little idea of the heroic 
part taken by Chicago either in the Civil war or the 
later war with Spain. It would trench too much the 
limited space of this municipal history to recount inci- 
dents in detail, however glorious. For such details, 
especially of the Civil war, the reader is referred to 
Andreas' "Awakening of the \Yar Spirit in Chicago." 



CHAPTER VI. 



CHICAGO'S GREAT FIRE DISASTERS. 




HICAGO has had two great disasters 
that stand out above all other mis- 
fortunes that overtook the city dur- 
ing its first century. These were 
the great fire of 1871. which burned 
over 2.124 acres in the very heart of 
the city, and the Iroquois theater fire 
on December 30, 1903, which wiped 
out 575 lives. 

The fire of 1871 was the greatest 
property loss in the history of mod- 
ern times, and left 100,000, or a third of 
the population of the city, homeless. The summer of 
1871 had been particularly hot and dry, this weather 
continuing till late in the fall. Very little rain had fallen 
for some weeks and everything that was exposed to the 
air and would burn was as dry as tinder. Much of the 
early building construction in the city was of frame, and 
even the stone and brick buildings were of an inflamma- 
ble character. There were in reality two fires. The fire 
of October 7 broke out near the corner of Clinton and 
Van Buren streets, and all the territory between that 
and the river and Adams street was burned over. That 
in itself was a great fire and would have been considered 
a very disastrous one but for the overshadowing great- 
ness of the one that began on Sunday night, October 9, 
on De Koven street, on the West Side, a little east of 
Jefferson street. For two days and nights Chicago 
was a sea of flames and then a blackened desert. Every- 
thing seemed favorable for the destruction of the city. 
In addition to the tinder dried condition of all wood- 
work, a strong southwest wind prevailed, and as the 
fire increased the wind seemed to increase with it. 
\Yhole blocks of buildings were carried away, as if they 
had melted in the flames. The number of acres burned 
over by the fire of Saturday night was twenty-seven, 
but the great fire of October 9 burned over 194 acres 



on the West Side, 460 acres on the South Side, and 
1,470 acres on the North Side. Over 3,650 buildings 
were burned on the South Side and 13,300 buildings on 
the North Side. On the North Side, by something like 
a miracle, a large frame building, the residence of 
Mahlon B. Ogden, standing in the center of a block, was 
saved from the flames. 

At the time of the fire the city comprised an area 
of 11,520 acres. The population of the city was some- 
thing over 300,000. Fully 100,000 of these were left 
houseless and homeless, many of them penniless. The 
pecuniary damage by these fires is estimated at $290,- 
000,000. On the property thus destroyed there was 
$100,000,000 of insurance, on which $45.000,000 were 
realized. Fifty-six insurance companies were ruined. 

The marvelous extent of the disaster and the ruin 
wrought was published far and wide. All the world 
became familiar with it within forty-eight hours. The 
benevolence and philanthropy of the world was stirred 
as it seldom has been and relief came pouring in from 
every quarter money, clothing and provisions. A 
more prompt and noble response to distress has perhaps 
never been known. Over $4.000,000 was contributed 
in money for immediate relief, almost all nations, from 
England to Japan, contributing a portion, but, of course, 
the great mass of the relief funds came from American 
citizens. This wonderful response of the people of the 
world aroused the Chicago people to immediate action, 
and they organized not only for the purpose of properly 
distributing the great relief fund which came to them, 
but for the purpose of rebuilding the city. The prompt 
action of the solvent and energetic business men of the 
city soon restored confidence, not only to their fellow 
citizens, but to the people abroad, and capital was 
offered from all financial centers for the purpose of 
rebuilding Chicago. No city ever presented a busier 
scene than Chicago did for the next eighteen months. 



38 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



39 



Within one year from the time of the fire it is said that 
more than one-half of the 80,000 feet frontage which 
had been burned in the south division was rebuilt with 
buildings more substantial and better than before. It is 
estimated that over $30,000,000 within that time was 
put into rebuilding the city, and it is quite probable that 
at least $50,000,000 were spent in rebuilding within two 
years from the time of the fire. The rapidity with which 
the rebuilding was accomplished and the great influx of 
population on account of the demand for labor tended 
to keep Chicago before the whole country all the time. 
It was hardlv less talked about in social circles or written 



and its succeeding resurrection from its ashes. The 
great fire in 1871 and the World's Columbian Exposition 
in 1893 each marks an epoch in the progress and fame 
of the city. 

The Iroquois theater fire was the most disastrous 
catastrophe in the number of lives lost in the history of 
Chicago. On the afternoon of Wednesday, December 
30, 1903, during a holiday matinee performance the 
scenery caught fire and the flames bursting through 
the flimsy asbestos fire curtain swept through the audi- 
torium of the theater, causing the death of 575 men, 
women and children. There were 2,300 people in the 




NATATORIUM, .DOUGLASS PARK. 

about in the newspapers during that time than it had 
been during the excitement of the fire itself. What was 
a great disaster to individual citizens, and at the time 
seemed to be so to the city itself, turned out eventually 
as the most efficient promoter of Chicago's greatness. 

Taken as a whole, the fire was the most wonderful 
advertisement that ever any city had, and the prompt 
action and energy shown by the people in rebuilding the 
city so suddenly destroyed turned it into a most favora- 
ble advertisement, and Chicago became a synonym for 
energy, determination and business sagacity. No inter- 
nal city in any nation is so well known among other 
nations to-day as Chicago, and in large part it owes this 
general information in regard to itself to the great fire 



audience when the fire broke out, and a third of them 
were either killed or injured. 

"Mr. Blue Beard" was the attraction and the theater 
had just been completed a few weeks and was pro- 
nounced the finest and most modern and fireproof 
structure of the kind in the United States. It had been 
built at a cost of approximately $1,000,000. and had 
been inspected and approved by the building depart- 
ment as fully meeting all the requirements of the city 
ordinances. Investigation after the disaster showed that 
the construction had been faulty in many particulars, 
and that no provision had been made for the speedy 
opening of the exits in case of a panic. 

Of the 575 victims, most of them were women and 



40 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



children. The greatest loss of life occurred at the exits 
of the main balcony. Here over three hundred were 
found piled in an indescribable mass of torn and bleeding 
limbs and bodies. In the frantic rush for safety they had 
become piled and jammed in the entrance, and, overcome 
by the wave of flame and smoke sweeping through the 
auditorium from the stage, had been burned and suffo- 
cated to death. Every ambulance and patrol wagon in 
the city was called into use and the neighboring 
restaurants and stores were turned into temporary 
morgues and hospitals. Heroic efforts were made to 
resuscitate those who had not been burned to death, and 
in many cases the treatment was successful, materially 
reducing the total number of deaths. For days the 
undertakers' morgues were filled with bodies awaiting 
identification. Friends and relatives of missing persons 
searched these places for weeks looking for missing 
persons. All were identified finally. 

Every theater in the city was ordered closed the day 
after the fire, and it was a month before any of them 
opened again. Several of them did not open for two 
or three months, and in some instances they were 
entirely remodeled. The Iroquois did not open for 
nearly a year, and then under a new name. The mem- 
ory of the terrible loss of life after nearly two years still 
clings to the place and it has never been popular since. 
Efforts were made at the time of the fire to have it 
turned into a memorial hospital, but these failed. 

There was a determined demand for the prosecution 
of the managers and officials responsible for the condi- 
tions in the theater which made such a calamity possible. 
Will J. Davis, Harry J. Powers and managers of the 
Iroquois, and George Williams, building commissioner, 
were arrested the day following the fire on warrants 
sworn out by the father of one family that had been 
wiped out by the holocaust. These prosecutions were 
not pressed. An exhaustive investigation was made by 
the coroner and a special jury impaneled for the pur- 
pose. In its verdict the jury held Mayor Harrison, 
\Yill J. Davis, Commissioner Williams, Edward Lough- 
lin, the building inspector who passed the theater, Will- 
iam H. Musham, fire chief. William Sailers, city fireman 
stationed at the theater, William McMullen, who 



operated the spot light which started the fire, and James 
E. Cummings, stage superintendent of the Troquois 
stage, to the grand jury. Mayor Harrison was freed 
from custody the next day on habeas corpus pro- 
ceedings. 

On February 20 following the special grand jury 
returned indictments against Manager Davis, Thomas 
Noonan, treasurer of the theater, and Cummings, the 
stage superintendent, for manslaughter and against 
Commissioner Williams and Inspector Loughlin for 
neglect of duty. "No bills" were voted in the cases 
against Mayor Harrison, Chief Musham, Sailers and 
McMullen. No convictions have resulted from the 
indictments and the chances are that no one will ever be 
legally held responsible for the horror that cost 575 
lives. 

As a result of the agitation against firetrap theaters 
following the holocaust, conditions in all the public 
places of amusement in Chicago and cities all over the 
country have been improved. Shocked by the terrible 
conditions revealed immediately after the fire the mayor 
called a special sesson of the council. A committee of 
investigation was appointed and a new theater ordinance 
drawn up. Under the stress of feeling at the time it was 
made most drastic, and while it has not been rigidly 
enforced, its provisions have been complied with to such 
an extent that every playhouse and place of gathering 
has been made more safe. In general terms the new 
law requires that theaters must be provided with steel 
curtains which are lowered at the end of even,' act ; the 
stage must be of fireproof construction, and be provided 
with flues and vents in the roof and automatic sprinklers ; 
aisles and exits must be increased and the seating 
capacity reduced ; no one is allowed to stand in the aisles 
and all exits must be shown on a diagram of the theater 
on the program; four sides of the theater must be 
detached or provided with fireproof enclosed passages; 
fire apparatus and fire-alarm systems must be installed 
and two members of the fire department stationed in 
each theater. 

A flood of damage suits have been filed against 
Klaw & Erlanger, the owners of the Iroquois, aggregat- 
ing into the millions. None of these has been pushed 
to a successful conclusion up to this time (1905). 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION. 




HICAGO is the county seat of one of 
the best agricultural counties of Illi- 
nois, but has never had a county 
fair. That pride and joy of the aver- 
age farmer's heart was denied the 
tillers of the rich soil of Cook 
County. Once the state fair was 
held in Chicago, but it was not a 
success. For several years an In- 
terstate Exposition, as it was called, 
was held on the Lake Front, but it 
v ' . was not particularly creditable. At least, 
it made a poor showing as compared with the somewhat 
analogous exposition given by St. Louis. It was only 
natural that when this city entered the list as a competi- 
tor for the great Columbian Exposition, in honor of the 
fourth centennial of the discovery of America, there 
should be a strong opposition. The selection was to be 
made by Congress, and New York insisted that it was 
entitled to it, as the great metropolis of the new world. 
The decision in favor of Chicago was made in April, 
1890. The fair itself was opened three years later. 

By the term of the act of Congress the "World's 
Columbian Exposition" was to be "an exhibition of arts, 
industries, manufactures and products of the soil, mines 
and sea." The sum of money to be guaranteed by 
Chicago under the act was $10,000,000. One-half of 
this amount was raised by subscription. The other half 
was raised by an issue of city bonds. There was a great 
obstacle in the way of a bond issue. The constitution 
of the state had to be amended before the city could 
incur the indebtedness, and the initiative had to be 
taken by the General Assembly, in special session, called 
for that purpose by the governor, Joseph Fifer. To 
remove these obstacles was quite as formidable a task 
as to raise the $5,000,000 by subscription. In August 
of that same year the special session was held, and the 



amendment was ratified at the state election of that 
November. 

Another perplexing problem was, where should the 
fair be held? In looking back upon the exposition it 
is a matter of surprise that there should have been the 
slightest hesitation on the subject. The site selected 
was ideal. If it had been made for that purpose it 
could not have been improved upon. That portion of 
Jackson Park facing on the lake afforded every advan- 
tage. But for a long time it seemed to many that the 
best place would be the lake front, between Randolph 
and Twelfth streets, making such addition by filling in 
as might be necessary. The decision of the question 
was not made until nearly one year after the act of 
Congress had been passed. From that time on the 
work of preparation was prosecuted with astonishing 
vigor, and on a very large scale. The grounds were 
laid out and beautified at great expense, and no less than 
fourteen exposition buildings proper were erected, each 
in itself a grand example of architecture. Some of 
them were marvels of beauty, and each was admirably 
adapted to its specific purpose. The Manufactures and 
Liberal Arts building, 1,687x787 feet, was the most 
gigantic of them all, and the Administration building 
the most artistic, but each was in its way most admir- 
able. If built of the whitest marble, instead of perish- 
able "staff," they would have presented no more 
entrancing effect. "The White City," as it was called, 
was a sight well worth a journey around the world to 
see, even if one saw only the buildings and grounds. 
No permanent city could vie with it as a triumph of 
architecture. 

Besides the buildings erected by the exposition com- 
pany, and their annexes, the government of the United 
States had a magnificent structure for its own exhibits. 
So, too, did seventeen foreign countries, thirty-eight 
states and three territories. Manv exhibitors and con- 



41 



42 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



cessionists put up structures of their own. Many foreign 
nations and colonies, which had separate buildings of 
their own, contributed to the exhibits. Foreign gov- 
ernments expended, it is estimated, $6,000,000 for the 
cost of their exhibits. No doubt private exhibitors from 
abroad expended more than that amount. 

The exposition opened May I, 1893, and closed 
October 31. During those six months the total attend- 
ance, as shown by the turnstile registries, was 27,539- 
521. The actual paid admissions were 21,478,218. Of 
course many persons made many visits. It is impossi- 
ble to estimate how many different persons saw the 
exposition, but there must have been several millions. 
The greatest number of any one day was on October 9, 
the twenty-second anniversary of the great fire. That 
was called Chicago day. and it seemed as if the whole 
city swarmed into the White City. The turnstile records 
of that one day showed 716,881 visitors. 

The condensed balance sheet of the auditor showed 
a grand total of funds of $28,151,168.75. It is a low 
estimate to place the cost of the fair, including public 
appropriations and expenditures of exhibitors, at 
$50,000,000. The cost to visitors cannot be computed. 
But no one can intelligently doubt that the general 
benefits were incomparably greater than the actual 
cost. Many persons lost money in business ventures 
which proved unprofitable, and much disappointment 
was experienced, but the general public derived enor- 
mous benefits from the exposition. 

In the management of the exposition many persons 
deserve very great credit, but a few names are entitled 
to distinct recognition and grateful remembrance. No 
one individual did more to make the exposition a brill- 
iant success than Mrs. Bertha Honore Palmer, presi- 
dent of the Board of Lady Managers. She had never 
been tried in any public duty, but she proved to have 
remarkable executive ability and a broad, clear and 
far-reaching judgment. Lyman J. Gage, Ferdinand W. 



Peck, Harlow N. Higinbotham, Thomas P. Bryan, 
George R. Davis and T. W. Palmer each gave much 
time to the enterprise and did much in his own way to 
make the exposition a great success. 

One of the more notable features of the exposition 
was the series of "congresses" gotten up in connection 
with the exposition. Charles C. Bonney deserves to be 
called the author and finisher of this auxiliary part of 
the fair. He and the late Professor Swing each sug- 
gested this department, but neither knew anything of 
the other's plan. Professor Swing was an idealist and 
was content to merely suggest the plan, but Mr. Bonney 
took a practical view of the matter, and the managers 
gave him every facility for carrying out his project. 
The most notable of these congresses was the Parlia- 
ment of Religion. The head of the committee having 
this in charge was the Rev. Dr. John Henry Barrows, 
then pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Chi- 
cago, now president of Oberlin College. Eminent 
religionists from all over the world were in attendance 
and the public interest in the poceedings was wide- 
spread and intense. The cause of religious unity and 
fellowship was materially promoted. 

As for the exposition as a whole ,it was conceded to 
be the grandest and most successful world's fair ever 
held. It did much to establish the reputation of Chi- 
cago as one of the greatest cities, of the world. From 
that time on it has been wholly free from the belittle- 
ment of a provincial reputation. That celebration of 
the fourth centennial of the discovery of the new world 
was a mere episode in the history of the city, but it will 
ever stand as one of the more memorable landmarks of 
Chicago's great municipal career. 

This exposition occasioned some financial disap- 
pointment to individuals, but to the city as a whole it 
was of incalculably great benefit. It gave a wonderful 
stimulus to population and contributed powerfully to 
the general development of Chicago as a center of trade 
and industry. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN CANAL 




HEN the genius and execu- 
tive ability of DeWitt Clinton 
fL put New York City in all- 



water communication with 
the Great Lakes and the 
great West, he started a 
system of East and West 
commerce which was of the 
highest national importance. 
The early coming of the then 
undreamed of railroad cut 
short the career of the 
canals, but water continues 
very great factor in overland 
transportation, contradictory as the statement may 
seem. What the Erie was to New York in the early 
days of the century, the Illinois and Michigan Canal 
was to Chicago in its municipal youth. 

It was a citizen of New York who first, after Joliet 
himself, recognized the importance to commerce of the 
portage of Chicago. In 1810 a member of Congress 
from that state, Hon. Peter B. Porter, drew the atten- 
tion of Congress to the importance of connecting the 
Mississippi river and Lake Michigan by building a canal 
to supply the missing link in the chain of waterways 
which was to extend from New Orleans to New York. 
But the United States government had other matters 
more pressing to look after. The second war with 
England was near at hand. Four years later, however. 
President Madison called the attention of Congress to 
the subject, and the government organ of the day, the 
Niles Register, caught a glimpse of the great possi- 
bilities latent in the President's suggestion. "By the 
Illinois river," it said, "it is probable that Buffalo in 
New York may be united to New Orleans by inland nav- 
igation through Lakes Erie, Huron and Michigan an 
down that river to the Mississippi." It was precisely 

43 



that which the Illinois and Michigan Canal did do. And 
the ecstatic exclamation of the Register has also been 
justified, "What a route ! How stupendous the idea ! 
How dwindles the importance of the artificial canals 
of Europe compared to this water communication ! If 
it should ever take place and it is said the effort can 
easily be made the territory of Illinois will become the 
seat of an immense commerce and a market for the 
commodities of all regions." That could hardly have 
been a truer prophecy had it been a veritable case of 
history read backward. 

It was in 1816 that the first practical step was taken. 
One of the necessary preliminaries was to get rid of the 
Indians. A people stolidly set against accepting civili- 
zation must be removed from the path of progress. A 
strip of land twenty miles wide, extending from Ottawa 
to Chicago belonged to the Pottawatomies. In August, 
1816, they relinquished their title to that slip. Then 
the government set about exploring and getting ready 
to carry out the Porter-Madison plan, or the DeWitt 
Clinton plan applied to the West. The first thing was 
for a United States civil engineer, Major S. H. Long, 
to make a trip from Fort Clark, or Kaskaskia, to Chi- 
cago. It was a long journey by boat, all the way against 
the current. When he reached the Chicago river he 
found it "discharged itself into the lake over a bar of 
sand and gravel, in a rippling stream ten or fifteen yards 
wide and only a few inches deep." The Calumet was 
still worse, for the sand-bar down there was a complete 
blockade. His report struck no responsive chord in 
Congress. Eight years later, when the state had been 
in the Union four years, Congress did pass an act grant- 
ing the state authority to cut a canal through the public 
lands, donating ninety feet on either side and appro- 
priating $10,000 for the survey. In consideration of 
this permit and the appropriation of land and money 
the state agreed to allow all articles belonging to the 



44 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 




United States, or to any person in its employ, to pass 
toll free forever. The legislature of Illinois lost no time 
in getting down to business. It was conceived at that 
time that Indiana might join and open up lake com- 
munication by way of the Wabash, and Ohio by way of 
the Maumee, but, as a matter of fact, each of the three 
propositions was independent of both of the others. 
It required a great deal of surveying and expert calcula- 
tion to reach a definite plan. The state act incor- 
porating the Illinois and Michigan Canal Company was 
passed early in 1825, with a capital stock of $1,000,000. 
This act was amended in the next year, in the hope of 
facilitating operations. But the necessary capital could 
not be raised. In 1827 Congress was induced to grant 
a liberal land subsidy, namely $284,000. 

Fortunately there was no Credit Mobilier to absorb 
this subsidy. The state itself took it. The acts of 1825 
and 1826 were virtually dead and the corporations 
which they contemplated existed only on paper. In 
1828 the legislature started the enterprise on a feasible 
basis. Still further legislation followed in 1829. The 
most important preliminary work of the first board of 
canal commissioners was to lay out towns at each end 
of the canal that was to be Ottawa and Chicago. 
Practically nothing was done except to lay out these 
two terminal towns until 1836, when more legislation 



HUMBOLDT PARK. 

was had. In the meanwhile obstacles of the most serious 
nature were encountered, and it looked as if the canal, 
then so long talked about, never would be built. The 
first spadeful of earth was thrown out on the 4th of 
July, 1836. Never was Independence Day more joy- 
fully celebrated than on that ever-glorious Fourth by 
the people of Chicago. Everybody turned out and went 
down to Bridgeport to witness the inauguration of the 
enterprise. The honor of wielding the spade on that 
occasion fell to the lot of Canal Commissioner Archer, 
whose name lives in the diagonal avenue, or "road," as 
then called, which leads from State street to Bridgeport. 
But the beginning was far from the end. More years 
of weary waiting and baffling toil were destined to roll 
by before the canal became an accomplished fact. The 
estimates of cost had been wild guesses, at least they 
bore no relation to actual cost. It was not before the 
crash of 1837 came and put clogs on every wheel of 
internal improvements and killed forever many of the 
projects. The state tottered on the brink of bank- 
ruptcy. The debt incurred in building this canal was 
the heaviest burden of all. The bad kept getting worse 
all the time, and in 1842 came a collapse of state 
finances. There seemed to be nothing left but to use the 
big ditch as a grave for state honor. More than a hun- 
dred contractors who were working along the line when 
the state credit was exhausted had to suspend. The 
total cost up to that time, as finally ascertained, was 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



45 



$5,139,492.03. This was too much money to be thrown 
away. Despite the old adage warning against throwing 
good money after bad, the idea of giving up entirely 
was not entertained. A great many bonds had been 
sold, and the bondholders could not afford to let the 
expenditure go to waste. It was estimated that 
$1,000,000 more would finish the work, making, all 
told, nearly ten times the original estimate. It took a 
vast deal of negotiation to get the work started up. The 
Barings of London thought well enough of the pro- 
posed bonds to entertain a proposition, provided a satis- 
factory report upon the enterprise was made. Who in 
this country could be found to make the investigation 
whose report would be accepted? Captain W. H. Swift, 
a United States engineer, was one, and Senator John 
Davis of Massachusetts, another. Mr. Davis was 
known in his day as "Honest John.'' He was at one 
time the modest colleague of the "Godlike Daniel" 
Webster. After prodigious labor bonds were placed on 
the institutional plan, not only English, but French, 
capital helping on the enterprise. Obstacle after obsta- 
cle was encountered, but at last the canal was actually 
opened, and the first boat arrived in Chicago from Lock- 
port, April 10, 1848. Of all the great internal improve- 
ments in this country none had so hard a struggle 



against such desperate odds as the Illinois and Michi- 
gan Canal. 

When projected it was absolutely indispensable to 
the growth of Chicago to the dimensions of a great 
city, and it has certainly proved of very great advantage, 
but by the time it was finished it was no longer indis- 
pensable. The morning star of railways had appeared 
and the new day of transportation by rail was dawning 
full upon the land. By that time it was plain that how- 
ever much Chicago might be benefited by canal boats 
its great dependence, aside from the lakes themselves, 
was to be upon the railroads. As will be seen in 
another chapter, the canal, by involving the state in 
debt, which was in danger of repudiation, was the indi- 
rect cause of the great railway extending its entire 
length. 

In this connection it may be remarked that about 
the time the completion of the canal became a fore- 
gone conclusion, Wisconsin, then coming into the 
Union as a state, laid claim to a slip of northern Illi- 
nois, which, if allowed, would have brought Chicago 
into Wisconsin. The claim was not without a shadow 
of justice. But an insuperable practical objection was 
found in the fact that to allow it would involve the com- 
plication dividing the ownership of the Illinois and 
Michigan Canal, the great enterprise of Illinois, with 




GARFIEI.D PARK. 



46 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



Wisconsin. Thus it is that Illinois owes a great debt 
to the canal. 

It is not necessary to the purposes of this history 
to pursue this subject much further. Its large part in 
developing the city may be said to have passed before 
it went into the carrying trade. The main canal, from 
Bridgeport to La Salle, is ninety-six miles long, and 
the river route from Bridgeport to the Chicago harbor 
is four miles. Illinois, through its great metropolis, has 
indeed become, as the Niles Register forecasted, "the 
seat of an immense commerce and a market for the com- 
modities of all regions," and in a fundamental way the 



"stupendous idea" of Peter B. Porter, a second Joliet, 
contributed largely to this result. But the canal itself 
came very, very near accomplishing its supreme pur- 
pose before it became an accomplished fact. In a sense 
its builders builded better than they knew; in another, 
their costly edifice proved largely an air castle. During 
all the long years of construction it served to inspire 
confidence in Chicago's future, but before it came into 
place as an agency of transportation the shadows of 
evening were gathering about the day of canals and 
Chicago was entering upon its higher destiny of being 
the great focal center of railway traffic. 




MASONIC TEMPLE. 



CHAPTER IX. 



CHICAGO'S WATER SYSTEM. 




)HICAGO'S water system has for its 
supply the inexhaustible stores of 
Lake Michigan. From it are pumped 
annually 150,000,000,000 gallons of 
water to supply the needs of the 
city's 2,000,000 inhabitants. In the 
use of water, Chicago believes there 
can be no waste, and in no city in 
the world is there such a prodigality 
practiced, each person having more 
than 200 gallons a day for use. 
The problem of utilizing this magnifi- 
cent water supply and keeping it unpol- 
luted has been admirably solved by Chicago. Thirty 
miles of tunnels take the supply from miles out in the 
lake to the ten pumping stations in various parts of 
the city. These stations have a capacity of 529,500,000 
gallons a day. , 

Like all the other public improvements of the city, 
Chicago's water system is typical of its unparalleled 
growth. A century ago the daily water supply for Fort 
Dearborn and the few settlers around the stockade was 
taken in buckets from the river and lake. To-day every 
home has within it an inexhaustible supply, furnished at 
a cost lower than that of any large city in the world. 

The millions that have been invested in its water- 
works have brought a goodly return and to-day the city 
makes millions from this source annually. With the 
surplus from the water fund, it has built sewers and 
other public improvements, though the warrant for this 
diversion has been seriously questioned. Supplementary 
to the water system is the drainage canal which has cost 
the city already over $42,500,000. not including the 
millions diverted from the water fund for the system of 
intercepting sewers. The wonder of this growth is best 
realized from a review of its history and development. 
The first waterworks Chicago had, consisted of a 
single well, dug in November, 1834. in Kinzie's addi- 



tion, at an expense of $95. This proving inadequate, 
the water cart appeared. This consisted of a hogshead 
mounted on two wheels and drawn by a horse, which 
was backed into the lake, filled with water by a bucket, 
and then hauled around the village. The water sold 
for ten and fifteen cents a barrel, and the number of 
water carts constantly increased. They did not go 
entirely out of use for twenty years. 

In 1836 the Chicago Hydraulic Company was incor- 
porated with a capital of $250,000 to supply the city 
with water by pumping and piping. But, owing to the 
panic of 1837, the work was not begun until 1840. The 
pumping house, which was located at the foot of Lake 
street, and the appliances were completed in the spring 
of 1842. at a cost of $14,000. There was an intake con- 
structed 700 feet out in the lake, and it was connected 
by a six-inch wooden supply pipe with a well fifteen 
feet deep in the pumping house. 

It was not until 1841 that the company undertook 
to supply water for the fire department, and in 1848 
not over one-fifth of the city was reached by the supply 
pipes. The water carts were still necessary, and poor 
people used the river water. From 1846 there were 
complaints that the hydrant water was impure and fre- 
quently filled with small fish. 

In February, 1851, the Chicago City Hydraulic 
Company was incorporated to succeed the Chicago 
Hydraulic Company. The construction of the water- 
works, which was located at the foot of Chicago avenue, 
was begun in 1852, and the buildings were completed 
the next year. The engine house was on the beach, 
and had a square brick tower 136 feet high, in which 
were both the standpipe for the water and the smoke- 
stack. The water was pumped into three reservoirs, 
one on each side of the city. Water was first pumped in 
December, 1853. In 1855, forty-one miles of pipe had 
been laid, and the total cost of the works had amounted 
to $496,849. The number of buildings supplied with 



47 



48 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



water was 7,053. The Board of Public Works was 
established and took charge of the works. May 6, 1861. 
Although in 1858 the pumping works supplied 
3,000,000 gallons of water daily, and the amount was 
increasing, it became evident that a much greater sup- 
ply would be needed. There were also constant com- 
plaints of the impurity of the water furnished. In 1862, 
therefore, City Engineer C. E. Chesbrough began to 
agitate for a water tunnel under the lake to a point 
where good water could be secured. In September, 
1863, the city government adopted his plan, and let the 



was struck December 6, 1866, instead of November i, 
1865, and the cost was $464,866, instead of $315,139. 

The completion of the tunnel was celebrated as a 
great event. The mayor and the city officials traveled 
through the tunnel in mule carts to a point one and a 
half miles from the shore, where the workmen met, and 
where a memorial tablet was inserted in the wall, after 
considerable speech-making, Mayor Rice pronouncing 
the tunnel "the wonder of America and the world." 

At the same time that the construction of the tunnel 
was decided on steps were taken for the construction 




CHICAGO AVENUE WATERWORKS. 



contract for the construction to Doll & Gowan of Har- 
risbtirg, Pennsylvania, who agreed to complete it by 
November i, 1865, for $315,139, and broke ground 
March 17, 1864. 

The water tunnel was to be five feet in diameter, and 
to run in a straight line at right angles to the shore, at 
the pumping station, two miles out into the lake, and 
to be sunk twenty-six feet below the level of the lake. 
At each end there was to be a well nine feet in diameter, 
the one out in the lake being an intake, and the one on 
shore being a pumping well. The work was prosecuted 
from both ends of the tunnel at once. The final blow 



of the pumping station as it now exists at the foot of 
Chicago avenue. The new building was erected piece- 
meal on the same site as the old one in such a way as 
not to interfere with the old water supply until the new 
one was ready. The water was let into the tunnel 
March 25. 1867, and on the same day was laid the cor- 
nerstone of the water tower, 100 feet west of the pump 
house. This tower is 130 feet high and contains a 
standpipe three feet in diameter, encircled on the out- 
side with a winding iron stair to the top. The water was 
let into the pumping well and the pumps began to 
work July 20. 1867. In this month a new engine had 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



49 



been put in place at an expense of $112,350, with a 
capacity of 18,000,000 gallons of water a day. 

The great fire of 1871 nearly destroyed the pumping 
station, and three of its engines were disabled. The 
damage to the engine house was speedily repaired, the 
machine shop was built on the same site, and the 
engines put to work, one after another, within three 
months. The loss on the pumping station, reservoirs 
and piping by the great fire amounted to $248.910. 

In the year 1871-72 the quantity of water delivered 
was 8,423,890,966 gallons, or 497,206,126 gallons more 
than in the preceding year. There were 91,129 feet of 
pipe laid, at a cost of $316,165, making the total amount 
of piping in the city 287 miles. There were 1 1 5 fire 
hydrants erected, making a total of 1,667. The receipts 
from water assessments and taxes were $445,834, and 
the total income was $4,127,419. The total cost of 
addition to the works was $432,719. The total expense 
of the waterworks to date was $4,712,615. The cost of 
delivering water per million gallons was $12. 

In 1873, the pumping station proving inadequate, a 
new engine, designed by City Engineer Cregier and con- 
structed by Knapp Fort Pitt Foundry Works, was pro- 
vided. Its cylinders were seventy inches in diameter, 
and had a stroke of ten feet. The working beams were 
twenty-eight feet long and weighed twenty tons each. 
The fly-wheel was twenty-five feet in diameter and 
weighed forty tons. Its three boilers were each twenty 
feet long and twelve feet in diameter. The engine cost 
$188,400, and during the first six and one-half months 
pumped 6,448,000,000 gallons of water. 

As the consumption of water continued to increase 
rapidly, it became evident in 1871 that a new tunnel 
was imperatively demanded. It was therefore deter- 
mined to build a tunnel seven feet in diameter from the 
crib to the pumping station, parallel to the first tunnel. 
But the second tunnel, instead of stopping at the pump- 
ing station, was continued on land to Ashland avenue 
and Twenty-second street, where a new pumping station 
was provided to pump the water into the mains of that 
part of the city. The land tunnel is 3.92 miles in length. 
The work on this land and water tunnel was begun 
January 12, 1872. The lake section was completed 
July 7, 1874, and the final connection with the land 
section was made in February of the next year, when 
the water was let in. The lake section cost $411,510 
and the land section $545,000, a total of $965,510. 

The demand for more water continued to exist, but 
after 1875 there were constant complaints that the sup- 
ply was impure. The city government therefore 
decided to extend its tunnels further out in the lake 
and draw its supply four miles from shore, where it was 
expected the supply would always be pure. As a result 
the four-mile crib was built off Peck court. The first 
two miles counting from the crib is an eight-foot bore 



but from there the tunnel was divided into two six-foot 
bores. The land portion of the tunnel system has two 
sections. One of these runs from a shaft at Park row 
to the pumping station at Indiana avenue and Four- 
teenth street. The other extends in a northerly direc- 
tion from the Peck court shaft to the central pumping 
station. The total length of the system is 5.75 miles 
and cost $1,526,143. This great work was begun in 
1887 and completed five years later. 

Tunneling now became chronic with the city, and 
in 1887-88, a seven-foot tunnel was constructed from 
the North pumping station eastward to the breakwater 
and an extension of the same diameter was made 
between 1895 ar >d 1897 from the breakwater crib to a 
shaft at the two-mile crib, at a cost of $259,832. In 
1890 a crib was erected two miles off shore at the foot 
of Montrose boulevard and a tunnel built to a pumping 
station at a cost of $530.097. The work was completed 
in 1896. 

The greatest work of tunneling in connection with 
the water system was undertaken in 1892 and finished in 
1897. This starts at the great crib called after the elder 
Carter H. Harrison, located two miles off shore at 
Sixty-eighth street. The tunnel connection with this 
crib is complicated. A seven-foot tunnel connects the 
crib with the pumping station at Yates avenue, a five- 
foot tunnel from the station extends to and connects 
with a seven-foot tunnel about 5,000 feet from shore, 
and a six-foot tunnel runs to a submerged intake about 
4,500 feet from shore. The total cost of the tunnel 
and crib construction was $727.471. 

What is called the Northeast crib is located two 
and a half miles off the foot of Oak street and is con- 
nected with a shaft on shore by a ten-foot tunnel. A 
land tunnel runs from Oak street and Grand avenue, 
connecting with the shaft in Green street. The second 
section runs from this point to a shaft and pumping sta- 
tion at Central Park avenue and Fillmore street. This 
is eight feet in diameter. A third section begins at 
Green street and Grand avenue and extends to the 
shaft in the pumping station at Springfield avenue and 
Bloomingdale road, with a diameter of eight feet. In 
this system the land and lake tunnels measure twelve 
miles and cost $4,000,000. 

These heroic efforts of the city to obtain a supply 
of pure water were successful as to quantity, but disap- 
pointing as to purity. It was discovered after years 
of effort and failure that it was impossible to draw pure 
water from the lake as long as the city sewage poured 
into it. This failure led at last to the greatest engi- 
neering feat of the last century, the turning of the 
Chicago river from the lake by the construction of the 
drainage canal and the obliteration of the watershed 
between the waters of the Mississippi and Lake 
Michigan. 



50 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



The following table shows the growth of the water- 
works system of Chicago in five-year periods since 
1854, when the first large pumping station was 
installed at Chicago avenue. 







Gallons 


Gallons 






DATE. 


Population. 


Pumped 
Per Day. 


Per 
Capita. 


Mileage. 


Income. 


1814 


6;,772 


591 083 


8.9 


30 o 




1860 


109,260 


4,703,525 


43-0 


91.0 


$ 131,162.00 


1870 


306,605 


21,766,260 


70.9 


272.4 


539,180.00 


1880 


491,516 


57.384.376 


116.7 


455-4 


865,618.35 


1890 


1,208,669 


152,372,288 


126.0 


i 205.0 


2,109,508.00 


1900 


1,698,575 


322,599,630 


160.6 


1,872.0 


3,250,481.85 


1904 


2,000,000 


398,985,350 


23-3 


1,978.0 


3,834,541.30 



This immense quantity of water pumped had grown 
to 137,515,701,965 gallons in 1903, and last year 146,- 
280,598,353 gallons were used. 

The capacity of the Chicago water system can best 
be judged from a list of the pumping stations and their 
capacity per day in gallons, together with the author- 
ized increases: 



STATION. 


Present 
Capacity. 


Changes and Additions 
Authored. 


Total 
Capacity. 


Fourteenth Street 
Sixty-eighth Street . . . 

West 


84,000,000 
82,000,000 

60,000,000 


20,000,000 added. 
2, 000,000 inc. in cap. 


84,000,000 

104,000,000 
60,000,000 


North 


65,000,000 


50,000,000 added. 




Springfield Avenue.. . . 
Central Park Avenue. . 
Harrison Street 


60,000,000 
60,000,000 
36,000,000 


16,000,000 taken out. 
40,000,000 added. 
40,000,000 added. 


99,000,000 
100,000,000 
100,000,000 
36,000,000 


Lake View 


44 000,000 


4,000,000 inc. in cap. 


48,000,000 


Washington Heights.. . 
Norwood Park 


2,900,000 


3,000,000 added. 
400,000 taken out. 


5,500,000 


New Roseland Station. 




50,000,000 


50,000,000 










Totals 


494,500,000 





687,100,000 



The annual income from the water system of Chi- 
cago is now close to $4,000,000 a year, and its expendi- 
tures for actual operation and keeping up the system 
less than $500,000. For the past few years about 
$1,500,000 has been appropriated annually for the water 
department, but over a million of this has been used 
on the land tunnels each year. 



At the same time that the water department earns 
so much money, it also furnishes water cheaper than 
any other large city in the country whether tested by 
water rates per 1,000 gallons, or the \vater tax for 
an average eight-room residence, as shown in the fol- 
lowing table. 



CITIES. 


Rate per 1,000 
Gallons. 


Water Tax for Eight 
Room Residence. 


Kansas City 


$0 ^6 


$26.50 


Omaha 


30 




St Louis 


.30 


27.00 


Milwaukee 


20 


24 SO 


Boston 


.18 


22.OO 


Chicago 













There can be no standstill in the development of 
the water system of the city. Provision must be made 
for the future. Following is a summary of the most 
important improvements now under way. 





Time of 
Completion. 


Estimated 
Cost. 


North (Chicago Avenue) Pumping 
Station 






Springfield Avenue Pumping Station 
Central Park Avenue Pumping 
Station .... 


1906 


90,000 


Sixty-eight Street Pumping Station. 
Washington Heights Pumping Station 
South Side (Roseland) System 
Large Water Mains 


1906 
1906 
1909 
1906 


40,000 
2O.OOO 
2.OOO.OOO 








Total cost ... 













Many additional improvements are authorized which 
will cost in the neighborhood of a million dollars. These 
include the extension of the Chicago avenue tunnels 
to the Carter Harrison crib, the reconstruction of the 
cross-town tunnels so they will begin entirely on city 
property, and new boiler plants. 

When all the improvements now authorized and 
under way have been installed, the total pumping 
capacity of the city's pumping plants will be 678,000,000 
gallons per day. This will provide for a daily consump- 
tion of 217 gallons for a population of about 2,370,000. 



CHAPTER X. 



THE DRAINAGE CANAL 




JHICAGO'S struggle for a water supply 
sufficient to meet its demands had 
scarcely been won before an even 
greater problem confronted the city 
the keeping of the inexhaustible 
stores of Lake Michigan pure. The 
constant stream of sewage poured 
into the Chicago river and the lake 
was extending the pollution further 
and further from the shore. The in- 
takes of the cribs which had been 
forced as far as four miles out into the lake 
were net beyond the danger zone. The tunnels might 
be driven double the distance from the shore, but it was 
only a question of time until the pollution would reach 
these new limits. 

There was but one logical solution and that was to 
stop discharging the sewage into the city's water 
supply. The Chicago river as the main drainage chan- 
nel of the city must be made to flow away from the 
lake, the entire sewerage system turned into it and the 
river in turn made to flow toward the Gulf of Mexico. 
To do this the portage traversed by La Salle, Joliet and 
Father Marquette, and which gave to Chicago its exist- 
ence, had to be done away with and the water shed 
between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi pierced by 
a new channel. 

As a result of these plans the drainage canal was 
built, the greatest work of its kind in the last century. 
Up to date this great undertaking has cost the tax- 
payers of Chicago upwards of $45,000,000. The waters 
of Lake Michigan are flowing into the Chicago river 
and what was formerly a black, murky, oily stream is 
now a clear, swift flowing river. 

The Sanitary District of Chicago was organized 
under an act of legislature passed in 1889. The first 
board was elected December 12, of the same year to 



serve until December 2, 1895. Since that time the 
regular term of service of the trustees has been five 
years. The primary object of the work undertaken 
by the sanitary district is the protection of the waters 
of Lake Michigan from sewage pollution. It is the pur- 
pose of the district to preserve this great natural reser- 
voir in its purity. 

The construction of the main drainage channel, 
extending from Robey street at the Chicago river to 
Lockport, a distance of 28.05 miles, was the first step 
taken by the city in building its new drainage system. 
With that channel complete it was necessary that the 
Chicago river be deepened and widened in order to 
secure an adequate flow of water through it without 
injury to navigation. Nor was this all. While the 
Chicago river carried off the bulk of the city's sewage, 
to the north and south the main sewers of these dis- 
tricts were discharging their polluting flow into the 
lake. The city therefore decided to construct a system 
of great intercepting sewers, which were to divert this 
flow of sewage from the lake to the river and thence 
into the drainage canal. These intercepting sewers 
have been about completed and will practically stop all 
pollution of the lake from sewage drainage coming from 
the city proper. 

This left the great suburbs to the north and south 
still befouling the lake and in order to bring them 
into the sanitary district, the legislature of 1903 enacted 
a law for the annexation of these adjacent territories. 
The original sanitary district contained 185 square 
miles. By the act of July 14, 1903, the district was 
enlarged by the annexation of the North Shore dis- 
trict, comprising 78.6 square miles and the Calumet 
district with 94.48 square miles. This brings the total 
area of the districts up to 257.08 square miles. The 
North Shore district includes the towns of Evanston, 
Niles, New Trier, and portions of the townships of 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 




WESTERN UNION BUILDING. 

Northfield and Main and also Norwood Park. The 
Calumet district takes in the township of Calumet and 
portions of Worth, Bremen and Thornton. By the 
reversal of the Calumet river, providing a gravity flow 
therefrom into the main channel of the sanitary district 
at Sag valley, that entire district will be drained to the 
south. 

The topography, hydrography of the North Shore 
district precludes a gravity channel and therefore it is 
proposed to cut a canal from the lake at some point 
north of Evanston, southward to the north branch of 
the Chicago river at Lawrence avenue. Water for the 



flow through this channel will be 
supplied by pumps with a capacity 
of 60,000 cubic feet per second. 
A pumping plant is to be erected 
near the lake for this purpose. 

Water was first turned into 
the main channel on January 2, 
1900. It took thirteen days to 
fill the channel from Western ave- 
nue to the controlling works at 
Lockport. January 17, following, 
the great bear trap dam was low- 
ered and the flow of water from 
Lake Michigan to the Mississippi 
and the Gulf had begun. 

The controlling works are 
located at Lockport at the end of 
what is known as Section 15 of 
the channel. They comprise 
seven sluice gates of metal, with 
the necessary masonry bulkheads 
and one bear trap dam. The 
sluice gates have a vertical play 
of twenty feet and openings of 
thirty feet each. The bear trap 
dam has an opening of 160 feet 
and an oscillation of seventeen 
feet vertically. This dam is essen- 
tially two great metal leaves 
hinged together and working 
between masonry bulkheads. The 
down-stream leaf is securely 
hinged to a very heavy founda- 
tion, and the up-stream leaf is so 
placed as to present the barrier 
to the water. This structure is 
operated by admitting water 
through properly constructed con- 
duits, controlled by valves beneath 
the leaves just described. To raise 
the crest of the dam, water is 
admitted from the up-stream side 
and the discharge shut off until 

the desired height is obtained, and then the valves are 
adjusted so that the volume of water beneath the leaves 
shall be constant. To lower the crest, the water beneath 
the leaves is drawn off until the desired height is 
reached, when the valves are agin arranged so as to 
maintain a constant volume of water. 

Beyond the controlling works the drainage board 
has completed the work necessary for conducting the 
flow from the channel in conjunction with the waters 
of the Desplaines river, clown the declivity through the 
city of Joliet. Changes have also been made in the Illi- 
nois and Michigan canal to meet the new conditions. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



In constructing the channel the work was divided 
into twenty-nine sections numbered from I to 1 5 south- 
westerly from Willow Springs and lettered from A to 
O, omitting the letter J, easterly from the same point. 
This makes the sections a little less than a mile long. 
Earth was first broken on "Shovel Day," September 3, 
1892, on the rock cut just below Lemont. 

The total amount of excavation involved in the con- 
struction of the main channel is 26,693,000 cubic yards 
of glacial drift and 12,265,000 cubic yards of solid rock, 
a total of 38,958,000. In the work of river diversion 
1,810,652 cubic yards of glacial drift and 258,659 of 
solid rock were taken out, making 2,069,311 cubic 
yards. The work between Lockport and Joliet, includ- 
ing the controlling works, involved 1,201,724 cubic 
yards of excavation, making an aggregate for the main 
channel, river diversion and other work, of 42,229,035 
cubic yards. In the retaining walls and bridge masonry 
were put 457,777 cubic yards all laid in cement mortar. 
The rock when broken up expands about 80 per cent 
and there are now on the spoil banks along the channel, 
looking like a diminutive mountain range, 22,542,586 
cubic yards. The whole volume of this dumpage, both 
rock and earth, would make in Lake Michigan in forty 
feet of water, an island a mile square and above twelve 
feet above the surface of the lake. 

In addition to this tremendous volume of excava- 
tion the main channel extension and waterpower devel- 
opment involves 10,500 cubic yards of earth, 1,274,000 
of rock and 145,000 of masonry and concrete. 

The distance from the mouth of the Chicago river 
to the juncture of the west fork of the south branch 
and the drainage canal at Robey street is six miles. 
From Lake street to Robey street the river is to be 
widened to 200 feet and given a depth of twenty-six 
feet for 100 feet in the middle of the stream and shal- 
lowing to sixteen feet at the docks. It is to> be docked 
with both timber and concrete along this entire river 
frontage. The drainage board has purchased about 
500,000 square feet of land in order to widen the chan- 
nel and over 3,000,000 cubic yards of dredging has been 
done and about 12,000 feet of docks built. As soon 
as the tunnels are lowered the channel of the river will 
be lowered to twenty-six feet the entire distance. 

Thirteen bridges have been built across the canal 
proper, six for public highways and seven for railroads. 
The weight of the iron and steel in these structures is 
22,862,454. Two bridges have been built at Joliet 
across the Desplaines and fourteen will be built over 
the river in Chicago. 

The general dimensions of the entire channel are as 

follows: 

Miles. 
Distance from mouth of river to juncture with canal at Robey 

street 6 

Main channel proper, Robey street to Lockport 28.05 

Total length of channel 34-5 



The dimensions of the canal proper, are : Robey 
street to Summit, 7.8 miles; no feet wide at bottom; 
198 feet at water line with minimum depth of water, 22 
feet. Summit to Willow Springs, 5.3 miles; 202 feet 
wide at bottom, 290 feet wide at water line with 22 feet 
depth of water; grade of earth channel i foot in 
40,000 feet, or if inches per mile. The side slopes 
in earth are one foot vertical to two feet horizontal. 
At Willow Springs the channel narrows to the walled 
and rock cross section, extending 14.95 miles to Lock- 
port, 1 60 feet wide at bottom, 162 feet at top; grade in 
rock i foot in 20,000, or 3! inches per mile. 

The velocity in earth is figured for i.| miles per 
hour and in rock 1.9 miles per hour. 

The total cost of the drainage canal and the supple- 
mentary improvements in the river, but not including 
the intercepting sewer systems is shown in the fol- 
lowing : 

Right of Way ......$ 5,224,784.85 

Diversion Desplaines River 1,142,578.32 

Main Channel Robey Street to Lockport 20,488,378.92 

Controlling Works 339,127.00 

Desplaines River Improvement Lockport to Joliet.... 1,580,414.62 

Chicago River Improvement 4,103,078.89 

Illinois and Michigan Canal Improvement. 77,016.08 

Water Power Developing 468,380.51 

Thirty-ninth Street Pumps 151,024.42 

Capitalization and Maintenance of Bridges 566,833.86 

Interest on Bonds and Tax Warrants 6,602,704.05 

Taxes - - 27,937.53 

Engineering Department 1,989,014.57 

Clerical Department 161,196.27 

Law Department 868,512.15 

Treasury Department 37,377-84 

Police Department 378,603.04 

General Account 814,307.77 

City of Chicago 13,434-95 

Land Damages 76,331.84 

Marine Damages 9,647.32 

Personal Injuries Account 4,082.50 

Bridgeport Pumping Works 90,388.80 

Special Commission Chicago Drainage Canal 33,075-97 

Telephone Line 11,863.70 

Weir, McKechney & Co. 22,118.14 

Strceter & Kenefick 5,020 02 

E. D. Smith & Co. 2,400.00 



Total Disbursements $45,289,633.93 

Emergency Funds in hands of Department 

Officials $ 24,800.00 

Balance in hands of Treasurer, December 

31, 1904 1,324,693-15 1,349,493.15 

$46,639,127.08 

The Sanitary district had collected in taxes up to 
December 31, 1904, $29,861,623.72. The district has 
issued $24,790,000 of bonds, all payable in currency; 
$8,000,000 being 5 per cent bonds, $5,600,000 being 
4^ per cent bonds, $390,000 being 3^ per cent bonds 
and $10,800,000 being 4 per cent bonds, running from 
one to twenty years, except the 3^ per cent bonds, 
which runs for twenty years from date. One-twentieth 
of the issue must be paid off and retired each year. Of 
the total amount of bonds issued the sum of $8,380,000 
have been retired, leaving $16,410,000 outstanding 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



December 31, 1904. The taxes afford a revenue suffi- 
cient to pay the interest on these bonds, to pay off and 
retire one-twentieth of the issue eacli year and leave a 
surplus to apply upon the current obligations of the 
district incurred for construction and other purposes. 
Besides the primary object of affording a solution 
to the sanitary problem of Chicago, the canal is 
expected to develop two things of scarcely less impor- 
tance than the primary object itself. One is a commer- 
cial waterway, that will be of inestimable value, not 
only to Chicago, but to all people all along its line, 
from the Lakes to the Gulf. The second is a great water- 
power which, distributed by means of electricity, may 
yet line the banks of the canal with factories of great 
importance. The board is now developing this water- 
power which it has conserved, the legislature in 1903 
granting it the needed authority. The board has also 
very wisely taken title to much of the land along the 
banks of the canal, so that it will not have simply the 
power to supply, but also the sites themselves. In this 
great work Chicago has asked no assistance, either from 
the nation or the state, but the further development of 
the waterway project to the Gulf will undoubtedly have 
to be done by the general government. It is estimated, 
however, that this waterway completed to the Missis- 



sippi River will not involve as great a cost as the canal 
has already cost Chicago. 

The first election of trustees in 1889 resulted in the 
selection of John J. Altpeter, Arnold Gilmore. Richard 
Prendergast, W. H. Russell, Frank Wenter, Christo- 
pher Hotz, John A. -King, Murray Nelson and H. J. 
Willing. The board proved to be anything but har- 
monious. To many of the gentlemen on the board the 
important and practical questions were entirely new, and 
they found it impossible for a majority of them to agree. 
The result was that Murray Nelson resigned June 19, 
1891 : John A. King, July 22. 1891, and Henry J. Will- 
ing, September 23. 1891. On November 3, 1891, Will- 
iam Boldenweck, Lyman E. Cooley and Bernard A. 
Eckhart were elected to fill .the three vacancies. On 
January 16, 1892, Christopher Hotz resigned, and at 
the next election, November 8, 1892, Thomas Kelly was 
elected his successor. By special provisions of the law, 
the first term of the trustees was six years. After that 
a new 7 board was to be elected every five years. Novem- 
ber 5, 1895, William Boldenweck, Joseph C. Braden, 
Zina R. Carter. Bernard A. Eckhart, Alexander J. 
Jones, Thomas Kelly. James P. Mallette, Thomas A. 
Smyth and Frank Wenter were elected trustees. It was 
under the superintendence and direction of these nine 
gentlemen that most of this great work has been done. 








MINIATURE FORT DEARBORN, GARFIELD PARK. 



CHAPTER XI. 



CHICAGO'S PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM 




k N its public schools and great institutions 
of learning, Chicago has reached its 
ripest fruitage. Three hundred thou- 
sand children and students bear daily 
witness to the city's devotion to the 
highest ideal of free education. No 
civic institution is guarded with such 
jealous care. The schools of Chi- 
cago are run by the people, for the 
people and to teach what the people 
I want. 

The ordinance of 1787 ordained that 
in the newly created territory of Illinois, "religion, mor- 
ality and knowledge being necessary to good govern- 
ment and the happiness of mankind, schools and the 
means of education shall forever be encouraged." 
Nowhere in the vast domain of the Northwest has 
this idea been more sacredly guarded, so that to-day 
after a century of growth and development, Chicago 
with its public school system, its universities and its 
professional schools is to-day one of the foremost educa- 
tional centers in the world. 

Chicago spends in round numbers $13,000,000 a 
year on its public schools, and the amount is constantly 
growing. It has 341 school buildings, valued at $31,- 
135,900. and many of them are of the most modern 
type of school architecture. These are attended 
annually by over 282,000 pupils and taught by 5,614 
teachers and principals. The total cost for instruction 
per pupil for last year, based on the average daily 
attendance, was about $28.75. 

Vast as are the sums spent annually for educational 
purposes, the school system is inadequate to keep pace 
with the natural increase in population. The buildings 
owned by the city contain 4,905 classrooms, in addition 
to assembly halls, offices, recreation rooms and gymna- 
siums. Besides these 138 classrooms are rented, giving 



the schools a seating capacity of 252,324. This forces 
many children to be deprived of a full day, and only 
half-day sessions are provided in the most congested 
districts. About $2,500,000 is invested annually by the 
city in new sites and buildings. So rapid is the increase 
in population, however, that the natural birth rate of 
the city greatly exceeds this added capacity. Only by 
doubling the expenditures and building twice as many 
new schoolhouses each year can Chicago hope to give 
every child in the city equal advantages of a common- 
school education. There are now (1905) under con- 
struction nineteen new school buildings, containing 414 
classrooms, and costing $2,735,000. Sites have been 
selected for forty-two additional buildings, which will 
add 658 classrooms, and cost $5,300,000. While their 
erection has been authorized they will not be completed 
for the next two years. 

The latest type of building is absolutely fireproof. 
The school board is building none other at the present 
time. A complete building includes twenty-six class- 
rooms, assembly hall on the first floor, and gymnasium 
above. It includes the usual play rooms, toilet rooms 
and heating rooms in the basement, and space which 
may be used in the future for domestic science and man- 
ual training. There are also included the usual princi- 
pals' offices, teachers' rooms, libraries, etc., in each 
building. 

Wherever possible the sites for new buildings are 
large enough to include playgrounds which are 
regarded as essential whenever possible to acquire. 
The board is building several 12-room school buildings 
which, in each case, are the first portions of future 24 or 
26-room buildings. They are so designed that additions 
may be put on and conform to the original portion. A 
12-room building may be increased to 16 rooms or 20 
rooms, or 26 rooms without in any way differing from 
the ultimate plan for a complete building. 



55 



56 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



Of the 341 schools there are three normal schools 
and sixteen high schools. They have the highest class 
of equipment and teaching force. The Wendell Phillips 
High school represents the best type of modern school- 
house. 

With these material evidences of development in the 
Chicago school system are allied high civic ideals in the 
administration of the schools, the modification of the 
course of study to conform to the existing conditions 
and needs of the pupils, and the earnest co-operation of 
the teaching force in working out their ideals. 

The educational spirit of Chicago took root early. 
In 1810 John H. Kinzie was the only scholar and he 



Fort Dearborn she came with him and opened a school 
for children in the fort and the little settlement about 
the fort. Chicago was not then even a village. In 1834 
the town made an appropriation for Miss Chappel's 
school, making it the first public school of Chicago. 
The following year, 1835, the Rev. Jeremiah Porter, 
who had organized the first church in Chicago, was mar- 
ried to Miss Eliza Chappel, who had taught the first 
public school. And it may be added with the utmost 
emphasis that they "lived happily ever after" for some 
sixty years. Miss Chappel was succeeded as teacher 
by Miss Ruth Leavenworth, when Mr. John S. Wright, 
built at his own expense the first schoolhouse. As Mr. 




BAND STAND, GARFIELD PARK. 



was taught by Robert A. Forsyth, who subsequently 
became paymaster in the United States army. The 
pupil was six years old, his teacher but thirteen. It was 
not until 1816 that William L. Cox, a discharged soldier, 
opened the first school in a log hut on the Kinzie lot, 
near Pine and Michigan streets. Here John Kinzie. 
his two sisters and brother and three or four children 
from Fort Dearborn attended school. There were sev- 
eral other private schools conducted in the settlement 
during the next eighteen years, but it was not until 1833 
that the first "public school" was started in Chicago. 
Miss Eliza Chappel was the first teacher. She had 
first come west from Rochester, New York, as a teacher 
at Mackinac. When Mayor Wilcox came from there to 



Wright, thirty years later, said: "The honor is due to 
my sainted mother. Having then plenty of money it 
was spent very much as she desired. Interested in an 
infant school, she wanted the building and it was built." 
The next teacher was Miss Frances L. Ward, who 
afterward married the Rev. John Ingersoll, father of 
Col. R. G. Ingersoll. 

The original school section as provided for by the 
ordinance of 1787, and located by Illinois legislation, 
was placed in the heart of the present business section of 
Chicago, within what are now Madison, State, Twelfth 
and Halsted streets. Had some genius foreseen the 
greatness of Chicago's future and saved this inheritance 
for the public schools its unparalleled richness would 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



57 



have provided a fund that would have made Chicago's 
schools the richest in the world. As it was this tract 
was sold at auction in 1833, with the exception of four 
city blocks, and the sum of $38,619.47 realized. What 
the value of those 142 city blocks now are it would be 
hard to estimate. Few areas of land in any of the 
cities of the world would command a higher price 
to-day. 

In 1835 the state legislature passed an act to estab- 
lish a "special school system for township 39, range 14, 
east of the third principal meridian." As Chicago was 
not incorporated until the following year that was as 
near as the lawmakers could designate it. The next 
legislature having incorporated the city, made haste to 
provide for it a more thoroughly organized common 
school system, with trustees having full power to assess 
and collect taxes and with inspectors with more or less 
power to manage school affairs. One of the provisions 
of the city charter, approved March 4, 1837, reads as 
follows : 

"Section 85. The common council shall annually 
appoint a number of inspectors of common schools in 
said city, not exceeding twelve and not less than five, 
which inspectors, or some of them, shall visit all the 
public schools in said city at least once a month, inquire 
into the progress of the scholars and the government 
of the schools, examine all persons offering themselves 
as candidates for teachers, and, when found well quali- 
fied, give them certificates gratuitously, and remove 
them for any good cause; and it shall be the duty of 
said inspectors to report to the common council from 
time to time any suggestions and improvements that 
they may deem necessary or proper for the prosperity 
of the school." 

While the inspectors were to be appointed by the 
common council, the trustees who had the power to 
assess and collect the taxes were to be elected by the 
legal voters in each school district. 

In 1839 the city charter was so amended by the 
legislature as to turn over to the common council the 
entire responsibility for school matters. Not only the 
seven persons to be inspectors, but the three persons 
in each district to be trustees, were to be appointed by 
the common council. In 1840 the city was divided 
into four districts. The four teachers that year were 
each given a salary of $400. Only one school building 
was then owned by the city. That was in District No. i, 
at the southeast corner of Madison and Dearborn 
streets. There were reported that year 317 pupils in all, 
of whom 64 were studying geography, 29 grammar, 
and 57 arithmetic. The number of white persons in the 
city under twenty years of age was then 2,109. 

The first high school was established in 1856. The 
normal department in connection with it was made, in 
1871, an independent school. The development of the 



high school since then has been rapid. Sixteen mag- 
nificent buildings are now attended by almost as many 
thousand students. The course of study has been grad- 
ually advanced and to-day a diploma from the Chicago 
high schools will admit into most of the colleges and 
universities of the country. 

The central idea of the Chicago school system "to 
prepare the pupil for life's experiences" is exemplified 
in the manual training courses for the boys and the 
cooking classes for the girls. These are begun in the 
seventh and eighth grades, and continued in the high 
schools. In Chicago's complex population, represent- 
ing nearly every foreign country on the globe, the value 
of this training gives the child a new point of view, 
makes the boy or girl strive for higher things and 
reflects itself in the home life on the parents of the 
children themselves. 

There are no less than 14,000 boys and as many 
girls taking advantage of these opportunities. At the 
Manual Training High school there is an enrollment of 
1,000 young men who, while having the benefit of a 
high-school course in literature, science and history, 
equal to any school of the kind in the country, are lay- 
ing the foundation for a technical training by working 
in metal and wood. 

There is now being planned a great commercial high 
school in the center of the city that will offer the same 
advantages for a business training as the manual train- 
ing school offers in mechanical lines. This school will 
give to the graduates of the elementary schools an 
opportunity to prepare themselves for business life, 
without the expense of attending a commercial college. 

But Chicago in its great public school system goes 
still further, and offers to those who didn't have an 
opportunity to go to school when children, or who came 
from foreign countries and want to learn the language, a 
chance to learn after working hours, in the evening 
schools. In- these classes can be seen fathers and 
mothers studying with their children. The courses 
offered are not confined to the rudimentary studies. The' 
girls and women are taught cooking and sewing, and the 
men and boys are given instruction in mechanical draw- 
ing. Business courses in bookkeeping, typewriting and 
shorthand are also offered. The evening schools are 
conducted as a help to the men and women who need 
help and to give them what they want. The attend- 
ance has been rapidly increasing, showing that they 
are appreciated and doing the work of training, espe- 
cially the foreigners, in the fundamentals of good gov- 
ernment and citizenship. 

Chicago's kindergarten system has been brought 
to a high degree of efficiency. About half the schools 
have kindergarten classes. These are attended by 10,000 
children, mostly in the poorer sections, where the per- 
centage of foreigners is great. Many of the little folks 



58 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 




INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER CO.'S OFFICES. 



get their first knowledge of the English language in 
the kindergarten. 

In addition to the great public schools there are 
many religious elementary schools, the Catholic church 
maintaining no less than 166 in connection with their 
parish churches. These have an annual attendance 
of upwards of 70,000 pupils, which with the other 
denominational and private schools swell Chicago's 
grand army of school children to over 400,000. 

CHICAGO'S UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES. 

Chicago has taken her place among the great uni- 
versity towns of the world only during the last decade. 
This advance movement in higher education may be 
dated from the time of the Columbian Exposition. 
Since then Chicago has made giant strides as a center 
of higher education, and has now nearly 15.000 stu- 
dents engaged in college, university and professional 
studies, as many as have the six New England states 



combined. If all these institutions 
were grouped together under one 
head, as are the higher educational 
schools of Paris, Chicago would 
have the greatest university in the 
world. 

There is no unity of control of 
these higher educational institu- 
tions. They are chiefly of three 
classes : The state schools, repre- 
sented by the professional depart- 
ments of the University of Illinois ; 
the denominational schools, which 
are under the control of the 
church, though not necessarily 
sectarian in their teachings, and 
the private institutions. The first 
and second groups give the stu- 
dent vastly more than he is asked' 
to pay for. The third group 
includes both endowed schools 
and institutions that are forced to 
be entirely self-supporting. 

The University of Chicago 
stands pre-eminently at the head 
of the higher educational system 
of Chicago and of the West. 
When the Columbian Exposition 
opened it had been in existence 
but a few months. In order to 
make a good showing to the 
world, large preliminary subscrip- 
tions were received, but its tre- 
mendous growth under the mast- 
erly direction of Dr. William 

R. Harper has brought more millions to its support 
than was ever dreamed of. even by that master mind of 
organization. In 1893 it had four blocks of land on the 
Midway and a fair start on the magnificent quadrangle 
of buildings. To-day it owns practically all the land on 
both sides of the Midway plaisance. extending from 
Washington Park to Madison avenue, a distance of 
three-quarters of a mile. It had 700 students in 1893; 
tr-day it has nearly 5,000. The buildings, the equipment 
and the teaching force have grown in proportion. 

Magnificently supported by the rich men of Chicago 
it has back of it the good will and millions of John D. 
Rockefeller. Between him and President Harper there 
is the closest bond of friendship and trust. The recent 
serious illness of Dr. Harper awakened the sympathy of 
the entire country. 

It has been a fixed policy with President Harper to 
affiliate with the university strong professional schools. 
When he has thought best he has founded these schools. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



59 



but more often has lie taken them in as already estab- 
lished. The University of Chicago law school was 
founded only two years ago. It has a fine building of 
its own and contains a library of 40,000 volumes. Like 
the other professional schools of the university it is pre- 
eminently a graduate school. 

The medical school of the university was formerly 
Rush Medical College. Since it was incorporated into 
the university its requirements for the enrollment of 
students has been raised and its equipment and teach- 
ing force enlarged. Its enrollment is about 300. 

The College of Education of the University of Chi- 
cago was founded by Mrs. Emmons Elaine. It serves 
the double purpose of a training school for teachers and 
an experimental station for the professors and students 
of psychology at the University. The University Col- 
lege was also endowed by Mrs. Elaine. It is a down- 
town branch of the University where classes are given 
in the afternoon and evening and on Saturdays for the 
benefit of teachers and other students who cannot 
attend the regular lectures at the university. 

The University High School resulted from a consoli- 
dation of the Chicago Manual Training School and 
the South Side Academy. Not counting the students of 
this department and in other preparatory schools con- 
trolled by or a part of the University, the total registra- 
tion last year was 4,580. 

The University of Illinois has located all its pro- 
fessional schools in Chicago because of the better facili- 
ties and the larger field. Here are the schools of phar- 
macy, school of medicine, dental school and law school. 

Northwestern University in Evanston is practically 
one of Chicago's institutions of higher education. It 
is only a matter of a few years until that delightful 
suburb adjoining the city to the north will be knocking 
for admittance. Already Northwestern University has 
its four professional schools in the downtown district. 
The schools of law, pharmacy and dental surgery occupy 
the Northwestern University building at Lake and Dear- 
born streets, which was formerly the Tremont House. 
The school of medicine has a fine building of its own on 
the South Side. The total registration, not including 
preparatory students, exceeds 2.700. 

Armour Institute of Technology was founded in 
1892 by Mr. Philip D. Armour of Chicago. The work of 
instruction was begun in September, 1893, and is now 
carried on in the buildings at the corners of Thirty-third 
street and Armour avenue. The artistic and technical 
branches of the course in architecture are conducted at 
the Art institute, Michigan avenue and Adams street. 
The technical laboratory work of the course in fire pro- 
tection engineering is given at the Underwriters' labora- 
tory, 382 East Ohio street, Chicago. Honorable places 
are accorded athletics, all indoor work being done in 
the gymnasium in the main building, and all outdoor 



work on Ogden field, which was recently presented to 
the institute by Mr. J. Ogden Armour. 
The institute consists of: 

1. The College of Engineering. 

2. Armour Scientific Academy. 

3. The Evening Classes. 

4. The Summer School. 

5. The Department of Commercial Tests. 



e oege o ngneerng oers courses n 
mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, civil 
engineering, chemical engineering, fire protection engi- 
neering, general science and architecture, all leading 
to the degree of bachelor of science. 

Armour Scientific Academy prepares young men for 
admission to the engineering courses of the College of 
Engineering, or to the leading colleges and univer- 
sities. 







ARMOUR INSTITUTE. 



60 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



The evening classes provide courses in engineering 
and kindred subjects adapted to the needs of those who 
are employed in technical pursuits during the day. 

The summer school offers courses designed to meet 
the wants of teachers and special students who desire 
to extend their knowledge of scientific and technical 
subjects, of undergraduates who desire to shorten their 
regular courses, of new students who are deficient in 
certain studies required for entrance, and of those who 
are unable to attend during the school year. 

The department of commercial tests offers facilities 
for all sorts of special tests and investigations. 

The president, the Rev. Dr. F. W. Gunsaulus, has 
under his jurisdiction a staff of sixty instructors. The 
total number of students enrolled during I9O4-'O5 
was 1,585. 

The Lewis Institute in West Madison street was 
founded by Allen C. Lewis. He left a fund for its 
endowment which should be invested until it amounted 
to $800,000 and then turned over to the founding of a 



school. The plant and investments of the institute now 
aggregate a million and a half dollars. It offers tech- 
nical and manual training courses as well as literary and 
high school courses. Like the Armour Institute, it is 
open to students at night. 

St. Ignatius College is the largest of the Catholic 
schools of higher education in Chicago. It has a strong 
faculty and offers academic and university courses : 
Mayor Harrison is a graduate of St. Ignatius. It is in 
a prosperous condition and growing in strength and 
influence. 

There are six large theological schools in Chicago, 
besides several smaller ones and several just outside the 
city limits. There are thirteen large medical schools, a 
dozen schools of pharmacy, otology, ophthalmology, 
odontology, and two large law schools, besides those 
named. 

Chicago has also seven dramatic schools and many 
colleges of music, besides those connected with the 
larger universities, and the Art Institute contains the 
largest art class in the country. 




DOUGLAS PARK. 



CHAPTER XII. 




CHICAGO'S LIBRARIES 




)HICAGO'S great libraries contain 
approximately 1,700,000 volumes. 
The public library has the greatest 
patronage of any similar institution 
in the world. Last year the aggre- 
gate circulation was 1,721,186 vol- 
umes, which went to the homes of 
Chicago's reading public. Of this 
number, 662,896 volumes were taken 
out from the thirty-eight delivery 
stations scattered throughout the 
city and the T. B. Blackstone Memorial 
branch library at Forty-ninth street and Lake avenue. 
As a factor in the educational life of Chicago this 
great system is only second to the public schools. Read- 
ing rooms are maintained in the three great sub-divi- 
sions of the city in connection with the public library, 
and the other institutions supplement this service. The 
professional schools and universities maintain libraries 
of unexcelled excellence. That of the University of 
Chicago alone containing over 400,000 volumes and 
165,000 pamphlets. All this in a municipality that had 
no existence before the law seventy-five years ago and 
was but a frontier fort at the beginning of the last 
century. 

Like all of Chicago's institutions, its libraries had a 
humble beginning. John S. Wright carried the first 
library tied up in his handkerchief. It was the library 
in connection with the first Sunday-school, in 1832, and 
Mr. Wright has the honor of being Chicago's first 
librarian. His mother, it was, who at her own expense 
built the first building devoted to the uses of a school. 
The first donation for a public library in the city 
was made by a couple of real estate speculators from 
New York. They sent a package of 200 books which 
had cost perhaps $50 for a public library. In 1835 the 
intellectual life of the town centered around the Chi- 



cago Lyceum. It was a debating society that furnished 
an opportunity for the social and literary advancement 
of the community. Among its membership was every 
man of any note in any trade or profession in the city. 
It had a library of 300 volumes, which at that early day 
was greatly appreciated. 

The next movement that fostered the library idea 
was the founding of the Mechanics' Institute in 1837. 
It was incorporated six years later and had for one of 
its aims the "creation of a library and museum for the 
benefit of mechanics and others." By 1843 it had 
gathered a library of over 1,000 volumes. The fire of 
1871 swept a\vay its books and other property. 

The Young Men's Association which was organized 
in January, 1841, had as one of its objects the establish- 
ing of a library. Walter I. Newberry, who in after life 
provided for one of the finest libraries now in Chicago, 
was chosen as the first president. A reading room was 
at once opened and Mr. Newberry furnished a nucleus 
for a library. When the association was incorporated 
in 1851 it had a library of 2,500 volumes. This had 
grown to 9,000 volumes by 1866. Two years later, in 
1868, the Young Men's Association was reorganized 
and its name changed to the Chicago Library Associa- 
tion. This was the beginning of the free library move- 
ment, though its property and books were wiped out by 
the fire of 1871. 

In April, 1856, the Chicago Historical Society was 
formed. The Rev. William Barry was the genius of 
the movement. He was its secretary and devoted him- 
self to its interest with contagious enthusiasm. He 
secured the collection of over 3,000 volumes the first 
year. The society was incorporated in 1857. Within 
two years it had over 18,000 volumes. The fire of 1871 
consumed 60,000 volumes, 1,738 files of newspapers 
and a vast number and variety of documents, many of 
which could never be replaced. Another fire in 1874 



61 



G2 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



proved similarly disastrous. The present building is 
deemed absolutely fireproof. It cost $150,000 and was 
opened May, 1894. It has now a collection of over 
40,000 volumes and 75,000 unbound volumes and pam- 
phlets, besides numberless documents, maps and other 
insignia of value. The Union Catholic Library was 
organized in 1868. 

It is a fact of more than local, indeed of international, 
interest that the initiative in the establishment of the 
Chicago Free Public Library was taken by an English- 
man, Thomas Hughes, author of Tom Brown at 
Rugby, etc., of London. 

The great fire of 1871 had well night swept Chicago 



warded to Chicago. This collection formed the begin- 
ning of what \vas presently to be the Chicago Free 
Public Library. 

Mr. Hughes appealed to the people of England to 
give to Chicago "a new library as a work of sympathy 
now and a token of that sentiment of kinship which, 
independently of circumstances and irrespective of every 
other consideration, must ever exist between the differ- 
ent branches of the English race." As Mr. Azel F. 
Hatch, the president of the board of directors of the 
library, said of this movement at the dedication of the 
new building : "It crystallized the sentiment that a 
public library was a necessity, and prompted our citi- 




THE CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY. 



out of existence. Never before in the history of the 
world had such a passion of sympathy swept over the 
country and manifested itself in such unprecedented 
ways in all civilized countries. At a meeting of the 
Association of English Authors, of which Thomas 
Hughes was chairman, the immediate needs of the 
afflicted city were discussed. It was not thought that 
anybody then could want for bread ; it was felt that 
they would suffer for a time at least for want of books. 
An appeal, headed by Queen Victoria, signed by 
Thomas Hughes, Thomas Carlyle, Gladstone. Disraeli, 
Spencer, Tyndall, Tennyson and others, addressed to 
authors, publishers and booksellers, was sent forth. The 
result was that 7,000 volumes were collected and for- 



zens to express their appreciation of the generous and 
sympathetic donation by founding this library and pro- 
viding a place to receive and forever keep sacred this 
testimonial of universal brotherhood." 

At a public meeting in Plymouth Church, Mayor 
Medill presiding, January 8, 1872, measures were taken 
to secure from the State Legislature, then in session, an 
act enabling the city to provide by taxation for a free 
library. It was what was known as the splendid action 
of Thomas Hughes and others in England which was 
the immediate occasion of this action on the part of 
the city. 

The library was opened January i, 1873. Mr. Will- 
iam F. Poole, author, but not finisher, of that invaluable 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



63 



and never-ending work, "Poole's Index," was the first 
librarian, a man of extraordinary ability and experience, 
fitting him for the great task of creating and organizing 
the library. He continued in this position until 1887, 
when he became librarian of the new Newberry Library. 
He was succeeded by Mr. Frederick H. Hild, who 
remains in place to date. 

The new library building was open to the public 
October u, 1897. The total cost of the building, with 
its fixtures, machinery, etc., was $2,125,000. It had 



monuments to the commercial spirit and liberality of 
its citizens. The Newberry Library and the John Crerar 
Library are sustained by the funds provided by the 
founders after whom they are named. 

By the provisions of the will of Walter L. Newberry, 
who died November 6, 1868, one-half of his estate was 
given for founding a free public library to be located 
on the North Side. It was not until 1885 that the estate 
was divided when property valued at $2,149,403 was 
set aside for the library enterprise. The value of this 




THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY. 



been formally dedicated two days before, the anniversary 
of the fire. 

The total number of volumes at the close of the 
library year 1904, was 290,277 volumes. The circula- 
tion for the year was 1,721,186 volumes, which does not 
include the use of the books kept open on the reference 
shelves nor the periodicals and newspapers in the read- 
ing rooms. The greatest freedom is allowed under the 
rules of the public library. Membership in the library 
can be secured by anyone presenting a certificate from 
a property owner, guaranteeing the library against loss. 

The two other great public libraries of Chicago are 



endowment has steadily increased and is worth at least 
a million more than when first turned over. In 1889 
the ''Ogden block," where the magnificent building 
now stands, was purchased. The building was com- 
pleted in 1894 and in its commodious halls is one of the 
finest collection of reference books in the world. In 
the departments of music, medicine, art and antiquity 
it is especially strong. It is entirely a reference library 
and no books are circulated. It contains about 300.000 
books and pamphlets. John Vance Cheney is librarian. 
The John Crerar Library is the third of Chicago's 
great public institutions of the kind. It is planned to 



64 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



erect a magnificent home for it in Grant Park on the 
Lake Front, when its collection of over 150,000 volumes 
on the social, physical and natural sciences will be 
transferred from their temporary quarters in the Field 
building. A portion of the income from the endowment 
has been set aside each year for a building fund and 
as soon as a site is provided the work of erecting the 
building will be begun. Its character as a scientific 
library has been strictly adhered to. John Crerar in his 
will expressed a desire "that the books and periodicals 
be selected with a view to create and sustain a healthy 
moral and Christian sentiment." Clement W. Andrews 
is in charge, as librarian. 

In point of number of volumes the University of 
Chicago Library is the largest in the city. Like the 
university it is built on stupendous lines and contains 
over 400,000 books and 165,000 pamphlets. Its use is 
not restricted to the students of the University and 



others may have all the privileges on the payment of a 
small fee. Complimentary cards for four weeks are also 
issued to properly credited scholars visiting Chicago. 
Zella Allen Dixson is librarian. 

The other libraries in Chicago and its immediate 
vicinity with the number of volumes they contain follow : 
Field Columbian Museum, 32,000; Lewis Institute, 
12,000; Northwestern University, 91,000; Evanston, 
34,600; Garrett Biblical Institute, 20,200; Ryerson, 
3,500; Academy of Science, 19,800; St. Ignatius Col- 
lege, 20,000; Western Society of Engineers, 5,000; Chi- 
cago Law Institute, 40,000; Hammond, 23,000; Pull- 
man, 9,000. 

All these libraries are in a flourishing condition and 
steadily growing. There are also besides these a large 
and fast-increasing number of private libraries of great 
costliness and special value. 




HUMBOLDT PARK OFFICE BUILDING. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



CHICAGO AS AN ART CENTER. 




HICAGO'S spirit of commercialism has 
been the foundation for her artistic 
development. It has made condi- 
tions possible for the success of her 
inspiring youth in the finer accom- 
plishments of life. With the tre- 
mendous wealth it has produced 
came the means for gratifying the 
love of the beautiful and the encour- 
agement of the artistic spirit of the 
community. This spirit has found 
expressions in an unrivaled park system in 
many superior private collections of works of art and 
most forcibly in the Art Institute of Chicago. 

Housed in a beautiful structure on the Lake Front, 
the Art Institute is naturally and logically the focus and 
stimulus of the art efforts of Chicago and of a great 
part of the western and middle states. It has enrolled 
over 2,500 students that come from all sections of the 
United States, Mexico and Canada. The Academy of 
Fine Arts and a dozen lesser schools and studios and 
private classes will bring this number to over 5,000, a 
serious band of young American men and women who 
are devoting their efforts to the pictorial and plastic 
arts. 

A liberal share of the profits of Chicago's great com- 
mercial enterprise has been devoted -to art. The gal- 
leries of the institute bear witness to this generosity. 
They have been enriched by donations from private cit- 
izens as few other art museums in this country have 
been. Here the richest and most judicious collectors 
have brought their treasure for the benefit of the public. 
This is characteristic of Chicago. While in other cities 
many priceless treasures of art are kept aloof from the 
many and for the enjoyment of the few fortunate to 
possess enough wealth to own them, in Chicago there 

5 65 



has been that public spirit which has donated them to 
a public institution for the benefit of all. 

The Art Institute galleries are open free to the pub- 
lic 1 60 days of the year, and nowhere has the public 
shown such appreciation of the privilege. Nearly a 
million visitors come to the Art Institute in a year 
to inspect the pictures, sculptures and curios with 
which its galleries have been enriched by the liberality 
of the donations from private citizens. While not the 
richest, it has one of the most comprehensive exhibi- 
tions of art works in the world. Upon its walls and 
within its aisles may be found examples of nearly every 
famous master and celebrated school in the history of 
picture and plastic art. Its teachers and lectures are 
representatives of the best there is in the art schools 
of America, and its classes are drawn from the farms, 
villages and cities which stand for all that is most virile, 
most ambitious and youngest in the art movement of 
the United States. 

The Art Institute was established a quarter of a 
century ago. Its purpose as defined in its articles of 
incorporation was for "the founding and maintenance 
of schools of art and design, the formation and exhibi- 
tion of collections of objects of art and the cultivation 
and extension of the arts of design by appropriate 
means." How well it has carried out this purpose 
is manifest in the incomparable success it has attained. 

George Armour was the first president and after 
he had completed a year of service he was succeeded 
by Levi Z. Leiter, who held the position for two years. 
He was followed by Charles L. Hutchinson, who has 
been continued year after year. Under the stimulus 
of his enthusiasm the real work of the institute began 
and attained its final success. Mr. Hutchinson and 
Samuel M. Nickerson are the only persons remaining 
who have been trustees during the whole history of the 



66 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



institution. William M. R. French, the present director, 
has been in charge of the institute since its founding 
and the financial affairs have been directed during that 
time by Newton H. Carpenter. 

Under the able direction of Mr. French the museum 
and school has taken a front rank and he has brought 
to its support many public-spirited citizens. For three 
years it had rooms at State and Adams streets. Mr. 
French at once started a school of art in connection 
with the institute and encouraged the holding of exhibi- 
tions. In 1882 a site was purchased at the corner of 



to assist in the erection of a building for the holding 
of the World's Congresses of Religions. The fair direc- 
tors had appropriated $200,000 for this purpose and 
the Art Institute officers agreed to add whatever 
amounts were necessary to this to put up a permanent 
structure, which, after serving the purposes of the 
World's Congresses should be permanently occupied 
by the Art Institute. Permission was obtained from 
the city and the abutting property owners for the 
use of the Lake Front property and the present museum 
building erected at a cost of $648,000. The exposition 



full 




THE ART INSTITUTE. 



Michigan avenue and Van Buren street and a substan- 
tial brick building erected. Three years later additional 
property was secured and the building now occupied by 
the Chicago Club erected. This building was dedicated 
in November, 1887, but it soon was outgrown although 
additions were made to it during the next five years. 
In 1892 the structure was sold to the Chicago Club and 
the enterprise of erecting the present magnificent build- 
ing undertaken. 

Taking advantage of the opportunities offered by 
the \Vorld's Fair in 1892, the Art Institute entered into 
a compact with the Columbian Exposition directors 



company paid $200,000 of this sum and the Art Insti- 
tute $448,000, most of which was realized from the sale 
of the old building, at Van Buren street and Michigan 
avenue. The ownership of the building was vested in the 
city until 1904 when it was turned over to the South 
Park commissioners, while the right of use and occupa- 
tion was vested in the Art Institute, as long as it shall 
fulfill the purposes for which it was organized. A special 
provision was also made for keeping it open free to the 
public three times a week. 

In possession of this magnificent structure on the 
Lake Front the Art Institute at once began to receive 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



67 



generous recognition from art patrons. Within a year 
after its completion it received gifts of fine art objects 
equal in value to half of the cost of the new structure. 
More than an equal amount has since been received, 
which never would have been offered if a proper place 
had not been provided for their reception. 

During 1897 Charles W. Fullerton donated funds to 
build a lecture room in accordance with the original 
plans of the building, as a memorial to his father, 
Alexander N. Fullerton. In igoo-'oi the Ryerson 
Library was built and donated by Martin A. Ryerson, 
one of the trustees. It contains about 4,000 volumes 
strictly confined to fine art and includes many valuable 
works. It is a beautiful and commodious building and is 
consulted annually by over 50,000 persons. In 1903 a 
great sculpture hall, comprising the fourth side of the 
building, was erected by Mr. and Mrs. Timothy B. 
Blackstone. The hall was named after the donors, who 
also presented the great collection of architectural casts 
by which it is filled. Before the original design of the 
building is completed there will be added a grand 
central stairway and dome and extensive galleries over 
the Blackstone Sculpture Hall. 

During the past ten years the collections given to 
the care of the institute have been numerous and impor- 
tant. It now ranks in this respect among the first three 
or four of the country. Among these contributions are 
the following : 

The Henry Field collection of paintings presented 
by the widow of Mr. Field. It comprises forty-one 
pictures and represents chiefly the Barbizon School of 
French Painting. 

The Munger collection bequeathed by Albert A. 
Munger after they had been on exhibition in the insti- 
tute some time. This fine collection of paintings is one 
of the most comprehensive in the galleries. 

The Nickerson collections presented by Mr. and 
Mrs. Samuel M. Nickerson, comprising a fine array of 
Japanese, Chinese and East Indian objects of art and 
a collection of modern paintings. The Nickersons also 
bore the expense of fitting up two galleries and the 
adjacent corridor with marble wainscoting and mosaic 
floor for the reception of the collection. This is the 
most magnificent single gift received by the institute up 
to this time. 

The Elbridge G. Hall collection of sculpture donated 
by Mrs. A. M. H. Ellis. It includes only life-sized 
facsimiles of original works of sculpture, both of the 
renaissance and modern schools, the contemporary col- 
lection being the finest in America. 

The Higinbotham collection comprising 109 fac- 
simile reproductions of the antique bronzes of the 



Naples museum, statues, busts, tripods, statuettes, lamps 
and other objects found at Herculaneum and Pompeii. 
The collection was presented by Harlow N. Higin- 
botham. 

One of the most notable additions to the collections 
of the galleries was the purchase of thirteen paintings 
from the Demidoff collection in 1890. These are works 
of the highest value by the old masters of the Dutch 
school and the reception of these pictures marked an 
epoch in the artistic development of the city. 

The total endowments of the institute only aggre- 
gate $163,400 and most of this is restricted. In fact, 
only $39,400 is for the general purposes of the insti- 
tute. Heretofore its support has been derived wholly 
from membership, dues, door fees and voluntary con- 
tributions. There are about 2,000 annual and 400 life 
members of various classes. Annual members pay 
$10 a year and life members $100 and henceforth are 
exempt. Governing members pay $100 upon election 
and $25 a year clues. Upon payment of $400 govern- 
ing members become life governing members. Since 
the transfer of the Art Institute to the park commis- 
sioners they have been authorized by the legislature to 
permit extensions of the building and levy a tax for its 
support and that of the Field Columbian Museum. This 
will be a great advantage to the institute and allow 
the use of the membership dues and donations to be 
used in the purchase of additional works of art. 

Such has been the progress of the Chicago Art 
Institute in the twenty-five years of its existence, prac- 
tically without an endowment and supported mainly 
by the openhanded liberality of hundreds of its public- 
spirited men and women. This fact has made it more 
dear to Chicago and though in time it will enjoy, no 
doubt, the millions of many of its present supporters, 
the fact that it was not the growth of the munificence 
of any single person will bring a riper fruitage in the 
future. 

In directing the artistic development of Chicago 
in the past few years, the Municipal Art League has 
had an important part. The objects of the organiza- 
tion are to encourage the improvement of the thorough- 
fares, public buildings and places of the city along purely 
artistic lines. It also aims to show officials and people 
the best methods of bringing about artistic municipal 
improvements and create in the individual a spirit of 
co-operation in the care of private property. While the 
membership of the league is selected by the mayor it 
has only advisory functions. Its governing board con- 
sists of the mayor or commissioner of public works, 
three park commissioners, three sculptors, three archi- 
tects and three painters. Since its incorporation in 
1901, the league has made many valuable suggestions. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE CHURCHES OF CHICAGO. 




HICAGO'S spiritual and temporal 
developments have gone hand in 
hand. From the first discovery of 
the portage between the waters of 
the Great Lakes and the Mississippi, 
when Father Marquette and La Salle 
pierced the northwestern wilderness, 
the two great forces of advancing 
civilization went hand in hand. As 
the city has grown rich and powerful, 
so the churches have increased in 
wealth and influence, until they number 
nearly a thousand with a membership of over a 
million. 

To a Catholic priest belongs the honor of having 
conducted the first religious service in the territory now 
embraced in the limits of the City of Chicago. Father 
Badin, who is credited with being the first priest 
ordained in America, came to Chicago in 1796, three 
years after his admission to the priesthood in Baltimore. 
His second visit to Chicago was in 1822, at which time 
he performed the first baptism. 

The Baptists were the next religious organization 
to come to the city. In 1825 the Rev. Isaac McCoy, 
a Baptist preacher, came to Chicago from his station in 
Michigan and preached the first sermon in the English 
tongue. The next year the pioneer Methodist preacher 
of Chicago appeared in the person of the Rev. Jesse 
Walker, who at the time was in charge of the Fox 
River Mission. 

It was not until five years later that Chicago was 
formally recognized as a field for religious work. Dur- 
ing the year the Illinois Methodist conference estab- 
lished the "Chicago Mission district," and began the 
holding of a regular weekly prayer meeting. This was 
followed by the establishing of a Sunday-school the fol- 
lowing year. It was the Catholic church, however, that 



planted the first church in Chicago. St. Mary's parish 
was started in May, 1833, and the first church built 
at what is now the southwest corner of Madison street 
and Wabash avenue. The next month the First Pres- 
byterian church was established, followed by the First 
Baptist in October of the same year. The pioneer 
leaders of these religious flocks were Father John Mary 
Irenseus St. Cyr, the Rev. Jeremiah Porter and the 
Rev. Allen B. Freeman. From this small beginning 
the great religious strength of Chicago has grown. The 
next year, in 1834, the First Methodist church was 
established and the first resident preacher installed. 

Other denominations were soon attracted to the 
growing young village at the lower end of Lake Michi- 
gan. In 1836 the Episcopalians, Universalists and Uni- 
tarians each established a church and installed resident 
clergymen. St. James was the pioneer Protestant Epis- 
copal parish. This goodly start sufficed for the next 
nine years and it was not until 1845 that other congre- 
gations were formed. In that year the few Jews living 
here organized a religious society. The German 
Lutherans established a church the same year and 
two years later the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran 
church was founded. In 1849 the Swedenborgians built 
their first house of worship and the Christian church 
followed during the next year. 

These different denominations fully met the religious 
requirements of early Chicago. There were many Con- 
gregationalists among the early Chicago settlers, but 
they for many years affiliated themselves with the Pres- 
byterians. It was not until 1851 that they established 
an independent church of their own denomination. The 
First Presbyterian church was founded by a Congrega- 
tionalist and most of its members were of the same 
faith. This Presbyterian tendency of the Congrega- 
tionalists continued until there was a division over the 
anti-slavery question. Congregationalism has been 
strongest in the New England and northern states and 



68 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



69 



they had no churches south of Mason and Dixon's 
line in the early days. On the other hand the Presby- 
terians were strong in the South. So the advocates 
of the anti-slavery movement fellowshipped with the 
slave owners reluctantly and as a relief organized the 
first church of their own denomination. The movement 
flourished for the next ten years as did the sentiment 
against the ownership of slaves, and since then has 
stood, like all other denominations upon its intrinsic 
merits as a branch of the general church. 

Such were the diverse beginnings of Chicago from 
an ecclesiastical point of view. It would be impracti- 




cable within the space of this chapter to follow, step 
by step, the church growth of this city, but having 
pointed out the pioneer stage of the different denomi- 
nations which gained a foothold in the early years of 
Chicago, it only remains to give some idea of the growth 
to which Chicago has now attained in its religious 
development. 

A stranger visiting Chicago is likely to be surprised 
at not seeing any churches in the central, or down-town, 
portions of the city. In the earlier days of Chicago 
churches in the business district were comparatively 
numerous. As the city grew, some of these were 
removed up-town, the better to accommodate the peo- 
ple. In the great fire of 1871 all that were left were 
swept away. The scattered, and for the time impover- 
ished, members found it necessary to rebuild elsewhere 
nearer their own new homes. Now, between the lake 
on the east and Halsted street on the west, and between 
Chicago avenue on the north and Twelfth street on the 
south, there are scarcely a dozen churches of all denomi- 
nations. 

The number of churches and missions owned by 
the various denominations and sects is constantly grow- 
ing. At the beginning of 1905 their strength was as 
follows : 



Denomination. 


Churches. 


Missions. 


Estimated 
Membership. 




10 




525 




72 


14 


22,000 


Christian 


22 


8 


2,8oo 




81 


14 


2I.OOO 


Christian Catholic 


9 




450 




6 




1,500 




4 




2OO 


Cumberland Presbyterian 


5 




900 




i 


I 


75 




48 


7 


10,500 




8 




2,500 




I 




900 




13 




9,200 




119 


23 


45,000 




27 




1,500 




6 


i 


1,200 




7 




900 


Greek 


2 




400 


Holland Christian Reformed 


5 




500 




9 




2,200 




37 




7,500 




147 


2 


40,000 


Methodist Protes'ant 


i 




IOO 




5 




5 2 5 




52 


12 


1,500 




15 


I 


2,300 




i 




150 


Catholic 


277 


49 


1,200,000 


Independent Polish Catholic 


6 




2,500 






24 


5,000 




5 




1,000 


United Presbyterian 


7 




1,000 




4 




500 






12 


I, 500 




9 


8 


2.OOO 











BEDFORD BUILDING. 



The number of churches and missions by no means 
represents the activities of the various religious socie- 
ties. Schools, convents, hospitals and other institu- 



TO 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



tions are included in the good work that is being done 
and is constantly on the increase. 

Every ordinarily live and enterprising church has, 
besides its Sunday-school, numerous associated educa- 
tional agencies. Moreover, many of the churches have 
their own parish schools. Nearly all the denominations 
have their own theological seminaries, and several of 
these are richly endowed and of national importance. 
One of these is the Chicago Theological Seminary (Con- 
gregational), on Ashland boulevard, at Union Park. 
The Presbyterians have their McCormick Theological 
Seminary, which the C. H. McCormick family founded 
and have done so much to enrich ; their Presbyterian 
Hospital and the Lake Forest University. The latter, 
though located a few miles north of the city, is in fact 
a Chicago Presbyterian institution. 

The Methodists have their great Northwestern Uni- 
versity, with its Garrett Biblical Institute, at Evanston. 
The Baptists have their University of Chicago, which 
already has property and endowment of about 
$10,000,000. Although many of the munificent gifts 
for its buildings and endowments have come from mem- 
bers of other religious organizations, the majority of its 
trustees must always be members of the Baptist church. 

It is moreover necessary in this connection to make 
mention of the strong denominational press of the 
several leading denominations. The Baptist Standard, 
of which Mr. Edward Goodman and the Rev. Dr. J. A. 



Smith were respectively publisher and editor for over 
forty years, still stands as one among the best period- 
icals of the denomination. The Congregational organ. 
The Advance, which was started in October, 1867, and 
has numbered among its editors such men as Dr. W. W. 
Patton, Gen. Charles H. Howard and Dr. Simeon Gil- 
bert, still keeps its lead as the representative paper of 
its denomination. The Interior is considered the lead- 
ing journal of the Presbyterian denomination in 
America. It was started through the influence of the 
late Cyrus H. McCormick two years after The Advance. 
Dr. \Y '. C. Gray has been its editor ever since 1871, and 
it may be said of him that he has few superiors in the 
line of editorial work in this or any other country. The 
Northwestern Christian Advocate, as the organ of the 
Methodist church, is also among the best publications 
of its kind. Dr. Arthur Edwards, the editor for over 
thirty years, has been one of the most able and popular 
men in the denomination. All these with the Living 
Church (Episcopal), the Catholic World and many other 
denominational journals, very ably represent the 
religious influences of the city. 

Taken as a whole, the churches of Chicago have 
from the first shared abundantly in the vigilant and out- 
pushing enterprise characteristic of Chicago. Their 
influence in many ways has not only penetrated and 
influenced the life of the city, but has gone out into 
all parts of the country tributary thereto. 




UNION PARK. 



CHAPTER XV. 



CHICAGO PARKS 




CHICAGO at the beginning of her sec- 
ond century is planning the greatest 
park system in the world. For its 
, fulfillment we have the assurance 
born of an energetic past and an 
awakened civic pride conscious of its 
obligation to the future. 

Starting with the present park 
area of 3,174 acres, this stupendous 
plan contemplates the bringing of 
more than ten times that amount of 
park lands into a great system of pleasure 
grounds, which will entirely girdle the Chicago of the 
future and put a playground almost at the door of every 
man, woman and child of the great metropolis of the 
West, be they rich or poor, dweller of mansion or tene- 
ment. 

The general plan of Chicago's great park extension 
plan can be divided into three distinct enterprises: 

First, the establishment of internal parks in the 
densely populated section within the area bounded by 
the present park system and Lake Michigan. This 
enterprise comprehends the erection of neighborhood- 
center buildings and the improvement of Grant Park 
to five times its present size. The present large parks 
and boulevards are considered sufficient for the terri- 
tory immediately contiguous to them, with the excep- 
tion of Lincoln Park, which is to have an extensive 
addition. 

Second, the establishment of an outer belt of forest 
and meadow tracts connected by parkways, which 
would encircle the future city of Chicago after its 
suburbs to the north, south and west had come into its 
corporate boundaries. 

Third, the boulevarding of the east edge of the 
city along the lake shore for its entire length, except 
where parks and boulevards already exist. 



When this system is a reality Chicago will take its 
place at the head of American cities in park area and 
applied facilities and for artistic attractiveness rival the 
beauties of Paris. 

The beginning of Chicago's park system was Dear- 
born Park, now the site of the Public Library, created 
in 1839. As the city grew for the next twenty years 
no systematic plan for parks was adopted. Small areas 
were set aside and improved, among them being Wash- 
ington Square on the North Side, Jefferson, Lhiioii, 
Vernon and Wicker parks on the West Side, and Ellis, 
Douglas Monument, Woodland and Groveland parks 
on the South Side. Of these none but Union Park 
comprised more than five acres. The latter contains 
but seventeen acres. In addition to these, thirty-four 
other small areas, many of them mere triangles at street 
intersections were created into parks. 

The real beginning of Chicago's great system pf 
parks and boulevards was in 1860, when an agitation 
was started urging the city to devote a tract of fifty- 
nine acres between Webster avenue and Menominee 
street, and Clark street and the lake for park purposes. 
This land had been secured by the city eight years 
before on account of emergencies arising from an epi- 
demic of cholera. The land was intended to be used 
as a cemetery, hospital grounds and quarantine sta- 
tion. The cost of the fifty-nine acres was $8,851.50. 
The cemetery was used as a place of burial until 1866, 
and the hospital was not torn down until 1870. The 
rapid growth of the North Side soon showed that it 
would be necessary to do away with a burial ground 
so near to the center of the city, and, because of the 
agitation of the citizens and physicians, the sale of burial 
lots was stopped in 1859. In the following year the 
city council passed an ordinance reserving the north 
section of the cemetery for park purposes. For several 
years little was done toward laying out a park, and it 



71 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



was left a stretch of sand waste, with scattering thickets 
of scrub oak and willows. A few walks were built and 
it began to be known as "the park." Definite action 
by the council took place in 1864, when an ordinance 
was passed declaring that this property should be set 
aside as a public park to be known as "Lake Park." 
The next year the name was changed to "Lincoln 
Park," and an appropriation of $10,000 made for its 
improvement. A landscape gardener was employed 
and drives and walks were laid out and trees planted. 
Less than half the appropriation was used up the first 
year. 

Slow progress was made until 1869 when the citi- 
zens of the North Side joined with the citizens of the 
South and West sides in securing the needed legislation 
at Springfield for establishing park districts and com- 
missions as separate taxing and governing bodies. 
These commissions proceeded in an orderly, systematic 
way to establish the present magnificent chain of con- 
nected parks, which has placed Chicago in the front 
rank of American cities in park facilities. This chain 
includes Lincoln Park on the North Side. Humboldt, 
Garfield and Douglas parks on the West Side and Wash- 
ington and Jackson parks on the South Side, with their 
connecting boulevards. Two more parks were recently 
added to this chain along Western Avenue boulevard, 
McKinley Park at Thirty-seventh street and Gage 
Park at Fifty-fifth street. 

The park area after the establishment of these parks 
in 1870 was 1,887 acres. In the next ten years it was 
increased to 2,000 acres and remained at that figure 
until 1900, when the great movement for the establish- 
ment of the most comprehensive park system in the 
world was started. As a result in a few years the area 
had grown to 3,174 acres, embracing eighty-four parks 
and the boulevards connecting them are thirty-four in 
number and fifty miles long. 

LINCOLN PARK. 

Lincoln Park as it is to-day was made possible by 
the passage of the first park act, February 8, 1869. This 
act appointed E. B. McCagg, John B. Turner, Andrew 
Nelson, Joseph Stockton and Jacob Rehm, commis- 
sioners of Lincoln Park. They were to serve for five 
years, or until their successors were selected by the 
judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County. This last 
provision of the law was subsequently changed so that 
commissioners are now appointed by the governor. The 
first board met with many obstacles. Law suits were 
instituted against them and they were harassed in many 
ways. They took in the cemetery grounds to the south 
of the original tract and all the bodies buried there 
were ordered removed and interred at various other 
cemeteries in the vicinity of the city. 



With its connecting boulevards Lincoln Park now 
embraces 409 acres. An increase of area is to be made 
to the north along the Lake Shore which will add 
several hundred acres and give it another mile of shore 
line in addition to its present four and a half miles of 
water front. One million dollars are available for this 
purpose. No other large park in the city is so advan- 
tageously situated and so easily reached. As a result it 
is the most popular playground in Chicago, and 
immense crowds enjoy its beautiful drives, walks, shady 
meadows and lawns, and picturesque lagoons. It con- 
tains a magnificent collection of statuary, the heroic 
figure of the martyred president from whom it received 
its name, and that of General Grant being the most 
striking. 

The horticultural features of Lincoln Park are espe- 
cially attractive. The old English garden is a most 
delightful place to loiter in on summer days, and its 
floral displays are unrivalled. The propagating houses 
are new and extensive, and its greenhouses, ferneries, 
and palmhouse can hardly be surpassed in this 
country. 

The pride and distinctive feature of Lincoln Park, 
however, is its "zoo." In the cages and enclosures are 
confined one of the best and most instructive collections 
of animals in America. There is a herd of buffaloes 
that has steadily increased until it has completely out- 
grown the five-acre range provided for it. All the great 
fauna and bird families of the globe are represented, 
and are the delight and wonder to armies of boys and 
girls, as well as the adult population of the entire city. 

The Lincoln Park board has $500,000 available for 
the purchase of small parks, and negotiations are now 
under way for their purchase. These will be equipped 
with neighborhood-center houses and made as attract- 
ive and beautiful as the means at hand permits. Unlike 
the other sections of the city, the North Side has its 
great park so located that it is accessible to the most 
crowded part of its territory, and its lake shore is not 
cut off as it is on the South Side by the Illinois Central 
tracks. 

THE SOUTH PARKS. 

The act for the appointing of the South Park com- 
missioners was passed by the legislature in February, 
1869, and on the 23d of the same month Governor 
Palmer named John M. Wilson, Chauncey Bowen, 
George W. Gage, L. B. Sidway and Paul Cornell, to 
take charge of carrying out the provisions of the law. 
They had large ideas as to what the parks of the South 
Side should be, and the magnificent stretches of Wash- 
ington and Jackson parks with their connecting boule- 
vard bear evidence of their foresight. An issue of 
$2,000,000 bonds was floated and with the proceeds 
about 1.500 acres of land were purchased. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



The first work of improvement was begun, on what 
is now Washington Park. Landscape architects were 
employed and plans for laying out the park submitted. 
During the next two years great progress was made 
until the great fire in 1871 caused a suspension of the 
work for about a year. In 1872, however, the public 
spirit of the South Side was aroused and a public move- 
ment for the improvement of the parks was begun. The 
commissioners were short of funds, and under the 
existing conditions hesitated about offering another 
bond issue. They called upon the citizens for assist- 
ance and the response was enthusiastic. Contributions 



were worked there in the course of the next year will 
never be forgotten, though the White City has van- 
ished, and all the magnificent structures except the 
crumbling art palace, now occupied as a temporary 
home by the Field Columbian Museum, have vanished. 
This structure and the German building were the only 
reminders of the World's Fair left in two years, and 
the park has been fully restored. 

No park in Chicago has such magnificent vistas as 
Jackson Park. Its driveways are laid out on magnifi- 
cent lines, and its stretches of meadow and lawns are 
highly artistic and restful. Against it cannot be brought 




GARFIELD PARK. 



were also solicited abroad, and plants and seeds in 
abundance came from the botanical gardens of Europe 
and Asia. Greenhouses were erected and the grounds 
plowed and fertilized. Lakes and lagoons were exca- 
vated, and before the close of the '705 1,057 acres had 
been improved in Washington and Jackson parks. By 
1884 all the floating debts of the parks had been paid, 
the special assessments for park purposes on the South 
Side, up to that time, amounting to $4,709,632. 

Jackson Park will always be remembered as the site 
of the Columbian Exposition. For this purpose the 
commissioners turned over 666 acres, including the 
stretch along the Midway Plaisance. The wonders that 



the criticism, that has been made against some of the 
other parks of Chicago, that it is overdeveloped. With 
a magnificent water front, its beauty is further enhanced 
by an extensive system of lagoons in the center of which 
is the "Wooded Island," where are still the quaint tea 
houses of the Japanese exhibit at the World's Fair. Its 
rose garden is a spot of surpassing beauty and interest. 
It has excellent golf links and many tennis courts. The 
total area of these parks and their boulevards is 1,500 
acres. 

Grant Park on the Lake Front is being enlarged to 
five times its present size, and will become the site of the 
Field Columbian Museum and the Crerar Librarv. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 




CROQUET GROUNDS GARFIELD PARK. 



For this and other improvements recent enactments 
by the legislature make $2,000.000 available to the 
South Park board. 

The South Park commissioners were the first to 
act under the statute of 1903, which gave them the 
authority to purchase sites for small internal parks, in 
the crowded residence districts. In many of the quarters 
a blade of green grass was a novelty. With the $1,000,- 
ooo immediately available they purchased fourteen 
parks, located as follows: Bessemer Park, Eighty- 
seventh and Lake Shore tracks in South Chicago ; 
Cornell Park, Fifty-first, Lincoln, Wood and Fiftieth 
streets; Davis Square, Hermitage, Marshfield, Forty- 
fourth and Forty-fifth streets ; Hamilton Park in Engle- 
wood, Seventy-second and the Rock Island tracks ; 
Hardin Square, Twenty-fifth and Wentworth avenue; 
Palmer Park, One hundred and eleventh street and 
Indiana avenue ; Russell Square, Eighty-third and 
Houston streets; Mark White Square, Twenty-ninth 
and Halsted streets; Armour Square, Thirtieth and 
Shields avenue; Marquette Park, Seventy-first and Cal- 
ifornia avenue; Ogden Park, Sixty-seventh and Centre 
avenue; Sherman Park, Garfield boulevard and Centre 
avenue ; Calumet Park, Ninety-fifth street and the lake 
in South Chicago, and an unnamed park at Forty- 
sixth and Stewart avenue. 

The commission had started out to provide simple 
parks, but the conditions showed that such places to be 



serviceable to the city where seventy per cent of the 
people live in contracted quarters, must be more than 
breathing places with flowers, grass, trees and perhaps 
a pond and fountain. So its was decided to equip them 
with gymnasia, libraries, baths, refectories, club rooms 
and halls for meetings and theatricals, making them a 
rallying place and center of interest and inspiration for 
the betterment of the condition of the people of the dis- 
trict. Following out this idea their improvement was 
begun. Each park is being equipped with a field house 
or neighborhood-center building. This contains a 
gymnasium for women and girls, provided with appara- 
tus, shower bath, plunge bath and lockers. A similar 
gymnasium is provided for men and boys. At the 
refectories wholesome foods are sold at first cost. Club 
rooms, where meetings of athletic clubs, sewing guilds 
and other organizations are held, and an assembly hall 
are also provided in each field house. These vary in 
size, in accordance with the neighborhood served, from 
a seating capacity of 1,000 to 3,000. 

These field houses are of artistic design and con- 
structed mainly of cement and concrete. 

THE WEST PARKS. 

The W r est Park system had its real beginning by the 
enactment of the legislature which established the parks 
of the two other great divisions of the city. The first 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



75 



board appointed in February, 1869, -was made up as 
follows : Charles C. P. Hoklen, Henry Greenebaum, 
George W. Stanford, Eben F. Runyan, Isaac R. Hitt. 
Clarke Lipe and David Cole. The new board was 
authorized to expend $400.000 for the purchase of land 
for a boulevard and park sites in the districts in which 
are now located Garfield, Douglas and Humboldt parks 
and their connecting boulevards. 

The great fire followed by the panic of 1873 were 
hardships the first board had to contend with, but they 
were all overcome successfully. The work progressed 
favorably until 1877 when a scandal, growing out of 
charges of mismanagement, brought about a reorgan- 
ization of the commission. Again in 1896 the West 
Park system received a hard blow by the defalcation 
of its treasurer, which left it clipped financially. This 
was met by remedial legislation at Springfield, and under 
new management the parks have made greater progress 
than ever before. The park board at this time also 
changed its attitude towards the city streets adjoining 
or running through park property by deciding to 
co-operate with the property owners in improving these 
thoroughfares, and not saddling the entire Cost on the 
abutting property owners. This has resulted in greatly 
improving these thoroughfares, and has attracted to 
them many handsome private residences, which had 



been kept away because of the unfavorable conditions 
governing their improvement. 

Garfield Park, the most highly improved of the 
larger parks, covers 188 acres, lying four miles directly 
west of the city hall. It was formerly known as Central 
Park, the name being changed in memory of President 
Garfield. Madison and Lake streets divide it into three 
parts, each of which has been distinctively developed. 
That portion north of Lake street is sparsely wooded 
with rolling, winding roadways and shallow brooks, in 
close imitation of New England farm lands. The area 
south of Madison street has been given over to an 
elaborate system of drives and promenades, twining 
about a massive marble band-stand, and splendidly 
equipped cycling and trotting courses. The central por- 
tion is ornately laid out, yet so closely has nature been 
followed that it is difficut for the visitor to detect in the 
winding lake, the sloping lawns and nodding trees any 
trace of the handiwork of those who have built a beau- 
tiful rural scene upon what was a stretch of level prairie. 

To the north of Garfield Park is Humboldt, and to 
the south Douglas Park, the three connected by the 
boulevard planned in 1869. Humboldt is the largest 
of the West Side parks, and contains 206 acres, while 
Douglas contains a few acres less than Garfield. 

Humboldt Park has a fine lake covering twenty- 
three acres, a new boathouse and its beauty is greatly 




VIEW WEST CHICAGO PARK. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



enhanced by lily ponds, magnificent driveways and 
walks. It has a thoroughly equipped hothouse and in 
connection with this is an extensive nursery containing 
thousands of trees and shrubs, embracing no less than 
1,200 distinct varieties. It is named after the great 
German naturalist, Alexander von Humboldt, and is 
bounded by Augusta street, Grand, Kedzie, California 
and North avenues. 

Douglas Park is named after Lincoln's great adver- 
sary. It is divided by Ogclen avenue, and much of the 
section lying to the south has been only reclaimed from 
its natural state during the past five or six years. By 



Avenue boulevard have recently been added to the 
magnificent chain of West Side parks, and are being 
rapidly improved. In addition to this chain of greater 
park areas there are six smaller breathing spots, which 
have been turned over from time to time to the West 
Park commissioners. These are Union, Jefferson, 
Vernon, Wicker, Campbell and Shedd's parks. Twelve 
boulevards are now included in the West Park system. 
They are Humboldt, Central, Douglas. Southwest, 
Washington, Jackson, Ashland, Twelfth street, Ogden, 
Central Park, Homan and Oakley. All the boulevards, 
with the exception of Southwest are lighted with elec- 




co-operating with the drainage board the park commis- 
sioners secured many improvements at a low cost. An 
immense quantity of dirt needed for filling in the park 
and the Southwest boulevard was secured from the 
canal commissioners, and they were in turn granted 
concessions in the construction of the bridge over the 
canal at the boulevard crossing. In this way the park 
was improved in less than a year to an extent that would 
have taken a decade to accomplish under ordinary con- 
ditions. The lake at Douglas Park is over twenty-six 
acres in extent, and is the largest on the West Side. 
Lily ponds, bridges, conservatories and other improve- 
ments have made Douglas Park one of the most attract- 
ive pleasure grounds in the city. 

McKinley Park and Gage Park, the one at Thirty- 
seventh and the other at Fifty-fifth street and Western 



tricity, which is furnished by the lighting plant of the 
West Park system. 

The West Park board has done nothing towards 
establishing small neighborhood parks as yet. It has 
$1,000,000 available for this purpose, but is waiting 
for certain questions as to the legality of the bond issue 
to be settled before issuing the securities. 

THE MUNICIPAL PLAYGROUNDS. 

The beginning of the present movement in Chicago 
to enlarge its park facilities first took form in 1900, when 
the city council appointed a commission known as the 
Special Park commission, to investigate and report on 
the conditions in the congested districts of the city, as 
to what could be done to provide a remedy. In the few 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



years of its existence this commission has done much 
practical work in establishing playgrounds in addition 
to bringing prominently to the attention of the public, 
the need of Chicago at once engaging in an extensive 
scheme to enlarge its park area on a plan consistent 
with its present size, and with a view to providing 
facilities for its great future growth. In this work the 
Special Park commission has performed a service of 
incalculable value. The nine municipal playgrounds 
established and maintained by the city are located as 
follows : 

Webster ground, Thirty-third street and Wentworth 
avenue ; Moseley ground, Twenty-fourth street and 
Wabash avenue; Holden ground, Bonfield and Thirty- 
first street; McLaren ground, West Polk street near 
Laflin street ; Jones ground, Plymouth place, south of 
Harrison street ; Orleans ground, Orleans street and 
Institute place; Northwestern Elevated Railway 
ground, Larrabee and Alaska streets; Adams ground, 
Seminary avenue near Center street; Lincoln ground, 
West Chicago avenue near Robey street. Some of 
these grounds are owned by the city, while others are 
donated for this use by individuals. The city spends 
annually $20,000 a year to maintain them. They are 
equipped with swings and other outdoor apparatus for 
gymnastic exercises, and are in charge of a competent 
athletic director, assisted by a policeman, and in the 
summer by a trained kindergartner. A superintendent, 
who donates his services to the cause has a general 
direction of the playgrounds. The children of the 
neighborhoods in which these playgrounds are located 
are greatly benefited and kept from the streets. As a 
practical work in improving the citizenship of the com- 
ing generation no work undertaken by a municipality 
is productive of greater results than this. It offers a 
field for public spirited citizens of means to do a lasting 
good by donating grounds for these bright spots in the 
lives of the children of the tenements. 

CHICAGO'S GREAT PARKS OF THE FUTURE. 

Thirty-seven thousand acres of parks is the dream 
of Chicago's greatness for the future. The Metropolitan 
Park report submitted by the Special Park commission 
outlines this stupendous undertaking. Henry G. Fore- 
man, former president of the South Park commissioners 
and of the Outer Belt Park commission thus takes a 
look into the future: "Grant Park is the axis of the 
inner and outer belts of parks and boulevards. In it are 
the buildings of the Art Institute, Crerar Library, and 
Field Columbian Museum. From Grant Park as the hub, 
the system expands in the form of half a wheel. The 
diagonal city streets are the spokes; the inner belt of 
parks and boulevards is the support of the spokes; the 



outer belt of preserves and parkways is the tire ; and the 
inner and outer systems are merged into the broad 
shore boulevard. All parts of the great recreation area 
are accessible quickly by transportation lines at low 
fares. When this system is a reality, Chicago will take 
its place at the head of American cities in park area and 
applied facilities. It will then be the Paris of America 
for artistic attractiveness." 

The sites for this outer park belt as outlined by the 
report of the special commission follow : 

i. A three-eighths mile strip along the north line 
of Cook County from Lake Michigan to the Skokee, 
an ancient back bay now a marsh in springtime and prai- 
rie in summer, thence south and west embracing all of 
the Skokee within Cook County for a distance of about 
sixteen miles, terminating in the Peterson woods at 
Bowmanville and covering an area of 8,320 acres. 

2. A strip along the Evanston drainage canal 
through the northeast section of the city to the lake. 
This strip might be widened in certain places to make 
beautiful residence parks with lagoons in the center. 

3. By country drive along the north county line 
from the Skokee to the Desplaines river; thence south 
through Wheeling, Desplaines, Franklin Park, River 
Forest and Riverside to the Drainage Canal, a distance 
of twenty-five miles, covering an area of 8,800 acres. 

4. A strip running west along Salt Creek from 
Riverside to Western Springs, thence south along Flag 
Creek, or the high ground one mile east, to Willow 
Springs. 

5. The highlands and forest at Mt. Forest and 
Willow Springs, the north half mile of the hills of Palos, 
and the intervening Sag Valley, are recommended for 
a great forest reserve and city camping ground. There 
are 7,360 acres in this tract, and it differs from the 
others in that it is not long and narrow, but is nearer 
an oval in shape. 

6. A parkway along the proposed South Chicago 
Drainage Canal from the main canal to Blue Island. 
Thence along the Calumet river to Lake Calumet, and 
all around the latter, including about 1,500 acres south 
of the lake ; making a park of nearly 3,000 acres of land 
and as much more of water in the midst of one of the 
greatest manufacturing centers in the world. 

7. The Hyde Park Reefs in the lake form a menace 
to navigation and it is proposed to cover them with 
spoil from the drainage canal banks or from subways, 
so as to make island parks. Similar treatment should 
be given the submerged land along the lake shore from 
Jackson Park to Grant Park. The Illinois Central can- 
not be moved, but the shore can be and thus restore it 
and the lake to the people and preserve and embellish 
our best known "natural feature" the lake for 
posterity. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



CHICAGO'S NEWSPAPERS. 




HE first newspaper printed in Chi- 
cago bears the date of Tuesday, 
November 26, 1833. It was called 
the Chicago Democrat and had for 
its motto Franklin's splendid apho- 
rism, "Where Liberty Dwells, 
There Is My Country." The pio- 
neer journalist of the city was John 
Calhoun, who came west for the 
purpose of starting a paper in this 
village. He was a sturdy admirer of Andrew Jackson. 
Having the field all to himself, his paper was the 
official organ of the town. His monopoly was not 
long enjoyed. In the summer of 1835 a Whig 
paper, the American, was established by F. O. Davis. 
Neither of these newspapers' founders had any very 
considerable career in the profession. The first citizen of 
Chicago to make himself a power in journalism was 
John Wentworth, one of the most unique characters in 
the early history of the city. He came here fresh from 
Dartmouth College, and soon bought out Mr. Calhoun. 
His original intention was to be a lawyer, but he found 
journalism suited to his taste. He was an ardent Demo- 
crat, with an aptitude for politics. As a writer, he had 
a biting wit, pungent personal paragraphs being his 
forte. For a long time he had associated with him 
Joseph K. C. Forrest, also a pungent writer, but a man 
of varied gifts, writing fluently and often brilliantly on 
all current topics. The Democrat became a morning 
daily just before the presidential campaign of 1840. It 
continued in existence and under Mr. Wentworth's con- 
trol until its discontinuance in 1861, going out of exis- 
tence just as the era of newspaper prosperity was about 
to begin. The name Democrat was used to the end, but 
with the organization of the Republican party Mr. 
Wentworth espoused the Republican cause. 



The American, and a little later the Express, had 
each a short and inconsequent existence, but the Chi- 
cago Daily Journal, called later the Evening Journal, 
which was started April 22, 1844, still lives. It was 
really, but not nominally, started by Thurlow Weed 
and a small coterie of close friends of William H. Seward 
for the unavowed purpose of promoting the presidential 
ambition of that great statesman. Mr. Richard L. Wil- 
son, who as a young man was well known to Mr. Weed, 
became its editor. He was often, and deservedly, called 
the Prentice of the Northwest. His paragraphs were 
models of keen wit. Between Wentworth and Wilson 
was kept up a runnning fire of lampoonry. There was 
no real malice in their warfare. Their sharp thrusts 
contributed much to the enjoyment of the community. 
Mr. W r ilson died in 1850, when his brother, Charles L. 
Wilson, who had been associated with him for several 
years succeeded to the editorship, which he retained 
until his death, more than twenty years later. The 
Journal remained true to Seward, even though Mr. Wil- 
son was a warm personal friend of Abraham Lincoln. 
Mr. Lincoln's friendship for the editor was, however, 
unshaken. The Journal was a very influential and prof- 
itable newspaper so long as it remained Republican in 
politics. The managing editor for many years, Andrew 
Shuman, was elected lieutenant-governor in 1876 in 
recognition of the service rendered to the party by the 
Evening and \Veekly Journal. The Journal continued 
under the control of the Wilson family until the year 
1895, when John R. Wilson, a nephew of the founder of 
the paper, sold the controlling interest to James E. 
Scripps and others of Detroit. Mr. Wilson, at the time 
he sold, had been in control of the Journal for several 
years and had continued to conduct it as a Republican 
newspaper. The new purchasers, however, at once 
changed it into an independent paper of a sensational 
character. The change lost it many of its old subscrib- 



78 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



ers, but eventually largely increased its subscription list. 
The management continued in control of the Journal 
with varying success, until the summer of 1904, when 
its control was purchased by John Eastman, a veteran 
Chicago newspaper man. His long experience in all 
departments of active newspaper work in Chicago and 
New York has been of great advantage in reviving the 
paper's business and editorial prestige. 

Numerous newspapers of a mushroom growth 
sprang up in the forties, some of them dailies, but 
only two gained a permanent foothold, the Chicago 
Daily Tribune and the Staats Zeitung. The first number 
of the Tribune was issued July 10, 1847. To Mr. For- 
rest, so long the able assistant of Mr. Wentworth, 
belongs the honor of being the most prominent of its 
founders, but his connection with it was brief. Many 
changes were made in a few years. In 1853 Mr. Joseph 
Medill came to Chicago from Cleveland, and became 
part owner of the paper and one of its editors. Soon 
after Dr. C. H. Ray and William Bross became asso- 
ciated with him, and for some years those three eminent 
journalists were co-editors, with neither paramount in 
authority. Dr. Ray was an accomplished and brilliant 
writer, elegant in diction and ardent in temperament. 
The great triumvirate worked together harmoniously, 
albeit each man was of pronounced individuality. With 
them was associated as publishers Mr. Alfred Cowles. 
All four except Dr. Ray, continued their connection 
with the paper until death, and for nearly a quarter of a 
century Mr. Medill was editor-in-chief, and enjoyed the 
distinction of being the dean of Chicago newspaper 
men. At his death, early in 1899, he was succeeded by 
Robert W. Patterson, long the managing editor of 
the paper. 

The Staats Zeitung was started in 1848, and was the 
first Chicago newspaper of importance printed in the 
German language. The first editor to achieve fame was 
Captain George Schneider, who came to Chicago from 
St. Louis in the summer of 1851 to assume the editor- 
ship. He made the Staats Zeitung a daily of great 
power. Being a strong advocate of freedom in all its 
breadth of meaning, Captain Schneider was one of the 
founders of the Republican party. During the Know- 
Nothing craze he rendered great service to the country, 
saving the Republican party from alliance with it. He 
retired from the work on the Staats Zeitung to accept 
a lucrative position under President Lincoln. He was 
succeeded by two strong men, A. C. Hesing, as pub- 
lisher, and Herman Raster as editor. With Mr. Raster 
to wield the pen and Mr. Hesing "to do politics," the 
paper was for about ten years one of the greatest 
powers in Republican politics in the West. They broke 
from the party in 1876. and afterwards the paper was 
independent in politics. Being published in the German 
language it suffered from the fact that American born 



Germans naturally drift away from the language, both 
spoken and written. 

Washington Hesing succeeded to the property at 
the death of his father. He was prominent in Demo- 
cratic politics, and was postmaster and independent 
candidate for mayor before his death. After his death 
the Staats Zeitung property gradually declined until a 
few years go it was absorbed by the Freie Presse. 
While it is published under his own name as the morning 
edition of the Freie Presse, it has lost much of its old 
individuality. Both papers are under the control of 
Richard Michaelis, as the head of the Illinois Publishing 
Company. 

The next important newspaper of Chicago in chron- 
ological order was the Daily Times, founded in 1854. 
From the beginning it was strongly Democratic in 
politics. Four years later another Democratic morning 
daily was started, called the Herald. The Times was a 
Douglas organ, the Herald a Buchanan organ. Both 
ran until 1860, when Cyrus H. McCormick, proprietor 
of the Herald, bought the Times and merged them 
under the name of the Herald-Times, the intention being 
to drop the latter name. The next year, however, Wil- 
bur F. Storey bought out McCormick, and, not carry- 
ing out the intention of the former proprietor, dropped 
the Herald and retained the name of the Times. Under 
the editorship and management of Mr. Storey the Chi- 
cago Times entered upon a great career as a newspaper. 
Mr. Storey was a strong and daring character, and 
devoted himself to building up the Times with a reck- 
less disregard for morals and religion. He had a genius 
for newspaper work, and with enterprise unprecedented 
at that time used the telegaph to collect news from 
all portions of the country, especially those portions 
tributary to Chicago. Sensational and salacious matter 
was given special prominence and the paper increased 
rapidly in circulation and held an important place until 
the failure of Mr. Storey's mind and his eventual 
decease. After that it had an uncertain life, appearing 
a great deal in the courts, where various people were 
trying to get possession of what remained of it. It lived 
a sickly life, however, until about the close of 1894, when 
it suspended publication and became a part of the Her- 
ald, under the name of the Times-Herald. 

The Chicago Daily Herald was started in 1881 by 
Frank W. Palmer and some other Republican politi- 
cians, together with a few aspiring young journalists, 
with James W. Scott as publisher. It had a trying sort 
of existence for a few years until John R. Walsh joined 
with Martin J. Russell and James W. Scott, purchased 
it and put it on its feet. Mr. Russell was the editor and 
Mr. Scott the publisher. It proved a great success. 
Typographically it was the handsomest paper printed in 
Chicago, if not in the United States. It grew rapidly in 
favor as an independent Democratic paper, and event- 



80 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



ually took position as the leading organ of the party. 
Late in 1894, Mr. Russell having some time before 
ceased his connection with the paper, Mr. Scott and a 
syndicate of gentlemen purchased Mr. Walsh's interest, 
at the same time purchasing what remained of the Chi- 
cago Times, and consolidated the two papers as the 
Times-Herald. The new parties that came into the deal 
were led to do so by their confidence in Mr. Scott's 



ffllS 




MARQUETTE BUILDING. 



ability as a publisher and manager. That gentleman, 
however, very suddenly died in April, 1895, before he 
had secured any of the fruits of his great work. The 
Evening Post, an afternoon paper that had been started 
by the Herald and published as an afternoon edition, 
was also a part of the Times-Herald property. On the 
death of Mr. Scott both papers were sold to H. H. 
Kohlsaat, who at once changed the papers from Demo- 
cratic organs to independent papers 
with Republican leanings. This was 
in 1894. Mr. Kohlsaat started under 
the most auspicious circumstances to 
manage these great properties, but 
his lack of training in the newspaper 
business soon became manifest in the 
guidance of the Herald and Post. He 
was compelled to relinquish his control 
of the Post several years ago and in 
1903 practically ceased to be a factor 
in the management of the Times- 
Herald. A consolidation of the 
Record and the Times-Herald was 
brought about in the spring of 1901 
as a means of saving the Herald and 
also conserving a large financial inter- 
est that Victor Lawson, publisher of 
the Record, had secured in the Times- 
Herald property. Frank B. Noyes, of 
Washington, later became interested 
and assumed control of the property, 
Mr. Kohlsaat retiring from an active 
participation in its management. 

The Inter Ocean was the first 
daily newspaper born in Chicago after 
the great fire of 1871. The first num- 
ber was published March 25, 1872. 
J. Young Scammon one of the pio- 
neers of Chicago was the founder. 
As a lawyer, banker and philanthro- 
pist he had stood at the forefront 
almost ever since Chicago had a name. 
He had had something to do with 
the founding of more than one of the 
pioneer papers of the city, but the 
Inter Ocean was his individual enter- 
prise, at least for the first few years of 
its existence. It was radically Repub- 
lican from the beginning. The Chi- 
cago Tribune, which was the leading 
Republican newspaper of the North- 
west having bolted the nomination of 
General Grant in 1872, gave great 
opportunity for the Inter Ocean to 
secure a strong hold on the party 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



81 



throughout the northwest country, and being ably 
edited it did much toward supplanting the 
Tribune in Republican households. In 1875 Mr. 
Scammon retired altogether from any connection with 
The Inter Ocean, and a new company with William 
Penn Nixon as editor and manager, took possession 
of the property. Mr. Nixon continued from that time 
as editor-in-chief and general manager of the paper 
until 1897, when a controlling interest was purchased by 
Charles T. Yerkes. The paper continued, as it had been 
for twenty-five years, the ablest and most aggressive 
exponent of Republican principles west of the Alleghany 
mountains. After the purchase by Mr. Yerkes, 
George W. Hinman of New York, succeeded Mr. Nixon 
as editor-in-chief. Under his editorship the paper 
showed increased vigor and aggressiveness and attracted 
wide attention. In January, 1898, Mr. Nixon was 
appointed collector of customs by President McKinley, 
but continued as publisher of the Inter Ocean until 1902 
or 1903, when the control of the paper was acquired 
by Mr. Hinman. Under Mr. Hinman's personal con- 
trol the Inter Ocean has been a power in the political 
andXcivic activities of the city. 

The weekly edition of the Inter Ocean secured the 
widest circulation of any political and secular paper 
published west of the Allegheny mountains. It is the 
boast on its publishers that it has subscribers in every 

W 

state and'territory of the Union and many foreign coun- 
tries. It is especially valuable as an advocate of Repub- 
lican principles, and probably exercises a wider influ- 
ence in states composing the northern portions of the 
Mississippi and Missouri valleys than any other half 
dozen publications. Its popularity as a family paper 
added greatly to its influence politically. 

The first one-cent paper published in Chicago was 
the Chicago Daily News. The first number was issued 
on Christmas Day, 1875. At first it was a paper devoted 
almost entirely to local matters, being entirely outside 
of the Associated Press, and being unable to spend much 
money in securing telegraphic service. In spite of all 
this, as a cheap evening paper, it grew in favor and early 
fell into the hands of Victor F. Lawson and Melville E. 
Stone. These men pushed it forward with great skill 
and energy, and by purchasing the franchise of the Daily 
Evening Post, which failed and was sold in 1878, it 
became a member of the Associated Press. From that 
day its forward step was rapid and until it became the 
greatest money-making publication west of New York. 
On March 21, 1881, a morning edition of the Daily 
News was first published. On March 13, 1893, the name 
of the morning edition was changed to the Chicago 
Record. The Lawson papers have always been of the 
class called independent, and support such policies and 
men as best please the tastes or serve the interests of 



their proprietor. The Record was consolidated with 
the Times-Herald in 1901. 

When Mr. Kohlsaat purchased the Times-Herald 
and made it an independent newspaper it left the Demo- 
cratic party without any newspaper to advocate its 
principles. To fill this want Martin J. Russell, former 
editor of the Herald, and H. W. Seymour, at one time 
managing editor of the Daily Times, with the aid and 
assistance of a prominent capitalist, started the Chicago 
Chronicle. From the beginning it was ably edited and 
grew in favor as a straight Democratic organ. It 
declined to follow the party in 1896 and headed the bolt 
of the Gold Democrats. While continuing radically 
Democratic, its chief characteristics are great independ- 
ence in action and in the advocacy both of men and 
principles. John R. Walsh has been the virtual owner 
of the Chronicle from the beginning and his pronounced 
antagonism to the radical wing of the Democratic party 
finally resulted in 1904 in a complete change in the polit- 
ical policy of the paper, it coming out as an avowed 
Republican organ. 

W. R. Hearst is the last publisher who has entered 
the daily newspaper field. In 1900 he started the Chi- 
cago American, an afternoon paper, along the same 
lines as his San Francisco and New York publications. 
Highly sensational in tone and make-up his paper was 
forced to the front with lavish expenditure of money 
and soon had a large circulation. A morning edition 
of the American was started which also achieved suc- 
cess from the beginning. The morning edition is called 
The Examiner. The papers are exponents of the 
radical wing of the Democratic party, of which Mr. 
Hearst is one of the acknowledged leaders. He has 
used his various newspapers to expound his own per- 
sonal views and advance his own political ambitions. 

In addition to the above there are several daily papers 
published in foreign languages. Among these the most 
important are : The Freie Presse, published both morn- 
ing and evening in the German language. Richard 
Michaelis is editor and proprietor. It was at one time 
Republican, but later supported the Democratic party. 
The Abendpost, also German, is published as an evening 
paper. Fritz Glogaur is editor and general manager. 
The paper is conducted with considerable vigor and 
with German-Americans has considerable influence. 
The Skandinaven, John Anderson, editor and pro- 
prietor; is the most influential newspaper among Norwe- 
gians and their descendants of any publication in the 
West or Northwest. It is independent in its tenden- 
cies, but is generally with the Republican party. It 
is published daily and weekly. 

The religious newspapers of Chicago are probably 
second to those of no other city of the nation. They are 
numerous and many of them are prosperous. Outside 
of the daily papers there are about 600 weekly papers 



82 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



political, religious, agricultural, sporting, mercantile, 
manufacturing, banking and social published in Chi- 
cago. A number of these are published in foreign lan- 
guages. All classes of newspapers are large contribu- 
tors to the revenues of the postoffice. The total news- 
paper and periodical mail sent out from Chicago for the 
fiscal year ending June 30, 1904, was 61,402,007 pounds, 
for which the amount of postage paid .was $614,020. 

Chicago has made a number of attempts at high- 
grade literary magazines, but as yet only one or two of 
them have met with more than ordinary success. While 
it has proved a great center for success in daily and 
weekly newspapers of various classes, those of an exclu- 
sively literary character have generally been short-lived. 
This is probably owing to the fact that literature is not 
of a local character and the difference between the 
delivery in Chicago of a magazine published in New 
York or Boston and one published in Chicago .is so 
small as to give no advantage whatever to a home pub- 
lication. The older publications of the East, having 
been long established, consequently have the great 
advantage over new publications in public favor. 

THE INTER OCEAN. 

The Inter Ocean may be said to have been born 
of the great fire of October, 1871. When the first num- 
ber was issued, March 25, 1872, the remnants of the 
great fire were still smoking and smoldering and the 
ashes floated everywhere on the breeze. The paper 
received, too, its Associated Press franchise, which gave 
it actual life and possibility of living, by purchase from 
the old Republican, which, after a varying struggle, 
received its death-blow in the great disaster. The 
Republican was started in 1865, and, notwithstanding 
it had two of the greatest newspaper editors of the 
times successively at its head, it had a struggling and 
unsatisfactory existence, which resulted in a condition 
in 1871 that only a good, sound body-blow was neces- 
sary to end its troubles. 

After the fire the stockholders and creditors were 
glad to receive a paltry $10,000 for the Associated Press 
franchise, which apparently was the only asset the paper 
had left. J. Young Scammon, well known throughout 
the state as lawyer, banker and capitalist, purchased 
this franchise and started The Inter Ocean. 

The Inter Ocean, from the beginning, was radi- 
cally Republican and earnestly American in all things. 
The Chicago Tribune, which for years had been the 
leading Republican paper of Chicago and the North- 
west, in 1872 bolted the nomination of General Grant, 
thus leaving a wide field open to The Inter Ocean. This 
great advantage was seized upon, and before the cam- 
paign of 1872 was over The Inter Ocean had largely 
supplanted the Tribune in Republican households. The 



Weekly Inter Ocean gained an enormous circulation, 
especially throughout the Northwest. It was earnest, 
full of ideas and aggressively for Republican principles, 
which greatly pleased the sturdy Republicans of the 
country. In 1873 Frank W. Palmer, then a Representa- 
tive in Congress from the Des Moines (Iowa) district, 
purchased an interest in the paper and became the 
editor. Mr. Palmer was a popular gentleman, with a 
wide acquaintance, and added to the popularity of the 
paper. The financial troubles of 1873 were disastrous, 
however, to the fortunes of Mr. Scammon, and the 
troubles of The Inter Ocean began, coming to a crisis 
in the fall of 1875, when the old Inter Ocean Company, 
on account of an accumulation of debts, failed, and the 
paper was sold to a new corporation called the Inter 
Ocean Publishing Company and came under the con- 
trol of William Penn Nixon and his brother, Dr. O. W. 
Nixon. There were three more years of struggle, when, 
if it had not been for the income of the weekly edition, 
which then had a circulation of 150,000 copies, the 
daily must have failed, but, with the advent of new 
perfecting presses and other labor-saving machinery, 
it was brought safely through in good condition to 
catch the better times that came in the early eighties. 

In all its troubles The Inter Ocean never lost its 
place as the leading Republican paper of the West. By 
both leaders and the rank and file of the party it was 
looked to as a guide and a mouthpiece. One of the 
most marked features showing the influence of the 
paper was in the change of sentiment on the question 
of protection in the Northwest. The Chicago Tribune, 
the St. Paul Pioneer-Press and the St. Louis Globe- 
Democrat, three leading papers of the Northwest, had 
for years been teaching tariff reform and tariff for 
revenue until almost the entire Republican press of the 
Northwest was more or less tainted with their heresies. 
At the very beginning of its existence The Inter Ocean 
combated these heresies and became the untiring advo- 
cate of the protective policy. As a result, within ten 
years, there was a complete change in the tone of the 
press of the Northwest. 

The first office of The Inter Ocean was on Congress 
street, between Wabash and Michigan avenues, where 
the Auditorium now stands. In 1873 it moved to Lake 
street, near the corner of Clark. In 1880 it removed 
from Lake street to 85 Madison street, between State 
and Dearborn. From the time of its establishment at 
the last-mentioned place it became a prosperous institu- 
tion, although it still lacked the abundant capital to 
push forward so great an enterprise. 

On May, 1890, The Inter Ocean removed to the 
corner of Madison and Dearborn streets and in May, 
1900, to the new building on Monroe street, specially 
constructed for it. With the exception of a period of 
three years in the early nineties, Mr. Nixon was in 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



83 



absolute control of the paper as 
general manager and editor, from 
1875 to 1897. 

In May, 1891, Mr. Nixon sold 
a larg-e block of stock to Mr. H. 
H. Kohlsaat, and the latter 
became publisher of The Inter 
Ocean and manager of its finances 
and business. May 3, 1894, Mr. 
Nixon repurchased the stock held 
by Mr. Kohlsaat and was in com- 
plete control of the paper until 
July, 1897, when a majority of the 
stock was sold to Mr. Charles T. 
Yerkes. The change in owner- 
ship was announced November 
1 8, when Mr. George Wheeler 
Hinman of the New York Sim 
became editor-in-chief and mana- 
ger of the paper. Under the new 
arrangement Mr. Nixon continued 
as publisher. In announcing the 
change in ownership, on Novem- 
ber 21, 1897, The Inter Ocean 
said: 

"The Inter Ocean appears 
to-day for the first time under the 
active management of its new 
owners, and it will endeavor to 
maintain the high standard long 
adhered to in its columns. 

"It will give special attention 
to literature, politics, art, sciences 
and the welfare of this city. It 
will oppose the Chicago news- 
paper trust, whose evils it recog- 
nizes and whose abuses it has experienced. It will 
advocate giving to all newspapers who desire it Asso- 
ciated Press news and any other news which it will be 
desirable for the people to have. 

"It will take special care that this news shall be 
truthful ; that facts only beneficial to the people shall 
be printed, and it will oppose and expose false and 
sensational articles, which are used so generally nowa- 
days for catch-penny purposes. 

"It will combat falsehood and hypocrisy wherever 
they are exposed, whether in a newspaper, a public 
office, or a pulpit. It will critcise public officials fear- 
lessly and fairly, but the sancity of the home will be 
recognized and private character will be respected. 

"It will be loyal to the principles of the Republican 
party and will fight to retain them intact against the 
assaults of socialists, anarchists and their allies in the 
Democratic party. It will defend at all times the sys- 




REAPER BLOCK. 

tern of protection and the gold standard, the bulwarks 
of our prosperity. It will be an unwavering advocate 
of a strong, though pacific, foreign policy, and will 
never surrender a point of national honor. 

"It will assist in building up Chicago and in show- 
ing to the world the advantages of this coming metrop- 
olis of the continent. Its columns will not be in the 
service of any man or party who would use them for 
selfish ends, and its policy will be straightforward, inde- 
pendent and courageous, without fear or favor." 

Carrying out its own idea in regard to the news 
business, the management of The Inter Ocean sought 
every available source for the collection of news. The 
only prominent newspaper in the country that was not 
in the power of the Associated Press was the New York 
Sun. The managers of the Associated Press had tried 
in every way to induce the management of the Sun to 
join it. When, however, all their importunities failed, 



SI 



THE CITY OP CHICAGO. 



they pronounced the Sun "antagonistic" and forbade 
any of its members from buying of or selling to the 
Sun. The foreign news at that period was very import- 
ant. To supplement the Associated Press news the 
management of The Inter Ocean made arrangements 
for the purchase of the foreign news of the Sun. As 
soon as they learned of this action there was a great 
hubbub among the officials and managers of the Asso- 
ciated Press and The Inter Ocean was warned to cease 
having any dealings with the Sun and to publish no 
more of that paper's foreign or domestic news, threat- 
ening it with deprivation of the Associated Press 



Anyone at all familiar with newspaper work will know 
that at that time of night and at that time of week was 
he very worst period at which such acion could have 
been taken. But for the fact that several wires from the 
New York Sun office were placed at the service of the 
paper, The Inter Ocean, on Sunday morning, must have 
made a poor showing to its readers. As it was, how- 
ever, the absence of the Associated Press news was 
hardly missed. 

At that time an Associated Press franchise in Chi- 
cago was considered worth at least $100,000, and it is 
doubtful if one could have been purchased at double that 




DOUGLAS PARK GREENHOUSE. 



news and expulsion from the association. To pre- 
vent this, The Inter Ocean began a suit to enjoin the 
Associated Press from carrying out its intention to cut 
off The Inter Ocean's news service. The case was fully 
argued before Judge Waterman of the Circuit Court. 
While he refused to grant the injunction, he pronounced 
the By-Law under which the officers of the Associated 
Press took this action illegal and the contract based 
upon it void. This decision was rendered Friday, 
March 4, and, though notice of appeal was given, the 
Associated Press, without any notice or warning, at 
midnight, Saturday, March 5, 1898, suddenly and unex- 
pectedly stopped serving news to The Inter Ocean. 



sum. It was thought by many, both inside and outside 
the Associated Press, that no newspaper could live with- 
out that service, and, in fact, had not The Inter Ocean 
had the money to buy and the energy and determination 
to collect the news, the action of the Associated Press 
management would have proved disastrous. As it was, 
in alliance with the New York Sun, it built up a news 
service for itself different from that published by the 
other Chicago newspapers, and by many of the best 
judges considered very superior to any of them. 

Recurring to the suit, the Appellate Court affirmed 
the judgment of the court below. The case was then 
taken to the Supreme Court of the state, and after nearly 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



85 



two years from the time of the beginning of the first 
suit, the judges of the Supreme Court sent down a 
unanimous decision, which sustained every position of 
The Inter Ocean, declaring the By-Law under which 
officers of the Associated Press acted illegal and the 
contracts between the Associated Press and its members 
void. It further decided that the Associated Press was 
a common carrier of news and must deliver the goods 
without partiality to all newspapers that desired it and 
would pay for it. This decision was like a thunderbolt 
in the camp of the trust newspapers, and as it affected 
nearly all the important newspapers of the country, the 
attention of the whole world was called to this triumph 
of The Inter Ocean a triumph, in fact, of a single 
newspaper against an organization composed of all the 
other papers of the country. 

This decision, coming so closely on the verdict of 
"Not guilty" in the case of Mr. Hinman, editor of The 
Inter Ocean, who was charged by Mr. Kohlsaat, editor 
of the Times-Herald, with criminal libel on him 
(Kohlsaat) gave a prestige to The Inter Ocean before 
the people that it had never before enjoyed. In that 
case, like the case of the Associated Press, all the trust 
newspapers had combined to aid Mr. Kohlsaat in secur- 
ing the conviction of Mr. Hinman, and his defeat was 
a practical verdict against them. The outcome of the 
controversy between The Inter Ocean and the Asso- 
ciated Press was the reorganization of the latter and the 
payment under decision of arbitrators of $40,000 to 
The Inter Ocean. 

Meantime The Inter Ocean aggressively pursued 
the way marked out, and added to its fame as a leader 
in American thought. Always Republican and always 
American, it led in the movement for national expan- 
sion, and proved itself an able and forceful defender of 
the administration of President McKinley during the 
troublesome times of the Spanish war and the agita- 
tion over the new questions resulting from that war. 
Whether it was the crushing of the rebellion in the Phil- 
ippines, the acceptance of Porto Rico at the hands of 
her people, the settlement of the troubles in Cuba, or 
defense of the conduct of the war, The Inter Ocean 
stood by the administration, fighting its battles in the 
name of the American people. When a conspiracy 
was formed to disgrace Secretary of War Alger and 
smirch the administration on account of the conduct 
of the war. The Inter Ocean was one of the few metro- 
politan dailies that bravely fought the combination until 
General Alger was vindicated. When the country was 



shocked almost paralyzed by the news of the hor- 
rible crime, the sinking of the Maine, The Inter Ocean, 
quick to see the results foreshadowed, said : "This 
is the beginning of a contest, the end of which will be 
the expulsion of Spain from the West Indies." Within 
six months these words were proved prophetic. 

When the delegates to The Hague Peace Confer- 
ence of 1899 were about to vote on the arbitration 
treaty The Inter Ocean called attention to the fact that 
Article 27, as submitted, was a surrender of the Monroe 
Doctrine and insisted that the American commissioners 
should be instructed to demand such modification of 
that article as would recognize the Monroe Doctrine. 
Not another newspaper in America joined The Inter 
Ocean in this protest against the abandonment of a 
traditional American policy, but President McKinley, 
seeing the force of The Inter Ocean's argument, 
instructed the American delegates to insist upon the 
incorporation in the treaty of a declaration which was 
in effect a recognition of the Monroe Doctrine. These 
instructions were carried out and the American declara- 
tion was accepted by the conference. 

Under date of January n, 1902. the controlling- 
interest in The Inter Ocean was acquired by Mr. Hin- 
man, who had been for four years its editor and man- 
ager. Under the new ownership the policy announced 
in 1897 was continued, the paper discussing fearlessly 
all the greater questions involved in the advance of the 
United States to a world power. It heartily supported 
President Roosevelt in his military, naval and foreign 
policies, and as usual was at the fore in the presidential 
campaign of 1904. In only one case did The Inter 
Ocean decline to support a candidate named by a 
Republican convention, and that was in the case of 
John M. Harlan. named for mayor in the spring of 1905. 
It acted independently in the mayoralty campaign on 
the ground that Mr. Harlan, having opposed every 
Republican candidate for mayor nominated in ten 
years, and having conspired to their defeat he could not 
be supported by Republicans. Mr. Harlan was defeated. 

In the senatorial campaign of 1902, The Inter 
Ocean advocated the endorsement of Albert J. Hopkins 
for United States senator by the state convention and 
carried its point against the opposition of all the other 
Chicago newspapers. Mr. Hopkins is to-day senator. 

These are but a few illustrations of the increasing 
political influence of The Inter Ocean. With that 
influence, moreover came a strong growth in The Inter 
Ocean's circulation, particular!}' in the city of Chicago, 
where it now is double what it was in January, 1902. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



CHICAGO'S CHARITIES. 




CHICAGO'S charities are manifold. In 
the rush for wealth and power the 
poor, the sick and the unfortunate 
have not been neglected. The charge 
might better be brought against the 
city and its people that in its liberal- 
ity there has been more danger of 
demoralizing duplication in giving, 
than in failing to give. The city's 
record in this regard is as remarkable 
as any feature of its wonderful munic- 
ipal history. 

Nor should this be wondered at, since the generous 
mr.hner in which the world came to the relief of a 
stricken city at the time of the great fire, gave Chicago 
a lesson in charity it will never forget. Previous to that 
time nothing had occurred in the city to call out any- 
thing remarkable in the way of giving. The prosperity 
was such, and the freedom from any great distress was 
so manifest, that benevolence flowed in narrow channels 
almost unobserved. 

The first charity movement of importance was 
started in 1857 when the Chicago Relief and Aid Society 
was formed. Several other movements of the same char- 
acter started shortly afterwards, which worked inde- 
pendently of one another, until in 1867 they were all 
combined under the parent society. By this centraliza- 
tion of the work of relief in the city much good was 
accomplished, for the Relief and Aid society was wholly 
disconnected from all the churches, the friend of them 
all, but the auxiliary of none. When the heavy blow fell 
on the city a few years later it was a great thing for Chi- 
cago that this organization existed. The emergency of 
1871 found a charitable organization in operation which 
could not have been better adapted to afford relief and 
aid, had it been formed with a clear understanding in 
advance of what was to happen and what would be 



needed. The territory of the city had been divided into 
fourteen districts, preparatory to the winter's work of 
relief of poverty and destitution. This organization 
with its depots and equipment in the various districts 
was at once made use of in alleviating the distress of the 
destitute and homeless on account of the fire. While 
the fire was still burning Mayor Mason turned over to 
it all the contributions for charity which began to pour 
in as soon as the extent of the mighty conflagration 
became known. Leading citizens of executive ability 
took matters in hand, and the result was most satis- 
factory. There was never any scandal or suspicion of 
dishonesty, nor was red tape allowed to hinder the 
emergency work. During the first four days after the 
fire no less than 330 carloads of relief supplies were 
received by rail from neighboring towns. These goods 
came without waybills, or invoices, the railroads making 
no charge for transportation. The receiving directly 
from the cars and distribution to the people in need 
proved of the greatest benefit in minimizing distress. 

Relief was supplemented in a few weeks with aid. 
About the first aid was assistance extended to poor 
women in buying sewing machines to replace those 
which were lost in the fire. From November 6, 1871, to 
May i, 1873, the society disbursed for special relief, 
$281,489.03 ; for sewing machines, $138,855.26; for rent 
paid, $6,371.80; for tools bought, $10,742, a total of 
$437,458.09. The number of persons who applied for 
relief during that time was 16,299, an d the applications 
approved numbered 9,962. But these figures give no 
idea of the grand total of relief and aid actually afforded. 
Over 20,000 persons secured employment through the 
agency of the society's free employment bureau. Hos- 
pitals and dispensaries were enabled to provide for the 
indigent sick who needed institutional relief, and many 
thousands of patients were ministered to in their homes. 
Twenty-five charitable institutions were the recipients 



86 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



87 



of nearly half a million dollars. The cash contribu- 
tions received by this society from the American people 
was $3,846,250.36; from other countries, $973,897.80; 
making- in all $4,820,148.16. The society gave an 
account of this great stewardship April 30, 1874, show- 
ing that besides these receipts and $50,000 as a special 
fund from A. T. Stewart, it had received $126,634.58 
from the banks as interest on de- 
posits. At the time the account 
was rendered the balance on hand 
was $581,328.66, the disburse- 
ments having been $4,415,454.08. 
Gradually the demands upon this 
society lessened. When the extra- 
ordinary needs incident to the fire 
were over there was still a great 
work to be done. That central or- 
ganization continues to be a great 
factor in the charitable work of Chi- 
cago, but the mighty river of relief 
and aid flows in innumerable chan- 
nels. It is impossible to enumerate 
them all, but some idea of this fea- 
ture of Chicago's activity at the 
present time can be presented. 

Of course, it is not possible to 
name, or even to accurately classify, 
all the charities of the city. To 
meet the obivious necessities of the 
more destitute and suffering, a 
very great number of institutions, 
associations and specific agencies 
have been originated. With the 
rapid growth of the city existing 
institutions and agencies soon be- 
come painfully inadequate. The 
older ones need enlargement and 
new ones have to be formed. Mu- 
nificent gifts for the purpose, more 
than anybody knows, are con- 
stantly coming into these charitable 
treasuries. 

Chicago's aid and relief work 
has been greatly systematized in re- 
cent years, a policy that has its 
advocates and also its critics. It 
assures the patrons of these organi- 
zations that their benefactions will 
be put where they will do the most 
good, and at the same time prevent 
a useless and demoralizing duplica- 
tion. Among the charity organiza- 
tions that are doing the most effect- 
ve work are included the following : 
Associated Jewish Charities of 



Chicago, Austro-Hungarian Benevolent Association, 
Chicago Bureau of Charities, Chicago Bureau of Jus- 
tice, Chicago Medical Mission and Allied Charities, Chi- 
cago Relief and Aid Society, Chicago Woman's Aid 
Society, Hungarian Charity Society, Illinois Charitable 
Relief Corps, Illinois Children's Home and Aid Society, 
Societe Francaise de Bienfaisance de 1'Illinois, United 



3 11 

3 EE3 3 E33 ] 

E33 3 E31 
3 



133 3 ID] 
i OBI i 

IBS] a 

I IGl I 

i i a 
i 
i HI i 

i .;, a HI i 



w 



ill 

HEH 

ll 




MONADNOCK BLOCK. 



88 



THE CITY OP CHICAGO. 



Hebrew Charities, Visitation and Aid Society, Woman's 
Benevolent Association. 

These cover the field with many others ably and 
co-operate in such a way that cases which should 
naturally come to them are directed to their own race 
or people, though these lines are not drawn except 
where the conditions warrant it. 

At the beginning of 1905 there were in Chicago 
sixty-one hospitals, thirty-five dispensaries and over 
sixty asylums and homes. This enumeration includes 
only the larger institutions, and there are many smaller 
enterprises conducted to help the needy and unfortunate 
that are also doing efficient work. 

The county authorities have an efficient organization 
which embraces the County hospital, the Dunning insti- 
tutions and the county agent's relief station on the 
West Side. Through these avenues much distress is 
relieved and sick and indigent persons cared for. The 
county agent grants relief to those who are actually in 
want, provided that they have been residents of Cook 
county for at least six months. He also passes on appli- 
cations for admission to the county institutions and pro- 
vides transportation to the poor of other cities who may 
become stranded here. 

The municipal lodging house, designed to provide 
shelter and food for deserving poor temporarily out of 
employment was opened December 21, 1901. In order 
that this shall not be an encouragement to tTie worthless, 
all the lodgers, able to work, are required to give three 
hours labor on the streets in return for lodging and 
breakfast. Tramps and intoxicated men are not 
admitted. During last year about 25,000 lodgings and 
twice as many meals were furnished. The city spends 
about $9,000 a year on this institution. In addition to 
this the city has appropriated $12,000 to St. Vincent's 
Asylum for orphans, and its emergency dispensary. In 
connection with the police department an efficient am- 
bulance service is maintained. 

Much to the credit of the city is the provision made 
for caring for the needy, dependent, abandoned, 
wronged and delinquent children. Among the children's 
institutions are the Chicago Foundlings' home. Crippled 
Children's home, Illinois Industrial school, Chicago 
Orphan asylum, St. Mary's Home for Children, 
St. Joseph's Provident Orphan asylum, Hull House 
Creche, Epworth Children's home, St. Charles Home 
for Boys, Newsboys' home, Chicago Home for Jewish 
Orphans. 

No better move was ever made for the care of chil- 
dren than the establishment of the juvenile court as a 
branch of the county courts, for the purpose of caring 



for the "dependent" and "neglected" children. Under 
the act creating the court a dependent and neglected 
child means any child, who for any reason, is destitute, 
or homeless, or abandoned, or dependent upon the 
public for support, or has not proper parental care or 
guardians, or who habitually begs or receives alms, or 
who is found living in any house of ill fame, or with 
vicious or disreputable persons, or whose home by 
reason of neglect, cruelty or depravity on the part of 
the parents, guardians or the other persons in whose 
care it may be, is an unfit place for such a child ; and any 
child under the age of twelve years who is found ped- 
dling or selling any article, or singing or playing any 
musical instrument upon any street or giving any pub- 
lic entertainment. 

Under the term "delinquent" child is included any 
child under the age of sixteen years who violates any 
law of the state, or city ordinances. Its workings have 
fully justified the hope its originators held of saving the 
young and taking them in time before, because of 
vicious environment, they have developed into hardened 
law breakers. 

In this connection mention should also be made 
of the Humane Society, whose vigilant ministries on 
behalf, not only of suffering animals, but especially of 
wronged and suffering children, have been eminently 
important alike in preventive and corrective ways. 

So many are the charities of Chicago that there is 
constant danger of demoralizing duplication. To guard 
against this a bureau of associated charities was organ- 
ized in 1894. Its aim and purposes are to promote such 
co-operation among charitable agencies, that each shall 
be permitted to do what it can do best, and that the field 
of each shall exactly fit in with the fields of others, leav- 
ing neither overlapping edges nor untouched need. A 
system of friendly visiting, through which those who 
desire to give personal service are brought into the 
homes of the very poor, is maintained. The theory is 
to investigate reports of distress and secure relief for 
each case of need, from the proper agencies, the bureau 
itself giving material relief only in emergencies ; second, 
to guarantee adequate relief where relief is needed ; 
third, to protect the public from imposition and fraud. 
It cannot be claimed that this lofty ideal has been satis- 
factorily attained, but wholesome and encouraging 
progress is being made in the solution of what must be 
set down as the supreme problem of municipal charity, 
how to so administer it as to afford the greatest imme- 
diate relief and permanent aid with the least danger 
of abuse. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



\ r 



CHICAGO'S RAILROAD SYSTEMS 




,H1CAGO is the leading railroad center 
of the world. 

In tonnage, mileage, equipment, 
number of trains, both passenger and 
freight, the great carrier systems cen- 
tering in this city are unsurpassed by 
any other group of roads. Chicago's 
railroads control directly over 66,000 
miles of track, or about a third of the 
total mileage of the United States. 
The lines with which they connect and 
which are in a great measure dependent 
upon Chicago for a large share of their tonnage would 
more than double this, so that it can be said that not 
less than two-thirds of all the railroad mileage in the 
country is tributary to Chicago. 

The Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, Southern 
Railway, Northern Pacific, Chesapeake & Ohio, Louis- 
ville & Nashville and the trunk lines from Buffalo east, 
though not running into Chicago, regard this city as 
the destination and originating point of the greater 
part of their traffic. Many of them have their general 
traffic and operating departments located in Chicago, 
and not a line of any consequence in the country but 
maintains a commercial or general agency here. 

The passenger and freight traffic centering here is 
the heaviest in the country. From the West and North- 
west are poured the immense resources which find a 
gateway through Chicago to the markets of the world. 
So also the great traveling public of America must pass 
through the city, which was builded on the ancient 
portage at the southern end of Lake Michigan. Some 
idea of immensity of the tonnage handled by the rail- 
roads centering here which amounts to over 40 per 
cent of the tonnage of the United States can be 
gained by considering a few of the items that enter into 
this great traffic. 

More than 16,000.000 barrels of flour are carried to 
and from Chicago annually by the railroads. The total 
rail shipments of wheat in and out of Chicago last year 



were over 36,000.000 bushels, of corn upwards of 123,- 
000,000 bushels, of oats 112,000,000 bushels and of rye 
and barley 33,000,000 bushels. Three and a quarter 
million cattle are brought to Chicago annually by the 
railroads, and four and a half million sheep, and close 
to eight million hogs. The greatest part of these are 
slaughtered by the great packing concerns, but close to 
four and a half million are shipped out alive. The amount 
of dressed beef brought in and carried out by the rail- 
roads from Chicago last year (1904) was 1,280,000,000 
pounds. The shipments alone of hog products, exclu- 
sive of those brought here by the railroads or carried 
through, amounted to over a billion and a half pounds. 

These are a few of the items that go toward making 
up the tremendous freight tonnage originating in Chi- 
cago, and finding a destination here, and which requires 
no less than an average of 663 trains a day to carry. 
Equally stupendous is the passenger traffic of the Chi- 
cago railroads. Fifty-seven years ago, when the first 
engine with a single car started on the old Galena 
division of the North-Western Railroad, it consisted of 
a twelve-ton engine and a twenty-foot car for passengers. 
To-day the suburban, local and through line passenger 
service of Chicago requires no less than an average of 
1,281 trains a day in and out of the city. These carry- 
upwards of 300,000 passengers, and the heaviest engines 
for the fast runs weigh as high as 194 tons. 

The gross earnings of the railroads centering at 
Chicago rose to the high figure of $660,800,972 in 1903, 
an increase of 87 per cent in ten years, though the 
mileage had grown only 26 per cent. These railroads 
employ in the neighborhood of three quarters of a mil- 
lion men. In Chicago and Illinois alone these roads 
have upwards of 86,000 men on their pay-rolls, and the 
wages paid them is close to $60,000,000. The greater 
share of this vast amount is distributed in Chicago and 
the immediate vicinity, as the headquarters of many of 
the large systems are here, and there are employed 
armies of clerks. 

The railroads in the Chicago Terminal Association 
have about 700 miles of main tracks in the citv limits. 



89 



90 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



Switch tracks and auxiliary tracks would bring this 
mileage in Chicago proper to the neighborhood of 2,000 
miles. This network of steel has in it 7,000 switches, 
7,200 frogs and 2,500 signal lights. 

No less than 1,944 trains a day enter and leave Chi- 
cago. Of these 1,281 are passenger and 663 freight 
trains. The development of the suburban service has 
been great since the World's fair. Following is a table 
of the passenger trains running in and out of Chicago 
daily, Sundays excepted : 





Through. 


" 



a 


Suburban, 


*rt 
O 


Atchison Topeka % Santa Fe 


10 


3 


o 


13 


Baltimore & Ohio 


6 


2 





8 


Chicago & Alton 


10 


8 





18 


Chicago & Kastern Illinois. 


12 


4 


2 


18 


Chicago & Erie 


7 


6 


2 


15 


Chicago & North-Western 




64 


208 


316 


Chicago & Western Indiana 


o 


o 


16 


16 


Chicago Burlington & Quincy 


28 


12 


96 


136 




6 


3 


o 


9 


Chicago Milwaukee & St. Paul 


13 


7 


30 


113 


Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville 


13 


o 


o 


13 


Chicago Rock Island & Pacific 


12 


14 


72 


98 


Chicago Terminal Transfer 


O 


o 


8 


8 


C., C., C. & St. L. (Big Four) 


IO 


o 


o 


10' 


Grand Trunk 


8 


2 


IO 


20 


Illinois Central 


18 


o 


248 


266 


Lake Shore & Michigan Southern 


16 


6 


54 


76 


Michigan Central 


I s 


6 


o 


21 


New York, Chicago & St. Louis 


6 


o 


o 


6 


Niagara Falls Short Line 


6 


2 


o 


8 


Pere Marquette. ... 


8 


o 


o 


8 


Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis. 


8 

IO 


4 
6 




26 


12 
4 2 


Wabash 


16 


3 


o 


ig 


Wisconsin Central . ... 




8 


o 


12 












Totals ... 


_>s<> 


223 


772 


1281 













The average number of freight trains operated by 
the Chicago roads daily are as follows : 



Freight Trains. 





Out. 


In. 


Total. 


Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe 


6 


6 


12 


Baltimore & Ohio 


1 1 


9 


20 


Chicago & Alton 


10 


13 


23 


Chicago & Eastern Illinois 


15 


15 


30 


Chicago &*Erie ... 




IO 


21 


Chicago & North-Western 


CO 


4S 


95 


Chicago, Burlington & Quincy 


ig 


2O 


39 


Chicago Great Western . . 


8 


7 


I c 


Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul 


33 


36 


69 


Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville 


5 


5 


IO 


Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific. . . ... 


1 1 


ig 


30 


Chicago Terminal Transfer 


12 


13 


25 


C., C., C. & St. L. (Big Four) 


2 


2 




Grand Trunk 


13 


12 


25 


Illinois Central 


a I 


3.1 


62 


Lake Shore & Michigan Southern 


17 


17 


34 


Michigan Central ... 




12 




New York, Chicago & St. Louis 


12 


12 


24 


Pere Marquette 


5 


5 


IO 


Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis 


ia 


IO 


23 


Pittsburg, Ft. Wayne & Chicago 


13 


12 


25 


Wabash 


1C 


12 


27 


Wisconsin Central 


8 


8 


16 










Totals 


332 


331 


663 











The total receipts by rail of flour and grain by the 
Chicago roads for 1904 were as follows: 

Flour, barrels 8,877,105 

Wheat, bushels 23,954,747 

Corn, bushels 100,083,923 

Oats, bushels 72,974,815 

Rye, bushels 2 '379>37 

Barley, bushels 25,316,917 

The total shipments by rail of flour and grain by the 
Chicago roads for 1904 were as follows: 

Flour, barrels 6,564,533 

Wheat, bushels 12,330,030 

Corn, bushels 23,386,707 

Oats, bushels 39,662,834 

Rye, bushels 1.330,273 

Barley, bushels 4,718,875 

The total receipts by rail of leading commodities 
for the year 1904 at Chicago follow: 

Cattle 3,259,185 

Sheep 4,504,630 

Live and dressed hogs 7,806,565 

Dressed beef, pounds 208,204,901 

Lard, pounds 54,549,592 

Barreled pork, barrels 10,542 

Other meats, pounds 200,221,000 

Hides, pounds 165,700,650 

Wool, pounds 72,673,060 

Potatoes, bushels 9,327,220 

Hay, tons 251,748 

Lumber, thousand feet 1,274,626 

Shingles, thousand 431,454 

Cheese, pounds 90,937,788 

Butter, pounds 249,024,146 

Eggs, cases 30 dozen 3,1 13,858 

Timothy seed, pounds 61,989,872 

Clover seed, pounds 7,920,245 

Flaxseed, bushels 1,869,913 

Other grass seeds, pounds. . . 18,812,780 

Broomcorn, pounds 19,456,467 

Canned meats, cases 12,381 

Beef, packages 58,870 

Salt, barrels 445,040 

Tallow, pounds 19,977,491 

Stearine, pounds 1,028,793 

Oatmeal, barrels 234,864 

Malt, bushels 1,797,177 

Hops, pounds 8,856,026 

Millstuffs, pounds 503,103,658 

Oil cake, pounds 20,480,237 

Coal, tons estimated 10,000,000 

The total shipments by rail of leading commodities 
for the year 1904 at Chicago follow: 

Cattle i ,326,332 

Sheep 1,362,270 

Live and dressed hogs 1,746,867 

Dressed beef, pounds 1,072,156,300 

Lard, pounds 336,546,963 

Barreled pork, barrels 106,721 

Other meats (hog), pounds. .652,546,606 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



91 



Hides, pounds 194,555,251 

Wool, pounds 64,465,859 

Potatoes, bushels 2,440,105 

Hay, tons 1 1 ,660 

Lumber, thousand feet 820,956 

Shingles, thousand 434,195 

Cheese, pounds 66,148,937 

Butter, pounds 249,359,694 

Eggs, cases 30 dozen 1,685,577 

Timothy seed, pounds 24,754,145 

Clover seed, pounds 6,223,528 

Flaxseed, bushels 454,081 

Other grass seeds, pounds . . . 36,476,203 

Broomcorn, pounds 15,971,629 

Canned meats, cases 1,664,737 

Beef, packages '. . 95,839 

Salt, barrels 372,408 

Tallow, pounds 27,948,627 

Stearine, pounds 9,030,906 - 

Oatmeal, barrels 12,587 

Malt, bushels 9-555, 5 18 

Hops, pounds 7,410,854 

Millstuffs, pounds 444,777,783 

Oil cake, pounds 69.869,916 

Coal, tons estimated 1,600,000 

Such in brief is the immensity of the railroad interests 
centering in Chicago at the beginning of the city's sec- 
ond century. It grew from small beginnings, the 
pioneer days of Chicago and Illinois railroading being 
fraught with many discouragements and hardships. 

The first railroad legislation in Illinois, passed in 



1831, had for its real purpose the facilitating of trade 
between Southwestern Illinois and St. Louis. It was 
five years later before the first railway charter was 
granted in the interest of Chicago. That pioneer road 
was the Galena & Chicago Union. Its charter was 
issued January 16, 1836, and the name indicates the 
two terminal points. It will be observed that Galena 
comes before Chicago, and that was right. It was then 
the more important town of the two. 

The incorporators were clothed with large powers. 
They had only to ask and they would receive. They 
could use animal or steam power, whichever they pre- 
ferred, and could be three years in getting to work. The 
capital stock was placed at $100,000, with power to add 
a cipher. The terminal point in Chicago was fixed at 
the south end of Dearborn avenue. A little work was 
done, but not much, just enough to vitalize the charter. 
Ten years passed before the enterprise was fairly placed 
on a practicable basis. From that time on it went ahead 
prosperously, developing into the Chicago & North- 
Western system, with its network of lines. It could not 
have a more appropriate name than it now bears, for it 
brings the Northwest and Chicago into close relation- 
ship. Galena is still afforded an outlet by this route, but 
the road was slow in reaching there. By 1850 it had 
only got as far west as Elgin. Only two days after the 
charter of the Galena & Chicago Union was granted the 
Legislature granted a charter for a railroad between 




GARFIELD PARK. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



Cairo and Peru. It was a project making rail connec- 
tion subsidiary to water transportation. A link was 
supposed to be needed between the point where the 
Ohio River empties into the Mississippi, and the lower 
end of the Illinois and Michigan canal. Nothing came 
of that charter, although the route was the same, so far 
as it went, as that of the Illinois Central Railroad. 

Practically the era of railroads began about the time 
that the Mexican war had expanded our national domain 
to the Pacific Ocean. The idea of depending on canals 
was very nearly abandoned by that time. It is a remark- 
able, but little remarked, fact, that hardly had this 
country become continental in area, reaching from ocean 
to ocean, before the idea of a railroad from Lake Mich- 



railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean, and 
Senator Douglas was also clearly right in giving a 
subsidy for the Illinois Central precedence over a subsidy 
for a cross-continent line. 

With that hard sense in legislation which made him 
a great power in Congress, Mr. Douglas combined three 
states in his project, Illinois, Mississippi and Alabama. 
His bill was for a right of way and land subidy for a 
railroad from Chicago to Mobile. In the interest of 
Iowa it was amended to include a branch "to the Missis- 
sippi River opposite Dubuque." This bill was introduced 
in 1848 and became a law in 1850. That was the begin- 
ning of the land grant railway system which has done 
much to develop the \Vest and thus to build up Chicago. 




DOUGLAS PARK VIEWS. 



igan to the Pacific, that is, from Chicago to San Fran- 
cisco, took formal but not immediately tangible form. 
Sidney Breese. then United States senator from Illinois, 
urged such a project and the Legislature of Illinois 
indorsed it. But Breese's colleague. Stephen A. Doug- 
las, while not opposed to the Pacific project, took 
greater interest in securing a north and south railroad 
the entire length of Illinois. That was the more imme- 
diate demand, especially from the standpoint of the state. 
Senator Breese, afterward Judge Breese, lived to see 
his idea carried out, but he took no part in its execution, 
and before it was put into operation several east and 
west railroads having Chicago as their eastern terminus 
had been constructed ; and the Missouri River, not Lake 
Michigan, had come to be regarded the terminal line on 
the east. But the Illinois Legislature of 1847 was clearly 
right in heartily concurring in the idea of a grand Pacific 



The total grant in this state was 2.595.000 acres, most of 
it the best of agricultural land. 

The Legislature of Illinois repealed the inoperative 
act of 1836, incorporating the Illinois Central Railroad 
Company, and complied with the provisions of the 
congressional grant, so far as the same related to this 
state, using the name of Illinois Central. Right here 
comes in the part played by the state debt, incurred in 
large part in the construction of the Illinois and Michi- 
gan Canal. The holders of the state bonds conceived 
the idea of utilizing the Illinois Central project to make 
sure that the state should be in a condition to meet the 
interest on those on its debt. They secured, through 
the influence at Springfield of their attorney. Robert 
Rantoul, one of the great New England lawyers of the 
day, a provision to the effect that in lieu of all other tax- 
ation the company should pay into the state treasury 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



seven per cent of its gross earnings. This was a good 
arrangement for the state also, and is now made per- 
petual by constitutional guarantee. 

The Illinois Central was completed in the summer 
of 1 854. Then for the first time and for all time Chicago 
became the veritable metropolis of Illinois, affording the 
surplus products of the state its entire length their best 
outlet to the populous East and the Atlantic seaboard. 
From this time on Chicago had no occasion to be at 
all anxious about its future. The railway system of the 
West was compelled by self-interest to literally "make 
tracks" for this city. The eastern trunk lines, the Michi- 
gan Central and Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, were 
obliged to come here with and for their business. New 
Buffalo, Fort Wayne and such points to the east were 
obliged to content themselves with being way stations. 

When the great fire of 1871 came it was the network 
of railroads centering in this focal point which made the 
rebuilding of the city inevitable. If every structure in 
the city had been leveled to an ash heap it would have 
been the same. Not only was the Chicago river here 
to renew its invitation to lake commerce, but the rail- 
roads were intact. Their depots only were gone, and 
not all of them. 

Important as Chicago had become at the time of the 
fire as a railway center, it may be said to have entered 
upon a new railway era with 1872. Its mileage was 
about doubled in a decade, and from the Grand Trunk 
on the north to the Baltimore & Ohio on the south the 
necessity of reaching this city was recognized. Nor is 
it too much to say that the entire Western system of 
railroads, including Mexico and Canada, center directly 
or indirectly in Chicago. 

In order to give further clearness to the conception 
of Chicago as a railway center there is herewith 
appended a table presenting the more important general 
facts about the railway systems which have in this city 
a common meeting-place. 



Chicago & North-Western Railway Company. Chi- 
cago's Pioneer Railway System. The growth of Chi- 
cago, unprecedented as it has been, has not been greater 
than the expansion of its first line of railway. In 1848 
Chicago boasted of only ten miles of rail, extending 
west from Wells and Kinzie streets, the present site of 
the Chicago & North-Western passenger station, to the 
Des Plaines River. This ten miles of track was destined 
to become the nucleus of a system of more than 9,000 
miles of railway, with wharves, elevators, ware- 
houses and yards with which to care for an immense 
freight traffic. 

Three hundred passenger trains arrive and depart 
daily from its \Vells street station, serving more than 
1,700 western communities, with a tributary population 
of 8,000,000 people. 

Probably no feature has done so much towards pro- 
moting the wonderful growth of Chicago since its settle- 
ment in 1 803 as the development of the city's transpor- 
tation facilities to the West and Northwest. It was 
thoroughly typical of the spirit that has made possible 
the Chicago of to-day, and our western country in gen- 
eral, that only twenty months after the territory east of 
the Mississippi River had been ceded to the United 
States by the Indian tribes, citizens of the active little 
town on Lake Michigan secured a charter for the build- 
ing of what has now developed into the great Chicago 
& North-Western Railway System. 

Thus the history of this pioneer railway of the West 
is closely linked with the history of the city with which 
it has grown and developed, and the interests of the two 
have intermingled as the years have passed. 

Chicago's fame and Chicago's wealth have both 
depended largely upon her importance as a grain and 
live stock market, and the first train into Chicago on 
what is now the North-Western Line holds the dis- 



RAILROADS 


Mileage. 


Capitaliza- 
tion. 


Passengers 
Carried. 


Freight 
Carried 
(Tons). 


Passenger 
Earnings. 


Freight 
Karnings. 


Gross. 


Net. 


Atchison, Topeka A Santa Ke... 


8,301 


$445.631.580 


7,622.012 


13.195.597 


$15,433.774 


$47,763,653 


$68,171,200 


$24.033.031 


lialtimore A Ohio 


3 987 


422 779 227 


15,403061 


43 347 193 


13.146.449 


48.617,103 


65071.081 


20,136707 


Chicago, Kurlington A Quincy 


8821 


281 854 200 


1 4 098 053 


20 634 024 


14 494 573 


44 651 997 


65 228 192 


20 649 250 


Chicago and Alton 


915 


106 086 800 


3 227,611 


6 121 333 


3.351,943 


7,445.877 


1 1 ,425 &53 


3.561 253 


Chicago A: Kastern Illinois 


758 


44 049 136 


4 159 682 


9 4J5 731 


1 ,224 031 


7 203 681 


8 664,043 


3 327 651 


Chicago A North-Western 


7.412 


223.788.483 


21,395,312 


28 128 810 


13.027,708 


37,254,539 


53.334.633 


16.107.524 


Chicago Great Western 


874 


82 040 845 


1 938340 


2825 601 


1,780 151 


5 811 059 


8 022.674 


1,902632 




592 


29 942 000 


1 400 026 


2 965 945 


1 239 101 


3 735 029 


5300623 


1 884 454 


Chicago. Milwaukee A St. Paul 


6.906 


224,305 800 


9 752 419 


21 267370 


9,661 633 


35.081.759 


48 330,334 


17.161,320 


Chicago, Rock Island A Pacific 


7 205 


247 047 600 


11 536 847 


13567 817 


11,697 033 


31 167 006 


44 969 491 


17 169014 


Chicago A Western Indiana . .. .... 


113 


22 895 060 










Polk St. 




Chicago Terminal Transfer 


268 


47 392 234 






61 794 


1 527 016 


1,588 765 


93201 


Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago A St. Louis ... 


2,287 


100.657.801) 


6.115443 


12,510586 


6.378 877 


13.053,864 


21,069 954 


4.339,728 


Erie 


2315 


368065561 


20395440 


29 835 105 


8 077 464 


32 522.742 


43.005213 


12 742515 




3562 


340 144 31 


9 099 567 


13 484 056 


7 871 668 


18 879 156 


26 750 824 


8 315 293 


Illinois Central ... 


4 374 


24U.712.275 


22.563613 


22420814 


9,554.743 


31 .692 575 


46,831,136 


12.095. 153 


Lake Shore A Michigan Southern 


1 454 


141 324 000 


6 176 269 


26 846 89 1 


7 095 790 


24 185 294 


35 161 053 


12 484 008 


Michigan Central 


1 653 


79 664 Ol'O 


3 657 010 


13 55! 195 


4 818 763 


15 273 012 


21 492 944 


3 340 278 


New York. Chicago A St Louis 


523 


49 425 000 


895568 


5 14<" 411 


1 336 834 


7 152 631 


8 645 374 


2 223.231 


Pere Marquette 


1 941 


71 773 6*> 


3 227 611 


6 121 333 


3 351 943 


7 44o 877 


1 1 425 853 


3 561 253 


Pitt^burg, Ft. Wavne & Chicago 


1.526 








5 868 722 


27485 171 


36.390.582 


10,347.220 


Pittsburg, Cincinnati Chicago A St Louis 


1 423 


76 095 400 


10 415 940 


30 940 272 


6 799 839 


19 148 917 


28 532 475 


7,166 811 


\Vabash 


2517 


162,513.000 


6.183,474 


6 698995 


7 045 525 


14 064 657 


23.023,627 


4.589.959 


Wisconsin Central.. . 


977 


54.770.980 


1,159.904 


3.944.020 


1.405.783 


4.765.605 


6.466.177 


1.871,525 



04 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



tinction of having brought the first rail shipment of 
grain to the city. To-day these pioneer shipments 
have grown until $350,000,000 worth of live stock 
reaches the Chicago market each year, and the Chi- 
cago & North-\Yestern alone brings to the city a 
quarter billion bushels of grain annually. 

It was the North-Western Line which, pushing its 
rails into Council Bluffs in 1867, hastened the building 
of the Pacific railways and the completion of all-rail 
connection between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and it 



markets of the central West, the Rocky Mountain region 
and the Pacific Coast. 

The famous "Overland Limited" and other daily 
trans-continental trains stand as splendid examples of 
long-distance travel, travel, too, that is surrounded by 
luxuries and comforts the western traveler of thirty 
years ago could not have imagined. 

Colorado, not so long ago considered to be in the 
extreme far West and visited by comparatively few 
eastern people, is now reached by the North-Western 




CHICAGO & NORTH-WESTERN DEPOT. 



has now gained national note as being "the only double- 
track railway between Chicago and the Missouri River." 
Over this great double-track, block system line 
between Chicago and Council Bluffs, long trains of live 
stock and grain, of California fruits, and of silks, teas 
and spices from the far East move in steady lines east- 
ward; while in the opposite direction the products of 
every branch of commercial activity are carried to the 
markets of Asiatic Russia, Japan, China, the Philippines 
and Australia, Alaska and Hawaii, and to the nearer 



Line and its connections in a day and a night with 
two fast through trains to Denver daily. 

Nor are the activities of the North-Western Line 
confined to this east and west movement. To the 
northward it is the pioneer line and direct route to the 
hardwood country and iron and copper mines of 
northern Wisconsin and the upper peninsula of Michi- 
gan, furnishing means of transportation for the enor- 
mous products of this rich region. 

St. Paul and Minneapolis, twin gateways to the 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



Northwest, are closely linked to Chicago with four fast 
trains daily in each direction. 

To Duluth and Superior there are two daily trains, 
The "Duluth-Superior Limited," electric-lighted 



become general manager of the Pullman Palace Car 
Company. 

In 1872 he went to the Chicago & North- Western 

Railway as general superintendent and has remained 



,<" ""' 

>* _. _ <c 




"' V7?X^>, 



INDICATES OOUBU TRACK 



< *" * ^>7 * #s A v 

*^ 



throughout, affords to passengers to the head-of-the- 
lakes all the comforts and convenience of modern high- 
class travel. 

Between Chicago and Milwaukee the North- 
Western Line operates twenty-one trains a day over 
what is practically a six-track line along the beautiful 
shore of Lake Michigan, the "North Shore Special," 
the train of green and gold, being the most handsomely 
equipped train ever placed in service to and from the 
Cream City. 

This year thousands have visited the Lewis & Clark 
Centennial Exposition at Portland, Oregon, traveling 
westward from Chicago over its rails, and thousands 
more find its train service a convenient means of travel 
to and fro between Chicago and Colorado, Utah, Cali- 
fornia and the Pacific Northwest, to the Black Hills, the 
Yellowstone National Park, Alaska, and to the hun- 
dreds of summer resorts and hunting and fishing 
grounds of Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota. 

Marvin Hughitt's meteoric career has ever been up 
and onward. In his vocabulary there has never been 
such a word as "failure." Marvin Hughitt was born 
at Seneca, New York, in 1836. He entered the railway 
service as superintendent of telegraph and trainmaster 
of the St. Louis, Alton & Chicago road (now Chicago 
& Alton). 

From 1862 to 1864 he was superintendent of the 
southern division of the Illinois Central Railroad and 
was afterward general superintendent of that road until 
1870, when he became connected with the Chicago, 
Milwaukee & St. Paul Company as assistant general 
manager. He relinquished his position in 1871 to 



with that company ever since, serving from 1876 to 
1880 as general manager, from 1880 to 1887 as vice- 
president and general manager and from 1887 to the 
present time as president of the company. 

No better illustration of the marked ability of Mr. 
Hughitt can be found than his wonderful record of 




MARVIN HUGHITT. 

forty-eight years of railroad work. Despite his assidu- 
ous attention to work, Mr. Hughitt has found time to 
accumulate a particularly fine library. His palatial 



residence on Prairie avenue is one of the show 
of that fine boulevard. 

Mr. Hughitt is a member of the Chicago and Union 
League clubs. His summer home is at Lake Forest. 

Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company. 

The beginning of the present Chicago, Milwaukee 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 
places 



Railroad in 1863, and the La Crosse division of the 
present company in 1866. In April, 1852, the La Crosse 
& Milwaukee Railroad Company was incorporated, and 
in June, 1853, by a consolidation of two other railroad 
charters, the Milwaukee, Fond du Lac & Green Bay 
Railroad Company was formed, and work begun on the 




& St. Paul Railway Company dates from 1849, when 
the Milwaukee & Mississippi Company was formed for 
the purpose of connecting that city by rail with the 
Mississippi. In April, 1857, the road was completed 
to Prairie du Chien, but two years later, the company 
being unable to pay its interest, a mortgage sale was 
ordered, and a new company, which had been chartered 
by the Legislature in 1860, under the name of the Mil- 
waukee & Prairie du Chien Railway Company, pur- 
chased the property January 21, 1861. This company 
operated the road until 1866, when it was absorbed by 
the Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company. 

The Milwaukee & Watertown Railroad, now part of 
the La Crosse division of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. 
Paul Railway, was incorporated in March, 1851, and by 
the latter part of 1856 trains were running from Mil- 
waukee to Columbus. After going through a variety 
of changes the road became the Milwaukee & St. Paul 



line from Milwaukee toward Fond du Lac. Two years 
later the La Crosse & Milwaukee Railroad Company 
was consolidated with the Milwaukee, Fond du Lac & 
Green Bay Railroad Company, assuming the name of 
the latter company, and after a series of litigations the 
Milwaukee & St. Paul Company gained final possession, 
by purchase, of the property in 1867. This same com- 
pany also acquired the Milwaukee & Horicon road by 
purchase in 1863. 

The present Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway 
Company grew out of the organization formed May 5, 
1863, for the purpose of purchasing all the roads thus 
far mentioned, but the word "Chicago" was not prefixed 
until February. 1874, the line between Milwaukee and 
Chicago having been constructed during the previous 
year. The policy of the new management was one of 
expansion, and from 1875 to 1880 several small roads 
were either leased or purchased, among them the 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



97 



Dubuque & Southwestern Railroad, in Iowa; the Min- 
nesota Midland Railway Company, in Minnesota ; the 
Madison & Portage Railroad, Viroqua Railway Com- 
pany, and Oshkosh & Mississippi Railroad Company, 
all of Wisconsin. During 1880 eight roads, with a total 
of 1,195 miles, were added to the system, which was 
further increased during the year by the construction 
of 349 miles of branches and extensions. In 1881, 442 
miles of road were added ; in 1882 the system was further 
increased by 303 miles; in 1883; by 240 miles; in 1884, 
by 44 miles, thus making a total on January i, 1885, of 
4,760 miles of road under operation by this company. 
Since 1885, further lines have been leased or built, until 
there are now operated 7,085 miles of thoroughly- 
equipped road in the states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, 
Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Missouri and 
the upper peninsula of Michigan. 

The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Com- 
pany has been the foremost line in the West in adopting 



Limited," which leaves Chicago every night at 6:30, 
reaching St. Paul and Minneapolis early the following 
morning, is well entitled to the claim made for it, that 
it is the only perfect train in the world. 

Illinois Central Railroad. As will be seen from the 
accompanying map, the lines of the Illinois Central 
Railroad extend south from Chicago to St. Louis, to 
Evansville, and to Memphis and New Orleans; south 
from St. Louis and Louisville and Cincinnati to Mem- 
phis and New Orleans; and from Chicago west to 
Council Bluffs and Omaha, to Sioux City and to Sioux 
Falls. The total mileage of this great railroad, includ- 
ing that of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad 
from Memphis to New Orleans, was 5,584 miles at the 
close of the last fiscal year, June 30, 1905. 

The material, or tangible, beginning of the Illinois 
Central may be said to have been in the years 1855 and 
1856, at which time its original 706 miles were com- 




ILLINOIS CENTRAL DEPOT. 



every possible appliance for the safety and comfort of 
its passengers, including an absolute block system, 
Westinghouse train signals, steam heat, electric light, 
vestibuled and compartment cars. Its train service is 
unsurpassed, and its celebrated train, "The Pioneer 

7 



pleted and opened between Dunleith, now East 
Dubuque, and Cairo, and between Chicago and Cen- 
tralia. 

Its first passenger station in Chicago was at Twelfth 
street, on a section of the grounds now occupied by 



98 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 












J^a*^fc<r5w^vsB^P* 

^^\^Kk:3^^^fe 



rT*fc*W / *%. ColumBlfc' X. 

^S\>/V7JBC 



s^: 




ONSTRUCTION 



ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



99 



its present "Central Station" located between Park 
Row and Twelfth street on the Lake Front. Early 
in its development the line was extended to the foot of 
Lake street over trestle-work constructed for the pur- 
pose, thus crossing the waters of the lake encroaching 
on what is now Michigan avenue. Later, on the fill- 
ing in of this water stretch by the city and the rail- 
road company, the trestle-work disappeared. A few 
years ago when the Illinois Central depressed its tracks 
between Park Row and Van Buren street this trestle- 
work was uncovered. At the new terminus on Lake 
street, what was in its day a fine stone station, was 
erected, and became ultimately one of the last relics 
of Chicago's great fire. In 1893 it was abandoned 
and the present Central Station occupied as the pas- 
senger terminal for through trains. 

During the intervening years, between 1856 and the 
present day, the Illinois Central has contributed its 
share towards the development of the Mississippi Val- 
ley and the City of Chicago. By dikes, piers and 
breakwaters the company has for fifty years protected 
the City of Chicago against the encroachment of Lake 
Michigan, and has spent in so doing over three million 
dollars of money. It was a large factor in making the 
World's Fair of 1893 possible, it being the first rail- 
road in the city to elevate its tracks. It made possible, 
by filling and reconstruction, the Lake Front Park 
from an unsightly loafing ground to the present attract- 
ive Logan Park along Michigan avenue, and will build 
the inner wall marking the boundary of the new park 
along the Lake Front which is being so rapidly filled in. 

That it is an important factor in the tax situation of 
the City of Chicago will be seen from the following 
facts: The charter of the Illinois Central Railroad 
Company reserves for the State of Illinois, in lieu of 
taxes, seven per cent of the gross receipts of the 706 
miles of railroad originally built under the charter. 
The sum so paid for the year ending June 30, 1903, 
was the largest ever turned into the state treasury, it 
having been $1,026,650.84. This, if capitalized at 
three and one-half per cent would give $29,332,880 as 
representing the proprietary interest of the State of 
Illinois in the Illinois Central Railroad The City of 
Chicago pays rather more than one-third of the total 
taxes of the State of Illinois. From these two facts it 
will be apparent that the direct money interest of Chi- 
caeo in the Illinois Central Railroad is considerable. 

o 

In short, valuable as are the company's lands and 
buildings to Chicago, the saving in taxation to the city 
is very largely in excess of what would be paid by direct 
taxes, and largely in excess of what is paid by any of 
its competitors. 

In line with the early history of the road within 
the City of Chicago, it should not be forgotten to 
mention the extraordinary development in connection 



with its suburban service. The Illinois Central's first 
suburban train was run out of Chicago June i, 1856, 
to a point just south of Hyde Park. At first there were 
but three trains a day in each direction, increasing in 
number as circumstances warranted. They were run, 
however, up to 1864 at a loss to the company, and it is 
questionable whether the latter received any profit 
from its suburban service for many years after that 
date. Beginning about 1880, however, by the inaugu- 
ration of special equipment, and the addition of two 
tracks for the exclusive use of the suburban trains, an 
era of prosperity began for this service which has con- 
tinued ever since. To-day it runs 122 trains, includ- 
ing express and local, in each direction between Ran- 
dolph street and suburban points, not counting its 
suburban service west. Another era in this suburban 
train development dates from the World's Fair of 1893, 
at which time the special service designed for that occa- 
sion was put in effect. Between May i and October 
31, the exposition period, 29,528,435 passengers were 
carried on the suburban trains of the Illinois Central 
without the loss of a life. In addition, out of this 
Columbian Exposition service was developed the present 
express suburban service, operated on double tracks 
independent of the double tracks assigned to the local 
suburban service, making four tracks in all for the 
suburban business. 

In conclusion it should not be forgotten that the 
Illinois Central, with its fast through passenger and 
its fast manifest freight service, is a most important 
factor in linking Chicago to the South and West. 

Chicago Terminal Transfer Railroad Company. 

Although chartered as recently as June 4, 1897, the 
history of this property dates from 1867, w r hen the old 
La Salle & Chicago Railroad Company was granted the 
power by the Legislature to construct a line of road 
between the points named in its title. No determined 
effort was made to construct the line until 1885, when 
parties secured an interest in the organization with a 
view of constructing the line and employing it as a link 
in a through route from Chicago to the Northwest. 
The Chicago & Great Western Railroad Company was 
the title under which operations were continued until 
1890, when the Chicago & Northern Pacific Railroad 
Company, organized the previous year, purchased and 
consolidated under one management the Chicago & 
Great Western Railroad Company, the Chicago, Harlem 
& Batavia Railway Company and the Bridgeport & 
South Chicago Railroad Company, together with the 
property on which is located the Grand Central Passen- 
ger Station in Chicago. The road was operated as the 
Chicago & Northern Pacific Railroad Company until 
1897, when the Chicago Terminal Transfer Railroad 
Company, chartered on June 4 of that year, acquired. 



100 



//// CITY OF CHICAGO. 



through sale under foreclosure, all the property owned 
by this road, and subsequently also acquired the prop- 
erty of the Chicago & Calumet Terminal Railway Com- 
pany, a consolidation, brought about in 1888. of the 
Calumet River, Hammond & Lake Michigan and Chi- 
cago & Calumet Terminal Railroad companies. These, 
in brief, have been the principal steps leading up to the 
formation of the most extensive terminal company oper- 
ating in and about Chicago. 

The Chicago Terminal Transfer Railroad Company 



Suburban Railroad. The Chicago Terminal Transfer 
Railroad Company has direct connection, by means 
of its 244.5 miles of track, with every railroad enter- 
ing Chicago, and it thus affords a rapid transfer of 
freight between different lines. Starting from South 
Chicago, its belt line runs through Whiting, Indiana, 
and thence in a western and northwestern direction 
to McCook, Illinois, thus reaching the leading indus- 
tries and manufacturing plants located at South 
Chicago, Whiting, East Chicago, Hammond, Blue 




GRAND CENTRAL PASSENGER STATION. 



is a company formed to acquire and lease facilities to 
other roads and to transact a local suburban and switch- 
ing business. The property of the company consists 
of passenger and freight terminals in the business center 
of the city, lines of railway leading thereto, and a belt 
line about the city, just outside the corporate limits. 
At the present time the terminals of this company are 
used by the Chicago Great \Yestern Railway Company. 
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company and Pere Mar- 
quette system. It also leases a considerable trackage 
to the Chicago Junction Railway Company, \\~abash and 



Island, Harvey, Thornton, Chicago Heights, Chicago 
Ridge, Chappell and McCook. It also has connections 
with the industries at La Grange, Broadview, Bellewoocl, 
Melrose and Franklin Park. An extension from the 
latter point to Mayfair is now under construction, and 
when that is completed it will afford direct connections 
outside corporate limits with all the railroads centering 
in the city. The amount of traffic originating on this 
railroad and delivered daily to the railroads by this com- 
pany is very large. By its facilities for prompt transfer, 
its motive power and equipment it has attained a front 



THE CITY 01- CHICAGO. 



101 



rank in its particular field among the roads dependent 
upon it. 

From Blue Island the Chicago Terminal Transfer 
Railroad Company has a line running- directly north into 
the city to Western avenue and West Twelfth street, 
and from thence to the Grand Central Passenger Sta- 
tion, at Harrison and Fifth avenue, thus affording a 
second connection with many of the trunk lines within 
the city limits. 

When it is considered that the railroads entering Chi- 
cago are by far the greatest factor in the city's trade 
and commerce, the importance of the road under con- 
sideration, with its facilities of track, terminals, connec- 
tions, etc., is the more easily understood. Besides oper- 
ating nearly 250 miles of track, this company also owns 
over 760 acres of real estate in and adjacent to the city, 
of which more than 50 acres are in the center of the 
business portion. It owns about 7,500 feet of frontage 
on the Chicago river, and also the Grand Central Pas- 
senger Station in the heart of the city. The latter, which 
covers nearly four acres of ground, is one of the best 
specimens of the highest type of modern architecture 
to be found in the United States, and it is classed among 
the great buildings which have made Chicago famous. 
Constructed of pressed brick and Connecticut brown- 
stone, it is surmounted by a tower, 242 feet high above 
the foundation, 27 feet square, and weighing 6,000 
tons. This tower contains the second largest clock 
in the United States, having four dials, each 13^ feet in 
diameter. The hours are struck by a hammer, weighing 
250 pounds, on a 5^2-ton bell. The building, which was 
opened to the public on Monday, December 8, 1890, has 
a frontage on Harrison street of 228 feet and of 482 feet 
on Fifth avenue. The main waiting-room, situated on 
the ground floor, is 267 feet long, 71 feet wide, and with 
a ceiling 25 feet high. A ladies' parlor, 32x40 feet, 
adjoins the same. To enter trains, passengers do not 
have to climb stairs, but enter the train-shed directly 
from the waiting-room. Another feature of its con- 
struction worthy of special notice, is the carriage court, 
146x167 feet, by which carriages, buses and automo- 
biles in large numbers at once can enter and discharge 
their passengers at the entrance to the waiting-room and 
train-shed. A dining-room, 56x73 feet, is located on the 
second floor, and the remainder of the upper floors is 
devoted to offices, including the general offices of the 
Chicago Terminal Transfer Railroad Company. 

A noteworthy feature, which should be mentioned in 
regard to this company, is the commanding position 
which it occupies with respect to freight terminal facili- 
ties, as well as passenger accommodations. Its tracks 
penetrate the heart of the manufacturing district of Chi- 
cago, and the growth of its switching business, 
so-called, has been phenomenal, consequent upon the 
increase in the number and extent of such manufactories. 



Its tenant lines have benefited in this regard, they enjoy- 
ing the right to handle the traffic with their own engines 
to and from tracks to industries tributary to the 
main tracks, which they have the use of under their 
respective leases. But other railroads entering Chicago, 
alive to the situation in this regard, have not been slow 
to appreciate the advantage which follows direct con- 
nection with the manufacturing interests spoken of; 
hence there is a constant demand from what may be 
termed outside railroads for branch freight terminal 
facilities in the district referred to, and the day is not 
far distant when the larger proportion of the railroads 
reaching Chicago will of necessity have established 




JOHN NICHOLSON FAITHORN. 

facilities for the receipt and delivery of freight on the 
rails of this terminal company. 

The officers of this company are : John N. Faithorn, 
president and general manager ; S. L. Prest, comp- 
troller; H. H. Hall, treasurer; W. B. Barr, general 
freight agent; J. B. Barton, general attorney; E. R. 
Knowlton, superintendent. 

John Nicholson Faithorn, president and genera! 
manager of the Chicago Terminal Transfer Railroad, 
was born at London, England, March 21, 1852. After 
receiving a common school education, and spending 
three years in the employ of the London and St. 
Katharine Dock Company, he embarked for the United 
States when twenty years of age. 

In February, 1873. the year following his arrival 
here, he received his first experience in railroading in the 
freight department of the Chicago & Alton Railroad. 



102 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



He was successively clerk, general freight agent's secre- 
tary and chief clerk in the general office of the company. 
Mr. Faithorn left his position with the Chicago 
& Alton in September, 1882, to become auditor of the 
Southwestern Railway association. In May, 1885, he 
made another change, accepting the position of com- 
missioner of the Western Freight Association and 
Northwestern Freight Association. 

From April i, 1887, to October, 1890, he was suc- 
cessively commissioner of the Western & Northwestern 
Railway Freight Bureau, and chairman of the Western 
Freight Association. The following two years, from 
October, 1890, to December, 1892, he was chairman of 
the Southwestern Railway & Steamship Association and 
commissioner of the Western Freight Association at St. 
Louis, Missouri. From January i, 1893, until December 
i, 1898, Mr. Faithorn was vice-president and general 
manager of Street's Western Stable Car Company at 
Chicago. In 1895 and 1896, he was also general mana- 
ger of the Wisconsin & Michigan Railway. In Decem- 
ber, 1898, he was made president and general manager 
o'f the St. Louis, Peoria & Northern Railway. August 
i, 1889, he became president and general manager of 
the Chicago Terminal Railroad. He still holds this 
position. 

Twenty years after Mr. Faithorn left the employ of 
the Chicago & Alton Railway he returned to the com- 
pany in July, 1902, as vice-president. He held this last 
position until December, 1904, along with his present 
position, as president and general manager of the Chi- 
cago Terminal Transfer Railway. 

Mr. Faithorn is a member of the Chicago Club, the 
Chicago Athletic Association and the Engineers' Club 
of New York. 

The Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad is the 

great coal road of the West. How many people among 
the city's 2,000,000 inhabitants know that it is entitled 
to be called "the road that keeps Chicago warm"? 

Few, indeed, probably, yet it is a fact that this line 
with its splendidly ballasted main stem and branches 
traversing the rich bituminous mining sections of Illi- 
nois, Indiana and Missouri, brings into the great city 
by the lake over five-eighths of its entire soft coal sup- 
ply. Thus, after forty years, the original purpose in 
building the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad as a 
coal-carrying road has never been lost to sight, but has 
steadily developed by wise management into the busi- 
ness of to-day an ample vindication of the courage 
and judgment of its projectors and backers of more than 
a generation ago. 

But, remarkable as the growth of this road has been 
on its freight-carrying side, the progress made in the 



development of its passenger traffic is even more note- 
worthy, because it has been a growth of comparatively 
recent years, and the obstacles have been more difficult 
to overcome. All the more honor and credit then 
to the men whose executive skill and trained ability 
have produced these results. To-day the general pas- 
senger agent, from his headquarters in the magnificent 
new $1,000,000 La Salle Street Station, Chicago, directs 
a passenger service that is growing by leaps and bounds. 
Since the formal opening of the Chicago & Eastern Illi- 
nois passenger line between Chicago and St. Louis, July 
31, 1904, the public has been quick to appreciate the 
high standard of service maintained, and to respond with 
liberal and constantly increasing patronage. 

The up-to-date spirit of enterprise that permeates 
every department of the Chicago & Eastern Illinois 
Railroad is seen in the advertising policy of the com- 
pany. A carefully thought out and well systematized 
campaign of publicity is being carried on under the 
direction of the general passenger agent. Liberal news- 
paper space is used, and the copy features the special 
points which appeal to the average person traveling 
either for business or pleasure. Emphasis is laid upon 
the smooth double-track, block signal system, ventila- 
tion and cooling of all cars by means of electric fans, 
electric reading lights in berths, splendid dining car 
service, etc. By this kind of intelligent advertising, the 
public is favorably influenced, and the result is readily 
seen in the increased volume of business. 

The Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad through its 
affiliations with the Frisco system is now enjoying 
a large and growing passenger traffic from Chicago 
through St. Louis to the great Southwest. It is now 
admittedly the best route to Galveston, Houston, Dallas, 
Fort Worth, Oklahoma City, and other points in that 
great and prosperous region. 

This line also reaches New Orleans, running splen- 
didly equipped trains in connection with the Louis- 
ville & Nashville, via Nashville, Birmingham, Mont- 
gomery and Mobile. For several years the Chicago & 
Eastern Illinois Railroad has had a practical monopoly 
of the Chicago-Florida travel. During the past twelve 
months it has controlled about 90 per cent of the traffic 
to Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Tallahassee, Pensacola 
and other Florida points. 

One of the peculiarly fortunate circumstances that 
have contributed to the rapid development of travel 
over this popular line, is the location of its general 
offices and depot in the La Salle Street Station, Chi- 
cago. The location is ideal for the convenience of the 
road's patrons, being the only railroad station on the 
Elevated Loop and within three or four minutes' walk 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



105 



several of the divisions of the Pennsylvania lines. He 
tilled the position of superintendent of the Richmond 
and Louisville divisions of the Pennsylvania lines and 
main line division of the Vandalia system, and in June. 
1901, was appointed general manager of the Vandalia 
system. On December 15. 1903, he was appointed 
general manager of the Rock Island system, and on 
March i, 1905, was elected second vice-president and 
general manager of the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Rail- 
road, and vice-president of the Evansville & Terre 
Haute Railroad, Evansville & Indianapolis Railroad, 
and Evansville Belt Railway. 

His father is John F. Miller, who was for many 
years identified with the Pennsylvania Lines in an 



November to accept a position as assistant local freight 
agent for the Chicago & Eastern Illinois, which he held 
until January, 1893, when he was appointed local agent. 




HARRY I. MILLER. 

official capacity and is now vice-president of the Cleve- 
land, Akron & Columbus Railway. 

W. J. Jackson, general superintendent of the Chi- 
cago & Eastern Illinois at Chicago, has for twenty- 
eight years have been in active service. He was 
born in Toronto, Canada, December 28, 1859, the on ly 
son of John and Jane Jackson. 

In November, 1877, as machinist's helper, he went 
to work at the Grand Trunk railway shops, in his native 
city. The following year he worked as a freight 
handler and after that as freight clerk. He came to 
Chicago in 1882, becoming chief claim clerk for the 
Grand Trunk, and three years later he was promoted 
to the position of general freight foreman. From 
November. 1890, to August, 1891. he served as assist- 
ant agent for the road. He left the Grand Trunk in 




W. J. JACKSON. 

He became assistant general superintendent of the line 
in July. 1899, and in February, 1903, he became gen- 
eral superintendent. 

Mr. Jackson is a man of domestic tastes and has 
little to do with clubs. He has always been affiliated 
with the Republican party. He was married to Miss 
Eliza Preston. They have a family of four children, 
three daughters, Anna May, Edna Gracey and Emma 
Isabella, and a son, Arnold. 

The Chicago & Western Indiana Railway extends 
from Dearborn Station. Chicago, to Dolton, with an 
extension to the Indiana state line, near Hammond, 
Indiana. It is a terminal road and has been used for 
over twenty years for an entrance into Chicago by the 
Wabash, Grand Trunk, Monon, Erie and Santa Fe 
railroads. These popular railway systems extend into 
all parts of the East and West ; from Portland, Maine 
and New York City in the East, to Los Angeles and 
San Francisco, California, in the West. 

Dearborn Station on Polk street . is easily reached 
from all parts of the city and is one of the most beau- 
tiful and commodious stations in the city. Its use by 
eastern, southern and western roads, makes transfer of 
passengers from one road to another easy and con- 
venient. 

The Belt Railway Company of Chicago is popu- 
larly known as the Inner Belt Line, and it enjoys a 



106 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



large business in the transfer of freight cars between the 
various railroad lines, industries and warehouses in and 
about Chicago. Its tracks extend from the Chicago, 
Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway (Cragin) to South Chi- 
cago and the South Chicago docks, connecting with all 
railroads entering the city. Many large industries are 
located on the Belt Railway. Among them may be men- 
tioned the great works of the Illinois Steel Company 
and the International Harvester Company, Deering 
Division, at South Chicago, the new and extensive plant 



tively small industry in proportion to its present mag- 
nitude, and from the company, as it was first established 
for the purpose of constructing sleeping cars after the 
pattern of Mr. Pullman's invention, it has grown to a 
corporation with a capital stock of $74,000,000, and 
facilities for building, not only sleeping cars, but pas- 
senger and freight cars of all descriptions. A few fig- 
ures regarding this great industry cannot fail to be of 
interest. The shops at Pullman have a capacity of 
turning out an average of six sleeping cars, fifteen pas- 




POLK STREET DEPOT. 



of the Western Electric Company, and Pettibone, 
Mulliken & Company, the Morden Frog & Crossing 
Works, International Salt Works. Western Steel Car 
Company, besides innumerable elevators, iron furnaces, 
coal and lumber yards. 

The management is constantly receiving inquiries 
from and furnishing information to parties seeking suit- 
able sites for industrial plants. 

Pullman's Palace Car Company was organized 
under the laws of the state of Illinois in February, 1867, 
by the late George M. Pullman, with a capital of 
$100,000. As originally founded, it was a compara- 



senger coaches, and 400 freight cars per week. In the 
shops about 54,000 tons of coal are consumed annually, 
and over 100,000 tons of iron and about 56,500,000 feet 
of lumber are used. The total amount of wages paid 
by the company to its employees at Pullman, from Sep- 
tember i, 1880, to July 31. 1904. was $67,174,361.05, 
and the value of materials used during the same period 
was $141,213,423.10. The number of cars owned and 
controlled by the company at the close of the fiscal 
year ending July .31, 1904, was 4,095, consisting of 
sleeping, parlor and dining cars. The total mileage of 
railways covered by contracts for the operation of cars 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



109 



Roosevelt, Mr. Bird believes in "a square deal for every 
man." And even- man who comes under Mr. Bird's eye 
in the cause of his professional duties gets "a square 
deal," as A. C. Bird's personal record has always been 
''clean as a hound's tooth" to use another of our Presi- 
dent's expressive similes. 

All his life Mr. Bird has been a worker. The gos- 
pel of work has found no more strenuous advocate. 




A. C. BIRD. 

Mr. Bird, nevertheless, has always found time to secure 
the exercise necessary to keeping in good physical trim, 
for preserving the "sound mind in the sound body." 
So in Mr. Bird's case, at least, there is no fear of the 
sword wearing out the scabbard. Unlike some rail- 
road magnates he never has to spend long weeks at 
continental spas to obtain a new lease of health. Mr. 
Bird is now in the prime of life holding perhaps the 
most responsible position among all the captains of 
industry in this busy city. 

Alexander f. Banks, president of the Elgin, Joliet 
& Eastern Railroad and of the Chicago, Lake Shore 
& Eastern Railroad, has been a railway man all his life, 
having begun his career as office boy in the contract- 
ing freight agent's office of the St. Louis & Southern 
Railway. He is a young man, but is as well known in 
railway circles as many of his veteran colleagues. 

Mr. Banks was born on a farm in Crawford County, 
Indiana, but from his very childhood he evinced incli- 
nations for something different from agricultural pur- 
suits. Two years after entering his duties as office 
boy he was promoted to contracting agent and was 



one of the youngest agents employed by the road. His 
first station as agent was that at Evansville, Indiana. 
After one year he became traveling and general agent 
of the Continental Fast Freight Lines. In that capacity 
he served eight years. From January i to September 
i , 1 888. he was general agent of the Iowa Central Rail- 
road at Peoria, Illinois, and became general freight agent 
of the same road in September, 1888. Mr. Banks' 
steady rise continued. May i, the following year, he 
took the positions of general freight and general pas- 
senger agents of the Iowa Central. In March, 1890, he 
was made traffic manager and remained as such until 
August, 1893, when he resigned to accept the postion 
of traffic manager of the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Rail- 
road. In May, 1899, he was appointed traffic manager 
also for the Chicago, Lake Shore & Eastern Railroad. 
In May, 1901, he was elected to his present position. 
Mr. Banks, although an indefatigable worker in his 
office, is one of the pillars of some of the representa- 
tive clubs of Chicago and Evanston, Illinois, residing 




ALEXANDER F. BANKS. 

in the latter place. He is a member of the Union 
League Club, Chicago Athletic Association, Mid- 
Day Club, Glen View Golf Club, the Country Club at 
Evanston and the Evanston Club. 

John C. Fetzer, prominently identified with real 
estate, financial and public affairs of Chicago, was born 
in Clarion, Pennsylvania, June 13 .1865. When he was 
three years old his parents moved to Ottumwa, Iowa, 
and in that city Mr. Fetzer spent his boyhood days. 
His father, William H. Fetzer, who was a lawyer, was 



110 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



active for twenty years in Republican political affairs 
of Iowa. 

After graduating from the Otturmva High School 
in 1881, Mr. Fetzer went to Omaha as assistant to the 
president of a large wholesale implement concern. He 
remained there until 1895, when he came to Chi- 




JOHN C. FETZER. 

cago to accept the position of manager of the McCor- 
mick estate. As representative of the estate, he was 
largely instrumental in the organization of the Interna- 
tional Harvester Company, of which the McCormick 
and Deering companies were leading factors. 

Mr. Fetzer also aided in the organization of the 
Jackson Trust & Savings Bank, the First Mortgage 
& Bond Company and the Illinois Surety Company. 
He acted for some time as vice-president of the two 
first-named concerns and is still a director in the Illinois 
Surety Company. In 1903 Mr. Fetzer was appointed 
a member of the board of education and has served much 
of the time since then as chairman of the finance com- 
mittee. In the early part of July, 1905, he was elected 
vice-president of the board. He is also a director of the 
Fort Dearborn National Bank, the Protection Mutual 
Fire Insurance Company and the Keystone Mutual Fire 
Insurance Company. 

Besides being brought prominently before the pub- 
lic as a member of the school board, Mr. Fetzer has 
come to public attention as managing receiver of the 
Union Traction Company. Judge Grosscup, in whose 
court the affairs of the company have been administered 
for several years, appointed Mr. Fetzer to this position 
February 15, 1904, and he retained it until his resigna- 



tion May 15, 1905. While he was managing receiver 
more than $2,000,000 was spent in rehabilitating the 
North and West Side Traction systems. 

Mr. Fetzer resides at the Palmer House. As a resi- 
dent of the First ward, and active Republican worker, 
Mr. Fetzer has devoted much time to elevating the tone 
of politics in the district. He is a life member of the 
Hamilton Club, a member of the Chicago Yacht, Chi- 
cago Athletic, Hinsdale and Hinsdale Golf clubs, and 
also a member of the Chicago Real Estate Board. 

Richard Fitzgerald, vice-president and general 
superintendent of the Chicago Junction Railway, began 
his career as a telegraph operator. Besides being 
vice-president and general superintendent of the Chi- 
cago Junction Railway, he is president of the Chicago 
Refrigerator Car Company, and a director in the Fort 
Dearborn National bank. 

Mr. Fitzgerald was married in 1881 at Shannon, 
Illinois, to Miss Gertrude Newcomer. They have two 
children, Marie and Gertrude. Mr. Fitzgerald is a 
thirty-second degree Mason, a Knight Templar, member 




RICHARD FITZGERALD. 

of the Washington Park Club, Midlothian Golf Club, 
Union League and Chicago Athletic clubs. His resi- 
dence is the Kenwood hotel. Mr. Fitzgerald is forty- 
eight years of age. 

Alonzo Clark Mather. As the name Pullman is a 
synonym for the sleeping car, that of Mather is indis- 
solubly associated with the stock car. What Pullman 
did toward revolutionizing the system of travel for 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



Ill 



men, Mather's inventive genius and humane impulses 
led him to attempt and successfully accomplish for the 
amelioration of the condition during transit of the dumb 
brute. 

The Mather Humane Stock Transportation Com- 
pany, of which Mr. Mather is president, is the agency 
through which is carried out on most of the railroads 
of the United States and Canada the objects which the 
inventor of the improved stock car sought to accom- 
plish when in 1881 he designed and built the first sam- 
ple of the new method of the stock transportation. 

In that year while on a trip east, Mr. Mather was 
delayed twelve hours through a wreck. Beside the car 
occupied by him was a train of cattle cars of the type 
then in use, in which were five dead steers and several 
maimed and bleeding ones. The animals had met their 
deaths or injuries through the efforts of one large and 
powerful animal to force his way from one end of the 
car to the other in a search for food and water. It 
occurred to Mr. Mather that there should be some way 
to transport cattle and avoid such conditions, and that 
if an improved method could be devised, it would be 
humane, and at the same time save loss by death and 
shrinkage in weight and delay in reaching market, if a 
system of feeding without stopping could be designed. 

As a result of thought on these lines, Mr. Mather 
designed and sketched a car in which stock could be 
separated, fed and watered in the car. Obtaining a 
patent on the invention, he started out to induce a rail- 
road to build such a vehicle. The railroads, however, 
declined to invest the money required, preferring to 
leave the cost to be met by individuals. Mr. Mather 
expended a large sum of money before he succeeded 
in producing a car after his designs which would stand 
the hard usage. Experience taught him also to do 
away with separate compartments, as the cattle rode 
easily together as long as movement in search of food 
was unnecessary. When the first improved car was 
finally completed, a test was made by transporting cattle 
from the same farm in the same train, one lot in the old- 
fashioned car and one in the new improved car. The 
occupants of the former were unloaded, fed and watered 
in the yards, while those in the improved car were fed 
in the car while it stood on side tracks. Careful tests as 
to weights, live and dressed, after arrival in New York, 
revealed astonishing results, and subsequent tests made 
for two years, when the improved cars were in practical 
operation, disclosed that the saving in shrinkage by 
the use of the improved method averaged twenty 
pounds per head, or $1.20 per animal. This saving has 
represented for a period of twenty-two years the enor- 
mous sum of over $25,000,000 on cattle shipped from 
Chicago alone. 

The history of Mr. Mather's establishment of the 
company bearing his name and the obstacles which 



had to be overcome to insure the success of the 
improved method of carrying animals, is the history of 
most reforms and innovations. But the disappointments 
encountered and the risks ran were to a large extent 
compensated for by the recognition of the invention 
by the contribution to him of an elaborate gold medal 
by the American Humane Association in 1883, two 
years after he demonstrated the feasibility of his inven- 
tion. 

Mr. Mather was born at Fairfield, Herkimer County, 
New York, the son of William and Mary Ann (Buell) 
Mather, and is a direct descendant of the Mathers 
who occupied so distinguished a place in the early 




ALONZO CLARK MATHER. 

colonial history of New England, and produced the 
famous Cotton Mather, the most remarkable and prom- 
inent of the name. The Mather family held for three 
generations so important a position in Boston that it 
was said of the men of that name that the snapping 
of a finger of one of them could produce a revolution. 
Alonzo Clark Mather obtained his education in 
the Fairfield Preparatory School, an institution origi- 
nally founded by his grandfather, Moses Mather, as 
a medical college. His father, known as one of the 
foremost writers and lecturers of his time on natural 
sciences and chemistry, was president of the institution 
for nearly a quarter of a century. Finishing his course 
of study at the Fairfield school, Mr. Mather sought 
employment in a mercantile house in Utica, New York, 



112 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



which he left a year later at the age of nineteen to 
embark in business for himself at Little Falls, New 
York. Ambitious to invade a larger field, he came 
West a year later to Ouincy, Illinois, and thence to 
Chicago, where he established himself in the wholesale 
men's furnishing business on Madison street, and for 
twenty years he was numbered among the prominent 
and successful merchants of the city. 

In 1895. he disposed of his mercantile business to 
devote himself exclusively to the growing development 
of the business of building and running his improved 
stock cars. The personal and exclusive attention given 
to the stock car company, was justified in the results 
which followed. At present there are from one to 
three trains dispatched daily from Chicago to New 
York which carry practically no cars except the Mather 
car. The company owns large numbers of these cars 
operated over different roads in the United States and 
Canada, and an injured animal is now rarely heard of 
where formerly nearly every car reaching Chicago con- 
tained dead or crippled cattle. 

Mr. Mather's interests are, however, not confined to 
the Mather stock car, but are varied. He has for 
many years been identified with a plan for developing 
the current power of the Niagara River at Buffalo 
under a system original with himself and he has patented 
many inventions now in general use, as well as an origi- 
nal idea of commercially utilizing the great tidal and 
wave power of the ocean, which Mr. Mather believes, 
are possibilities of the future. 

He is a member of the Union League and Mar- 
quette Clubs, and an original member of the First Regi- 
ment, Illinois National Guard, his connection with the 
latter dating from the period when it had its armory 
over a store on Lake street. 

Thomas Eugene Mitten, president of the Chi- 
cago City Railway Company, is a descendant of one 
of the oldest families in Sussex, England. He is the son 
of George and Jane Mitten, and was born at Brighton, 
Sussex, March 31, 1865. Therehe received his education. 
He was about fifteen years of age when he emigrated to 
the United States, remaining on a farm until 1884, when 
he entered the service of the Chicago & Eastern Illinois 
Railroad Company as telegraph operator. He suc- 
cessively filled for this and other railroads the positions 
of freight and ticket agent, train dispatcher, trainmaster, 
and adjuster of claims, until 1893, when he accepted 
the position of general superintendent of the Denver, 
Lakewood & Golden Railroad, in Colorado. One of 
the first moves of this company, under his manage- 
ment, was the construction and electrically equipping 
of its suburban lines. 

In 1895 Mr. Mitten became connected with the Mil- 
waukee street railway, during a period when a most 



bitterly contested strike was on. As a street railway 
superintendent, his administration was eminently suc- 
cessful, and his energy, firmness and tact, together with 
his manner of handling this strike, brought him into 
prominent notice, and secured him the position of gen- 
eral superintendent of that railway system. 

It was during the Pan-American Exposition at Buf- 
falo in 1901, however, that Mr. Mitten first had an 
opportunity to display his superior qualifications as a 
railroad manager. Selected as one who had a record 
of being competent to handle large traffic, Mr. Mitten 
was made general superintendent of Buffalo's Allied 
Street Railway companies, and the immense crowds 
which attended the exposition were so satisfactorily 




THOMAS EUGENE MITTEN. 

cared for as to excite the admiration of the public as 
well as the local New York press. 

In recognition of his executive ability and results 
secured by him, Mr. Mitten was made general manager 
of the International Railway Company of Buffalo, in 
December, 1901, which position he filled most accept- 
ably until February, 1905, when he resigned and 
accepted the position of first vice-president and manag- 
ing director of the Chicago City Railway Company, 
which position he filled until July, 1905, when he was 
elected president of that company. 

Mr. Mitten is one of the best equipped railroad men 
in the country. As a general manager he had few 
equals. Executive ability never had a more thorough 
exponent than is shown in the make-up of Mr. Mitten, 
who possesses the happy faculty of winning the confi- 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



113 



dence and respect of his employees, toward whom he 
literally applies the Biblical injunction of "doing toward 
others as he would be done by." His well-established 
reputation for absolute fairness and impartiality in treat- 
ment of employes, has won for him the respect, con- 
fidence and loyal support of his subordinates. 

For a number of years Mr. Mitten has given leading 
street railway systems of the country specialized serv- 
ices of the highest character, coupled with integrity of 
character, fertility in resources, the ability to create and 
carry out new ideas, admirable executive powers, and 
an unfailing gift of doing the right thing at the right 
time. He is in the prime of life, untiring in zeal and 
energy, and unites in his official administration all the 
qualities of the progressive business man and the rail- 
roader. Judging by his past career, he is eminently 
fitted for the hard and complex duties that will be 
i equired of him as the operating head of a system having 
to handle such an immense traffic as is enjoyed by the 
Chicago City Railway. 

Mr. Mitten is a member of the leading clubs in 
Chicago, Buffalo and New York City, as well as the 
Lafayette Lodge, F. & A. M., of Milwaukee; a thirty- 
second degree Mason, and a Knight Templar, belong- 
ing to Ivanhoe Commandery. 

Mason B. Starring has risen from the position of 
clerk to general manager of the Chicago City Rail- . 
way Company, in a period of fifteen years. A long 
line of sturdy American ancestors who have participated 
in the upbuilding of the Nation since its inception, com- 
bined with his own ambition and concentration have 
contributed to his success. Mr. Starring was horn in 
Chicago, May 8, 1859. His father was general baggage 
agent of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway, 
and invented the system of checking baggage now in 
vogue in this country. Among the first settlers in the 
New World were members of the Starring family, who 
came from Holland. Starrings fought in the Revolu- 
tion. 

Mr. Starring graduated from the old Central High 
School, and at the age of eighteen years entered the 
baggage department of the Chicago, Burlington & 
Quincy -Railway. At the age of twenty years he had 
become a general officer of the company, being made 
head of the baggage department to succeed his father. 
Until 1885 Mr. Starring continued in the employ of 
steam railways, part of the time being general bag- 
gage agent of the Pennsylvania Company. From 
1885 to 1888 he engaged in business for himself, 
settling in Iowa as a banker and grain dealer. In 1888 
he entered the office of the president of the Chicago 
City Railway Company as a clerk. He studied law at 



night, was admitted to the bar, and in 1894 was made 
assistant general counsel of the Chicago City Railway, 
under Julius S. Grinnell. At the death of Mr. Grinnell 
in 1898 Mr. Starring was made acting general counsel 
of the railway company. In 1903 his title was changed 
to general solicitor. Since May, 1904, Mr. Starring 
has been a director and general manager of the 
company. 

His wife was Miss Helen Swing, daughter of the 
late Prof. David Swing, perhaps the greatest liberal and 
independent preacher Chicago ever knew. The Star- 
rings' elder son, who is seventeen years old, is a name- 
sake of his famous grandfather. The younger son, 
fifteen years old, is named after Mr. Starring. The Star- 




MASON B. STARRING. 

rings live at 568 East Division street in the winter and 
at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, in the summer. Mr. Star- 
ring is a member of the Chicago, Calumet, Washington 
Park and Lake Geneva Country clubs. He is one of 
the convention committee of the Chicago Commercial 
Association, and a member of the Sons of the American 
Revolution. 

Dwight Foster Cameron's career admirably illus- 
trates the opportunity for success the poor country boy 
has in this country. He left his father's farm in New 
York state in the fifties and settled in Illinois with $40 
as his worldy possessions, but endowed with determi- 
nation and ambition inherited from a long line of 
Scottish ancestors. To-day he is president of the South 
Chicago City Railway Company and the Hammond 
Whiting & Fast Chicago City Electric Railway Com- 



114 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



pany, and a very capable and successful lawyer, although 
not now in active practice. 

Until he was sixteen years old Mr. Cameron 
remained on his father's farm in Madison County, New 
York, near the village of Peterboro, where he was born 
July 28, 1834. He was a big, active boy and when he 
was sixteen years old did the work of a full-grown man. 
His schooling was limited to the winter terms in the 
district school, until he was sixteen years old, when he 
began a course at Peterboro Academy. He remained 
here four years, paying his way with money he earned 
himself. After young Cameron was eighteen years old 
he taught school in the winter to make his expenses. 

At the age of twenty, completing his course at the 
academy, he left home and started out for the West as 




DWIGHT FOSTER CAMERON. 

the pioneer of the family, all of the members of which 
later followed him. He reached Ottawa, Illinois, and 
determined to settle there. After a few months' work 
in a bank he began to study law in the office of Glover 
& Cook. Young Cameron began to practice law 
before the justices when he had been in the law office a 
month. In 1858 he was admitted to the bar. General 
W. H. L. Wallace, Oliver C. Gray and Washington 
Bushnell examined him, and the late George C. Camp- 
bell, who afterwards became a well-known corporation 
lawyer. 

Mr. Cameron was a successful lawyer from the start. 
He had no connections except those of his own making, 
but hardly any time elapsed before he had a good and 
paying practice. When he was thirty years old he 
became the attorney and a director of the Ottawa. 



Oswego & Fox River Valley Railroad, and took part 
in promoting and building its line, which started at 
Streator and ran to Geneva. It was planned to compete 
with other roads for the traffic of the towns in the Fox 
River valley, and it finally developed into the Chicago, 
Burlington & Quincy Railroad. He served as attorney 
and director of this road from 1864 to 1870, and during 
this time he did all the law business of the company and 
tried all its suits, being assisted in only two of them. 
Its condemnation suits were under a constitutional 
provision, new at that time, which presented some diffi- 
cult problems. 

He was married in 1858, the year he was admitted 
to the bar, to Fanny E. Norris, daughter of George H. 
Norris, a banker of Ottawa. Their children are Captain 
George H. Cameron, Fourth United States Cavalry, 
Mrs. Williston Fish, wife of Mr. Williston Fish of the 
Union Traction Company of Chicago, and the Rev. 
Dwight F. Cameron, Jr., of Miami, Florida. 

In 1870 Mr. Cameron came to Chicago, where he has 
since been actively engaged in business. In 1892, in 
connection with the late Columbus R. Cummings, he 
built the South Chicago City Railway, and thereafter 
developed the Hammond, Whiting & East Chicago 
Electric Railway in connection with it. 

The Chicago & Milwaukee Electric Railroad, as 

shown on the map on the following page, connects 
twenty-two cities and towns, having a population of 
1 50,000, with Chicago, a city of over 2,000,000. 

The territory through which this road operates and 
the character of construction are considered by compe- 
tent judges to be the best in America. 

The original line was built in 1895 and 1896 from 
North Chicago to Waukegan, and was known as The 
Bluff City Electric Street Railway Company. In 1898 
the line was extended south to Highland Park and the 
name changed to The Chicago & Milwaukee Electric 
Railroad Company. It met with such favor that the 
next year the connection was made south to Evanston 
and through business was established on August 10, 
1899. 

In 1902 the extension from Lake Bluff to Liberty- 
ville was completed, and two years later was extended 
west to Rockefeller. Early in 1905 the extension north 
of Waukegan was begun, and formal opening of the line 
to Zion City taking place August 26. Work on the 
extension further north is being continued and in the 
fall of this year (1905) will be completed to Kenosha. 

Among the towns reached by the road now are: 
Evanston, Llewellyn Park, Wilmette, Kenilworth, Win- 
netka, Lakeside, Glencoe, Ravinia Park, Highland Park, 
Fort Sheridan, Lake Forest, Lake Bluff. Waukegan, 
Libertyville and Rockefeller. It will soon be possible 
to take a continuous ride by trolley from Chicago to 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



115 



Milwaukee. The fare is low and the trip cool and com- 
fortable in summer and warm in winter. The cars of the 
electric road being of the latest pattern and having all 
the modern equipment, they run with the smoothness 
and ease of a Pullman coach. This excellent service has 
done much to develop prosperous suburban towns and 
magnificent summer homes, and country clubs and rec- 
reation grounds located in this section. On stretches 
of the road a speed of fifty miles an hour is maintained. 
Among the exclusive country clubs which have their 
grounds along the line of The Chicago & Milwaukee 



MILWAUKEE 



CT^ LAKE FOREST 
ROCKEFELLER FORT SHERIDAN 

HIGHWOOD 
HIGHLAND PARK 
RAVIN I A 
OLENCOE 
LAKESIDE 
.WINNETKA 
KENILWORTH 
' . W1LMETTE 

EVANSTON 




RACINE 



KENOSHA 

WINTHROP HARBOR 

CAMP LOGAN 

Z10NCITY 

BEACH 

V WAD KEG AN 

O(f NO.CHICAGO 



CHICAGO 



Electric Railroad are the Evanston Golf Club, Glenview 
Golf Club, Kenilworth Country Club, Wilmette Country 
Club, Skokie Country Club, Exmoor Country Club, 
Onwentsia Club and Waukegan Country Club. 

The United States Government has appropriated 
$300,000 as a beginning of a naval station to be located 
at Lake Bluff. The site for the training station com- 
prises 350 acres, and when completed the Government 
will have expended at least $2,000,000 on the buildings 
and improvements contemplated. 

Fort Sheridan has always been one of the attractive 
features along the North Shore, being one of the finest 



military posts in the country. Tt offers attractions to 
visitors at all times ; daily drills in the morning and 
band concerts in the afternoon attract large crowds. 
Picnic parties are allowed on certain parts of the reser- 
vation, which accommodates a complete infantry regi- 
ment, four batteries of artillery and four cavalry troops. 

The Chicago & Milwaukee Electric Railroad makes 
a specialty of providing cars for picnic parties during 
the summer. Many take advantage of these oppor- 
tunities to visit the beautiful groves and woodland dells 
along its route. The city transportation lines connect 
with the electric road at Church street in Evanston. 

The general offices of The Chicago & Milwaukee 
Electric Railroad Company are at 108 La Salle street. 
The officers are A. C. Frost, president; H. S. Oakley, 
vice-president; George M. Seward, secretary and treas- 
urer. The directors are : A. C. Frost, George M. Sew- 
ard, H. S. Oakley, Joseph E. Otis, all of Chicago, 
and H. C. Osborne of Toronto, Canada. The oper- 
ating offices and power plant are located at High- 
wood. Ever since the road was started the roadbed, 
overhead construction, power plant, sub-stations and 
equipment have all been maintained in a high state 
of efficiency. During 1904 and 1905 the power plant 
was enlarged to more than double its former capacity. 
It is the ultimate plan of the road to have its right- 
of-way entirely confined to its own property. So 
rapidly is the country building up along the line that 
every effort is being made to secure the private right-of- 
way before the value of the property will make such a 
plan prohibitive by reason of the extensive improve- 
ments going in all along the line. Over a million dol- 
lars has already been spent by the company for its 
private right-of-way, which, in time, is to be a four- 
track system. All the improvements that are being put 
in along the line are of the most permanent and sub- 
stantial character. 

The rapid growth of the company is best shown by 
the steady increase in the net earnings for the past five 
years. The net earnings for 1900 were $81,169; for 
1901, $97,156; for 1902, $110,746; for 1903, $193,619; 
and for 1904, $285,617, this being an increase of 250 
percent in five years. The traffic during 1905 has been 
steadily on the increase and the earnings will undoubt- 
edly go well over the $300,000 mark. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



B 


A 


N 


K 


S 


o 


F 


C 


H 


I C 


A 


GO. 




URING the first century of its exist- 
ence Chicago has grown from a fron- 
tier trading post, where the mediums 
of exchange were pelts and powder 
and ball, to the second financial cen- 
ter of the United States. To-day its 
banking institutions are exceeded 
only by New York in capital in- 
vested, resources, deposits and clear- 
ings. But three cities in all the world 
:ke financial rank ahead of Chicago New 
k, London and Paris. New York was 
nearly two centuries old before Chicago became dis- 
tinguishable 111)011 the map of the United States, while 
London and Paris had become centers of population 
over a thousand years before. 

The greatest growth of Chicago's financial interests 
has taken place in the last forty years. When the Chi- 
cago clearing house was organized in 1865 its business 
hardly exceeded $400,000,000 a year. It is now over 
$9,000,000,000, an increase of over 2,100 per cent. In 
the tremendous growth and development that followed 
after the great fire the banks of Chicago led. Chicago's 
clearing house was organized in 1865, but its records 
for the local banks date back only to 1873. For that 
year the thirty national, state and private banks had a 
capital of $i 1,940,700. On May 31, 1905, the forty-nine 
national and state banking institutions of Chicago were 
capitalized for $48,350,000, an increase in thirty-three 
years of $36,409,300. The surplus and profits of all the 
banking institutions of the city in 1873 were $4,222,010. 
For May, 1905, they were more than nine times as great, 
reaching the immense total of $38,273,341. In the 
same year after the fire the banks loaned $36,951,998. 
They now carry over tenfold that amount, the loans in 
May of this year aggregating $403,673,162. But in no 
way is the wealth and progress of the city so emphatic- 
ally indicated as in the increase in deposits in the banks 



since the fire. The first clearing house statistics give 
the total bank deposits for Chicago at $40,600,522. 
They now total $634,935,642. 

The first step in Chicago's financial history was 
taken when the Indian traders adopted a rude banking 
system by issuing a kind of currency in the nature of 
written promises to pay for the pelts the Indians brought 
to the fort. Every scrap of that paper was redeemed 
and passed current at its face value. 

To Gurdon S. Hubbard may be given the credit of 
being Chicago's first banker, and he lived to see the 
trading post lying under the protecting stockade of 
Fort Dearborn, grow to a city of a million souls. He 
had funds on deposit at Buffalo, and his bills of exchange 
were always honored. He was able to do his neighbors 
an important neighborly service by selling them Buffalo 
exchange, and in those days Buffalo was the metropolis 
of the Middle West, to use a modem term. All 
through the East such bills were acceptable money 
remittances. The first bank in Illinois, called the Bank 
of Illinois, was located at Shawneetown, which, for all 
practical purposes, was about as far from Chicago as 
Manila is to-day. Its charter was granted two years 
before the state was admitted into the Union. It was 
renewed by the state legislature, the state itself becom- 
ing a partner in the business. That institution failed, 
involving considerable loss to the state. Branches were 
established, but Chicago was too small to have even 
a branch until late in the year 1835, when the Chicago 
Branch of the Illinois State Bank was announced. 
That was the first real banking house in the history 
of the city. It was located at the corner of La Salle and 
South Water streets. W. H. Brown, whose name is fitly 
borne by one of the public schools of the city, he being 
eminent in the promotion of our educational sys- 
tem, was the practical head of the bank, having the 
title of cashier. The deposits for the first three months 
averaged about seven hundred dollars a day. It flour- 



110 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



117 



islied until the spring of 1837, when the great crash 
which came to the whole country brought distress. The 
state undertook to rescue the bank by plunging into a 
grand system of internal improvements, but the inevit- 
able bankruptcy came to a head in 1843, ar >d the Chicago 
branch went out of existence finally in 1843. Even 
before this it had been reduced to an agency, the branch 
proper being removed to Lockport. The actual cur- 
rency of the period from 1837 to 1843 was largely made 
up of city and private scrip, with a very considerable 



ago. He belonged to Milwaukee almost as much as 
Chicago, for his banking career really began with secur- 
ing from the legislature of Wisconsin in 1839 a charter 
for the Wisconsin Marine & Fire Insurance Company, 
authorized to receive deposits and issue "certificates" 
to the sum of $1,500.000. That institution had its 
headquarters at Milwaukee, but Mr. Smith resided in 
Chicago, where he conducted a private bank under the 
name of George Smith & Co. For twenty-one years he 
was the leading banker of the West, and the certificates 




GARFIELD PARK GREENHOUSE INTERIOR. 



infusion of bank notes issued under the banking laws 
of other states. 

The first really great banker of Chicago was George 
Smith, a preeminently "canny" Scotchman, a man of 
remarkable business ability and unimpeachable integ- 
rity. Not a dollar of the millions of paper bearing the 
signature of "Geo. Smith" ever failed to be redeemed 
on demand. No run ever broke him. His system was 
fiercely assailed as illegal, but it had no taint of dishon- 
esty. Private banking, as conducted by him in Chicago 
for twenty years, while it yielded him a great fortune, 
was of incalculable benefit to Chicago and the region 
round about. 

It was in the spring of 1834 that Mr. Smith reached 
Chicago to seek his fortune. He found it and returned 
to London to enjoy it in 1860, where he died a few years 



which bore his name were always redeemed on demand. 
It was a great thing for Chicago banking to have its 
foundations laid by so sound and sagacious a banker. 

Many of the banks, private and chartered, which 
were doing business here when the crash of 1857 came, 
went down with the general crash. Others went out vol- 
untarily and still others reorganized under the national 
bank act. J. M. Adsit. who began as a private banker 
in 1846. continued the business thirty years and then 
retired, the last of the private bankers who survived the 
storm of 1857. Of the banks then doing business under 
state charters all are gone and have been for many years, 
except the Merchants' Loan & Trust Bank, which 
declined to go into the national system, and has always 
been one of the great banks of the city. During the 
period of "wild-cat" banking Chicago made, as a whole, 



118 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



a good banking record. Besides the bankers named 
honorable mention should be made of J. Young Scam- 
mon, J. H. Burch, E. J. Tiukham, R. K. Swift, H. A. 
Tucker and Solomon A. Smith. 

The national bank act dates from March 25, 1863. 
Ft found Chicago, in common with the country gener- 
ally, in woeful need of a larger and, above all, a better 
medium of exchange. The legal tender notes of the 
government were utterly inadequate to the currency 
needs of trade. The country had fully recovered from 
the depression which began almost simultaneously with 
the year 1857, anc l was rendered more pronounced dur- 
ing the early period of the war. Many of the banks 
whose bills circulated largely here when the Civil War 
began were located in the South. Those which con- 
tinued to do business suspended specie payments. It 
is not too much to say that the national bank system 
was born of necessity. The government needed the 
money, which would have to be paid for its bonds, to 
serve as a base of circulation, and the people needed 
the bills for use as a sound medium of exchange. Still 
for more than a year the change from state bank notes 
to a national bank currency went on slowly. Finally, 
patience exhausted, the Chicago Board of Trade 
announced, in a notice signed by all the leading mem- 
bers of that body, and dated May 9, 1864, "that on and 
after the I5th inst. the base of transactions, either buy- 
ing or selling, should be legal tender notes or the ; r 
equivalent." Three days later the bankers of the city 
announced that "on and after Monday, May 16, 1864, 
we will receive on deposit at par, and pay out at par 
only, legal tender notes, national bank notes and the 
notes of such other banks as redeem at par in the city 
of Chicago." That ended the era of wild-cat money 
in this city. The national bank system received a veri- 
table boom. By the close of 1864 Chicago had seven 
national banks namely, the First, Second, Third, 
Fourth, Fifth, Mechanics' and Northwestern. Of these 
only three survive, the First, Northwestern and Fifth, 
the latter under a change of name. An eighth, the 
Manufacturers', long since defunct, was organized about 
that time. One of the newspapers of the period 
remarked at that time : "One million of dollars a day 
goes into the country from Chicago to the producers. 
Well may the bankers rejoice that the days of rag money 
are over." 

On those days, and for many years after, there was 
profit in the national bank circulation, and it was issued 
as the needs of business required, but of late years 
the policy of our banks has been to put in circulation 
only the minimum amount of their own notes. Bonds 
are so high and the rate of interest so low that there is 
no profit in it. 

The adoption of the national bank system caused a 
few bank failures, but from the close of 1864 to the 
great fire of October 9. 1871, the banking business of 



Chicago went on prosperously. The seven national 
banks had become seventeen, and there were also ten 
private banking institutions. The national bank cap- 
ital at that time was $6,800,000, not including the 
undivided surplus, amounting to $2,715,000. The total 
bank capital of the city was $12,250,000. 

In this connection should be given a memorable, 
but little remembered, episode. While yet the ruins of 
the smoking city were hot and no bank vaults were 
opened, the bankers of the city held a conference. The 
question was, How shall we open and what per cent of 
deposits shall be paid on demand? A committee was 
appointed. No one on that committee dreamed of pay- 
ing dollar for dollar. Some said 15 per cent, others 
25 per cent and still others a little more. It looked as 
if the 25 per cent plan would be adopted as a compro- 
mise. Suddenly, but in a very quiet way, the president 
of the Merchants' National Bank, Chauncey B. Blair, 
remarked, without rising from his chair: "Gentlemen, 
I always like to agree with my brother bankers, and in 
ordinary matters would yield to the majority, but when 
it comes to paying my debts or the debts of my bank I 
have only this to say, I have always paid in full and 
always shall if I can. Perhaps I shall not be able to 
pay even 25 per cent. The vault is still closed. It may 
contain only ashes, but I shall do the best I can to meet 
all the demands of my depositors." That was a thunder- 
bolt. It created consternation. An adjournment was 
had without action, in the hope of convincing Mr. 
Blair that the banks ought to stand together. 

The next day the comptroller of the currency put 
in an appearance, and without knowing what Mr. Blair 
had said notified the national banks that they must pay 
in full, or he would not let them open at all. He was 
inexorable. When the country correspondents and local 
depositors found that this decree had been issued they 
were greatly relieved, and when the banks did open 
there was no run on them. The vaults all stood the 
fire test, and in a very short time the deposits were 
larger than ever. 

The stringency which began in the fall of 1873 grad- 
ually developed until it \veeded out several national 
banks, without, however, weakening the system ; but the 
failure of the State Savings Institution, the leading sav- 
ings bank of the city, which occurred in 1877, and of 
some minor banks, produced a far-reaching effect. It 
seemed as if the very foundations of Chicago's confi- 
dence in savings banks were shaken and overthrown. 
For years this branch of banking was depressed. The 
recovery from the shock was slow. It was not until the 
state adopted a policy of supervision of all banks doing 
business on state charters that confidence was regained. 

When the bank panic of 1893 swept over the coun- 
try it toppled over a few weak banks, but it did not work 
anything like a general havoc. The Chicago clearing 
house showed most excellent coolness. The storm was 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 
CONDITION OF CHICAGO BANKS JUNE 13, 1873. 



119 



Capital. 


Surplus. 


Undivided 
Profits. 


Loans and 
Discounts. 


Cash and 
Checks. 


Deposits. 


Kirst National $1,000,000 


$400000 


$154 339 


$3 018 199 


$1 U3 763 


$3 731 059 


Second National 10(1,000 


50,000 


20,396 


624,448 


254 697 


970 581 


Third National 750,000 


200000 


107 004 


2 753 796 


1 223 5 1 1 


3 91 664 


Fourth National 200.000 


10,000 


14,451 


400,735 


175 548 


425 491 


Fifth National .500,000 


100,000 


56739 


1 193 053 


239 781 


1 157 921 


Merchants National 500,000 


400,000 


10.180 


1,702,631 


429 703 


1 604 116 


Northwestern National 500,000 


500.000 


49 379 


1 400 031 


429 438 


1 016 411 


Manufacturers National 500.000 


100,000 


7,249 


I,:i36,732 


451.423 


1 482 598 


Mechanics National 250.000 


50,000 


99,285 


882669 


229 340 


928 549 


Commercial National 500,000 


200,000 


59,634 


1.450,764 


59K373 


1,632,836 


Tnion National 1,000,000 


200,000 


101,975 


3,567 525 


1 769741 


5 351 032 


City National 250,000 


110.000 


3295 


955 317 


'55 421 


367 774 


Merchants Savings Loan and Trust 1,500,000 


100,000 


581.463 


3,509581 


225 959 


1 721 130 


Corn Exchange National 500,000 
National Hank of Commerce 250,000 


50,000 
11,000 


34,459 
11,796 


1,349,603 
612 544 


379.801 
230.215 


1,444,429 
767 653 


Traders National ... 200,000 


4(1,000 


21,896 


478.889 


332.893 


669,045 


I'reston Kean & Co 100,000 




28,325 


683,297 


226.405 


1,187,235 


Hibernian Hanking Association 111.000 




81 221 


621 337 


25971 


755 954 


Cook County National 500,000 


10,000 


34,633 


1,164,761 


438,122 


1,460,151 


.1. M. Adsit 90,000 


1.528 




130 817 


60 990 


150805 


Central National.. 200,000 




8 679 


225 202 


98 100 


187 398 


National Bank of Illinois 500,000 


10.000 


26 432 


929 245 


249 872 


847877 


Prairie State Loan and Trust 150. (*x> 


7.500 


33,723 


591,385 


38,236 


813,858 


German National 500,000 


100,000 


19,281 


1,205,953 


418,860 


1,215,881 


Hank of Montreal 100,000 




21 221 


1 449 970 


85 006 


241 903 


Franklin Hank .. 100,000 




3449 


331 952 


45981 


313,326 


International Hank 200.000 


118,793 


6,306 


495,718 


106,288 


351,156 


Hide and Leather 259,700 


1,818 


4,539 


385,920 


94,784 


232.805 


Union Trust 125,000 


33,060 


16,283 


449,807 


91,282 


614,100 


State Savings Institution 500.000 




1(1 (VI9 


3050045 


412,327 


4 445,770 














Totals ... $11940700 

























severe, but not desolating. There was an admirable 
spirit of mutual helpfulness shown all through the try- 
ing ordeal. While some weak banks were obliged to 
go out of business, that panic had at least one good 
effect in Chicago. It is hardly too much to say that it 
put an end to private banking. Individuals and partner- 
ships doing a banking business felt constrained by the 
pressure of self-preservation to organize under the state 
banking act, thus sharing in the strengthened public 
confidence which results from state inspection. 

In the years from 1890 to 1899 Chicago banks passed 
through trying days to end in a period of great pros- 
perity. In that time Chicago emerged from the pro- 
vincial in banking to the metropolitan, and became the 
depository of funds for large notation enterprises. In 
this latter particular, however, it must be said that the 
Illinois Trust and Savings Bank stood as the particular 
representative. 

The first instance in which the banks of Chicago 
acted as a depository of trust funds in the matter of 
company promotions was at the time of the floating of 
the Glucose Sugar Refining Company, with a capital of 
$40,000,000. In this promotion the principal state bank 
mentioned received jointly with a New York institu- 
tion the underwriting deposits. Next followed the 
National Biscuit Company, with a capital of $55,000.- 
ooo, the principal floating of which was done in Chi- 
ago. Then during the active promotion year of 1898 
Chicago acted either in whole or in part as trustee for 
enterprises floated with a total capital amounting to 
$304,000,000. 

These flotations included some of the most widely 
known trusts in the country. Among them, in addition 
to the Glucose Sugar Refining and National Biscuit 



companies, were the American Steel & Wire Company, 
the American Tin Plate Company, the National Steel 
Company, the National Carbon Company, the Chicago 
Union Traction Company and the American Linseed 
Company. 

In addition to furnishing a good portion of the cap- 
ital for these enterprises, Chicago, through its banks, 
became a large lender of money, not only in New York 
but in London and Berlin. When, in 1898. money was 
stringent in Germany and the bank rate was advanced 
to 6 per cent, Chicago banks carried credits of per- 
haps $10,000,000 in the German capital. 

In 1899, when through the fluctuations of the New- 
York stock market and the heavy transactions on 
that exchange, money advanced rapidly, Chicago was 
accustomed to loan daily from $2,000,000 to $8,000,000 
on call, an experience which five years previous had been 
unknown. 

An evidence of the esteem in which Chicago banks 
were held by other Western institutions was afforded in 
the period of the Spanish-American war in 1898. when 
there was a general disposition to withdraw deposits and 
strengthen reserves. Between February 12, 1898, and 
April 30, 1898, the deposits of the New York associated 
banks showed a decrease of $80,180,500. The with- 
drawals began immediately after the explosion of the 
Maine, February 15, 1898, and ended with the battle 
of Manila, May i, 1898. New York bank deposits in 
that time decreased for $738,683,800 to $658.503,300. 

While country institutions were drawing their depos- 
its from New York banks they were increasing their 
balances with Chicago institutions. According to offi- 
cial statements there were in Chicago institutions about 
February i total deposits of $266.481,246. According 



120 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



to similar statements three months later there were, 
about May i, $272.934,242. There was increase there- 
fore, of $6,452,996. 

This preference on the part of country banks for 
Chicago institutions as depositories for funds rather 
than the New York banks probably grew out of the 
fact that in 1893, when the industrial depression began, 
New York institutions issued clearing house certificates. 

The growth in deposits by years of Chicago banks 
from 1890 to May 30, 1905, are shown in the following 
table : 

CHICAGO BANK DEPOSITS. 



December. 


National. 


State. 


Total Both. 


1890 


% 94,470,800 


* 35.753,854 


$130,224,654 


1891 


118,154,700 


44,442,399 


162,597,099 


1892 


130,058.550 


58,363.226 


188,421,776 


1893 


122,354,131 


56,854,484 


179,208,615 


1894 


129,626,653 


67,062,067 


196,688,720 


1895 


120.705,569 


72,686,890 


193.392,459 


1896 


110,298,369 


66,963,345 


177,261,714 


1897 


150,042,071 


90,502,701 


240,544,772 


1898 


188,131,143 


"3, 958.4 4 


302,089,547 


1899 


195,346,694 


132,036,352 


327,383,046 


1900 


231,386,146 


158,238,138 


298,624,284 


1901 


262,797,936 


184,889,793 


447,687,729 


1902 


265,136,636 


209,921,612 


475,058,248 


1903 


276,048,884 


234,306,041 


510.354,925 


1904 


299,588,196 


297,070,456 


596,658,652 


May, 1905 


3'5. 077,903 


319,857.721 


634.935. 6 24 



From the foregoing table it will be seen that the 
state banks have been steadily gaining on the national 
banks in the volume of deposits since 1890, and at the 
last call in May, 1905, were ahead. This development 
has been due probably in a large part to the latitude 
which the state laws offer with reference to reserves, 
compared with the national banking act. 

Previous to 1899 the record in the matter of clear- 
ings in the history of the clearing house association was 
made in 1892. After the latter date, or until 1898, 
Chicago, instead of advancing, went backward, and in 
1896 the clearings were but about $100,000,000 better 
than 1894, the latter being the low year after 1892. 
The clearings since the clearing house was organized 
follow : 

CHICAGO BANK CLEARINGS. 



1865 $ 319,606,228 

1866 453,798,648 

1871 868,030,754 

1872 993,060,503 

1873 1,047,027,828 

1874 1,101,347,918 

1875 1,212,817,207 

1876 1,110,093,624 

i8?7 1,044,678,475 

1878 967,184,093 

1879 1,257,756,124 

ib8o 1,725,684,894 

1881 2,240,329,924 

1882 2,393,437,874 

1883 2,517,371,581 

1884 2,259,680,391 

1885 2,318,579,003 

1886 2,604,762,912 



1887 $2,965,216,210 

1888 3,163,774,462 

1889 3,379,925,188 

1890 4,039,145,904 

1891 4,456,885,230 

1892 5,i35.77i,i87 

1893 4,676,960,968 

1894 4,315,440.476 

1895 4,614,979,203 

1896 4,413,054,108 

1897 4,575,693,340 

'898 5,517,335,595 

1899 6.612.313,614 

1900 .... 6,799,535,598 

1901 7,756,372,455 

1902 8,394,872,351 

1903 8,755,553,649 

1904 8,989,983,764 



The days of suspensions, liquidation and consolida- 
tions in the last nine years began late in 1896. The most 
important failure was that of the National Bank of 
Illinois. A complete showing of the changes imme- 
diately prior to and following the failure of that insti- 
tution follows: 



BANKS. 



Central Trust and Savings Bank, suspended first 

quarter 1896 

Dime Savings Bank, suspended third quarter of 1896. 
Globe Savings Bank, suspended first quarter of 1897. 
Bank of Commerce, principal assets purchased by 

the Union National Bank, November. 1897 

International Bank, purchased by the Continental 

National Bank, February, 1898 

Commercial Loan and Trust Company, purchased 

by the Royal Trust Company, October, 1898 

National Bank of Illinois, suspended, December, 

1896 

Atlas National Bank, voluntary liquidation, first 

quarter, 1 897 

Prairie State National Bank, consolidated with Prairie 

State Savings and Trust Company, August, 1897, 

under new name of Prairie State Bank 

Hide and Leather National Bank, purchased by 

Union National Bank, December, 1897 

American Exchange National Bank, consolidated 

with the National Bank of America, under new 

name of America National Bank, Februrary 18, 

1898 

Home National Bank, voluntary liquidation. Jan- 
uary 18, 1898 

Globe National Bank, purchased by Continental 

National Bank, November 18, 1898 

Metropolitan National took over West Side Bank. 

February, 1899 

Bankers National took over Lincoln National, July 

1900 

Corn Exchange National took over Northwestern 

National and American National, September, 1900. 
First National absorbed Union National, September. 

1900 

Corn Exchange National took over Merchants 

National, March, 1902 

First National absorbed Metropolitan Naiional, 

May, 1902 

Continental National took over National Bank of 

North America, October, 1904 

American Trust and Savings took over Federal 

Trust and Savings, May, 1905 

Central Trust of Illinois, reduction of capital 



CAPITAL. 



Decrease in banking capital $19,700,000.00 



$ 200,000.00 
100,000.00 
200,000.00 

500,000.00 
500,000.00 
500,000.00 
1,000,000.00 
700,000.00 

200,000.00 
300,000.00 

250,000 oo 

1,000,000.00 

1,000,000.00 

50,000.00 

200,000.00 
2,000,000.00 
2,000,000.00 
1,000,000.00 
2,000,000.00 
2,000,000 oo 

2,000,000 oo 
2,000,000.00 



But in the meantime there were increases in old 
capital, as well as new additions. These changes were 
as follows: 

1897-0.8 

National Live Stock, $750,000 to $1,000,000. .Increase, $ 250,000.00 

Foreman Bros. Banking Company New Capital, 500,000.00 

Home Savings Bank, $5,000 to $100,000 Increase, 95,000.00 

Prairie State Savings and Trust Company, 

under new name of Prairie State Bank, 

$200,000 to $250,000 Increase, 50,000.00 

Western State Bank New Capital, 300,000.00 

1899- 

July Illinois Trust and Savings Increase, 1,000,000.00 

July State Bank of Chicago Increase, 500,000 oo 

Dec. First National of Evanston New Capital, 100,000.00 

1900 

Sept. Corn Exchange National Increase, 1,000,000.00 

Sept. First National Increase, 2,000,000.00 

1901 

Jan. Chicago National Increase, 500,000.00 

April Continental National Increase, 1,000,000.00 

May Hibernian Banking Association Increase, 500,000.00 

Aug. Commercial National Increase, 1,000,000.00 

Oct. Illinois Trust and Savings Increase, 1,000,000.00 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



121 



1902 

Jan. DroversTrust and Savings New Capital, $ 200,000.00 

Feh - Federal Trust and Savings New Capital, 2,000,000.00 

March American Trust and Savings Increase, 1,000,000.00 

March Chicago Savings Bank organized New Capital, 250,000.00 

March Corn Kxchange National Increase, 1,000,000.00 

March Western State Bank Increase, 200,000.00 

March Stock Yards Savings New Capital, 250,000.00 

April Colonial Trust and Savings Bank New Capital, 200,000.00 

April Drexel State Bank New Capital, 200,000.00 

May First National Increase, 3,000,000.00 

May South Chicago Savings New Capital, 200,000.00 

May National Bank of North America New Capital, 2,000,000.00 

May Central Trust Company New Capital, 4,000,000.00 

June National Bank of the Republic Increase, 1,000,000.00 

Aug. Bankers National Increase, 1,000,000 oo 

Sept. Metropolitan Trust and Savings .... Increase, 250,000.00 

1903 

Feb. -Hamilton National Bank New Capital, 500,000.00 

April Manufacturers Bank New Capital, 200,000.00 

June Merchants' Loan and Trust Increase, 1,000,000.00 

June Pearsons-Taft Land Credit Company . .Increase, 100,000.00 

June Western Trust and Savings Increase, 500,000.00 

Sept. Jackson Trust and Savings New Capital, 250,000.00 

Sept. Calumet National Increase, 50,000 oo 

Dec. First Trust and Savings New Capital, 1,000,000.00 



1904 . 

June Hibernian Banking Association Increase, $500,000.00 

June Prairie National New Capital, 250,000.00 

Sept. Chicago Savings Increase, 250,000.00 

Sept. Calumet Trust and Savings New Capital, 250,000.00 

1905 

May American Trust and Savings Increase, 1,000,00000 



Total additions to capital $33,895,000.00 

It will be seen from the foregoing tables that the 
changes and combinations of banks have been great 
during the past decade. The centralization of banking 
interests has been more than counterbalanced by the 
starting of new institutions and the bringing of new 
capital into the field. At the close of 1899 the banking 
capital since the Illinois National failure, had shrunk 
over four and a quarter million dollars. In the next five 
years this had been more than overcome and the net in- 
crease since 1896 was over $14,000,000, up to May, 1905. 

The condition of the Chicago banks at the time of 
the call. May, 1905, follows: 



CONDITION OF CHICAGO STATE BANKS, MAY 31, 1905. 



NAME. 


Capital 
Stock 
Paid In. 


Surplus 
and 
Undivided 
Profits. 


Loans 
and 
Discounts. 


Bonds 
and 

Stocks. 


Cash 
on 
Hand. 


Due from 
Other 
Banks. 


Checks 
and 
Other 
Cash 
Items. 


Savings 
Deposits 
Subject to 
Notice. 


Individual 
Deposits. 


Due 10 
Other 
Banks. 


Total 
Deposits. 


American Trust and Savings Hank 
Austin State 


$3,000,000 
25000 


11,969,687 
39350 


$18,360.031 
415 601 


$ 4,947,801 
204 345 


$ 4.648,547 
56 251 


$ 4,867,827 
104 209 


$1,467.532 


$ 3.004,172 
380 %1 


$19,815,855 
341 434 


$ 6,763,344 


$29,5F3,37I 
joo 385 


Central Trust of Illinois. 


2 000 000 


916 361 


7 346 041 


1 196 7 9 6 








1 502 1% 


5 961 ' J 05 


1 859 879 




Chicago City Hank 


200000 


157,528 


1 055201 


1 87 832 


52 851 


330 835 




619 36 


710 593 




1 3 -> 9 919 




500 000 


60 314 


1 161 686 


924 349 


215 947 






79< 096 


1 112 126 


31 769 




Colonial Trust and Savings 


200000 


101 477 


1 2 -> 6 813 


77 700 


26 603 


191 983 


136 331 


111 303 


1 031 321 


215 319 


1 357 943 


Cook County State Savings 


50.000 


2,417 


225205 


50000 


10 425 


99 421 


14 709 


1 42 33H 


205504 




347 842 




200 000 


16 274 


850 93 


<*5 125 


















200000 


48 094 


1 143 696 


419 000 


45 43** 


765 161 


101 


1 5 I 037 


93 90 




1 614 327 


First Trust and Savings 


1,000.000 


698,075 


1 1 931 892 


7577313 


608 402 


087 646 


76 689 


8 705 746 


1 1 638 397 


239723 


20 583 HIM 


Foreman Bros. Hanking Company .... 
Hibernian Hanking Association 


500,000 
1,000.000 


627,237 
1,049,404 


4,594,078 
12246423 


229.653 
2 044 216 


405,677 
886 521 


1,171,896 
439 965 


97,280 
222 858 


14 Oil 030 


5,371,347 
2 408 769 


" 39 125 


5,371,347 

16 458 924 




100 000 


155 785 




3 787 000 


19 857 


513 354 




4 064 426 






4 064 426 


Illinois Trust and Savings Bank . . . 
Jfcckson Trust and Savings 
Kenwood Trust and Savings 


4,000,000 
250,000 
200000 


5,948,405 
56.675 
14,244 


51,069,379 
1,047,084 
332865 


23,808,677 
240,169 


10,842,927 
67,165 
6 778 


13,170.387 
180.021 
8 OM) 


592,309 
33,223 


61,150,514 
131.224 
37 946 


26.600,686 
1,025.257 
102996 


1,852,635 
124,496 


89,603.835 
1,280,977 
140 942 




200000 


11 589 


380566 


67 365 


14 993 


62 166 


10 376 


72 218 


212 603 


42 554 


327 375 


Merchants' Loan and Trust Company. 


3,000,000 
750000 


3,617.532 
257 748 


35.704,245 
3 861 516 


8,890.129 
663 946 


6,641.797 
' ? 33 000 


12,018,007 
439 032 


2,148,482 
188 419 


5,238,095 
697 152 


27,634.837 
3715997 


15,944,552 


48,817,484 
4 413 149 




250 000 


255 760 


o 667 263 


303 634 


*>>>9 80q 


607 603 


73 607 


2 554 257 


918 476 




3 472 733 




1 000000 


1 684 022 


13 829 196 


7 857 1 1 1 


3 759 256 


5 154 700 


554 751 


9 720 894 


17672 415 


1 847 333 


29 240 642 


North Side State Savings 


50 000 


6 034 


244 630 




14 034 


ST 757 


2* 1 9*i 


151 966 


159 947 




311 913 




800000 


5 700 


3 262 193 




1 137 


73556 






2 983 593 




2 983.593 




200 000 


13 510 


64 519 


3 100 


26 750 


51 766 


399 


202 075 


361 771 




563 846 


Prairie State Bank 


250000 


73 721 


4 006321 


760 225 


484 351 


527 893 


71 763 


3 734 513 


1,807341 


6,183 


5 548 037 


Pullman Loan and Savings 


300,000 


170,613 


1,714,380 


1,078 095 


107 545 


437996 


2.173 


2,123468 


745,808 




2,869,376 




500000 


447 335 


3 530 703 


1 217 137 


233 5 >7 6 


912 405 


189 097 


1 720 022 


2,908,687 


532.659 


5,161,368 




200 000 


31 875 


535 7'*3 


160 987 


73 476 


93 494 




265 194 


412 883 




678077 


State Hank of Chicago 


1 000000 


609,543 


10 727 233 


894 190 


991 899 


2 032 662 


678203 


6 991 350 


5,279,545 


1,443,629 


13,714,524 


State Bank West Pullman. 


25 000 


4 643 


133 971 


26 836 


20 573 


18 893 




107 300 


73467 




180767 




* 7 50 000 


104 615 


1 048 800 


63' J 34 


67 339 


206 399 


7 096 


1 441 497 


165 865 




1 607 362 


Union Stock Yards State Hank 


200000 


12 448 


476 970 




36 535 


84 849 




249 498 


210245 


4,312 


464,055 




1 000 000 


5*7 970 


6 1 66 478 


I 906 "84 


420 475 


2 714 689 


654 935 


3 707 601 


6 257 836 


319 455 


10 284 892 




1,000000 


187 170 


4 283 333 


483 382 


96 442 


604 448 


2 1 4 694 


873 483 


2 736 487 


945,169 


4.555,139 


























Total Mav 31 1905. 


$23 750 000 


Jiq 93^ 655 


$196 ^QZ) 057 


$70 734 669 


$31 909 014 


$55 045 836 


$7 998 026 


$136 361 586 


$151 283 999 


$32212,136 


$319,857,721 



























* Pearson-Taft Land Credit Company does not do a general banking business. 

CONDITION OF CHICAGO NATIONAL BANKS MAY 29, 1905. 



BANKS. 


Capital. 


Surplus 
and 
Profits. 


Loans 
and 
Discounts. 


Specie. 


Other 
Cash and 
Treasury 
Credits. 


Individual 
Deposits. 


Due Banks. 


Due from 
Hanks 
and 
Agents. 


United 
States 
Bonds. 


Other 
Stocks 
and 
Bonds. 


Total 
Deposits. 




$2 OX) 000 


$1 065 962 


$10471 300 


$ 2 352 108 


$ 734 377 


$ 4 729 583 


$10 218 761 


$ 3 484 601 


$ 50,000 


$ 642.484 


$14.948.324 




1 000 000 


1 423 345 


1 2 602 653 


3 530 000 


1 333 166 


18 009 505 


4 949 319 


4 393080 


50000 


2,152,794 


22,958,824 




2 000000 


1 792 123 


23 995 870 


4 836 667 


1 937 316 


12872 133 


21 946 850 


4 429,780 


500.000 


2,554,833 


34,818,983 




3 000 000 


1 232 536 


33 128 159 


4 699 134 


6 230 294 


15 543 107 


37 129 714 


9 400 176 


50000 


1,564,293 


52,672,821 


Corn Exchange 


3.000.080 
600000 


3.581.208 
274 692 


35,105,323 
3 609 495 


7,603.828 
444 958 


2,171,713 
42 510 


25,412,546 
2 544 750 


22,756,877 
2 72" 1 151 


6,638,629 
1 079309 


1,000.000 
50000 


784,960 
10,093 


48,169.423 
5.266,901 


First 


8.000.000 


6,113 755 


57,498,500 


11,514.830 


4 946 301 


40 009 751 


52 565 506 


22,917,564 


2,107,000 


5,973,429 


92.575.357 




1 000000 


226614 


6 303 188 


991 440 


814 507 


6 243 307 


3 341 506 


2 039 157 


1, 025,000 


424,400 


9.584,813 


Hamilton 


500,000 


141,896 


2.097,966 


438,651 


50,824 


1 912274 


1 103.080 


603,749 


446.686 


223,254 


3,015,354 


Live Stock 


1 000000 


1 302 966 


6 583 956 


530 129 


307596 


4 671 382 


4 009478 


1 962 924 


50,000 


110.000 


8,680.860 


Prairie 


250 000 


59596 


593 536 


134 944 


3 126 


502 330 


959 030 


215296 


261 778 


45.000 


761,360 




2000000 


952.610 


12,630.548 


2.634 051 


809654 


9 473 822 


8 9"4 224 


3 539 382 


207,000 


858,941 


18,398,046 




100 000 


31 067 


568004 


56 037 


52 854 


72' 867 




169 872 


104,802 




722,867 


First (Eni^lewood) 


100,000 


106,770 


1.492,220 


41.160 


36704 


1,598 090 




170.583 


46,500 


56,692 


1.598.090 




50000 


49536 


787387 


35.231 


35595 


905 567 


93 


140 283 


12,500 




905,960 


























Total May 29 1905 


$24 600 000 


$18 334 676 


1207 468 105 


$39 833 168 


$10 915 537 


$145 151 314 


$169 96 580 


$01 274 385 


$5961,266 


$15,401.173 


$315,077,903 



























THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



First (National Bank of Chicago. In its new 
$5,000,000, eighteen-story home, the First National 
Bank of Chicago is the model institution of its kind 
in the world. The bank is the oldest national bank in 
Chicago, and among American banks exceeded in the 
amount of resources controlled by only three New York 
institutions. 

The bank was organized in 1863 as National Bank 
No. 8. with a capital of $273,000, and a staff of five 
employees and officers. Tt now has a capital of $8,000,- 
ooo, deposits of $98,000,000. 10,000 depositors and 







FIRST NATIONAL BANK. 

550 employees. In 1903 it transacted business to the 
amount of $12,000,000,000, whereas the United States 
government receipts for the twelve-month ending June, 
1904, amounted to little more than $1,000,000.000. 

Not only in its general business methods with the 
public, but in its internal organization, and its dealings 
with employees has the bank blazed the path for the 
financial institutions of the country. The arrangement 
of its official organization according to the general 
lines of trade is the feature most striking to the person 
accustomed to doing business with other banking insti- 
tutions. In other banks, and formerly in this one, 
depositors and correspondents were classified accord- 
ing to the letters of the alphabet that start their names. 



Now they are apportioned according to their trade or 
profession. Twenty-six lines of business are recognized 
and divided into seven groups, each one in charge of a 
senior and junior officer. All banking business out of 
the daily routine of making deposits, securing cash, 
etc., is transacted through these divisions. Division 
"A," of which Vice-President David R. Forgan is the 
chief, meets all persons whose business is: collateral 
stocks and bonds, grain, flour and feed, meat products, 
live stock commission, coal, physicians and lawyers. 
Other lines are grouped in the same manner and the 
men in each division become specialists and keep in 
touch with the trades conditions. 

For the benefit of the employees, President James B. 
Forgan has devised a complete pension system, which 
is supported both by the bank and its employees. On 
the top floor of the building is a cafe, where a well- 
known caterer daily serves lunch to the entire force of 
officers and clerks at the bank's expense. Another 
benefit is a savings association that pays 5 per cent 
interest on deposits up to a certain amount. The insti- 
tution has a library and a monthly periodical. The 
Review, containing financial news and office gossip, 
which circulates among the employees. The bank i e 
ably represented in public with musical, literary, social 
and athletic organizations from the staff. 

The tradition and aim of the institution has been 
to be everybody's bank, and in this it has succeeded 
greater than any like institution in the world. New 
York's largest bank, the National City bank, may 
show a score of persons transacting business at its 
counters at the liveliest hours of the day. During bank- 
ing hours in the First National bank of Chicago, it is 
not unusual to count 200 customers in the office, and at 
2 130 in the afternoon its stairways are crowded like the 
exits of a popular theater after a performance. 

The bank has more than 10,000 regular depositors, 
and only by its system of organization could be handled 
the extraordinary multiplicity of items that compose 
its immense bulk of business. Every day 1 00,000 entries 
are made on its books, and 15,000 checks and drafts 
on other cities are sent out for collection. The in-mail 
department alone, between the hours of 7:30 and 10:30 
each morning, disposes of about 4,000 letters, including 
deposits in cash, checks and drafts of from $7,000,000 
to $10,000,000. 

One striking example of the care and system of the 
bank is shown by the out-mail department. Though 
the annual business of the bank totals up in the billions 
of dollars, not a penny must be missing or astray in 
the daily footings. Economy in postage alone saves 
the bank from $25 to $30 per day. All letters are mailed 
after hours. Should a dozen departments find it neces- 
sary to write to the same correspondent during one day, 
every letter will come to the same mail clerk, and all 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



123 



will be finally forwarded in one envelope instead of pay- 
ing separate postage for each one. 

The main entrance of the First National Bank 
building was opened to the public May 15, 1905. It 
is one of the most magnificent buildings in the United 
States. Its granite walls, facing Dearborn and Monroe 
streets, rise eighteen stories in majestic simplicity, the 
only ornamentation being slightly projecting sill courses. 
A marble hall of Romanic splendor is the interior space 
containing the bank. The bank occupies the space 
contained in the first three stories. The aggregate 
height of these three lower stories is equal to that of an 
ordinary five-story building. A cornice supported on 
massive Doric pilasters, forty feet high, inclose the 
arched openings of the bank proper. Through an 
archway the main entrance to the main banking room 
leads into the grand central court. This court with its 
marble wall and marble seats and crystal plate-glass 
dome fifty feet above the floor is one of the most impos- 
ing interiors to be found in any land. The court 
measures 60 by 90 feet and is surrounded by an arcade. 
The main banking room is 230 feet long, 190 feet wide 
and 47 feet high, fifteen feet of the height facing the 
court being divided off into a secondary floor. There 
is one acre of floor space for every story. This space is 
divided off into offices and corridors, the corridors on 
every floor extending entirely around the building. 
The building has a frontage of 231 feet on Monroe 
street and 192 feet on Dearborn street, the total area 
being 44,274 square feet. Its height is 257 feet. There 
are 1,800 windows in the structure and 1,020 doors. 
These furnish light and egress and ingress to 983 
offices. Like a city within itself the building contains 
its own electric lighting plant, the boilers of 800 horse 
power furnishing power for the 7,900 electric lights and 
for the running of the fourteen elevators. There is a 
two-story basement underneath the structure where 
are located the power plants, the printing office and 
other departments. 

Before the Chicago fire in 1871, the bank occupied 
quarters at Clark and Lake streets. After that building 
was destroyed, it moved to State and Washington 
streets, where it remained until 1882. It then moved to 
its present location and the new building of which it 
took possession was then considered the finest in Chi- 
cago. When it was demolished two years ago to make 
way for the bank's present home it was more modern 
than many office buildings. 

E. Aiken was the first president of the bank. After 
his death, in 1867, Samuel M. Nickerson succeeded to 
the office. Lyman J. Gage became cashier of the bank 
when it was reorganized in August. 1868. In 1882 
another reorganization took place, and Mr. Gage 
advanced to vice-president. A few years later he was 
chosen president. He resigned this office to enter 



President McKinley's cabinet as Secretary of the 
Treasury. 

Mr. Nickerson was then re-elected president, but 
soon afterwards retired to private life in New York 
City. James B. Forgan, the present chief executive of 
the bank, succeeded him. The other officers of the First 
National are : 

Division A David R. Forgan, vice-president ; E. S. 
Thomas, assistant manager. 

Division B George D. Boulton, vice-president ; 
Frank E. Brown, assistant manager. 

Division C Howard H. Hitchcock, vice-president ; 
Charles N. Gillett, assistant manager. 

Division D Richard J. Street, manager; Frank O. 
Wetmore, cashier. 

Division E Holmes Hoge. manager; Charles H. 
Newhall, assistant manager. 

Division F August Blum, manager; Herbert W. 
Brough, assistant manager. 

Orville Peckham, attorney; James D. Woley, assist- 
ant attorney; Emile K. Boisot, manager bond depart- 
ment; Fred I. Kent, manager, and John J. Arnold, 
assistant manager, foreign exchange; M. D. Witkow- 
sky, auditor; E. J. Blossom, manager discounts and col- 
laterals; H. A. Howland, manager credits and statistics; 
William H. Monroe, assistant cashier and manager cleri- 
cal and bookkeeping department. 

The directors of the bank are : Samuel W. Allerton, 
George F. Baker, John H. Barker, A. C. Bartlett, Geo. 
D. Boulton, William L. Brown, A. A. Carpenter, Jr., 
D. Mark Cummings, Charles Deering, David R. For- 
gan, James B. Forgan, H. H. Hitchcock, James H. 
Hyde, Harold F. McCormick, Nelson Morris, Eugene 
S. Pike, Henry H. Porter, Jr., Norman B. Ream, John 
A. Spoor, Wm. J. Watson, Otto Young. 

The Continental National Bank, in its record-break- 
ing growth recently overstepped the $50,000,000 mark 
in its deposit line and now takes second place among 
the national banks of this city. 

The era of agricultural prosperity and commercial 
and industrial development which began during the 
closing years of the last decade and still continues, man- 
ifested itself most emphatically in bank clearings and 
the phenomenal rise in bank deposits. That the Con- 
tinental National Bank has been keenly alive to the 
opportunities this condition offered is amply attested 
to by the fact that in 1895 its deposits amounted to 
only $8,678,000, while in its report to the comptroller 
of the currency, January n, 1905, deposits aggregating 
$52,000,000 were reported. Through the absorption 
of the International Bank and the Globe National 
Bank in 1898, and the National Bank of North 
America in October, 1904. $16,000,000 of deposits were 
added. The remainder, or approximately $27,000,000, 



124 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



represents clean gain through sheer force of the most 
energetic and intelligent exertions on the part of a 
progressive and far-sighted management. "Progress" 
has been the watchword which carried this institution 
onward in its career and found its scope and expression 
in the development of every department. No tradition 
was too sacred to be sacrificed in the legitimate exten- 




CONTINENTAL NATIONAL BANK. 

sion of business, and the winning of new fields. These 
efforts remained not without their just reward, for 
to-day the bank numbers among its clients banks and 
bankers as well as merchants and manufacturers in all 
the states and territories of the Union, and takes rank 
with the leading financial institutions of the country. 
To meet the greater demands created by the growth 
of the business, the original capital of $2.000,000 was 
increased in April, 1901, to $3,000.000. The recently 
published report of the comptroller of the currency 



indicated a surplus of $1,000,000 and undivided profits 
of $56,739, total deposits $51,905.319, loans, discounts, 
stocks and bonds. $33,747.639. and cash and cash 
means $22,193,051. 

The present staff of officers is as follows: John C. 
Black, president ; G. M. Reynolds, vice-president ; N. E. 
Barker, vice-president ; Ira P. Bow en, assistant cashier ; 

Benjamin S. Mayer, assistant cashier; W. G. 

Schroeder, assistant cashier; Herman Waldeck, 

assistant cashier; John McCarthy, assistant 

cashier. 

The Chicago National Bank was organized 
January 9, 1882. At the end of the first three 
months of activity its deposits amounted to $827,- 
536. To-day, after twenty-three years and some 
odd months of growth, the deposits amount to 
$22,958,845. 

During all these years of rapid growth, Mr. 
John R. Walsh has been the president of the in- 
stitution. His long, active service makes Mr. 
Walsh the dean of Chicago's banking fraternity as 
a chief executive. Mr. Fred M. Blount, the vice- 
president of the institution, is with one exception 
the oldest bank official in Chicago in any execu- 
tive office. 

The growth of the Chicago National Bank has 
been a steady and gradual one, coincident with 
the general financial growth of Chicago. Its in- 
creases have reflected the city's prosperity, and 
have been the result of steadily increasing patron- 
age to the bank from old and new customers. No 
other banking or financial institutions have ever 
been merged into the original organization of the 
bank, so that its growth has never been accel- 
erated by such sudden influxes of capital. 

The first organization of the bank was effected 
with the following officers: John R. Walsh, presi- 
dent : James Adsit, vice-president ; Henry H. 
Nash, cashier, and James Adsit, Jr., assistant 
cashier. In 1884 the Adsit interests withdrew 
from the bank and Henry H. Nash was chosen 
vice-president, William Cox became cashier, and 
Fred M. Blount, assistant cashier. Mr. Cox left 
the bank in 1891, and Mr. Blount succeeded to 
the position of cashier, T. M. Jackson becoming 
assistant cashier. After the death of Mr. Nash in 1892, 
Mr. Blount became vice-president of the institution. 
The officers have not changed since that time, and now 
are : John R. Walsh, president ; Fred M. Blount, vice- 
president; T. M. Jackson, cashier: F. W. McLean, first 
assistant cashier, and J. E. Shea, second assistant 
cashier. 

The directors are: C. K. G. Billings. Fred G- 
McNally, Maurice Rosenfeld, John R. Walsh, Fred M. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



125 



Blount, John M. Smyth and William Best. Associated 
with the Chicago National Bank are the Home Savings 
Bank, the Equitable Trust Company and the Chicago 
Safe Deposit Company. Six of the seven directors of 
the National bank are also directors in both the Savings 
bank and the Trust company. 

The National bank as well as the Savings bank and 



Trust Company, pays interest on accounts of banks, 
individuals, firms and corporations. In the Savings 
bank, deposits are received for $i or more, and the 
interest is compounded semi-annually. The Trust 
company performs the usual functions of an executor, 
keeping the trust funds and investments separate from 
the assets of the company. The Safe Deposit company 




CHICAGO NATIONAL BANK. 



126 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



vaults in the basement of the banking building are 
among the largest and strongest in the world. 

The last report, May 29, 1905, of the condition of 
the Chicago National Bank showed assets amounting 
to $25,431,590.36, of which $12,555,559.68 was in 
loans and discounts, and $10,376,142.93 in cash assets. 
The capital stock was $1,000,000, with $1,000,000 sur- 
plus and $423,345.04 in undivided profits. The deposits 
on the same date aggregated $22,,959,845.32. 

The completion of the home of the Chicago National 
Bank marked the beginning of a new order of architec- 
ture in Chicago. When the new building was projected 
it was aimed to produce a structure which would be 
typical of a bank to even the most casual observer. It 
is of the Corinthian style of architecture with four 
immense columns fifty feet in height, ornamenting its 
facade. The building has a ninety-foot frontage on Mon- 
roe street, and is a symbol of solidity and strength. 

To a depth of fifty feet the building is four stories 
in height. The remaining 138 feet of the lot are covered 
by the banking floor, one-story high and roofed entirely 
with glass. The first floor of the front section of the 
building is occupied by the banking room of the Home 
Savings Bank and directors' room and president's office. 
On the second and third floors and fourth are the offices 
of the Equitable Trust Company, and the legal depart- 
ment of the various financial institutions. 

The beautiful interior of the main banking room 
would make a harmonious setting for the richest of art 
galleries, as well as it does for this home of finance and 
commercialism. The floors are of Vermont marble and 
the counters and bases which enclose three sides of the 
room are of mottled green marble. The walls of the 
room are paneled with veined Pavanazzo marble from 
the quarries of Carrara, Italy. 

These beautiful marble panels are matched just as 
they were cut from the quarries, and so perfectly do the 
tints fit together that each pair seem as if they were 
the symmetrical pages of a deep-toned marble book. 
In the space between the marble panels and the glass 
ceiling are sixteen semi-circular oil paintings repre- 
senting scenes and incidents in the history of Chicago 
from the time of the Indians to the present day. 

In the rear of the banking room are ten immense 
vaults in which the money, valuables and records of the 
banks are kept. They are three stories in height, and 
entirely clear of the outer walls so that they may be 
completely encircled by watchmen. The outer walls of 
the building are themselves three feet thick. 

The Commercial National Bank. The organization 
of the Commercial National Bank was begun at a meet- 
ing held December 12, 1864. The bank was author- 
ized by Hon. Hugh McCulloch, then comptroller of the 
currency, to begin business January 13. 1865. Those 



who were active in its beginning were P. R. Westfall. 
who was the first president of the bank ; R. B. Ennis, 
Moses S. Bacon, Charles Ennis, W. H. Ennis and 
Nicholas O. Williams. These gentlemen composed its 
first board of directors. On May 16, 1866, the follow- 
ing additional directors were elected : Henry F. 
Eames, Wm. H. Ferry, H. Z. Culver, Henry H. Taylor, 
Henry W. King, Alonzo Campbell, Wm. H. Kretzin- 
ger, Bacon Wheeler, R. B. Mason and Alfred Cowles, 



jSj 

5Ni8, 



3 

3 m 
3 HI in in 

HI HUH 



;S iiinU 

teSnniiHl 1 



I i minim 

niiiiiininu a 

r'Timnniininmiii * 



HI HI in 
mm mi 
HI HI in H 




COMMERCIAL NATIONAL BANK. 

all of whom were representative citizens of Chicago at 
that time, and they added greatly to the future success 
of the institution. The capital stock paid in was 
$200,000 and the report for September. 1866, shows the 
deposits at that time to have been $506,302.50. At the 
beginning of the next year Mr. Albert Keep and Mr. 
E. F. Pulsifer were added to the board of directors and 
the capital stock was increased to $500,000. 

The growth of the bank was constant and uniform 
from the start, and among its customers were manv of 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



127 



the most substantial men of the city; all of which was 
the direct result of the standing and ability of the men 
who stood as the representatives of the institution and 
directed its wise and conservative policy. 

From time to time important additions were made 
to the directory. S. W. Rawson became a director in 
1868; D. K. Pearsons in 1873; N. K. Fairbank in 1876; 
Franklin McVeagh and George L. Otis in 1880; 
Henry Field, O. W. Potter and Jesse Spalding in 1885; 
Norman Williams in 1888; Win. J. Chalmers in 1891; 
and James H. Eckels, John C. McKeon and Robert T. 
Lincoln in January, 1898. Mr. Wm. H. Ferry was 
vice-president from May, 1866, to March, 1880, and 
George L. Otis from January, 1881, to 1885 ; Mr. Henry 
Field from 1885 to 1890; Mr. O. W. Potter from 1890 
to 1896. 

The office of president was filled continuously by 
Mr. Henry F. Fames from 1867 to 1897, and under his 
guidance the bank prospered and became one of the 
leading financial institutions in Chicago. Deposits 
increased during his term from $506,300 to> more than 
$9,000,000, and to his wise and careful management, 
supported by the directory, is due in a large measure 
the success which the bank has enjoyed. 

On March 20, 1886, the capital was increased to 
$1,000,000, which was done entirely from accumulated 
earnings. 

On January i, 1898, Mr. James H. Eckels, former 
comptroller of the currency, was elected president. The 
reputation as a financier which he brought to the insti- 
tution caused a marked increase in its business, which 
is best shown perhaps by the increase in its deposits 
from about $9,000,000, at the time he took charge, to 
over $19,000,000 at the close of his second year, as chief 
executive. The statement March 14, 1905, shows 
a surplus fund of $1,000,000, in addition to the capital 
stock of $2,000,000, and undivided profits of $783,- 

399-53- 

The present officers of the Commercial National 
Bank are: James H. Eckels, president; Joseph T. Tal- 
bert, vice-president ; Ralph VanVechten, second vice- 
president ; David Vernon, third vice-president ; N. R. 
Losch, cashier; Geo. B. Smith, assistant cashier; Harvey 
C. Vernon, assistant cashier; H. Erskine Smith, assistant 
cashier and auditor ; Wm. T. Bruckner, assistant cashier. 
The directors are Franklin McVeagh, Chas. F. Spald- 
ing, Wm. J. Chalmers, James H. Eckels, Robert T. 
Lincoln, E. H. Garry, Paul Morton, Darius Miller and 
Jos. T. Talbert. 

The Illinois Trust and Savings Bank was organized 
May 7, 1873, commencing business on the northwest 
corner of Madison and Market streets. The capital 
stock at that time was $100,000, and the first president 
of the bank was Mr. L. B. Sidway. In 1875 a change of 



location was made to Clark street, between Washington 
and Madison, and the bank's growth continuing with 
increased force, a second change became imperative in 
1878, when the quarters so long occupied by the old 
Fidelity Bank were taken after the failure of the last- 
named institution. During that year President Sidway 
retired from the control of the affairs of the bank, and 
H. G. Powers assumed the direction of the financial 
management. He continued in charge until 1880, when 
the present president, John J. Mitchell, was chosen to 
succeed him. Under the wise and energetic administra- 
tion of President Mitchell the deposits soon reached the 
sum of $1,000,000, an excellent showing for that time, 
and especially by so comparatively a young concern. 







JOHN J. MITCHELL. 

Here the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank did a con- 
stantly increasing business for ten years, eight of which 
were under the active and personal management of 
President Mitchell. No better illustration of Mr. 
Mitchell's success could be cited than the fact that when 
the increased demands for greater facilities, in 1888, 
demanded and made imperative a third removal, the 
capital stock had been increased to $2,000,000, a sum 
twenty times greater than the original capital, and a sur- 
plus of $2,500,000 had been accumulated, and at a later 
date again increased to $3,000,000. The ground floor of 
the Rookery was chosen as the new location, and so 
commodious and extensive were these quarters that the 
most sanguine friend of the bank would have declared 
no further change ever would become necessary. But 
such has been the success of the bank, both in its bank- 
ing, trust and savings departments, under its present 



128 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



efficient management, that even the commodious quar- 
ters in the Rookery proved too small. An opportunity 
was afforded for the building of a permanent home on 
La Salle street, between Jackson and Quincy streets, and 
this building, which was completed in the early part of 
1897, at a cost of about $600,000, is probably one of the 
most complete banking structures in the world. 

The statement of the bank issued March 15, 1905, 
shows a capital stock of $4,000,000; surplus $5,000,000; 
undivided profits of $1,188,033.16 and deposits of $89,- 
608,121.70. 



ropolitan bank in the United States. Under his man- 
agement the institution has attained financial eminence 
that falls little, if at all, short of the degree of preemi- 
nence. He was born at Alton, in this state, November 
3, 1853, and is the son of William H. Mitchell, who for 
many years was president of the First National Bank of 
that city, and who was one of the earliest and largest 
stockholders of the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank, 
with the management of which he is still connected. 

Though the circumstances of his parents were such 
as to render his earlv entrance on a business career 




ILLINOIS TRUST AND SAVINGS BANK. 



The officers of the bank are as follows: John J. 
Mitchell, president: William H. Mitchell, vice-presi- 
dent ; W. H. Reid, vice-president ; F. T. Haskell, vice- 
president ; Chauncey Keep, vice-president ; B. M. 
Chattel!, cashier; J. T. Cooper, F. I. Cooper and E. S. 
Layman, assistant cashiers; William H. Henkle, secre- 
tary ; F. M. Sills, assistant secretary. 

John J. Mitchell. It is often said that genius is not 
hereditary. If the rule be sound as a generality, Mr. 
Mitchell's career must be taken as an exception to it. 
At the time of his election to the office that he how 
holds, that of president of the Illinois Trust and Savings 
Bank, he was the youngest presiding officer of any met- 



unnecessary, the inherited financial tendency of Mr. 
Mitchell was so strong as to impel him to follow in his 
father's steps ; accordingly, after a common school edu- 
cation and a brief period of study in the Waterville, 
Maine, Institute, he entered as messenger boy in the 
bank of which he is now president. The step was charac- 
teristic he doutless might have gone into the bank, at 
least, as clerk, but he preferred to make himself familiar 
with every detail of the business. His promotions were 
gradual, the functions of teller, cashier and president 
having been performed by him. In addition to the 
pressing duties of his office in the Illinois Trust and 
Savings Bank, Mr. Mitchell acts as director of the 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



129 



Chicago Stock Exchange and of the Traders' Insurance 
Company. 

The Merchants' Loan and Trust Company. No 

institution can be more justly called a represent- 
ative one, or is more closely identified with the city's 
financial prosperity, than the Merchants' Loan and 
Trust Company, the oldest banking institution in the 
state of Illinois. Organized in 1857, at a time when the 
monetary circulation of the Northwest consisted mainly 
of "wildcat" currency of various degrees of worthless- 
ness, and surviving in subsequent 
years disasters which proved finan- 
cial maelstroms to hundreds of less 
fortunate organizations, it has, dur- 
ing its forty-eight years of busy 
existence, successfully coped with 
almost every variety of calamity 
known in the annals of banking. 
The bank's doors were thrown open 
for business in May, 1857, on the 
first floor of the old Board of Trade 
Building at the corner of Water and 
La Salle streets. The state charter 
fixed the capital stock at $500,000, 
an amount that has since been in- 
creased at various times to $3,000,- 
ooo. Mr. John H. Dunham was 
its first president, and Mr. A. J. 
Hammond its first cashier. The 
thirteen original trustees were Isaac 
N. Arnold. W. E. Doggett. D. R. 
Holt, William B. Ogden, John H. 
Foster, Walter L. Newberry, Henry 
Farnum, Jonathan Burr, George 
Steele, J. H. Dunham, F. B. Cooley, 
A. H. Burley, and John High- 
names that must awaken a host of 
recollections to the Chicago resi- 
dent of antebellum days. 

A coherent account of the old 
"wildcat" or "stumptail" currency 
troubles, in their relation to the his- 
tory of this bank from 1857 to 1862, 
would fill a volume. It can, how- 
ever, be said that the Merchants' 
was from the start a pronounced 
and unyielding advocate of the ex- 
pulsion of the irresponsible system 
of banking which ultimately flooded 
the country with so much irredeem- 
able currency, and inasmuch as the 
trustees possessed the courage to 
shape the practical policy and 
9 



methods of the bank in accordance with their convic- 
tions they made enemies. Their path was anything 
but a bed of roses, and it is said that more than once 
bitter and determined efforts were made to ''down" 
the new institution, which, however, stood its ground 
bravely and came through these trying periods with 
flying colors. 

Mr. D. R. Holt, who had taken Mr. Hammond's 
place as cashier, resigned in 1862, and was succeeded by 
Mr. Lyman J. Gage, later secretary of the treasury, and 



Uiiunrftf 




MERCHANTS' LOAN AND TRUST COMPANY. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



about tliis time Solomon A. Smith was elected president, 
discharging the duties of that office until his death in 
1879. Charles Henrotin. who followed Mr. Gage, was 
cashier through two calamitous periods the great fire 
of 1871 and the panic two years later. At the time of the 
fire all the hooks were burned, but upon resuming busi- 
ness a few days later the bank placed to the credit of 
each depositor as he appeared the amount he claimed to 
have had in its keeping and over 1,000 accounts were 
then reopened without a single note of dissatisfaction. 
So prosaic and commonplace is the routine of banking 
ordinarily that an incident of this kind seems almost 
dramatic. 

The Merchants' seems to have been a sort of train- 
ing school for bankers, for not only Mr. Gage and Mr. 
Henrotin received their education behind its counters, 
but Mr. M.' D. Buchanan, later cashier of the Commer- 
cial Bank, Mr. \Y. M. Scudcler, at the time of his death 
cashier of the Hide and Leather Bank, and others who 
have won high places in the financial world, were also 
identified with this institution at one time or another. 

The statement of the Merchants' Loan and Trust 
Company, dated March 15, 1905, shows, besides the 
capital stock of $3,000,000, a surplus of $3,000,000, 
undivided profits of $583,904.06, and deposits of $51,- 
547,487.68. The officers are Orson Smith, president ; 

E. D. Hulbert, vice-president; J. G. Orchard, cashier; 

F. X. Wilder, assistant cashier; F. G. Nelson, assistant 
cashier and manager of foreign exchange department. 
The directors are: Marshall Field, Albert Keep, Lambert 
Tree, Orson Smith, Enos M. Barton, Cyrus H. McCor- 
mick, Erskine M. Phelps, Moses J. Wentworth, E. D. 
Hulbert, E. H. Gary, T. J. Lefens, Channcey Keep, 
Clarence A. Burley. The Merchants' Loan and Trust 
Building, at the northwest corner of Clark and Adams 
streets, is the home of this company. The building was 
finished in May. 1900, and the Merchants' occupies the 
entire bank floor with the exception of a portion at the 
west end of the building, which is occupied by the 
clearing house. 

The American Trust and Savings Bank was organ- 
ized in 1889 by Gilbert B. Shaw, who was its president 
for many years. It first opened its doors on August i 
of that year in the Owings building, at the corner 
of Dearborn and Adams streets. Two years later it 
moved to La Salle and Madison streets, remaining there 
until its removal in 1899 to its present location in the 
New York Life building. Conservative management 
and careful investments have enabled it to extend its 
scope gradually, until now it is one of the foremost 
financial institutions in the city. 

Besides transacting a general banking business this 
institution devotes much attention, as its name signifies 



to its trust and savings departments. Its expansion 
continued until its consolidation with the Federal Trust 
Company on May 29, 1905. Its capital was then in- 
creased from $2,000,000 to $3,000.000. Its surplus and 
undivided profits are $2,004,229.98, and its deposits are 
$30,127,616.98. 

On May i, 1906, the institution will occupy its own 
building at the northeast corner of Monroe and Clark 




AMERICAN TRUST AND SAVINGS BANK. 

streets, which will be one of the largest in the city. The 
building will be eighteen stories high, with 90 feet on 
Monroe street and 125 feet on Clark street. The officers 
of the bank are as follows: E. A. Potter, president; T. 
P. Phillips, vice-president ; James R. Chapman, vice- 
president ; John Jay Abbott, vice-president ; Charles S. 
Castle, cashier; F. J. Scheidenhelm, assistant cashier; 
Oliver C. Decker, assistant cashier; Edwin L. \Yagner. 
assistant cashier; Frank H. Jones, secretary; \Yilliam P, 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



1:51 



Kopf, assistant secretary ; Irving J. Shuart, assistant 
secretary: George B. Calchvell, manager bond depart- 
ment ; Wilson W. Lampert, auditor. Its directors are 
Joy Morton, E. H. Gary, E. P. Ripley, Theodore P. 
Shonts, Norman B. Ream, John F. Harris, T. P. 
Phillips, W. H. McDoel, Charles H. Thorne, E. J. 
Buffington, William Kent, V. A. Watkins, G. B. Shaw, 
Benjamin Thomas, Charles H. Deere, James R. Chap- 
man, Edwin A. Potter. 

The Northern Trust Company was organized 
August 7, 1889. and has taken its place as one of the 
soundest and most conservative banking institutions in 



ooo. Of pure classic. architecture it will be one of the 
most imposing structures in Chicago. The first story 
will be of massive layers of stone, forming a solid base 
for the Grecian facade of Ionic style of architecture. 
Sixteen massive Ionic columns will support the cornice. 
The interior plan contemplates the following divi- 
sions: The first floor will be reserved for the savings 
department, with a grand lobby and grand marble stair- 
way leading to the second floor, which will be devoted 
to the banking department : the third floor will be given 
over to the trust department, and the fourth floor will 
be occupied partly by the Chicago Clearing House, and 




THE NORTHERN TRUST COMPANY BANK. 



the West. It has a capital of $1,500,000 with a surplus 
fund of $1,000,000, its capital having been increased 
July i, 1905, from one million to one million and a 
half. The Northern Trust Company has been located 
on the banking floor of the Rookery building, but owing 
to the steady increase of its business it is now (1905) 
erecting a building of its own at the northwest corner 
of La Salle and Monroe streets, upon the site of the old 
Bryan block. 

This building will be for the exclusive use of the 
Northern Trust Company, with its main frontage of 
190 feet on La Salle street and a depth of 73 feet on 
Monroe. It will comprise four stories with basement 
and sub-basement, and will cost approximately $750,- 



supply, storage and filing rooms. The convenience of 
patrons is especially provided for and when finished the 
new building will be one of the handsomest and most 
complete structures of its kind in the city. At the close 
of business, August 26, 1905, the condition of the bank 
was as follows : 

Resources. Time loans on security, $5,859,891.04; 
demand loans on security, $7,012,509.23; bonds, $7,- 
698,328.99; stocks, $114,815; real estate (northwest 
corner La Salle and Monroe streets for bank building), 
$850,000; due from banks, $6,876,109.84: checks for 
clearings, $760,617.76; cash on hand, $3,910,665.46. 
Total, $33,082,937.32. 

Liabilities. Capital stock, $1,500,000; surplus fund, 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



$1,000,000; undivided profits, $702,468.78; dividends 
unpaid, $330; interest reserved, $97,568.95; cashiers' 
checks, $246,707.54; certified checks, $13,509.51; 
demand deposits, $16,119,466.27; time deposits, $13,- 
402,886.27. Total, $33,082,937.32. 

The officers are : Byron L. Smith, president ; F. L. 
Hankey, vice-president; Solomon, A. Smith, second 
vice-president; Thomas C. King, cashier; Robert 
McLeod, and G. F. Miller, assistant cashiers; Arthur 
Heurtley, secretary; Howard O. Edmonds and Harold 
H. Rockwell, assistant secretaries; Edward C. Jarvis, 
auditor. The directors are: A. C. Bartlett, J. Harley 
Bradley, William A. Fuller, Marvin Hughitt, C. L. 
Hutchinson, Martin A. Ryerson. Albert A. Sprague, 
Solomon A. Smith, Byron L. Smith. 

IN. W. Harris & Company, bankers, of Chicago, 
New York and Boston, have for their watchword, "con- 
servatism.'' This successful firm deals only in high- 
grade investment securities, and transacts a general 
banking business. It was organized in 1882 by the pres- 
ent senior partner, Mr. Norman W. Harris. The firm 
has steadily increased its business, always along ultra- 
conservative lines, to such an extent that its sales of 
bonds now exceed $75,000,000 annually. 

The success of N. W. Harris & Company, and the 
high esteem in which its judgment on securities is held 
by investors, is justified by its record, of which it is 
jealously proud. While the firm does not guarantee the 
payment of securities handled by it, it stands ready to 
devote its best efforts and the ability of its perfect 
organization to the protection of its clients' interests. 
The firm believes that the responsibility of a reliable 
banking house should not end with the marketing of an 
issue of bonds. In the event of new and unexpected 
developments of an unfavorable character in a prop- 
erty, the house should be in a sufficiently strong posi- 
tion to assume the entire management, and to protect 
the interest of its clients. The knowledge that the 
strength and influence of the house will be exercised 
in this way is almost as important to the investor as the 
ability and care necessary in making original invest- 
ments. 

The average investor has neither time nor the facil- 
ities to make a complete and proper examination of 
proposed investments, and in consequence must rely 
largely on the judgment of his banker. Realizing this 
fact, the conscientious and successful banker should 
have in his employ tried and experienced experts, and 
a business experience extending over a period of many 
years covering times of depression as well as of financial 
prosperity. N. W. Harris & Company combine these 
important elements of success. Their experience 
extends over twenty-two years, during which time 
occurred the financial panics in 1893 and 1896. Mr. 



Harris was for thirteen years the principal executive 
officer of one of the leading life insurance companies 
of this country and was largely responsible for its invest- 
ments. There are now seven other active partners in 
the firm, all men of wide experience in the business and 
who have been associated with the house for from ten 
to twenty years. The firm's banking houses in Chi- 
cago, New York and Boston are each under the direct 
supervision of one or more active members of the firm, 
who are assisted by an experienced and competent 
corps of managers and experts in each department of 
the business. The total number of people now giving 




N. W. HARRIS. 

their entire time to the firm's business is one hundred 
and eighty. 

In addition to the investment business, N. W. Harris 
& Company, in their banking department, transact a 
private banking business, pay interest on deposits which, 
according to a late statement, amount to $4,926,373.02. 
The firm makes loans on collateral, buys and sells for- 
eign exchange and issues travelers' letters of credit 
available in all parts of the world. Every facility is 
afforded its customers for the prompt transaction of 
business in this department. 

N. W. Harris & Company's Chicago office is on the 
banking floor of the Marquette building. 204 Dearborn 
street. 

Greenebaum Sons is one of the strongest private 
banking institutions in Chicago. The house was 
founded in 1877, and has continued in business uninter- 
ruptedly up to the present time (1905). The banking 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



133 



rooms are at 83 and 85 Dearborn street. The members 
of Greenebaum Sons are Henry Everett Greenebaum, 
Moses E. Greenebaum and James Eugene Greenebaum. 
The father, Elias Greenebaum, is one of the pioneer 
bankers of Chicago and had been in the business for 
twenty-two years when his sons formed their banking 
house. He still takes an interest in affairs and main- 
tains an office at their place of business. The firm does 
a general banking and foreign exchange business, mak- 
ing a specialty of negotiating loans on Chicago real 
estate and of supplying investors with investment securi- 
ties, mortgages, bonds, etc. This firm is well known 
in all parts of the world on account of their extensive 
foreign connections. 

Elias Greenebaum was born at Eppelsheim, Gross- 
herzogthum Hessen, Germany, June 24, 1822, the son 
of Jacob and Sarah Greenebaum. He was educated in 
the public schools and in the agricultural, commercial 
and trade schools of Kaiserslautern, Germany, and came 
to the United States in September, 1847. F r a * ew 
months he stopped on his way west at Uniontown, 
Ohio, but came to Chicago, April 14, 1849, an( l at 
present is one of the oldest residents of Chicago, having 
lived here over half a century. He entered the mercan- 
tile business for himself shortly after coming to Chicago 
and prospered from the start. Seven< years afterwards 
he became a banker. In 1860 Mr. Greenebaum founded 
the banking house of Greenebaum & Foreman, of which 
he was the senior member for a number of years. When 
the firm of Greenebaum & Foreman was dissolved he 
retired from active business. Mr. Greenebaum was 
school agent of Chicago in 1856 and is independent in 
politics. He was one of the founders of Sinai congre- 
gation. He has a handsome residence at 4510 Grand 
boulevard. He was married March 3, 1852, to Miss 
Rosina Straus. Their children are Henry Everett, 
Moses Ernest, Emma E. (Mrs. Gutman), and James E. 
Greenebaum. 

Henry Everett Greenebaum, the oldest son of Elias 
Greenebaum, has had a wide experience in the banking 
business. He was born in Chicago, September i, 1854, 
and graduated from the Jones School in 1867, and from 
the Central High School four years later. He also 
attended business college the next year, graduating 
from Bryant & Stratton's in 1872. He entered the 
employ of the First National Bank in the spring of the 
same year, and the next year went with his father's firm, 
Greenebaum & Foreman, bankers. In order to get a 
wider experience of the business he accepted positions 
with New York banks in 1873, remaining there for four 
years. On his return to Chicago in 1877, he organized 
the banking firm of Greenebaum Sons. Since then he 
has occupied a prominent position in the banking, real 
estate and loan circles, at present being chairman of the 



executive board of the Chicago Real Estate Loan Asso- 
ciation, composed of the principal banks and firms in 
the business. He is independent in politics and a mem- 
ber of the Reformed Jewish Church. He also belongs 
to the Standard, Ravisloe Golf and French clubs. He 
was married April 15, 1879, to Miss Helen F. Leopold. 
Their children are Carrie (the wife of Frank E. Mandel, 
of the firm of Mandel Brothers), Walter Jerome and 
John G. The family residence is at 3337 Michigan 
avenue. 

Moses Ernest Greenebaum was born in Chicago 
March 17, 1858. He was educated at the public and 
high schools of Chicago. He entered his father's bank 
after graduating and was admitted to the firm in 1877. 




ELIAS GREENEBAUM. 

He became a member of Greenebaum Sons the same 
year. To his energy and aggressive business methods 
is due much of the success of the house. He is a mem- 
ber of the. Chicago Real Estate Board, the United 
Hebrew Charities and the Standard and Ravisloe clubs. 
He is a Republican. He was married to Miss Julia 
Friedman of Chicago, December 23, 1884. They have 
three children, Eleanor E., Ernest M. and Edgar M. 
Their home is at 4504 Drexel boulevard. 

James Eugene Greenebaum, the third member of 
Greenebaum Sons, was born April 3, 1866. He was 
educated in the public schools of Chicago and at Yale 
University, being graduated from this institution with 
the degree of Ph. B. in 1886. He entered the banking 
house of Greenebaum Sons just after his gradua- 
tion and was admitted as a partner a few years later. 
He is a Republican in politics. He is a member of the 
Standard and Yale clubs. He was married to Miss 



134 



THE CITY OP CHICAGO. 



Amy B. Kramer, September 7, 1893. They have three 
children, Frederic J., Charles J. and Edith J. The 
family residence is at 4508 Grand boulevard. 

John Burnett Russell, head of the well-known bank- 
ing firm of J. B. Russell & Company, was born at Hart- 
wick, Otsego County, New York, January 8, 1869. His 




JOHN BURNETT RUSSELL. 

parents were John Emory and Belle (Burnett) Russell. 
He was educated in the grammar schools of his own 
city and later at Wyoming Seminary, Kingston, Penn- 
sylvania. 

Mr. Russell has been in the banking business since 
1886. In that year he went to work for the Wyoming 
National Bank of Wilksbarre, Pennsylvania. He 
remained with this institution until 1895 when he estab- 
lished the banking house of J. B. Russell & Company 
in Wilksbarre and Scranton, Pennsylvania. The busi- 
ness of the firm grew rapidly and houses were estab- 
lished in New York, Chicago, Reading and Carbondale. 
Pennsylvania, Binghamton, New York and Dayton. 
Ohio. The concern has financed a number of extensive 
public utility corporations, the most prominent among 
them being the Illinois Tunnel Company of Chicago 
and the Automatic Electric Company, also of this city. 
The entire capital for financing these two large enter- 
prises was raised through J. B. Russell & Company. 
For a long time, while the tunnels were building in 
Chicago, there was much speculation as to where the 
millions were coming from. In due time, when the 
enterprise had been carried to a successful conclusion, 
the real backers were made known. 



J. B. Russell & Company at the present time are 
the financial representatives of a number of large cor- 
porations and transact a general banking and stock 
exchange business. The associate partners of Mr. Rus- 
sell are Albert G. Wheeler. Jr., and John M. Shaw of 
New York, both of whom are members of the New- 
York Stock Exchange, and Grant Pelton of Scranton, 
Pennsylvania. The main offices of J. B. Russell & Com- 
pany are at 46 Wall street, New York. The Chicago 
offices are in the Rookery. 

Mr. Russell was married to Miss Fannie J. Schooley 
of West Pittston, Pennsylvania, in 1892. They have 
three children, Louise, Joseph and John B., Jr. Mr. 
Russell is well known in club life in Chicago, New York 
and Pennsylvania. He is a member of the Union 
League, Lawyers' and City Mid-day clubs of New York ; 
of the Calumet, Midlothian and Exmoor clubs of Chi- 
cago, and of the Westmoreland and Wyoming Valley 
Country Club of Wilksbarre, the Scranton Club of 
Scranton, Pennsylvania, and numerous other organ- 
izations. 

A. P, Ballou, capitalist, is a representative type of 
the young, enterprising and progressive business men 
who have made Chicago famous. Barely thirty years 




A. P. BALLOU. 

old, his position in the world of finance and business is 
one that is rarely attained by men until they have passed 
the middle span of life, even in hustling, bustling Chi- 
cago. Amos Percy Ballou was born in Bradford, 
Miami County, Ohio, October 24, 1874. His father. 
Horace Martin Ballou, conducted and edited the Brad- 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



135 



ford Free Press for many years. When lie was nine 
years old his father died and the family moved to Cov- 
ington, Ohio, where the boy attended the common 
schools. At the age of fifteen he entered upon a course 
of study in the West Side Commercial School of 
this city. 

He began his business career with the Henry Sears 
Cutlery Company, but finding that uncongenial, he 
entered the real estate business with E. F. Jacobs. He 
was given charge of Evergreen Park subdivision, which 
he conducted so ably that it soon developed into a 
thriving and beautiful suburb. With characteristic 
energy Mr. Ballon took a lively interest in the affairs of 
the village he had helped to create. He established 
and edited the local paper, and was chosen village 
treasurer on the Republican ticket. His real estate 
transactions naturally brought him into close relations 
with the insurance business, and he was offered the 
position of general agent of the Royal Union Mutual 
Life Insurance Company of Des Moines, Iowa. This 
agency he successfully handled for two years, when he 
was induced to make investments in some Butte, Mon- 
tana, mining properties. This led him to an investiga- 
tion and study of mines and mining generally, and 
discovering in it a pursuit for which he was eminently 
fitted, he soon abandoned all other business and gave his 
entire attention to this line of endeavor. He is secre- 
tary and treasurer of the International Copper & Gold 
Mining Company, of Arizona and Mexico; secretary 
and treasurer of the Montana Copper & Gold Mining 
Company of Wyoming ; secretary and treasurer of the 
Santa Fe Copper & Gold Company of Arizona and 
Mexico; president of the Santa Cruz Mining Company 
and treasurer of the Southern Sonora Development 
Company of Mexico, besides having a close connection 
and exercising a powerful influence in several other 
companies. 

To quote Mr. Ballou : "Old Mexico is the great- 
est field of mineral wealth known to man." 

In 1894 Mr. Ballou married Clara May Ruhl, of 
Covington, Ohio. He is connected with several literary 
organizations, in which he takes considerable interest. 
He is a member of the Colonial Club, a Mason, Knight 
Templar and Mystic Shriner. He is a member of the 
Forty-first Street Presbyterian Church. Mr. and Mrs. 
Ballou have one child, a daughter, six years old. 

Robert C. Sturgeon, secretary-treasurer of the F.agle 
Mining & Improvement Company, was born near Pitts- 
burg in 1862. He received an academic education and 
at the early age of sixteen became a teacher in the public- 
schools. Mr. Sturgeon entered commercir.l life at the 
age of eighteen with a prominent Pittsburg firm, and 
in 1885 came to Chicago determined to be "some- 
body." He had eminent success. He was associated 



with Xelson Morris & Company for several years, dur- 
ing which he took a law course in the night school of 
the Lake Forest University. He was admitted to the 
bar in 1896, and during his subsequent six years of law 
practice conducted successfully many important cases 
in the Chicago and Cook County courts. 

Early in the year of 1902 Mr. Sturgeon became inter- 
ested in the Eagle Mining and Improvement Company, 
and at present he holds the responsible position of busi- 
ness manager and shares in the controlling interest of the 
concern, which will soon rank among the best paying 
mines in the world. The Eagle mines are by mining 
experts considered on par with the Homestake mine 
and other bonanzas. The company was in need of an 




ROBERT C. STURGEON. 

energetic man to finance and manage it when Mr. Stur- 
geon entered the corporation. Through his efforts the 
Eagle Mining and Improvement Company has become 
an assured success. Having satisfied himself of the 
unlimited possibilities of the mines, and ambitious to 
make it one of the foremost mines in the United States, 
Mr. Sturgeon has maintained the almost unequaled 
growth of the concern. At present a plant with a ca- 
pacity of 150 tons per day is in full operation on the 
mine, which is located at Parsons, New Mexico. Up 
to the moment Mr. Sturgeon became interested in the 
mine, the thought of his becoming a mining man never 
occurred to him. Before he decided upon his life's work 
he visited the mining region with expert engineers and, 
because of the almost incredible reports of the high qual- 
ity of the property, he decided to devote his entire time 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



to the new enterprise. The present shareholders com- 
prise a small circle of prominent business men who 
implicitly confide in the leadership and management of 
Mr. Sturgeon, and his partner, Mr. Rice. 

The Parsons mine compares favorably with the larg- 
est in the world, with its three fifty-ton unit mills, which 
means an output rendering a net profit of $300 per day. 

Mr. Sturgeon is a member of the Illinois Athletic 
Club and is a very popular man in commercial and pro- 
fessional circles. He declares he is the "kind of a Demo- 
crat any citizen ought to be, as he voted twice for 
McKinley and twice for Roosevelt." 

Howard H. Hoyt, western superintendent of the 
Equitable Life Assurance Society, in a few years has 
taken first rank in the insurance field. In May, 1902, 




HOWARD H. HOYT. 

when he took charge of the Chicago office, the entire 
Illinois business did not exceed $4,000,000 a year. Be- 
fore the close of 1904 Chicago had passed the $2,000,000 
a month class and headed the list for the month of all 
the society's agencies in the United States. 

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this 
achievement, one of the greatest in the history of life 
insurance. But great things were expected of Mr. 
Hoyt. There were far older men in insurance work. 
There were men of greater experience, but Mr. Hoyt 
had the reputation of doing things. In two years, be- 
fore coming to Chicago, he had increased the volume 
of business in Wisconsin from $380.000 to $3.000,000 
a year, which in itself was a notable achievement. 

When the officers of the society looked around for a 
man who could raise Illinois from the dead, it was 



inevitable that they should select the leader who had 
worked such a miracle in Wisconsin. At this time, 
May, 1902, the entire volume of Illinois business did 
not exceed $4,000,000 a year, although the Chicago 
field is naturally one of the richest in the United States. 
In the monthly statement showing the relative rank 
of the fifty leading Equitable agencies in the country, 
up to this time Chicago rarely, if ever, appeared. 

The wisdom of Mr. Hoyt's selection was at once 
apparent. The first month after his appointment to so 
responsible a position Chicago took its place on the 
fifty list, never again to be ousted. Then the agency 
began to move steadily and swiftly toward the top. 
In less than one year the volume of business doubled. 
Two strenuous years passed, and this agency, whose 
annual business had been only $4,000,000, took its place 
in the $2,000,000 a month class. Before the close of 
the year 1904, Chicago headed the list for the month 
and when the report of the year's business was finally 
made, Chicago actually led all the agencies of the 
United States. Mr. Hoyt had "made good," to use 
an expressive colloquialism, and Chicago had come 
into its own. 

Even a superficial student of these changes must 
attribute the enormous growth of Chicago business 
largely to the personality of Mr. Hoyt. That he is an 
able organizer and a good judge of men is evident, 
talents greatly needed in perfecting the Illinois organi- 
zation. But the real secret of his strength seems to be 
the spirit of loyalty which he has been able to infuse 
into the men, from the general manager to the humblest 
salesman in the field. 

In his Wisconsin work he showed still another side 
of his genius. Much of the increase in the volume of 
business there was due to his personal efforts. Al- 
though a comparatively new man in the work, he made 
a record for writing insurance second to none in the 
United States. There, too, he established the same 
personal relations with his men. When he came to 
leave the field to take the superintendency in Chicago 
there was a notable gathering in Milwaukee at which 
the retiring manager was presented with a beautiful 
loving cup, as evidence of the esteem of his associates. 
On Christmas eve, 1904, an elegant gold Swiss watch, 
appropriately engraved, was given to him by the men 
who have been accomplishing such wonders under his 
leadership. 

The remarkable rise of Mr. Hoyt in the insurance 
firmament demonstrates what can be done by an earnest 
consecration of talent to this great work. He was 
born in Madison, Wisconsin, May 29, 1857. His ele- 
mentary education in the public schools was followed 
by a course in the University of Wisconsin and a sub- 
sequent course in the law school of the same institution. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



137 



After his graduation, in 1879, ne practiced law five 
years in Wausau, Wisconsin. He then removed to 
Milwaukee and established an original credit system. 
In 1898, becoming convinced of the unusual opportuni- 
ties in life assurance work, he accepted an appointment 
as general agent for the Northwestern Mutual Life In- 
surance Company. Such was his record that in two 
years the Equitable Life made him general manager for 
the state of Wisconsin and northern Michigan. 

Now, as the western superintendent of the strongest 
financial institution on earth, he is in the fullness of 
his powers and at the outset of his career. The society 
secured new quarters in the magnificent First National 
Bank building and in May, 1905, took possession of 
the finest offices in the West. 

Mr. Hoyt is also widely known in insurances circles 
because of his contributions to insurance literature. 
His published lecture. The Making of An Insurance 
Salesman, delivered at the Association Auditorium in 
Chicago, and his series of pamphlets on insurance 
topics have been in great demand by managers and 
field men in all parts of the United States. 

The Federal Life Insurance Company. For many 
years the financial and commercial giants of this 
great city have desired the establishment of a 
legal reserve life insurance company. They realized it 
would be an influential factor in the growth and develop- 
ment and prosperity of the large and rapidly developing 
area of country tributary to Chicago. They realized 
that the influence which the great life insurance com- 
panies of New York City had exercised upon the finan- 
cial supremacy of that city would be duplicated by the 
establishment in Chicago of a legal reserve company 
which would command the confidence and support of 
the general public. Many meetings were held by our 
public spirited financiers with the view of establishing 
such a company. These meetings developed the fact 
that great ability, zeal, continuous effort and fidelity to 
such a company if established were necessary in order 
to place the company in the commanding position which 
they desired, and in order that the company should have 
the unquestioned confidence, the unqualified support 
and the liberal patronage of the general public. 

In 1900, after very careful consideration, the Federal 
Life Insurance Company was organized as a legal 
reserve company, untainted with any of the erroneous 
ideas of assessmentism, and so carefully were its officers 
and representatives selected, and so ably and faithfully 
have they exercised the trusts reposed in them, that the 
company from its incipiency has commanded the confi- 
dence and patronage of the insurance buying public to 
such an extent that its success has been almost phe- 
nomenal. December 31, 1904, at the end of its fifth 



year (being a little more than four and a half years of 
actual operation), the company has accomplished more 
than many of its larger and older competitors in from 
ten to thirty years of their existence. At the date in 
question it had over $8,000,000 of insurance in force, 
over $700.000 of assets and a rapidly increasing surplus. 
It is rapidly increasing its able representatives, and dur- 
ing each month of the present year is writing approxi- 
mately 200 per cent more of insurance than it wrote 
during the corresponding month of last year. 

The Federal never for a minute has deviated a single 
iota from correct underwriting principles. It has "hewn 
strictly to the line" that has been approved by time-tried 
actuarial science, and as a result is stable from the bot- 




I. M. HAMILTON. 

torn of its foundation up. The company has made a 
specialty of paying all just claims promptly and imme- 
diately upon receipt of completed proofs of death. The 
investments of the company have been made with great 
care, and its assets are worth at least one hundred cents 
on the dollar. 

Senator Isaac Miller Hamilton, who was born in 
Iroquois County, Illinois, and resided within four miles 
of his birthplace until 1889, when he removed to this 
city, is one of the best known and liked lawyers and 
bankers in this state. Energetic, forceful and consider- 
ate, he surrounds himself with able men and always 
makes conspicuous successes of his efforts. Upon the 
organization of the Federal he accepted the presidency 
of the company, and has devoted his entire time and 
talents to its service ever since. Associated with Presi- 



138 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



dent Hamilton in the management of the company are 
the following strong and able men : C. A. Atkinson, 
vice-president and counsel ; George M. Bard, second 
vice-president; S. H. Levy, fourth vice-president and 
assistant superintendent of agencies ; R. M. Wilbur, sec- 
retary; W. E. Brimstin, assistant secretary; J. L. Hamil- 
ton, treasurer; E. M. Potter, assistant treasurer; Miles 
M. Dawson, consulting actuary ; J. P. Mahoney, assist- 
ant counsel: F. I.. B. Jenney, medical director; Jasper 
E. Brady, superintendent of agencies. The manage- 
ment of the company has been economical, progressive 
and courageous, and the results secured are highly grat- 
ifying to the policyholders, stockholders and officials. 

The success of the company illustrates what the Chi- 
cago "I will" spirit, combined with able, earnest, con- 
tinuous effort, will accomplish. The company always 
has believed in the thought that the la- 
borer is worthy of his hire, and has had 
no "soft snaps" anywhere for anyone. 
The company's policy has been to pay 
low salaries, give small commissions, in- 
vite publicity and give to the policy 
holder the greatest returns possible for 
his investment. The company's head- 
quarters always have been in the Mar- 
quette building. Dearborn and Adams 
streets, and there the work of the agen- 
cies in the various parts of the country- 
is directed. The growth of the business 
has compelled the company to occupy 
additional space from time to time asi 
the necessary employees have in- 
creased. There is no busier center in 
this busy city than the home office of 
the Federal Life Insurance Company. 

The company has a paid-up capital 
of $150.000, of which amount $100,000 
is and always has been on deposit with 
the State Insurance Department, as an 
initial protection to its policy holders. 
The officers of the Federal, who have 
labored so hard for the success of the 
company, feel entirely justified in assert- 
ing, with a great deal of pleasure, that 
there is no better company on earth, 
none which issues better policy con- 
tracts, none which pays its death claims 
more promptly, none in which the pol- 
icy holder may carry with more safety 
his protection for his loved ones or his 
investment for himself. 

The National Life Insurance Com- 
pany of the United States of America. 
The growth of the National Life In- 



surance Company, whose home office is in Chicago, 
in the National Life building, has been surpris- 
ingly rapid. The most marked progress has been made 
under the present management, which dates from Feb- 
ruary, 1904. The National Life was established in 
1868; up to 1900 its growth w r as gradual. In 1900 its 
assets were but $2,335.000, and its insurance in force 
a trifle over $14,000,000. Two years later these items 
had increased to $3,000,000 and $24,400,000 respect- 
ively. At the close of 1903 the assets were $4,700,000 
and the insurance in force $40,000,000. After the 
election of P. M. Starnes as president, measures were 
taken to push the company, and the following year, 
while the insurance in force had only increased to 
$42,000,000, the assets were $5,250,000, in round 
figures. The premium income increased from $338,000 



Mill 

a H in 




NATIONAL LIFE BUILDING. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



139 



in 1900 to $1,690,000 in 1904; and the amount paid to 
policy holders increased from $164.000 to $500.000 for 
the same years. 

The assets of the National Life are represented by 
strong collateral. The aggregate outstanding first 
mortgage loans, the safest form of investment and 
upon which better rates of interest are paid in the 
West than the East, was slightly over $1,600,000 
in December, 1904, which sum was secured by 
property valued at over $5,000,000. The bonds and 
stocks, on the same date, had a market value of $2,480,- 

000. The remaining assets, valued at $871,000, con- 
sisted of cash and miscellaneous loans to policy holders. 

At the beginning of the current year the company's 
policy holders numbered 39,355: of this number 15,465 
were in Illinois, and over n,ooo in the city of Chicago. 
The premium income in Illinois alone was $471,800 for 
1904, an increase of $96,000 over the previous year. 
The total income from all sources during the year was 
$1.968,000 for 1904, and the total disbursements only 
$1,289,000. 

As can be seen from the figures, the company's 
growth has been healthiest since the accession of Mr. 
Starnes to the presidency. Mr. Starnes is a native of 
Hancock county, Illinois, where he was born January 

1, 1863. He received a public, high school and business 
college education, and then studied law. After practic- 
ing in Kansas for nine years he entered the insurance 
business, accepting an agency for one of the big eastern 
companies. After becoming state manager for several 
concerns, he organized the National Life & Trust Com- 
pany of Des Moines, Iowa. In 1903 this was merged 
with the National Life, Mr. Starnes becoming vice- 
president and general manager of the united companies. 
In February, 1904, he was made president. Though 
one of the youngest, Mr. Starnes is recognized to be one 
of the ablest, insurance men in the country. 

A. M. Johnson, the vice-president and treasurer, is 
a young man. He was graduated from Cornell Univer- 
sity in 1895. He was associated with his father in 
western railroad interests for a number of years. He 
became affiliated with the National Life in 1902, when 
he purchased a block of the stock. He is connected 
with a number of big enterprises in Chicago. Julian 
C. Harvey, the second vice-president, son of the late 
Augustus Ford Harvey, the eminent actuary, was con- 
nected with the Missouri insurance department, and was 
assistant secretary of the Covenant Mutual Life for seven 
years. He is a graduate of Washington University of 
St. Louis and an actuary by profession. Robert E. 
Sackett, secretary, is a native of Pittsford, New York. 
He was secretary of the Iowa Life Insurance Company 
from 1894 to 1900, and secretary of the National Life 
since the latter date. The board of directors of the Na- 



tional Life follows : Edward A. Shedd, director, Corn 
Exchange bank, Chicago ; Albert M. Johnson, president. 
Fidelity Safe Deposit Company, of Chicago, and director 
of Broadway Savings & Trust Company, Cleveland ; 
Charles B. Shedd, director, Knickerbocker Ice Com- 
pany, Chicago ; George A. Gilbert, manager Employers' 
Liability Assurance Corporation ; Abner Smith, former 
judge of the circuit court, Chicago ; James H. Stowell, 




P. M. STARNES. 

physician, Chicago; Stewart Goodrell, ex-insurance 
commissioner of Iowa ; P. M. Starnes, Julian C. Har- 
vey and Robert E. Sackett. 

The home of the National Life, at 159 La Salle 
street, is one of the handsomest office buildings in the 
United States. It is the center of the Chicago insurance 
world, housing more insurance concerns than any 
other building in the city. The National Life occupies 
the entire ninth floor. 

Joseph H. Lenehan, general agent for the Phoenix 
Insurance Company of Brooklyn and a well-known 
figure among the Chicago underwriters, was born at 
Dubuque, Iowa, where he received his early education 
in the public schools. He entered the insurance busi- 
ness there in 1880 as local agent. Five years later he 
was made manager of the Will County Insurance Com- 
pany. From 1887 to 1892 he was Illinois state agent for 
the Insurance Company of North America and the 
Pennsylvania Fire. After assisting in the organization 
of the Palatine's western department, with which he 
was identified until 1898, he was appointed assistant 
manager of the western department of the North British 



140 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



and Mercantile. In July, 1899, he joined the Phoenix 
as assistant general agent, becoming general agent in 
May, 1900. 

Mr. Lenehan was married in 1883 to Margaret I.. 
Littleton of Dubuque. They have three children liv- 




JOSEPH H. LENEHAN. 

ing, Margaret L., Francis L. and Mary Calesta Lene- 
han. They reside at 4515 Greenwood avenue. Mr. 
Lenehan is a member of the Chicago Athletic Associa- 
tion, the Union League Club, the Washington Park 
Club, the Kenwood Club and the Glenview Golf Club. 

J. Elliott Jennings, president of the real estate com- 
pany that bears his name, and one of the most successful 
operators in Chicago, was born April 5, 1869, in the 
extreme backwoods of Arkansas, in a little log house 
about twelve or fourteen feet square, and worked on a 
farm during his early life. At the age of seven he 
plowed corn, split rails at ten, and at the age of eleven 
removed with his parents to Eureka Springs, Arkansas. 
There the drudgery of farm work was replaced by that 
of sawing, splitting and hauling wood, for which his 
earlier experience had adapted him. When he reached 
the age of fourteen he sought for more lucrative 
employment and started clerking in a store at Eureka 
Springs. 

This was too commonplace for him, how r ever, and 
he went with some others to Carterville, Missouri, and 
worked in the mines for a time. He then returned to 
Arkansas and, at the age of seventeen, entered the State 
University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. 

He came north in 1889, and engaged in various pur- 



suits, finally entering the office of one of Chicago's 
leading real estate firms. After having thoroughly 
familiarized himself with the business, he started in the 
real estate, renting and loan business on his own 
account at 100 Washington street, Chicago, in 1894. 
In the same year he was married to Miss Mae DaMond 
at Terre Haute, Indiana. After several years of strenu- 
ous work in the real estate, renting and loan business at 
100 Washington street, he was selected, as one of the 
most competent and versatile real estate men in Chi- 
cago, to take the management of the real estate and real 
estate loan department of one of Chicago's down-town 
banks. Mr. Jennings consolidated his business with 
that of the bank and managed the real estate loan 
department on a partnership basis for several years. 

In 1903, having tried out some of his theories con- 
cerning real estate loans and having found them worka- 
ble, he organized and incorporated the Jennings Real 
Estate Loan Company, of which he is president and is 
the controlling factor. The Jennings Real Estate Loan 
Company is the most progressive and ably managed 
institution of its kind in the West. 

Mr. Jennings lives in Evanston, has one son ten 
years of age, and is a member of all the Evanston clubs, 




J. ELLIOTT JENNINGS. 

and also the Glenview Golf Club. He is an expert 
golfer, a good horseman and an automobilist. He is a 
good example of what can be done by forcible, energetic 
and honest effort. Mr. Jennings is only thirty-six 
years of age, but he has accomplished more in a busi- 
ness way, perhaps, than many men have done in a life- 
time. 



CHAPTER XX. 



BOARD 


O F 


TRADE. 




HE Board of Trade typifies Chi- 
cago as no other institution in 
the city. It has made Chicago the 
food supply center of the world. It 
is the main factor in fixing the 
prices of grain and provisions for 
the civilized nations of the earth. 
Its name is synonymous with en- 
ergy and progress. To the move- 
ment started over half a century 
ago by the founders of the Board of Trade may be 
traced the commercial greatness of Chicago. As the 
gateway for the flood of products from the farms and 
ranges of the Mississippi Valley and the West, the city 
stands as a monument to the foresight of the founders 
and the energy and integrity of their followers. 
Through the same gateway sweeps the flood of com- 
merce that supplies the rich markets created by the 
granger wealth, and makes Chicago rank even greater, 
as the chief distributing point of the nation. 

The Chicago Board of Trade had its beginning on 
March 13, 1848, when a group of business men gathered 
for the purpose of organizing an exchange by which 
they would be able to control and regulate their business 
affairs. From that date on, the Board of Trade has 
been a distinctive feature and influence in the business 
life of Chicago. The following firms signed the call for 
the first meeting of fifty-five years ago : Wadsworth, 
Dyer & Chapin, Geo. Steele, I. H. Burch & Co., Gurnee, 
Hayden & Co., H. H. Magie & Co., Neff & Church, 
John H. Kinzie, Norton, Walker & Co., DeWolf & Co., 
Thos. Richmond, Thos. Hale, Chas. Walker and Ray- 
mond Gibbs & Co. As a result of the meeting resolu- 
tions were drawn up and adopted, setting forth the 
benefits to be derived from a Board of Trade, and the 
need for such an organization. Committees were 
appointed to effect the organization and a meeting was 

141 



held in April, at which resolutions and by-laws were 
adopted. Officers were elected as follows : Thos. Dyer, 
president : Chas. Walker and John P. Chapin, vice- 
presidents; W. L. Whiting, secretary, and Isaac H. 
Burch, treasurer. The first board of directors follows: 
Gurdon S. Hubbard, Elisha S. Wadsworth, Thomas 
Richmond, John Rogers, Horatio G. Loomis, George 
F. Foster, Richard C. Bristol, John H. Dunham, 
Thomas Dyer, George A. Gibbs, John H. Kinzie, Cyre- 
nius Beers, Walter S. Gurney, Josiah H. Reed, Edward 
K. Rogers, Isaac H. Burch, Augustus H. Burley, John 
S. Read, William B. Ogden, Orrington Lunt, Thomas 
Hale, Edward H. Hadduck, Isaac V. Germain, Laurin 
P. Hilliard. 

The roll of members for the first year contains 
names that have become famous in the history of the 
citv. It follows : 



Beals, Joseph R. 
Beers, Cyrenius 
Blaikie, Andrew 
Brand, Alexander 
Bristol, Richard C. 
Brown, S. Lockwood 
Burch, Isaac H. 
Burley, Augustus H. 
Carpenter, James H. 
Carter, Thomas B. 
Case, J. R. 
Chapin, John P. 
Clarke, W. H. 
Cobb, Zenas Jr. 
DeWolf, A. V. G. 
DeWolf, William F. 
Dodge, John C. 
Drew, George C. 
Dunham, John H. 
Dyer, Thomas 
Foster, George F. 
Foster, Jabez H. 
Gage, Jared 
Germain, Isaac V. 
Gibbs, George A. 
Gurney, Walter S. 
Hadduck, Edward H. 
Haines, John C. 



Hale, Thomas 
Hardy, Isaac 
Harmon, C. L. 
Harrison, H. H. 
Higginson, Geo. M. 
High, John Jr. 
Hilliard, L. P. 
Hotchkiss, J. P. 
Hubbard, Gurdon S. 
Humphrey, D. 
King, John Jr. 
Kinzie, John H. 
Laflin, Matthew 
Loomis, H. G. 
Lunt, Orrington 
Marsh, John L. 
Marsh, Sylvester 
Morgan, T. S. 
Neely, Albert 
Ogden, Wm. B. 
Pardee, Theron 
Parker, Thos. L. 
Payson, H. R. 
Pearson, John 
Peck, James 
Raymond, B. W. 
Read, John S. 



Reed, Josiah H. 
Richmond, Allen 
Richmond, Thomas 
Robb, G. A. 
Rochester, Jas. H. 
Rogers, E. K. 
Rogers, John 
Rumsey, Julian S. 
Russell, J. B. F. 
Ryerson, Joseph T. 
Sherman, O. 
Shoemaker, Jno. W. 
Smith, George 
Smith, J. A. 
Stearns, M. C. 
Steel, George 
Stockbridge, F. B. 
Thompson, Thomas 
Throop, Amos G. 
Wadsworth, E. S. 
Walker, Almond 
Walker, Charles 
Walter, Joel C. 
Whitcomb, T. 
Whitney, W. L. 
Winn, James 
Winslow, H. J. 



Sessions of the Board were held from then on daily 
in a small office about twenty feet square at 8 Dear- 



CITY dF CHICAGO. 



born street. The trading hour was between eleven and 
twelve o'clock. 

There were no railroads and very little lake traffic 
at that time, most of the produce and grain arriving in 
the city by wagons. Trading on the new exchange was 
for this reason very light, and transactions far between. 
The opening of the Illinois and Michigan canal brought 
a larger grain growing territory in touch with Chicago, 



was far from satisfactory, and the members decided to 
make an effort to increase and facilitate it by getting 
telegraphic communication with eastern markets. The 
trading hour was changed to nine o'clock in the morn- 
ing, and new and larger quarters were secured on the 
corner of Fifth avenue and South Water street. During 
the next year a further advance was made by having 
the Board of Trade incorporated. This temporary boom 




BOARD OF TRADE BUILDING. 



and caused a large boom in the shipments in wheat and 
corn to the city. Not long after this the Galena & Chi- 
cago Union Railroad started in business, and brought 
more shipments here. The first year, however, of the 
Board of Trade \vas a quiet and uneventful one. At 
the first annual meeting in April, 1849, a 'l tne 'd 
officers were elected, excepting W. L. \Yhiting, in whose 
place John C. Dodge became secretary. 

The nature and the bulk of the business the first year 



was, however, short-lived, and during the next year, in 
1851, little interest was taken in the new exchange. In 
fact, days would pass when not a single member would 
attend. Various expedients were adopted to stimulate 
interest. One of these was to set up a free lunch. 
Liberal supplies of beer, cheese and crackers made the 
exchange for a time quite popular, and the attendance 
was comparatively large. Some of the present members 
still recall the free lunch campaign, and have lived to see 



THE CITY Or CHICAGO. 



143 



the day when memberships of the Board are worth 
$4,500, and the floor, and even the visiting galleries, are 
crowded daily. 

Things continued in a rather perfunctory way until 
the fourth annual meeting in April, 1853. The mem- 
bership roll at that time contained fifty-three names. 
Another year of struggle followed, but in 1854 the 
exchange came into its own. The wave of prosperity 
that started at that time has continued ever since. The 
railroads began to build into Chicago and the lake car- 
riers rapidly grew r in number. The settlement and 
cultivation of millions of acres to the west and northwest 
and the geographical position of the city at the head of 
the lakes have all contributed to make Chicago the 
greatest grain and produce market in the world. The 
first shipment of wheat in 1838 comprised 78 bushels. 
In twenty years the trade had increased to 8,500,000 
bushels. The first shipment brought 38 cents a bushel. 
The highest price between this and 1845 was 55 cents, 
while the average price for the next nine years was 
close to 60 cents a bushel. The Crimean war sent the 
prices for American grain soaring. In 1854, 1855 and 
1856, the prices went to over $1.00 a bushel, rising as 
high as $1.31 at one time. 

The exchange moved its quarters in 1855 to the 
corner of South Water and La Salle streets. It occupied 
the entire third floor, and during the next year 167 new 
members were added. The trading in futures \vas 
begun, but it was hardly what might be called a specu- 
lative trade. In 1859 another boom struck the wheat 
trade. The Austro-Sardinian war sent the prices for 
red winter wheat soaring to $1.73, and for spring 
wheat to $1.30. This was the real beginning of the 
boom times for the Chicago Board of Trade. ' Grain 
and produce began to pour into Chicago in large and 
ever-increasing quantities. The establishment of the 
stockyards and packing houses added to the growth of 
the Board of Trade. The city was also rapidly advancing 
in population and commercial importance. About this 
time the Board of Trade moved to the second floor of 
the Chamber of Commerce building at La Salle and 
Washington streets. Then followed the Civil war 
period in which the wild speculations in gold and grains 
still further increased the business of the board. The 
great fire of 1871 wiped out the Chamber of Commerce 
building. On the Monday following, the Board of 
Trade met on Canal street, between Washington and 
Madison, and passed resolutions urging the owners of 
the Chamber of Commerce building to erect at once a 
larger and more expensive structure. The members 
also voted a large amount of money for the relief of 
the destitute, and in a few days resumed its sessions 
as usual, remaining in these quarters until the construc- 
tion of a temporary building at Market and Washington 



streets. When the Chamber of Commerce was rebuilt 
the Board of Trade moved to its quarters there in 1872. 
The importance and growth of the exchange continued 
uninterrupted until the early 8o's, when the need of a 
building of its own became more apparent, and it was 
decided to build the present magnificent structure. In 
1884 the final move was made to its present home, the 
Board of Trade carrying with it to that section of the 
city much of the grain, banking and brokerage business 
of Chicago. 

The Board of Trade has always taken a leading part 
in the great patriotic and civic movements in Chicago. 
During the war it led the patriotic sentiment that fired 
the city. It fitted out the Board of Trade battery and 
two regiments of infantry, and presented them fully 
armed and equipped to the government. During the 
war these soldiers were carefully looked after by the 
Board of Trade. In addition to this the Board contrib- 
uted largely to the organizations of the Mercantile bat- 
tery, and did much towards supplying hospital stores 
and other supplies. Captain Stokes of the Board of 
Trade batter}', and a member of the exchange was 
credited by General Rosecrantz with saving the day at 
Stone River. The captain of Taylor's battery, another 
Board of Trade member, also made an excellent record. 
In fact, no military organization during that terrible 
conflict acquitted themselves with more credit than did 
those equipped and organized by the Chicago traders. 
The history of the Board of Trade since 1854 is one of 
continued prosperity. Its transactions run into the 
millions of bushels daily, while its quotations dominate 
the markets of the world. There have been periods of 
wild and persistent speculation, but this has rather 
tended to help than to still legitimate business. The 
farmers of the country have profited by many millions 
by the efforts to control the markets for wheat and 
corn, as well as for the products of the packing houses. 
Most of the corners attempted on the Board of Trade 
have been disastrous failures. 

Among those who have filled the office of secretary 
of the Board of Trade, the names of Charles Randolph 
and George F. Stone, the present incumbent of office, 
stand out prominent. Secretary Randolph held that 
office through the great fire, and for sometime after- 
wards. Mr. Stone has filled the position for the last 
twenty-one years, and has done much by his tact, ability 
and wisdom to add to the good name and fame of the 
Chicago Board of Trade. 

The present officers of the exchange are : William 
S. Jackson, president ; Walter Fitch, first vice-president ; 
John H. Jones, second vice-president ; G. F. Stone, sec- 
retary; E. A. Hamil. treasurer. The board of directors 
follows : John B. Adams, Kmil W. Wagner, Robert 
Bines, Geo. W. Patten, Walter Comstock, Paul Tiet- 



144 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



gens, J. Herbert Ware, A. Stamford White, John T. 
Sickel, James Crighton, Hiram N. Sager, J. Finley 
Barrell, John F. Harris, Edward Andrew, James 
Bradley. 

The Albert Dickinson Company was organized in 
1888, succeeding the business of Albert Dickinson, the 
latter of which was the outgrowth of a general grain, 
produce and seed business, founded in 1854 by Albert 
F. Dickinson. Its founder, who was one of the oldest 
members of the Chicago Board of Trade, was engaged in 
business between Dearborn avenue and State street, on 
Kinzie street. In the great fire of October, 1871, every- 
thing was lost, excepting a memorandum of the debts 
which the firm owed. The blow was a severe one, and 
the elder Dickinson's health was failing, but in 1872 his 
two sons, Albert and Nathan, who had been engaged 
with him in the business, together with their brother, 
Charles, who at that time was but fourteen years of age, 
gathered up the remnants of the business and carried 
it on for sixteen years, under the name of Albert Dick- 
inson. Doing all the work themselves, the three 
brothers, aided by their sister, Melissa, who did the 
bookkeeping, were able to wipe out the debts with 
which they started, and place the business on a sub- 
stantial and paying basis. The quarters on Kinzie 
street were finally outgrown, and the company rented 
part of the old Empire warehouse on Market street, 
only again to remove a few years later to the corner 
of Clark and Sixteenth streets, where large elevators 
and commodious offices were erected. In time, how- 
ever, even these quarters became too small, and an 
office, built especially for their purposes, was erected 
by the Chicago Dock Company, on their property on 
Taylor street, into which the company moved on May i, 
1898. The business of the Albert Dickinson Company 
extends over a large part of the world, and they are 
buyers, as well as sellers, in all the large foreign markets 
where goods in their line are handled. They make a 
specialty of clover, flax and grass seeds, and do an 
extensive business in bird seed, popcorn, grain bags, 
seed grains, etc. 

The officers of the company are : Albert Dickinson, 
president ; Charles Dickinson, vice-president ; Nathan 
Dickinson, treasurer; Charles D. Boyles, secretary. Its 
board of directors consists of Albert Dickinson, Charles 
Dickinson, Nathan Dickinson, .Charles D. Boyles, O. E. 
Harden. 

Albert Dickinson, president of the Albert Dickin- 
son Company, was born at Stockbridge, Massachu- 
setts, October 28, 1841, and is the eldest son of Albert 
F. and Ann Eliza (Anthony) Dickinson, both of whom 
were natives of western Massachusetts. Mr. Dick- 
inson came to Chicago with his parents in 1855, and 
was educated in the public schools of this city, being 



a member of the first class to be graduated from 
the Chicago High School. After graduation he 
entered the office of his father, who had established him- 
self in the grain and produce business shortly after 
coming to Chicago, and remained there until the out- 
break of the war in 1861. In April of that year he 
enlisted in Company B of the Chicago Light Artillery, 
known as Taylor's Battery, and later as Company B 
of the First Regiment, Illinois Light Artillery, and 
remained in active service some three years and three 
months. He was among those who saw a great deal of 
action. He was engaged in the first fight at Frederick- 
town, Missouri, and he was also in the engagements at 
Donelson, Shiloh, Corinth and Vicksburg. After the 




ALBERT DICKINSON. 

victory at the latter point his battery was sent to Mem- 
phis, from whence they marched to Chattanooga, arriv- 
ing in time to take part in the battle of Missionary 
Ridge, and later moving to the relief of General Burn- 
side at Knoxville. He served throughout the Atlanta 
campaign the following spring and was mustered out in 
July, 1864. 

Upon his return to civil life, Mr. Dickinson com- 
menced business at Durant, Iowa, but was shortly after- 
ward called to Chicago by his father's failing health, 
and at once took the responsibilities of the business 
upon himself, and actively commenced the duties of 
manager, continuing it in his own name, with the assist- 
ance of his brothers and sister, all of whom worked 
together. 

The misfortunes felt by the great fire had to be 
shouldered by Albert Dickinson and his associates, but 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



145 



under his management past disasters were wiped out, 
and, through continual efforts, the business has been 
built up to its present large proportions. Until about 
1874 a general commission business was transacted, but 
after that time the handling of seeds was made an exclu- 
sive business. The business was run in the name of 
Albert Dickinson until 1888, when a stock company 
was formed, and the firm became known as the Albert 
Dickinson Company, which to-day does the largest 
business in seeds, particularly grass and field seeds, of 
any establishment in the world. 

Mr. Dickinson finds his greatest recreation, strange 
as it may seem, in hard work, and it is to this that he 
attributes the greater share of his success in the business 
world. His whole efforts are, and always have been, 
given to the development and management of the 
Albert Dickinson Company. 

Mr. Dickinson has for some years been much inter- 
ested in the welfare of the Chicago Academy of Sci- 
ences and has been a liberal contributor to its needs. 
He is also president of the Timewell Sack Filling and 
Sewing Machine Company, a new labor-saving device, 
and the only successful machine in the world, for filling 
bags and sewing them. 




NATHAN DICKINSON. 

Nathan Dickinson, treasurer of the Albert Dickin- 
son Company, was born at Curtisville, Massachusetts, 
in February, 1848, and is the second son of Albert F. 
and Ann Eliza (Anthony) Dickinson. 

He came to Chicago with his parents in 1855, and 
was educated in the public schools of this city, being 
graduated from the Dearborn School in 1865. It was 

10 



soon found that his services were needed in the busi- 
ness then being conducted under his father's name, 
and he accordingly began business life under the lat- 
ter's instructions. He has remained continuously in 
the establishment ever since, and for many years has 
occupied the position of treasurer. 

Charles Dickinson, vice-president of the Albert 
Dickinson Company, was born at Chicago on May 28, 




CHARLES DICKINSON. 

1858, and is the youngest son of Albert F. and Ann 
Eliza (Anthony) Dickinson. He attended the public 
schools of this city until he was fourteen years of age, 
attending the high school in the mornings and working 
for Charles Gossage & Company, dry goods merchants, 
in the afternoons, at the very meager salary of $1.50 
a week. 

In 1872 Mr. Dickinson became associated with his 
two brothers, Albert and Nathan, who were engaged in 
carrying on the business originally started by their 
father, Albert F. Dickinson, and which needed their 
united attention, due to the losses sustained in the great 
fire of the previous year. 

The business was then being conducted on a general 
commission basis, and it was not until some years later 
that seeds came to be handled exclusively. Charles 
Dickinson was thus thrown into contact with the world 
at a very early age, and it stands as a matter of record 
that he was one of the youngest operators on the Board 
of Trade, he having begun active trading in his seven- 
teenth year. The Albert Dickinson Company was 
organized in 1887-1888, and his connection with this 



I4G 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



company, of which he is vice-president, has continued 
uninterruptedly. 

Mr. Dickinson has been fortunate, in that he has 
traveled extensively, and has gained much from the 
broadening influence which always results from a wide 
contact with one's fellow-men. His first trip abroad 
was in 1880, at which time he spent some months in 
traveling through Europe. Three years later he again 
visited Europe, and this time extended his travels south 
into Africa, not neglecting the many other points which 
could be conveniently touched while en route. 

Again in 1894-1895 he spent ten months in Russia, 
Germany, France, Denmark, Turkey and other coun- 
tries of continental Europe. While his travels have 
been extensive, and for the most part of a business 
nature, Mr. Dickinson has not failed to visit points of 
commercial and historical interest, thus combining 
pleasure with business, and receiving a twofold benefit. 

Mr. iDickinson is vice-president of the Chicago 
Dock Company, is president of the Chicago Moto-Cycle 
Company, and is president of the Chicago Polyphone 
Company, an organization for the manufacture of an 
improved talking machine. "He is a member of the 
Union League, Chicago Athletic, Illinois, Germania and 
Menoken clubs, and a trustee of the Chicago Academy 
of Sciences. He is married and resides at 603 Dearborn 
avenue. 




CHARLES DICKINSON BOYLES. 

Charles Dickinson Boyles, secretary of the Albert 
Dickinson Company, was born in Chicago, August I, 
1865. His parents were Charles C. and Hannah (Dick- 
inson) Boyles. 



Mr. Boyles received his education in the public 
schools of this city, which he attended until he was six- 
teen years of age, at which time he entered the employ- 
ment of the Albert Dickinson Company as an office 
boy. He has since remained continuously in the serv- 
ice of this company, and became secretary of it in 1889. 

He is a member of the Union League and Ashland 
clubs. 

Henry F. Vehmeyer, president of the Chicago Dock 
Company, was born in Hanover, Germany, March 7, 




HENRY F. VEHMEYER. 

1845, tne son f Christian and Elizabeth (Meyerding) 
Vehmeyer. When he was six years old his parents 
came to this country, and settled in Chicago, where, 
until he reached the age of fourteen years, he attended 
the public schools. At this time, however, he secured 
a humble position in a grocery store, on the West Side, 
where he was employed for about two years, at the 
end of which time he engaged in the management of 
a small grocery, which his father had purchased, on 
the corner of Adams and Throop streets. For thirteen 
years he continued in the grocery business, half of the 
time at the previously mentioned location, and half of 
this period at the corner of Ann and Lake streets. 

Mr. Vehmeyer first became a stockholder and 
director in the Chicago Dock Company in 1890. Some 
three years later he became president, in which capacity 
he still continues. 

Irwin, Greene & Company is one of the best known 
firms on the Chicago Board of Trade, having been 
founded in 1854 by D. W. Irwin. From that time to 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



147 



the present they have constantly extended their 
activities and now do an extensive business as shippers, 
receivers and grain merchants. It is known as one of 
the conservative firms in this line of business, and 
numbers among its customers many of the best known 
investors in Chicago. 

Charles David Irwin, the senior partner, is the son 
of D. W. and Harriett L. (Nash) Irwin. He was born 




CHARLES DAVID IRWIN. 

in Albany, New York, April 19, 1859, anf l ms father 
brought him to Chicago when he was but a child. He is 
practically a Chicago product, having been educated in 
the Chicago South Division schools, and grew up with 
the city. In 1881 he married Miss Hattie F. Duryea 
of Nyack, New York, and their children are Jessie N. 
and David D. Irwin. It was his father's desire that his 
son should succeed him in the firm of Irwin, Greene & 
Company, and when Mr. Irwin left school he entered 
the firm. He was made a partner in 1881, the year of 
his marriage, and, upon his father's death, succeeded to 
the latter's interests. 

Mr. Invin has always been an independent in poli- 
tics and is a Presbyterian. He is a member of the Union 
League Club and resides in Evanston. The office of 
the firm of Irwin, Greene & Company is in the Postal 
Telegraph building". 

John Cudahy, son of Patrick and Elizabeth (Shaw) 
Cudahy, was born at Callan, County Kilkenny, Ireland, 
November 2, 1843. His parents came to this country 
when he was but six years of age, and after a short 
time spent in the New England states came West and 



settled in Milwaukee. He attended the public schools 
of that city until he was fourteen years of age, when 
he secured a position in the packing house of Ed. Rod- 
dis, and started in to learn the rudiments of the busi- 
ness, with which he \vas to become so closely identified 
in after life. He remained in the employ of this house 
for about three years, leaving them to enter the estab- 
lishment of John Plankinton, afterward known as 
Plankinton & Armour. 

His connections with this firm lasted until he was 
twenty-one years of age. At that time he became asso- 
ciated with Thomas Grynne of Milwaukee in the nur- 
sery business, dealing in fruit and ornamental trees, 
and a few years later purchased the business, conducting 
it under his own name until 1870. He paid but a small 
sum down at the time of securing control, but managed 
it so well that at the time he disposed of it he had not 
only cleared himself of debt, but made a considerable 
bit of money besides. 

Having disposed of this business, he once more 
entered the packing industry, this time in the employ of 
Layton & Co., packers. While in their service he was 




JOHN CUDAHY. 

appointed Board of Trade provision inspector for the 
city of Milwaukee, and later became foreman and Board 
of Trade inspector for Van Kirk & McGeough. 

In 1875 he purchased an interest in the business of 
John Plankinton, but a few months later, deciding that 
the field of operations was not just what he wanted at 
the time, he secured a release from his contract, and 
came at once to Chicago, where he formed a partner- 



148 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



ship with Mr. E. D. Chapin, under the firm name of 
Chapin & Co., packers, the business being under this 
name for two years, when it became known as the firm 
of Chapin Cudahy. A few years later Mr. Chapin 
withdrew, and since that time Mr. Cudahy has con- 
ducted the business under the name of the Cudahy 
Packing Company. Some years ago Mr. Cudahy, 
together with his brother Patrick, purchased the busi- 
ness of John Plankinton of Milwaukee, which has been 
carried on under the name of Cudahy Brothers Com- 
pany, packers. 

In the life of Mr. Cudahy we certainly find a good 
example of what can be accomplished by industry, per- 
severance and, above all, business integrity. These 
qualities would have made him prominent, no doubt, in 
other lines of business, and it may be truthfully said 
that the success he has achieved and the prominence he 
holds to-day are the natural results of these character- 
istics, together with others which are to be found in men 
that have made their own way. 

Chicago certainly owes much of her prosperity to 
men like Mr. Cudahy. A liberal-minded citizen, pos- 
sessed of the highest ideals in all things, he has freely 
contributed his wealth in the aid of many charitable 
and public undertakings. Personally, he is a genial 
companion, and, although his entire attentions are given 
to his business, he finds time to mingle with his fellow- 
men. He is very fond of outdoor recreation, and has 
a beautiful summer home on Mackinac Island, where 
he spends much of his time during the summer months. 
He is a member of the Washington Park Club, the 
Union League Club and the Chicago Club, besides hold- 
ing membership in many other social organizations. 

Mr. Cudahy has been twice married, the first time 
in 1873, to Miss Mary Nolan of Bridgeport, Connect- 
icut, and the second time, in 1881, to Miss Margaret F. 
O'Neil, daughter of the late Mr. John O'Neil, one of 
Chicago's most respected citizens. He has two daugh- 
ters and one son. 

Edward William Bailey, a member of the Chicago 
Board of Trade, was born at Elmore, La Moille 
County, Vermont, August 31, 1843. His parents, 
George W. and Rebecca Warren Bailey, were natives 
of Berlin, Vermont. The Bailey family is of Scotch 
lineage. 

Edward W. Bailey is the youngest of ten children. 
His education was obtained in the public schools and 
in Washington County Grammar School at Montpelier. 
At the age of seventeen years he assisted his father in 
the management of the homestead farm, thereby devel- 
oping a strong muscular frame, and acquiring strength 
and endurance, which in the after years stood him in 
good stead in the strenuous battle of Chicago life. He 
also inherited the upright character and conscientious 
principles for which his progenitors had been conspic- 



uous. In 1869 he purchased a grocery store at Mont- 
pelier, and the following year he and his partner 
increased their business by the addition of a grist mill. 
When the firm dissolved a few years later, Mr. Bailey 
retained the mill and still continues to own and operate 
the same. 

In 1879 he located in Chicago, and formed a part- 
nership with V. W. Bullock for dealing in grain on 
commission. After the first three years Mr. Bailey 
became the sole proprietor of the business, and now 
occupies commodious quarters in the Board of Trade 
building. Mr. Bailey's business career has been strik- 




EDWARD WILLIAM BAILEY. 

ingly successful, and he has an enviable reputation for 
honorable dealing and integrity of character. 

Mr. Bailey holds liberal views on religious subjects, 
and was for many years a member of the congregation 
of the late Prof. David Swing. Mr. Bailey's religion 
in a nutshell may be defined as a praiseworthy aspira- 
tion to do unto others as he would wish others to do 
unto him. Mr. Bailey never fails to exercise the right 
as well as the duty to cast his vote. He supports 
Republican principles, believing the Republican party 
to represent the best social and economical ideals 
Emphatically a man of resolution and prompt action, 
he holds a creditable place in the business and social 
world of Chicago. 

William H. Lake, senior member of the firm of 
Vv. H. Lake & Company, commission merchants, is 
one of the most successful of the younger Chicago 
Board of Trade brokers. He was born in Chicago in 
1861 and entered the commission business with Dwight 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



149 



& Gillette in 1877. Later Mr. Lake took a position with 
Charles Counselman & Company, and still later he 
became connected with Bartlett, Frazier & Company, 
where he held a superior position until 1901. In that 
year he established himself in business and formed the 
firm of W. H. Lake & Company, with the entire first 
floor of the premises at 6-8 Sherman street as offices 
and customers' rooms. At the present, Mr. Lake 
"Billy Lake" as he is better known among his competi- 
tors and numerous friends is considered one of the 
representative commission dealers of the Middle West. 
Mr. Lake is a member of the Chicago Board of 
Trade, Chicago Stock Exchange, New York Produce 
Exchange, Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce, St. Louis 
Merchants' Exchange and the Minneapolis Chamber of 
Commerce. He is a director of the Chicago Athletic 
Association, and member of the Washington Park Club, 
Glenn View Golf Club, Edgewater Club, Chicago Auto- 
mobile Club, Chicago Yacht Club and North Shore 
Club. He has a daughter aged sixteen and a young 
son. 




WILLIAM H. LAKE. 







GARFIELD PARK. 



CHAPTER XXI. 



CHICAGO THE CATTLE MARKET OF THE WORLD. 




OR half a century Chicago. has been 
pre-eminent as a cattle market. 
j During that time it has grown from 
a small beginning to the greatest 
meat packing center the world has 
known. The stock yards are still the 
wonder of every visitor who comes to 
Chicago, from far and near. 

It was in 1848 that the first step 
in founding this tremendous industry 
was taken. A vacant lot at Madison 
street and Ogden avenue was rented 
by several stock men, and a few pens built. 
It was known as the "Bull Head" stock- 
yards, and a few hundred cattle, sheep and hogs were 
handled there every year. The slaughtering was 
done entirely for local consumption by a few 
small butchers. All the cattle were raised within a 
radius of less than 100 miles, and they were driven in 
by the owners and sold direct to the butchers without 
the advantage of a fixed market price. The nearest 
butcher was at Halsted and Madison streets, and in this 
way the great West Side highway, Madison street, was 
first marked out by the hoof tracks of the cattle, sheep 
and hogs. 

The next step in the development of this great 
industry was taken by the Michigan Southern Railroad, 
which had begun to haul no inconsiderable number of 
stock from the farmers of Michigan and Indiana. It 
was not convenient or profitable to drive the cattle from 
the southern entrance of the town to the West Side 
stockyards and the railroad opened a stockyards of its 
own at Twenty-second and State streets. In a few years 
this example was followed by a number of other roads. 
In 1856 the Illinois Central and Michigan Central 
encouraged John B. Sherman to build the Myrick stock- 
yards far out in Cottage Grove avenue. It could handle 



5,000 cattle and 30,000 hogs, and the roads built 
switches to it. This was followed by a rival yard in 
Cottage Grove avenue by the Fort Wayne Railroad, 
and soon after the Burlington put up a yard of its own 
near Ashland avenue, along its right of way. 

The cattle industry was handled in this way until 
near the close of the war, when the importance of the 
business clearly indicated that some consolidation must 
be had to put it on a firm business basis. The great 
cattle ranges of the West and Southwest began to look 
to Chicago for a market. Kansas, Texas and New Mex- 
ico, Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado, Missouri and Illinois, 
Indiana and Michigan began to send avalanches of cattle 
into the Chicago market. Chicago was becoming the 
meat supply center of the nation. 

The leading spirits of the small scattered yards came 
together for mutual profit and protection. The result 
of that conference was the present Union Stockyards 
and Transit Company, which with its allied industries 
and interests form the richest mercantile and manufac- 
turing achievements in the history of the world. The 
original prospectus was issued in 1864, and called for a 
stock subscription of $1,000,000. In February of the 
next year, a special charter was obtained from the state 
and the company formally organized with the following 
officers: Timothy B. Blackstone, president; F. H. 
Winston, secretary, and Robert Nolton, assistant sec- 
retary. 

To-day more than a quarter of a million people 
derive their support direct from it in Chicago alone. 
The activities which have grown up from this beginning 
and which center around it, represent the most costly, 
the most productive and most potential single manu- 
facturing industry in history. 

The first purchase of a site included 320 acres bought 
of John Wentworth along Halsted street, in the town of 
Lake. It was a low marshy tract, and considered of 



150 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



151 



no practical value. The work of draining it, and erect- 
ing the sheds and pens began in June, 1865, and by the 
close of that year was thrown open for business. The 
yards were laid out as a small town, with streets and 
alleys. These have been paved and planked, as the yards 
grew, and now there are over twenty-five miles of such 
highways in the stockyards. It has been increased 
from time to time until it now includes over 500 acres. 
To-day Chicago remains supreme in the cattle 
business of the world. Favored by its location, rising 
equal to every demand put upon it for facilities, with 



intense concentration and economy of method, and 
handling of raw material. Not a hair or drop of blood 
of the first asset, the live cattle, is lost. Nothing is 
wasted, neither time nor offal, and from the savings 
from this incalculable economy in the utilization of 
every by-product the stupendous fortunes of the 
Armours, the Swifts, the Morrises, the Cudahys and 
others have been built up. 

This policy has brought about the concentration 
of allied interests which in turn has resulted in making 
the Chicago stockyards what they are and maintaining 







VIEW OF ARMOUR & COMPANY'S PLANT. 



a spirit and enterprise capable of meeting the changes 
and developments of conditions, it has been unaffected 
by the growth of allied enterprises in other Western 
cities. The output of the stockyards and the great pack- 
ing plants have steadily increased despite the fact that 
a half dozen other towns, Omaha, Sioux City, Kansas 
City, East St. Louis, Wichita and Fort Worth, have all 
developed greater packing and stockyards interests 
than Chicago, in the beginning of its stockyards, ever 
dreamed. Its growth, price-fixing power and the 
increase of the output has remained undiminished, and 
assured. 

This unchallenged position is the result of the most 



them in their unchallenged supremacy. Jonas Howard 
in describing how these industries are interwoven, and 
interdependent says: "Canned meats and fresh beef, 
mutton and pork are not the limitations of its' efficiency. 
Tooth brushes, buttons, hair brushes, chessmen, knife 
handles, fertilizers, soaps, perfume, chewing gum, 
teething rings, tooth powder, shaving sticks, razor 
strops, penholders, glue, pistol butts, powder puffs, jet 
ornaments, paper cutters, hat racks, mounted horns, a 
thousand articles of art, utility, and commerce that were 
never dreamed of by the cattle butchers of twenty years 
ago, to-day are sold in millions of dollars worth from the 
Chicago stockyards and their tributary establishments. 



152 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



"Nothing could liave achieved these wonderful 
results but the concentration in one place of a score or 
more of various though not conflicting interests. The 
packers of Chicago stockyards have littered the deserts 
and morasses, and the tenantless mountains of the 
world with their meat cans. They have fed armies and 
explorers; by sheer dint of their usefulness they have 
made of a coarse, utilitarian trade an influence in the 
march of civilization, an especial condition in the prog- 
ress of mankind." 

A glance at the daily performance of the Chicago 
stockyards of the present will make the initial achieve- 
ments seem puerile and trivial. It has a capacity now 
of 75,000 cattle a day, 300,000 hogs, 125,000 sheep and 
6,000 horses. Three hundred miles of railroad tracks 
gridiron it. There are 13,000 open pens, 8,500 double- 
decked inclosures for sheep and hogs, 25,000 gates and a 
complete water and drainage system. In fact the stock- 
yards are a city in themselves, giving employment to 
50,000 men, and an army of women and girls. During 
Chicago's centennial year there were received 3,440,000 
cattle, 272,000 calves, 7,828,000 hogs, 4,584,000 sheep 
and 100,000 horses. Of these 2,171,000 cattle were 
slaughtered, 245,000 calves, 6,595,000 hogs and 3,584,- 
ooo sheep. The value of the stock shipped to this great 
cattle center during 1903 was over $311,900,000. In 
the process of manufacture into the various food prod- 
ucts and other products of the allied industries, this value 
was tremendously enhanced. 

But it is not alone in the value and number of 
cattle handled and slaughtered, not in the extent and 
area of the yards that their tremendous potentialities 
care be measured. Every conceivable device for the 
utilization of and expeditious handling of this great 
product of the farms of the nation is installed. Labor 
is made to produce to the limit of its efficiency. The 
stockyards of Chicago represent the consumption of 
mechanical speed with commercial utilities. Minutes 
lost are figured as weight and money lost. 

No two cities in the state of Illinois, outside of 
Chicago could furnish the men, boys and girls to do 
the work daily performed at the stockyards. The 
employees of this tremendous enterprise and its allied 
industries, with their families, would make a city second 
in size in the state, in fact, three times as large as any 
other outside of Chicago. It might be safely stated that 
half a million people are more or less dependent upon 
this monumental centralization of business activity for 
their livelihood. 

Within the past five years there has been added to 
the stockyards activities the annual live-stock exhibition, 
with a purpose to raise the standard of American bred 
cattle and horses. These competitive exhibitions have 
been tremendous successes. Thus, Chicago, has not 
been content with merely being the great meat food 



supply depot of the world, but has determined that the 
world shall have better meat, better horses and quicker 
service. 

Armour & Company. Very few people realize the 
enormous extent of the packing industry in Chicago, 
which has been gradually developing during the last 
fifteen or twenty years. Armour & Company, only one 
of several firms engaged in that business, have a daily 
average killing capacity of 49,000 hogs, 21,000 sheep 
and 16,000 cattle, an average of 86,000 head of live 
stock per day, which, counting 300 working days to 
the year, makes a total of 25,000,000 head per year. 

The area of land occupied by the several packing 
plants of Armour & Company is as follows : 

Acres. 

Chicago 160 

Kansas City 65 

Omaha 31 

St. Louis 29 

Sioux City 14 

Fort Worth . 16 



Total area 315 

The total output of these establishments, including 
dressed beef, hams, bacon and six hundred or more 
by-products, averages annually more than $200,000,000 
in value and includes many curious and interesting 
features. People know very little of the enormous 
variety of articles manufactured in connection with the 
slaughter-house business from which the packers derive 
their profits. For example. Armour & Company man- 
ufacture from twenty-five to thirty miles of sandpaper 
every day and an equal amount of emery cloth, which 
is used by the furniture factories, shoe factories and 
others. 

Armour & Company have between 6,500 and 7,000 
employees connected with the administrative and com- 
mercial departments, from managers to messenger boys, 
and between 18,000 and 20,000 persons engaged in 
manual labor at their several plants. The pay roll 
amounts to about $16,000,000 a year. These employees 
are scattered among more than 600 branch houses in 
different parts of the United States and foreign coun- 
tries. There is not a city of any size in the world at 
which the company is not represented. They own 5,000 
refrigerator cars for the transportation of meats, 
chickens, eggs, fruit and packing-house products. Their 
different plants in the West and Southwest are con- 
nected by about 5,000 miles of private telegraph wire, 
and from sixty to seventy-five telegraph operators are 
employed, according to the season. 

Everything about the Armour packing plant is done 
by electricity and the most ingenious automatic con- 
trivances. There is an elevated railway running between 
buildings and through all the streets and alleys, with 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



153 



over five miles of track, ten electric motors of twenty- 
five horsepower each, and 3,000 cars built in different 
styles adapted to the special purposes for which they are 
used. It is the only railroad of the kind in existence, and 
its utility was shown last year, when 375,000,000 pounds 
of meat and other products were transported from cut- 
ting floors and factories to warehouses and railroads for 
domestic and foreign transportation. 

The power plant of Armour & Company is one of 
the largest in the world, covering a ground space of 200 
feet square and up to date in every feature. The coal 
and ashes are handled by automatic gravity contri- 
vances. The boiler plant consists of twenty-four verti- 
cal water tube boilers of 375 horsepower each, and will 
be increased by 1,200 horsepower within a few months. 
There are four massive refrigerating machines, two of 
400 tons and two of 600 tons capacity daily, which will 



meats and lard are manufactured. There is a complete 
printing establishment also, where they do all their own 
lithographing and printing and manufacture their own 
books and stationery. In fact, everything except the 
raw material is made on the ground. 

Swift & Company. The beginning of every large 
and important industry has almost without exception 
been actuated by some big idea generated in the mind 
of one whose faith was predominant. 

In the case of Swift & Company at least this was 
true. Gustavus Franklin Swift, whose early life was 
spent as a Cape Cod farm boy, started the business 
which has evolved into the present Swift & Company. 

First as a seller of meat among his neighbors, then 
as an employee to a local butcher, and later as a partner 
in a successful stock commission business finally 
Mr. Swift began business in Chicago in 1875. This 




ARMOUR & COMPANY'S GRAIN ELEVATORS. 



be increased by 1,200 tons capacity very shortly. The 
entire plant is as nearly fireproof as can be made, but 
as an additional precaution a thoroughly equipped fire 
department is in complete readiness for instantaneous 
service day and night. The most modern appliances 
for the detection of fire have been supplied and watch- 
men are on duty everywhere. 

The canning department is also the largest in the 
world. Cleanliness is the chief characteristic, and no 
private kitchen in the land is neater. By the use of 
machinery manual labor has been reduced to a mini- 
mum, and long continued chemical experiments have 
enabled the cooks to retain all the natural flavors of the 
different meats they handle. The laboratory is under 
the charge of a chief chemist, with ten assistants, who 
are always busy making tests and devising novelties for 
the meat department. 

ArmOur & Company build their own cars, and have 
a tin factory, where all their cans and pails for preserved 



was in the early days of the Chicago Union Stock Yards. 

Competition, however, had already arrived and cor- 
porations headed by such business giants as P. D. 
Armour, Nelson Morris, Michael Cudahy and G. H. 
Hammond were laying lines for larger growth. 

During the first year of Swift Bros. & Company 
the business was mainly buying and selling cattle. 
Slaughtering was not installed until a year later. 

It was also during the early winters at the yards 
that Mr. G. F. Swift experimented with the shipping of 
dressed beef to eastern markets. His efforts were so 
successful that the business took on great impetus. 
To-day G. F. Swift is the name most mentioned as the 
man whose courage and faith made possible the refrig- 
erator car, which has long since revolutionized the stock 
and fruit industry. 

In 1883 by-products were first utilized by the refin- 
ing of beef suet for oleo oil. 

In 1884 sheep killing was installed and in 1885 hogs 



154 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



were first butchered. The same year Swift & Company 
was incorporated for $300,000. December i, 1886, 
however, this capital stock was increased to $3,000,000. 
This latter amount was increased gradually until in 
January, 1904, the capital stock became $35,000,000. 

The Chicago plant occupies nearly fifty acres. Six 
other plants, occupying an area of nearly two hundred 
acres, are located one in each of the following cities: 
Kansas City, Kansas ; Omaha, Nebraska ; East St. 



Directors : E. C. Swift, Boston ; L. F. Swift, Chi- 
cago; E. F. Swift, Chicago; L. A. Carton, Chicago; 
J. R. Redfield, Hartford ; Dumont Clarke, New York. 

Magnitude of Transactions. Here are some of the 
figures which tell the story in a nutshell the transac- 
tions of Swift & Company. 

During the year 1904 the company slaughtered over 
8,250,000 head of livestock. The total distributive 
sales for the same period exceeded $200,000,000. 




# 



VIEW OF SWIFT & COMPANY'S PLANT. 



Louis, Illinois; St. Paul, Minnesota; St. Joseph Mis- 
souri; Fort Worth, Texas. 

These plants supply the branch distributing houses 
to be found in every important city in the world. 

Swift & Company's main plants are immense institu- 
tions, built and equipped after the most modern and 
systematic plans. Beef, mutton, pork, provisions and 
all packing house products are prepared in large 
quantities. 

The General Offices at Chicago occupy a building 
erected in 1903 to take the place of the old General 
Offices destroyed by fire in July, 1903. This new build- 
ing is 100x200 feet, five stories high, and built of steel 
and brick. It is a noteworthy structure, even in a city 
of magnificent and costly buildings, and is considered 
the finest office building in the world, devoted to the 
interests of a single firm. 

Swift & Company is distinctly an American enter- 
prise, conducted after genuine American ideas, energy 
and push. Wherever this company has sought sales 
in other countries the same American business acumen 
has won. It employs a vast army of individuals, which 
furnishes support for a large number of people. 

Officers : E. C. Swift, chairman ; L. F. Swift, presi- 
dent; E. F. Swift, vice-president; L. A. Carton, treas- 
urer; D. E. Hartwell, secretary. 



The total shipments of product during 1904 aver- 
aged over 350 carloads for each working day. 

The total number of persons employed in all pack- 
ing plants and branch houses aggregates over 25,000 
workers. 

One Day's Slaughtering. In a single day the total 
slaughtering in the seven packing plants was as follows : 

Cattle ",895 

Sheep 16,553 

Hogs 34,562 

The largest number of poultry slaughtered in a 
single day during 1904 was 62,382. 



SIZE OF PLANTS. 

Buildings 
Acres. 



Floor Space 
Acres. 



Land 
Acres. 



Chicago 44^ 87^ 47 

Kansas City 7f 30 19* 

Omaha 6 26 23 

St. Louis 7^ 19! 3if 

St. Joseph 6| 25} 19} 

St. Paul 5 12 16 

Fort Worth 3 15 22 

Awards for Best Products. Swift & Company's 
products have received the highest awards at all the 
international expositions. 

At the Paris Exposition of 1900, four gold medals 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



155 



were awarded to Swift & Company for a refrigerator 
car and contents, for dressed beef, pork and provisions, 
including Premium Hams and Bacon and Silver Leaf 
Lard. 

The principal specialties prepared by Swift & Com- 
pany are : Swift's Premium Hams, Swift's Premium 
Bacon, Swift's Silver Leaf Lard, Crown Princess Toilet 
Soap, Wool Soap, Swift's Pride Soap. Swift's Pride 
Washing Powder. 

Nelson Morris & Company is the oldest packing firm 
in Chicago. Business was commenced in a portion of the 
present building on June 17, 1879, but Mr. Nelson 
Morris had personally been conducting a packing busi- 
ness for some years on the site of his present gigantic 
Chicago house. His business is the outgrowth of a 
butcher business which Mr. Morris started in 1858, or 
ten years before the foundation of Armour & Company. 
Two weeks after the establishment of the present firm 
of Nelson Morris & Company, the Fairbank Canning 
Company, then, as it is now, an integral part of the 
Morris firm, stuffed its first can, and pasted it with the 
well-known "Lion," as a guarantee of quality to the 
world. From that time to the present the firm has 
grown rapidly. Repeated additions have been made to 
the Chicago plant, and in addition packing houses have 
been opened at East St. Louis, St. Joseph and Kansas 
City. The combined buildings at these four points cover 
a floor space exceeding 150 acres. The Chicago house 



of the steel industry, it is the largest of all that America 
has either originated or adopted from other countries. 

The existence of the packing industry as it is to-day 
is almost entirely due to the work of four men, Nelson 
Morris. Philip D. Armour, Gustavus F. Swift and G. H. 
Hammond. Of these four, the pioneer, and the only 
survivor, is Mr. Nelson Morris. 

Since Mr. Nelson Morris first began business at 
Thirty-first street and the Lake Shore, the butcher busi- 
ness has developed into the packing business, that is to 
say, an industry conducted for the production of one 
product has developed into an industry in which sixty- 
nine businesses are conducted, and in which the main 
product is sold at a loss. This main product is the 
same product the butcher business was conducted to 
produce. This metamorphosis has been due more, 
than to any other living man, to Mr. Nelson Morris. 

When the firm of Nelson Morris & Company was 
established, in 1879, the butcher business had grown 
into an embryonic packing business, that is to say, that 
although the chief product was still fresh meat, and 
although the chief profit was still made out of fresh 
meat, yet a commencement had been made in the salva- 
tion of the bye-products, which has since revolutionized 
the entire industry. 

The packing house Mr. Morris opened June 17, 
1879, consisted of four departments: the Fresh Meat 
Department, the Hide Department, the Oleo Depart- 
ment and the Canning Department. The packing 




OLD MYRICK STOCK YARDS. 

Photo of Painting in possession of Nelson Morris, Esq. 



alone is so large that were a man to walk through it, 
opening each door that he came to, without entering a 
single room except to pass through, or stopping to 
examine anything, it would take him a full working day 
of ten hours, and something over, to do it. 

The development of the packing industry has been, 
probably, the most significant thing connected with the 
rapid growth of Chicago. It is the only industry which 
is distinctly American, and with the probable exception 



house he runs to-day consists of sixty-nine departments, 
each one of which has been made necessary by the 
changed conditions surrounding the slaughtering and 
sale of animal food products. 

In these sixty-nine departments are included the 
preparation of all kinds of food products, from fresh 
meats to mince meat and plum pudding. Butter, eggs 
and poultry, glue, tin cans, electric light, feathers, hide, 
ice, fertilizer and a score of other products are made. 



156 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



A hospital, fire brigade, printing shop, lithographing 
establishment, laundry, barber shop, architects' office 
and a dozen other enterprises are parts of the great 
and complex organization of Morris & Company's 
establishment. 

Mr. Morris has always insisted that his packing 
houses should be constructed scientifically and along as 
completely modern lines as possible. His Chicago 
house, when it was erected, was the model house of the 
country and is still held by packing house authorities 
to be superior to any of its contemporaries. 

The East St. Louis house was built in June, 1889, and 
was again a model. Nine years later the packing house 
at St. Joseph began operations and was in its turn held 



table specialties prepared by this company. Any facts 
relating to Libby, McNeill & Libby cannot, therefore, 
fail to be of interest. This concern is distinctively a 
Chicago institution, a striking example of what Chicago 
push and energy, coupled with brain and strict business 
integrity, can accomplish, and one in which much pride 
is felt by the citizens of Chicago. 

Prior to the year 1867 the curing of beef was done 
exclusively in cold weather, but in the summer of 1867 
Mr. Arthur A. Libby demonstrated the practicability 
of curing beef in the summer, and early in the following 
year the business of Libby, McNeill & Libby was 
founded by Messrs. Arthur A. Libby, Archibald McNeill 
and Charles P. Libby. Arthur A. and C. P. Libby, 




VIEW OF LIBBY, McNEILL & LIBBY'S PLANT. 



up to the packers of the country as an example of what 
a packing house should be. All three houses were, 
however, eclipsed when, in 1905, Morris & Company 
opened their plant at Kansas City, which they had 
erected at a cost of $2,225,000, after having saved 
$375,000 by doing all their construction work, from 
cellar to garret, through their own construction depart- 
ment. 

Libby, McNeill & Libby, whose name has long been 
a household word in all parts of the civilized world, has 
been made famous by the uniformly excellent meats 
bearing this brand, sold in all markets of the world 
for almost a third of a century. There is scarcely a 
man, woman or child under the sun who has not, at 
some time or other, eaten some of Libbv's delicious 



brothers, hailed from Portland, Maine, and Mr. McNeill 
from Buffalo, New York. They became the pioneers 
in the great meat-canning industry of to-day. Their 
capital, as Mr. Arthur A. Libby once expressed it. con- 
sisted of but little cash, three pairs of strong and willing 
hands, and an indomitable determination to succeed. 
The name of the firm was first A. A. Libby & Company, 
which was subsequently changed to its present style. 
For many years the business was confined almost exclu- 
sively to the packing and preserving of beef, but during 
the last few years pork, mutton, veal, poultry, pickles, 
olives, etc., have been added. The average number 
of carcasses of beef handled daily during the first year 
was only about 4.63. The second year showed a 
material increase over the first, and so did each succeed- 
ing year over its predecessors, until now the capacity 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



157 



has been increased to 3,000 head of cattle per day. exclu- 
sive of the other lines. 

When the business was incorporated, Mr. A. A. 
Libby was elected president; Mr. C. P. Libby, vice- 
president and manager; Mr. A. Libby, Jr., treasurer, 
and Mr. L. C. Young, secretary. At the present time 
officers are as follows : Edward Tilden, president and 
treasurer; Edward F. Swift, vice-president; W. F. Bur- 
rows, vice-president and secretary; C. T. Lee, assistant 
secretary ; Henry W. Hardy, assistant treasurer. 

The National Packing Company was incorporated 
under the laws of New Jersey, March 18, 1903, in order 
to acquire a number of the smaller packing houses 
bought up by the stockyards interests prior to this time. 
The capital stock of the company, authorized and out- 
standing, is $15,000,000. The plants acquired by the 
National Company, which had been purchased before 
the organization by the leading stockholders in their in- 
dividual capacity, are the G. H. Hammond Company, 
Hammond Packing Company, Omaha Packing Com- 
pany, the Anglo-American Provision Company, the 
Fowler Packing Company, St. Louis Dressed Beef & 
Provision Company, United Dressed Beef Company, 
Fowler's Canadian Company, Limited; Fowler Bros., 
Limited, Liverpool ; and the Continental Packing Com- 
pany. The officers of the National Packing Company 
are : Edward Tilden, president ; Arthur Colby, secretary 
and assistant treasurer. The directors are : J. Ogden 
Armour, P. A. Valentine, Louis F. Swift, Edward F. 
Swift, Edward Morris, Ira N. Morris, J. P. Lyman, 
T. J. Connors, Edward Tilden, Thomas E. Wilson, 
Arthur Meeker, L. A. Carton, Kenneth K. McLaren, 
Charles H. Swift, L. H. Heyman, S. McRoberts and 
F. A. Fowler. 

S. A. McClean. Jr., late president of the National 
Packing Company, which comprises a number of large 
packing firms in America and Canada, was without a 
doubt the most widely known and well-liked member of 
the packing trade. His sudden death the morning of 
August 29, 1905, was a shock to his many friends and 
business associates. He was telephoning from his home 
to his office when he was stricken with heart disease, and 
a few moments later the word was flashed over the ticker 
to the La Salle street financial houses that he was dead. 

Combining a most happy faculty of winning even his 
opponents over to his way of thinking, with a strong 
personal magnetism and a jovial and kind disposition, 
he advanced steadily from the position of office boy, 
until, at the age of thirty-five years, he was directing 
the complex machinery of one of the largest packing 
plants in the world. 

Mr. McClean was born at Belfast, Ireland, Feb- 
ruary n, 1870, and entered the employment of the 
Anglo-American Provision Company, twenty-five 



years ago as office boy. By sheer will power and great 
perseverance, never being satisfied until he had accom- 
plished what he set out to do, no matter how small, 
he climbed the ladder until at the exceptionally young 
age of twenty-five years, the position of vice-president 
of the Anglo-American Provision Company was offered 
him. His success in this position being such as to bring 
him conspicuously to the foreground as a commanding 
factor, S. A. McClean was elected vice-president of the 
National Packing Company very shortly after the for- 
mation of the latter company, and in this capacity 
proved himself more than equal to the task. Illustrat- 
ing his superior ability as the executive head of an 
institution having extensive interests throughout the 




S. A. McCLEAN, JR. 

world, quick in forming correct deductions and decid- 
ing most important questions on the spur of the 
moment, he had at the time of his sudden death reached 
the pinnacle of success, occupying the president's chair 
with the National Packing Company. He was a man 
without an enemy, esteemed even by his adversaries for 
his sterling qualities and honest dealings. 

S. A. McClean was a member of the Chicago Athletic 
Association, Union League, Chicago, Mid-day and 
Washington Park clubs, as well as director of several 
other large corporations and banks. The title given 
him by his friends, "the Little Napoleon of the Pack- 
ing Business," was certainly well chosen. 

Schwarzschild & Sulzberger Company. The year 
1853 saw the beginning of the history of the 
Schwarzschild & Sulzberger Company of to-day, and 
which has covered a successful business period of 



158 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



fifty years. On the date above mentioned the slaugh- 
tering of fifty cattle weekly was considered a large busi- 
ness, and compared to the present output of about fif- 
teen thousand (15,000) cattle per week, together with 
the handling of thousands of sheep, lambs and hogs, 
shows the progress and growth of the company. 
Schwarzschild & Sulzberger Company, more familiarly 
known as the "S. & S." Company, may be truly classed 
as one of the pioneers in the handling of refrigerated 
dressed beef, and are now conceded to be one of the 
packing powers of the world, which is due, in a great 
measure, to the high standard of its goods and strict 
business principles. 

During its early history the business was carried 
on as a firm, of which the partners were Mr. Joseph 




FERDINAND SULZBERGER. 

Schwarzschild and Mr. Ferdinand Sulzberger, the lat- 
ter being president and treasurer of the present corpo- 
ration. It early demonstrated itself to the firm that 
in connection with the slaughtering of cattle, the success 
of an abattoir business depends largely on the most 
advantageous handling and utilizing of the by-products, 
particularly the fats, which had been given little and 
careless attention by the old-time slaughterers. The 
adoption of new machinery and ideas, backed by the 
energy and experience of the firm, resulted in placing 
on the market the famous "Harrison Brand" of Oleo 
oil, which soon found favor on the domestic and -Euro- 
pean markets, and is to-day conceded to be the leading 
brand, with a world-famed demand and reputation. 

In 1885, owing to the practical retirement of Mr. 
Schwarzschild from active business, his son-in-law, Mr. 



Frederick Joseph, who had previously been a handler 
of live stock, became associated with the firm, assum- 
ing Mr. Schwarzschild's active duties, and on the incor- 
poration of the Schwarzschild & Sulzberger Company 
later, was elected vice-president, which office he holds 
at the present time. 

In 1888, on account of increased European business, 
Mr. Sulzberger went abroad for the general promoting 
of their foreign interests. It was at this time that Mr. 
Samuel Weil became associated with the firm, and, 
with Mr. Joseph, ably assisted in handling the business. 
Mr. Weil's energy and business abilities made him an 
important factor in the Schwarzschild & Sulzberger 
Company. Upon the incorporation of the company, 
lie was elected vice-president and secretary, which 
offices he holds to-day. 

In 1892, the rapid increase of domestic and export 
business having outgrown the capacity of the New 
York plant, the firm saw the advantages of an addi- 
tional plant in the West, and negotiated the purchase 
of a corporation, at that time known as the Phoenix 
Packing Company, having a plant located at Kansas 
City, Kansas, with a few distributing branches in the 
East, and a refrigerator car line, known as the Cold 
Blast Transportation Company. Enlargement of the 
plant to several times its original capacity, with added 
modern machinery and facilities, immediately followed. 

After purchasing the western interests, the New 
York plant gradually increased the output of kosher 
killed cattle for the supply of Greater New York, as an 
equivalent for volume transferred to Kansas City for 
export and general branch distribution. 

On May 10, 1893, there was filed with the secre- 
tary of state in Albany, New York, a charter of incor- 
poration, known as the Schwarzschild & Sulzberger 
Company, which is the corporation of to-day. 

Branch houses were rapidly established throughout 
the country and the export business was materially 
increased. 

The Schwarzschild & Sulzberger Company's success 
and growth again demonstrated the further enlarge- 
ment of plant requirements, and in 1899 it was decided 
to build their famous Chicago plant, conceded to be the 
finest in the world, which, with that at Kansas City, 
gave the company the advantage of being located on 
two of the leading cattle markets of the country Kan- 
sas City and Chicago. 

With modern plants, an increased refrigerator car 
line, and a complete equipment of livestock cars for 
transporting their cattle to New York, it put them in 
an advantageous position second to none to com- 
pete for the general business of this country and 
Europe. 

In 1900, Mr. M. J. Sulzberger, son of President Sulz- 
berger, was elected vice-president, and upon completion 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



159 



of the Chicago plant, assumed general charge as resi- 
dent official at Chicago. 

The volume and magnitude of the Schwarzschild & 
Sulzberger Company's business, backed by the high 
standard and reputation of its products, and with the 
enormous army of employees, aggregating twelve 
thousand, including auditors, inspectors, depart- 
ment superintendents, managers and general employees 
of the best talent, also its own architects and 
a construction department for the building and 
maintaining of its plants, branches, car lines, etc., 
gives this company an enviable standing in the packing 
interests of the world. Approximately, the aggregate 
domestic and European business for 1905 will aggre- 
gate $100,000,000. 



has been built up in a little over twenty years, by the 
perseverance and energy of the man at the head, is 
now $250,000. 

Mr. Miller was born in Chicago, March 15, 1857. 
He was educated in the public schools, graduating from 
high school in Blue Island. The first two years of 
his business life were spent in the employ of a stationery 
firm. In 1876 he began his career in the packing busi- 
ness as office boy with Fowler Bros., at the Union 
Stock Yards. He rose from this position to assistant 
shipping clerk and soon after was made shipping clerk. 
Then he was sent by his employers to the Board of 
Trade to buy cooperage and salt. 

With this experience, in 1882, Mr. Miller, then 
twenty-five years old, went in business for himself, be- 



U iWT^*'* 

I Inn 




MILLER & HART'S PLANT. 



The Chicago plant covers eighteen acres, and is 
connected with the Union Stock Yards by overhead 
viaduct. It has a capacity per week of 10,000 cattle, 
25,000 hogs, 15,000 small stock. There are cellars, 
outbuildings, a canning plant and an oil refinery. The 
motive power is electricity and it has a large artificial 
refrigeration plant. 

It is visited yearly by thousands of people who mar- 
vel at the uniqueness of this modern institution. 

Walter H. Miller, president of the packing house 
of Miller & Hart, typifies the Chicagoan whose busi- 
ness reflects the personality of its founder and owner. 
In 1876 Mr. Miller was an office boy. Now he is 
directing a great concern employing hundreds of peo- 
ple. In 1882, when Mr. Miller embarked in business 
for himself as a provision dealer, his capital was less 
than $2,000. The capital of the packing house which 



coming a provision dealer on South Water street. Two 
years later he combined his resources with those of 
William Craig. The provision house of Miller, Craig 
& Co. was founded with a capital of $2,500. In 1890 
the firm name was changed to Miller & Hart. After 
the death of Mr. Hart, which occurred in 1897, the 
business was incorporated. 

Two years previous to this the company moved into 
the plant it now occupies at Twenty-fifth street and 
La Salle avenue. This plant covers an area of several 
acres. There is a frontage of 300 feet on La Salle 
avenue and at the rear of the plant are the tracks of 
the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway. A 
side-track from the railway runs directly into the yards 
of the packing company. From here the Miller & 
Hart products are sent to all parts of the continent. 

The Miller & Hart Company have always been 



160 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



entirely independent of other packing houses at the 
Union Stock Yards. The "Berkshire" brand of ham, 
which is the Miller & Hart Company's special product, 
has become widely known throughout the country. 

Associated with Mr. Miller in directing the packing 
company is D. C. Roberton, who has been with the 
concern seventeen years. He is now assistant manager. 
D. V. Colbert, who is secretary of the company, is an 
influential member of the Ways and Means Committee 
of the Chicago Commercial Association. John Roberts, 
vice-president of the company, is also a member of the 
packing firm of Roberts & Oake at the Union Stock 
Yards. The treasurer, C. A. Bruce, was formerly credit 
man for a large wholesale grocery house at Blooming- 
ton, Illinois. Twenty-five traveling salesmen have 
made the Miller & Hart products known and used from 
coast to coast. 

In 1879 Mr. Miller was married to Rowena P. 
Fobes of Chicago. They have two children, Walter F., 
twenty-three years old, who is an architect, and Char- 
lotte, who is now Mrs. Arthur R. McDougall. The 
Millers live at 4580 Oakenwald avenue. Mr. Miller, 
who has for many years been prominent in Masonic 
circles, is a Knight Templar and member of the Medi- 



nah Temple, Mystic Shrine. He is also a member of 
the Chicago Athletic Club. 

M. H. Tichenor & Company, the well-known firm 
of horse dealers, was established in 1893. The firm 
consists of M. H. Tichenor and L. M. Newgass. Mr. 
Tichenor was engaged in the horse business eight or 
ten years previous. 

Tichenor & Company have always advocated the 
"American Trotter" as the best type for a high-class 
coach or carriage horse. It has always been the aim 
of this firm to handle only high-class horses ; they have 
furnished more first prize winners at the principal horse 
shows than all of the dealers of the United States com- 
bined, which certainly proves the quality of the horses 
they sell. 

The firm has two stables in Chicago, one at Forty- 
third and Halsted streets, adjoining the Dexter pavilion, 
and the other at Fifty-ninth and Paulina streets. The 
former is the finest appointed sales stable in the stock- 
yards. It has a capacity of eighty-five head, and is 
fitted with every convenience. The training barn is the 
most up-to-date in America, with box stalls for over 100 
horses, and a beautiful park for exercising and training 
their horses. 




LAKE VIEWS IN DOUGLAS PARK. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



CHICAGO'S MANUFACTURING INTERESTS. 




'HICAGO'S growth and greatness can 
be best measured by the story of the 
city's manufacturers. Favored by 
location and the accessibility of cheap 
fuel, iron, lumber, clay, sand and 
other raw materials for a score or 
more of the most important indus- 
tries, Chicago has become the manu- 
facturing wonder of the world. Dur- 
ing the past twenty-five years the 
forward strides of the city's factories 
have outstripped all precedents. The 
gains made during this last quarter century have been 
so marvelous as to arouse the envy and wonder of all 
other centers of industry. Coupled with Chicago's near- 
ness to the unmeasured natural products of the Middle 
West, has been the cheapness of land and its natural 
and inevitably advantageous location, as the main gate- 
way for the transcontinental traffic of the country. 

Nowhere in the world has such a record been made 
in the number and diversity of manufacturing inter- 
ests, in the great capital invested, in the annual output 
and in the hundreds of thousands of men and women 
employed. The congestion of traffic in the streets, the 
crowded side-walks of the down-town districts, the 
street cars, carriages, trucks and motors, the disarray of 
busy streets, the worn out pavements, the dirt, the 
grime, the very smoke which gives Chicago its reputa- 
tion as an unclean city, are all evidences of a manufac- 
turing growth without parallel. In the terrific pace set 
by Chicago's manufacturing interests, the municipality 
has been well-nigh overwhelmed in dealing with the 
questions of public utility, convenience and safety. But 
at the same time the great manufacturing interests have 
always stood for all that is best in Chicago's public 
spirit, civic pride and municipal advancement. To the 



great wealth developed by these industries is due every 
movement for the beautification of the city, for better 
streets, better traffic facilities, better schools, greater 
parks and purer civil government. Already the city is 
surrounded by a cordon of manufacturing centers to 
which many of the larger industries have been forced to 
move. There are being built the most modern plants. 
Industrial communities are being started that have 
drawn thousands from the crowded and unsanitary sec- 
tions of the city. In this way the inevitable congestion 
of the down-town streets and the terminals of the rail- 
roads is being relieved, the border expansion being but 
the natural consequence of the tremendous industrial 
strides of the city. 

Chicago's greatest industrial development may be 
said to have set in about the year 1880. There was 
invested in manufacturing in Chicago at that time 
upwards of $68,800,000. At the close of the year 1900 
this investment had grown almost nine-fold, the aggre- 
gate being over $534,000,000. This increase of nearly 
$450,000,000 in twenty years has never been equaled. 
The total sum now invested in the manufacturing inter- 
ests of the city will approximate $650,000,000, show- 
ing a continued advance for the last five years of 
approximately twenty per cent. From 1890 to 1900 
the percentage of increase was forty-eight, and every- 
thing points to 1 a larger increase during the present 
decade. The output of these great industries now 
aggregates over one billion dollars. In 1880, Chicago's 
factories produced only $248,995,000, rising to 
$880,945,000 in 1900, and by the latest estimates has 
well passed the billion mark. New York and Pittsburg, 
although their gains have been tremendous in the same 
decade, can show no such advance. 

Chicago's manufacturers, twenty-five years ago, 
employed less than 80,000 wage earners. Its factories 

1G1 



162 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



now give employment to over 300,000 and the wages 
paid twenty-five years ago have increased from, approx- 
imately $35,000,000 to nearly $175,000,000 In the last 
quarter century Chicago's manufacturing interests have 
passed all American rivals, except New York. This 
supremacy has not only been attained in the value of 
the total output, but in the capital invested, the number 
and size of the plants, the number of wage earners and 
wages paid and in the cost of the raw material used. 
Chicago's manufacturing energies show no disposition 
to go back or even to remain stationary. The growth 
continues strong and vigorous. 

Despite the great combination in industrial enter- 
prises, Chicago's increase shows a larger proportion of 
smaller factories than in enterprises involving a million 
dollars or over. Combinations have had no diminish- 
ing effect upon the total capital invested in Chicago's 
industries nor in the number of employees and the 
wages paid them, nor in the aggregate of the output 
or the value of the products. To-day the scale of wages 
paid in the factories of Chicago is higher than ever 
before. The length of the working day is less than it 
was ten years ago. In increasing the capacity of their 
plants Chicago manufacturers have looked into the 
future, and while the comparison of the capital invested 
is relatively small, still the volume of business done is 
growing by such leaps and bounds that whatever has 
been sacrificed in percentage of profits is being more 
than made up by the increase in volume of business 
done in practically all lines. 

Chicago represents not less than two-thirds of the 
manufacturing potentiality of the entire state of Illinois. 
The factories of the city and the suburbs and the towns, 
practically a part of Chicago, are increasing in number 
and in the value of their output, at a rate greater than 
all the rest of the state combined. This is in a measure 
largely due to the convenience of transportation facili- 
ties, the ability to secure power without a large invest- 
ment for a motive plant and the general accessibility 
to the market. Some of the larger institutions, in 
order to avoid the annoyance of labor troubles and the 
great investment in realty have gone to country towns, 
but this had no appreciable effect on the city's steady, 
onward growth. The effect, however, has been to give 
the country outside of Chicago an increase in the num- 
ber of w r age earners. The increase in the number of 
factory workers in Chicago, during the last fifteen years 
has been somewhat over fifty per cent. For the rest 
of the state the increase has been over sixty per cent. 
This same rate of increase holds good throughout the 
state as to the total wages paid and the value of 
products. As many of the industries have gone to 
nearby towns, their advantages and increases can all 
be justly recorded as part of Chicago's tremendous 
industrial growth. 



The Republic Iron &, Steel Company was incor- 
porated May 3, 1899, under the laws of the state of 
New Jersey, with a capital stock of $55,000,000. A 
large number of the most prominent steel companies 
in the country were consolidated under one manage- 
ment. The principal products of the company are pig 
iron, bar iron and steel, splice bars, steel billets, steel 
rails, bolts, nuts, screws, car axles, harrow teeth, T-rails, 
agricultural shapes, etc. The annual capacity of the 
plants exceeds 1,000,000 tons of finished iron and steel, 
and 600,000 tons of pig iron. 

The capital stock authorized $25,000,000 7 per cent 
cumulative preferred and $30,000,000 common, each of 
the par value of $100 per share; $20,852,000 of the pre- 
ferred and $27,352,000 of the common stocks are issued 
and outstanding, of which the company holds in its 
treasury $435,100 of the preferred and $161,000 of the 
common stock. The preferred stockholders are entitled 
to priority as to assets and dividends. 

Dividends on preferred 7 per cent per annum pay- 
able quarterly, were paid regularly from October i, 
1899, to October i, 1903. None since. The fiscal 
year ends June 30. The registrar of stock is the Chase 
National Sank, New York, and the stock transfer 
office is the City Trust Company, New York. The 
stock transfer books close about twenty days before the 
date of the annual meeting, and fifteen days before the 
date of the payment of the annual dividends. The 
annual meeting is the third Wednesday in October at 
Jersey City. The bonds consist of $10,000,000 of 
thirty-year 5 per cent gold mortgage bonds payable 
in 1934. 

The company operates the following properties : 

Ore Properties Cambria Mine, Lillie Mine, Mar- 
quette Range, Negaunee, Michigan ; Wills Mine, 
McKinley, Minnesota; Franklin Mine, Bessemer Mine, 
Victoria Mine, Pettit Mine, Kinney Mine, Missabe 
Range, Fay Mine, Virginia, Minnesota ; Mahoning Ore 
& Steel Co. (three-fiftieths interest), Hibbing, Minne- 
sota ; Union Ore Company (one-half interest), Virginia, 
Minnesota ; Antoine Ore Company (one-half interest), 
Iron Mountain, Michigan ; Brown & Red Hematic Ore 
Mines, near Birmingham, Alabama. 

Coke Properties Connellsville Coke Works, Atche- 
son, Pennsylvania ; Pioneer Coke Ovens, Thomas, Ala- 
bama; Warner Coke Ovens, Birmingham, Alabama 
District ; Woodside Coking Coal Lands (Connellsville 
District) Nicholson, Pennsylvania. 

Coal Properties Washington County Steam Coal 
Lands, Clokeyville, Pennsylvania; Springfield Mine 
(Wilmington & Springfield Coal Company), Spring- 
field, Illinois; Sayreton Mine, Warner Mine, Thompson 
Mine, on Pioneer property near Birmingham, Alabama. 

Limestone Properties Croton Limestone & Brick 
Company (interest), New Castle, Pennsylvania; Dale 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



163 



Limestone Works (on Pioneer property) near Birming- 
ham, Alabama; Union Limestone Company (interest), 
Lowellville, Ohio ; Lake Erie Limestone Company, 
Carbon, Pennsylvania. 

Blast Furnaces Pioneer, No. I, Pioneer, No. 2, 
Pioneer, No. 3, Thomas, Alabama; Atlantic, New Cas- 
tle, Pennsylvania : Hannah, Haselton, Yottngstown, 
Ohio ; Hall, Sharon, Pennsylvania. 

Steel Plants Bessemer Steel Plant, Bessemer 
Steel Rail Mill, Youngstown, Ohio ; Birmingham Open 
Hearth Steel Plant, Birmingham, Alabama. 

Railroads and Docks Spring-field & Northern Rail- 
road, Springfield, Illinois; Thomas & Sayreton Railway 
and other Industrial Railways in Birmingham District, 
Sharon Connecting Railroad, Sharon, Pennsylvania; 
Madison County Belt Railroad, Alexandria, Indiana; 
Mahoning & Shenango Dock (two-ninths interest), 
Ashtabula, Ohio ; Union Dock Company (one-ninth 
interest), Ashtabula, Ohio. 

Rolling Mills Alexandria Works, Alexandria, 
Indiana; Alabama Works, Birmingham, Alabama; 
Andrews Works, Youngstown, Ohio; Atlantic Works, 
New Castle, Pennsylvania; Birmingham Rolling Mill 
Works, Birmingham, Alabama ; Brown-Bonnell Works, 
Youngstown, Ohio ; Central Works, Brazil, Indiana ; 
Corns Works, Massillon, Ohio ; Eagle Works, Ironton, 
Ohio ; Indiana Works, Muncie, Indiana ; Inland Works, 
East Chicago, Indiana; Mahoning Valley Works, 
Youngstown. Ohio; Muncie Works, Muncie, Indiana; 
Mitchell-Tranter Works, Covington, Kentucky ; Sharon 
Works, Sharon, Pennsylvania; Sylvan Works, Moline. 
Illinois; Springfield Works, Springfield, Illinois; Toledo 
Works, Toledo, Ohio; Tudor Works, East St. Louis, 
Illinois; Terre Haute Works, Terre Haute, Indiana; 
Wabash Works, Terre Haute, Indiana. 

These properties include valuable iron and coal 
mines, and coal and limestone lands in Pennsylvania. 
Alabama, Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota, chief 
among them being the Pioneer properties at Birming- 
ham, Alabama, which comprises 26,000 acres, of which 
14,000 acres are underlaid with coal of excellent qual- 
ity, suitable for coking and general steam purposes, 
and 10,000 acres, rich in brown and red ores; the Frank- 
lin group and the Pettit and Kinney Mines on the 
Missabe Range ; Cambria and Lillie Mines on the Mar- 
quette Range, an interest in the Mahoning Ore & Steel 
Company, and a half interest in the Union Ore Com- 
pany, and Antoine Ore Company (all being well-known 
iron properties) ; also some 800 acres of coking coal 
lands in the Connellsville District, 2,000 acres of steam 
coal lands in Washington County, Pennsylvania, and 
200 acres steam coal lands in Illinois. 

The officers of this company are as follows: Presi- 
dent, Alexis W. Thompson ; Chairman Executive Com- 
mittee, G. Watson French ; Vice-Presidents : Archibald 



W. Houston, J. F. Taylor, W. H. Hassinger, George A. 
Baird, Edwin N. Ohl ; Treasurer, John F. Taylor; Sec- 
retary and General Auditor, H. L. Rownd; Assistant 
Secretary, Charles E. Graves; General Counsel, Harry 
Rubens; Solicitor, R. Jones, Jr.; General Sales Agent, 
Geo. A. Baird; Assistant General Sales Agent, R. P. 
Zint; Purchasing Agent, W. L. Lee; Traffic Manager, 
H. R. Moore. Directors: Archibald W. Houston, 
L. C. Hanna, Geo. A. Baird, G. Watson French, Alexis 
W. Thompson, Harry Rubens, Chas. H. Wacker, John 
F. Taylor, George R. Sheldon, William H. Hassinger, 
Grant B. Schley, John Crerar, Jno. W. Gates, Chas. S. 
Guthrie. Executive Committee : G. Watson French, 
Chairman; Alexis W. Thompson, John F. Taylor, Harry 
Rubens, George A. Baird, Chas. H. Wacker. 

The main office is in the First National Bank build- 
ing, Chicago, Illinois. The New York office is at in 
Broadway. 

The Iroquois Iron Company, one of the largest 
plants of its kind in the Middle West, is located on 
the Calumet river, and extends from Ninety-fifth 
street to the railroad bridge, over which run the trains 




M. C. ARMOUR. 

of the Baltimore & Ohio, the Fort Wayne and the 
Lake Shore roads. The plant's shipping facilities are 
excellent; aside from the proximity of the railroads, 
their ore docks lie along the Calumet river, which 
accommodates the deepest draft vessels which transport 
ore from the Lake Superior regions. The annual 
capacity of the company's furnaces, which give employ- 
ment to over 500 men, is 200,000 tons of foundry and 
malleable pig iron, all of which products are made from 



164 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



Lake Superior and Old Range ores. Their coke for 
fuel is brought in trainload lots from the Stonega and 
Connellsville districts. 

The officers of the Iroquois Iron Company are M. 
Cochrane Armour, president ; William A. Rogers, vice- 
president; George A. Tripp, secretary and treasurer, 



over the old-fashioned center-pier swing bridges is the 
absence of any center-pier and large obstructive pier 
protection. The supports for the Scherzer Rolling Lift 
Bridge are supplied by piers placed upon the sides of 
the navigable channel, and upon these the movable parts 
of the bridge roll in a vertical direction, and through 




VIEW OF IROQUOIS IRON COMPANY'S PLANT. 



and Samuel A. Kennedy, superintendent. Mr. Armour, 
who is likewise associated with Rogers, Brown & Co., 
sales agent for the Iroquois Company, is a native of 
Auburn, New York, where he was born in 1851, of 
Scotch parents. He received his education in Michigan 
and Wisconsin high schools, and came to Chicago in 
1876. He was connected with the Adams & Westlake 
Company of this city for ten years, and in 1890 he helped 
organize the firm of Rogers, Brown & Co. In 1899 
he was elected president of the Iroquois Iron Company, 
which position he has since held. He is also vice-presi- 
dent of the Rogers Iron Mining Company. 

The Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridge is the invention 
of the late William Scherzer, C. E. It fulfills every 
requirement of a movable bridge, eliminating, in so 
doing, all the objectionable features of a swing bridge 
and spanning navigable waters in the simplest and least 
expensive manner. The efficiency of this type of bridge 
for the accommodation of heavy land and water traffic, 
and its many points of superiority over a swing bridge, 
have been demonstrated by more than seventy large 
Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridges constructed during the 
past ten years and in successful operation for the prin- 
cipal railroad companies and municipal corporations 
in the United States and abroad. 

The chief advantage of Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridges 



the clear opening thus obtained vessels are enabled to 
pass rapidly. A partial opening of the bridge will usually 
suffice. The power expended and the time occupied in 
opening and closing the bridge are both reduced to a 
minimum. The large bridges of this type now in use 
are usually opened or closed in thirty seconds, and 
receive highway or railroad traffic in less than one 
minute from the time the bridge begins to close. 
Another important advantage of this type of bridge con- 
' sists in the absolute protection which the bridge itself 
affords against accidents when opened. In the open 
position the bridge itself forms a positive signal and 
barrier, absolutely preventing vehicles and pedestrians 
from falling into the water, which accidents are very 
frequent with swing "bridges and result in large losses 
of life. 

The first bridge of the Scherzer type was constructed 
across the Chicago River at Van Buren street. It was 
completed in the spring of 1895, and has been used 
continuously by the city of Chicago for the heaviest 
highway traffic, and is now carrying both highway and 
electric car traffic and giving complete satisfaction. 

The four-track railroad bridge of the Scherzer type 
conveying the Metropolitan West Side Elevated Rail- 
way Company's lines across the Chicago River midway 
between Jackson and Van Buren streets was completed 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



165 



very soon after the Van Buren street bridge. It is 
composed of two similar or duplicate bridges placed 
side by side and firmly coupled together so as to oper- 
ate as one bridge, or when desired may be uncoupled in 
a few minutes and operate separately, thus insuring a 
crossing for trains at all times. This bridge is operated 
by electricity and is opened or closed within thirty 
seconds. The satisfaction which this bridge has given 
can be no better shown than by an extract from a letter 
to Mr. Scherzer, written by Mr. W. E. Baker, general 
manager of the Metropolitan West Side Elevated Rail- 
way Company, under date of July 12, 1897, in which 
he says, referring to this subject : 

"It was completed some time before May 6, 1895, 
at which date the road was opened and the bridge 
placed in active service, since which time it has operated 
continuously, and of itself caused no delays to trains, of 
which there are and have been, since shortly after the 
date of opening the road, about 1,200 daily cross- 



requires little power to move it and shows no evidence 
of a depreciation, and we are satisfied with it." 

The North Halsted street bridge of the Scherzer 
type was completed in 1897. 

The State street bridge of the Scherzer type was 
completed in 1903. It replaced a very obstructive cen- 
ter-pier swing bridge, through which modern vessels 
could not pass. The new bridge gives a clear channel 
for navigation 140 feet wide. It was constructed by 
the Sanitary District of Chicago in connection with 
similar bridges at Randolph street, Harrison street. 
Eighteenth street and other points on the Chicago River 
where obstructive center-pier swing bridges had to be 
removed in order to secure an unobstructed water flow 
and passage for vessels. 

Firmness and rigidity under heavy loads is a marked 
feature of the Scherzer Bridge, and is due to a great 
extent to the simplicity of the bridge structure as com- 
pared with other movable bridges now in use. This is 




SCHERZER ROLLING LIFT BRIDGE 

Across the Chicago River at Entrance to Grand Central Station, Chicago. The Longest Span Bascule Bridge in the World. 



ing the bridge. We do not make any charge for motive 
power for operating the bridge ; it is too small to be 
considered. The bridge is operated, as you know, by 
motors, using the current with which we operate the 
trains. The bridge has proved rigid. It is rapid to open 
and shut, has never shown any signs of failure; it 



at once apparent upon inspection of the bridge itself 
or the views herewith presented. Whether compared 
with the best class of swing bridges now in use, with 
the direct lift bridge, of which that at South Halsted 
street is an example, or with the various plans of experi- 
mental structures intending to do away with the center- 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



pier, the Scherzer Bridge has no equal for simplicity, 
rigidity, safety, rapidity of operation, economy, effi- 
ciency or durability. This is demonstrated by the fact 
that the principal railroad companies are rapidly remov- 
ing their center-pier swing bridges and replacing them 
with modern Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridges. 

The New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad 
Company constructed a six-track Scherzer Bridge 
across Fort Point Channel at the entrance to the South 



struction for this company at Cos Cob, Westport, over 
the Housatonic River and over the Connecticut River, 
Connecticut ; also at Neponset, Massachusetts, and six- 
track bridges across the Bronx and Hutchinson rivers, 
New York. All of these modern bridges take the place 
of discarded center-pier swing bridges. They are 
intended to accommodate and expedite the increasing 
traffic of the railroad company and to facilitate the 
improvement from steam to electric operation of trains. 





SCHERZER ROLLING LIFT BRIDGE 

Across the Chicago River at State street, Chicago. Invented by William Scherzer, C. E. 



Terminal Station, Boston, Massachusetts, in 1899. This 
station is one of the largest and most important ter- 
minal stations in the world. The Scherzer Bridge was 
selected by the railroad company because it fulfilled the 
highest requirements of a movable bridge. It has been 
so satisfactory that the railroad company removed its 
double-track swing bridge at Bridgeport, Connecticut, 
and replaced it with a Scherzer Bridge, completed in 
1903. Four-track Scherzer Bridges are now under con- 



Seven Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridges have already 
been constructed for Greater New York ; four at Boston, 
Massachusetts ; five at Cleveland, Ohio, and other cities 
too numerous to mention here. 

One of the illustrations herewith shows the double- 
track railroad Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridge constructed 
across the Chicago River at the entrance to the Grand 
Central Station, Chicago. This bridge is the longest 
span bascule bridge in the world. It is also opened 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



167 



more frequently than any other bridge in the world. It 
has given perfect satisfaction to the railroad company. 

The Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridge Company also has 
the distinction of having made the designs and plans 
for and constructed the eight-track railroad bridge 
across the Drainage and Ship Canal, Chicago. This 
bridge is used by the Pittsburg. Cincinnati, Chicago & 
St. Louis Railway, the Chicago Terminal Traction Rail- 
way, the Chicago Junction Railway, and the Baltimore 
& Ohio Railway. It is the largest movable railroad 
bridge in the world and consists of four double-track 
bridges of the Scherzer type placed side by side to be 
operated either jointly or separately, as desired. 

In England a large Scherzer Bridge has already been 
completed for the South Eastern & Chatham Railway, 
near London. Others are under construction in Ire- 
land, the north of England, Russia and Holland, where 
the Scherzer type of bridge is superseding and replac- 
ing the trunnion type of bascule bridge. 

A distinguished authority has stated : "The Scherzer 
type is the bridge of perfection. It is recognized by the 
engineering profession as the most perfect bascule 
bridge in existence. It is a monument to the inventor." 
This statement is verified by the fact that all of the 
largest and most important movable bridges constructed 
during the past ten years have been bridges of the 
Scherzer type. 

William Scherzer, the inventor and patentee of the 
Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridges, was born at Peru, La 
Salle County, Illinois, on January 27, 1858. His parents 
were William and Wilhelmina Scherzer. His early 
education was acquired in the public schools of Peru. 
Illinois. At the age of fifteen he was placed in charge 
of a private tutor with a view of preparing him for 
entrance to some European University. At the age of 
eighteen he entered the Polytechnicum at Zurich, 
Switzerland, to take the four years in civil engineering. 
He was graduated with honors in the year 1880. 
Upon his return to the United States William Scherzer 
was engaged as engineer with the Matthiessen & 
Hegeler Zinc Company, remaining with that company 
for three years. For the following eight years he was 
employed with the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago 
Railway Company, the Keystone Bridge Company and 
the Carnegie Steel Company, leaving the latter com- 
pany to establish an office as consulting engineer. 

One of the problems upon which he was consulted 
was the question of a movable bridge to carry the four 
tracks of the Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railway 
across the Chicago River, to the business center of 
Chicago, between the Jackson street and Van Buren 
street swing bridges. A swing bridge was impossible 
because it would interfere with the movements of both of 



the existing swing bridges. One of the ablest American 
engineers submitted to the management of the railroad 
company a pivot bascule bridge design, similar to the 
Tower bascule bridge at London, England, which was 
then under construction, and it seemed to be the only 
feasible solution of the difficulties, and detail plans were 
prepared for the construction of the bridge, but in work- 
ing out the details, objectionable features became more 
apparent. The bridge question was becoming critical 
and the management of the railway company consulted 
William Scherzer with reference to overcoming the 
objectionable features of the design. After careful study 
of the problems. William Scherzer became convinced 
that it was impossible to eliminate the objectionable 




WILLIAM SCHERZER. 

Inventor of the Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridges. 

features of the pivot or trunnion type of bascule bridge. 
As the railroad was nearing completion, the bridge 
problem became very critical and induced William 
Scherzer to endeavor to solve the problem on entirely 
new lines. This ultimately led to his invention of the 
type of bridge known as the Scherzer Rolling Lift 
Bridge. He prepared a design for a four-track rolling 
lift bridge, which was at once adopted by the railroad 
company for construction. It was also decided by the 
railroad company and city authorities to remove the 
obstructive center-pier swing bridge at Van Buren 
street and replace it with a Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridge. 
The plans for both of these bridges were completed by 
William Scherzer shortly before his death, which 
occurred on July 20, 1893. 

The complete success of the above-mentioned 



168 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



bridges has been the foundation for the unparalleled 
success and rapid adoption and use of the Scherzer Roll- 
ing Lift Bridge throughout the world. The invention 
of the Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridge formed a new era 
in movable bridge construction, enabling and facilitating 
the improvement of waterways and the accommodation 
of the ever-increasing railroad, electric railroad and 
highway traffic. 

William Scherzer was unmarried. He was a member 
of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Society 
of Engineers for Western Pennsylvania, the Western 
Society of Engineers, The American Society for the 
Advancement of Science, and the University Club of 
Chicago, besides a number of social clubs. 

Albert H. Scherzer, president and chief engineer of 
The Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridge Company, was born 
at Peru, La Salle County, Illinois, and is the son of 




ALBERT H. SCHERZER. 

President and Chief Engineer, The Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridge Company. 

William and Wilhelmina Scherzer. After completing his 
preliminary education at the high school of his native 
city, he went to Europe, where considerable time was 
devoted to study at the universities in Zurich, Switzer- 
land. Returning to this country in 1882, he became iden- 
tified with the Illinois Zinc Company of Peru, Illinois, 
one of the largest firms in the world engaged in the 
smelting and rolling of sheet zinc, remaining with that 
company for the following eight years. In 1890 Mr. 
Scherzer came to Chicago and entered the Union Col- 
lege of Law, pursuing the regular course leading to the 
degree of LL. B., and graduating therefrom with the 
class of '92. He subsequently entered upon the practice 



of his profession, but in 1893, upon the death of his 
brother, the late William Scherzer, the inventor and 
patentee of the Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridges, he gave 
his attention to the development of the business estab- 
lished by him. 

Mr. Scherzer has made an exhaustive study of mov- 
able bridges, and in pursuit of his studies along this line 
has traveled extensively throughout both this country 
and Europe, visiting all the principal structures of that 
class. 

Under Mr. Scherzer's management the scope of the 
business has been very widely extended. In addition 
to the many large railroad, electric railroad and highway 
bridges of the Scherzer type in successful operation, 
more than thirty of the largest movable bridges in the 
world are now under construction in the United States 
and abroad upon the designs and plans and under the 
supervision of the Scherzer Company. The very high 
standing which this company has attained under the 
direction of Mr. Scherzer is evidenced by the fact that 
they are retained as consulting engineers by the prin- 
cipal railroad companies and the largest municipal cor- 
porations for the largest, most important and difficult 
movable bridges. 

Mr. Scherzer was married to Miss Donna Gunckel 
Adair of Dayton, Ohio, in May, 1902. 

Samuel Worthington McMunn, president and treas- 
urer of the Kindl Car Truck Company, is one of the 
best known manufacturers in Chicago. His offices are 
at 135 Adams street. He has extensive business inter- 
ests both in Chicago and throughout the West. Mr. 
McMunn was born at Sharon, Noble County, Ohio, 
March 20, 1850, the son of Isaac and Maria McMunn. 
He attended the public schools and later Sharon Acad- 
emy in his home town. For some time after leaving 
the academy he taught school, when he entered business 
in the employ of the Ohio River Salt Company at St. 
Louis and later became a member of the firm of G. L. 
Joy & Company, the successors to that concern. 
Shortly after this he became president of the American 
Transportation Company and also president of the 
American Brake Company. From 1884 to 1889 he 
lived in New York as the manager of the Consolidated 
Coupling Company. In the latter year Mr. McMunn 
moved to Pittsburg, where he was identified for five 
years with the Carnegie Steel Company. He came to 
Chicago in 1894 as the manager of the Otis Steel Com- 
pany. He later became interested in the Kindl Car 
Truck Company and is at present the active head and 
treasurer of that concern. Mr. McMunn is also a di- 
rector of the Raymond Concrete Pile Company, second 
vice-president of the Oro Verde Mining Company of 
Colorado, director of the Page Woven Wire Fence 
Company, president of the United States Steel Piling 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



171 



McCord is president of the Chicago & Calumet River 
Railroad Company. 

Mr. McCord was married on December 26, 1896, 
to Emily Davis Ro\ve of Evanston, daughter of Mrs. 
C. H. Rowe. They have one daughter, three years old. 
He is a member of the Chicago Club, the Union 
League Club, the University Club and the Princeton 
Club of New York. Mr. McCord is an enthusiastic 
automobilist and his interest in golf is evidenced by 
membership in both the Glen View Club and the Skokie 
Country Club. 

John J. Cummings was born in Christian County. 
Illinois, July 25, 1874. He is president of the Cum- 
mings Car Company, the largest manufacturers of street 



ground railway in London uses their trucks and when 
the Paris & Versailles division of the Western Railway 
of France was built, they were authorized to purchase 
the best equipment in America, and they bought the 
trucks from this firm, although Chicago is 1,000 miles 
inland. The entire lines owned by the Australian gov- 
ernment are furnished with them, the same being true 
of the cities of Havana, Cuba, and Glasgow, Scotland, 
Brazil and Peru are fitted out as well, and even Siam 
has its quota. 

The Cummings Car Company plant at Paris, Illi- 
nois, which has attracted the attention of the industrial 
world, is known throughout the country as the most 
modern manufacturing plant of its kind in the United 




VIEW OF CUMMINGS CAR COMPANY'S PLANT. 



railway cars in this state, and also president of the 
McGuire-Cummings Manufacturing Company, builders 
of trucks, snow sweepers, sprinklers, electric locomo- 
tives and other railway specialties. 

This latter company has been in business twenty- 
one years, and is known almost as well in foreign coun- 
tries as at home. Their trucks are running on all the 
elevated and surface lines in Chicago, and on railways 
in all parts of the country, from New York to San 
Francisco, as well as in Canada. These companies 
employ about 1,000 men, and have shipped their 
product to all parts of the globe. In Africa, South 
America, Cuba, Australia, England, Japan and the 
Continent are seen rolling stock manufactured by them. 
The Metropolitan tramways of London use their pneu- 
matic sprinkling cars. The "Tuppenny Tube" under- 



states, and covers thirty acres. The east building is 
the main erecting shop, 600 feet long by 175 feet wide, 
with floor space for 140 cars. It is crossed with fire 
walls. The buildings east of this shop include a finish- 
ing shop, cabinet shop, wood-working machine shop, 
truck shop, machine shop and forging shop. Between 
these and the main erecting shop is a 76-foot transfer 
table, operating electrically the full length of the fac- 
tories and to the car-loading table. An iron and steel 
warehouse and three dry lumber warehouses, a power 
plant with a capacity of 700 horsepower and entire elec- 
tric transmission and brick dry kilns, with the latest 
improved lumber-drying appliances, complete the 
equipment of this model institution. The plant 
embodies the most modern features of first-class con- 
struction, evidenced by the lowest insurance rate of any 



172 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



car plant in the United States. It is located on 
the Big Four, New York Central Lines, Cairo Divi- 
sion of the Big Four and the Vandalia-Pennsylvania 
system. 

Chicago Bridge & Iron Works. Going in any direc- 
tion from Chicago the traveler will notice in many of 
the small cities and villages steel water towers or large 
round-bottom tanks high in air. If the traveler were 
to examine the manufacturer's stamp on tower or tank 
he would find that most of them had been constructed 
by the Chicago Bridge & Iron Works. 

Up to 1894 the company had been engaged in the 
building of bridges, but about that year the small towns 
throughout the country began to construct waterworks 
systems and the Chicago Bridge & Iron Works was 
the first concern in the field to meet the demand for 
tanks and towers. The concern developed the present 



its energies to the manufacture and erection of highway 
and railway bridges and many a country road bears tes- 
timony to its industry. 

In 1903 the properties of the Chicago Bridge & 
Iron Company were taken over by Mr. Horace E. 
Horton, who for some time had been the owner of all 
the stock of the company. Since that time his business 
has been transacted under the name of the Chicago 
Bridge & Iron Works. The officers of the company 
are Horace E. Horton, proprietor; George T. Horton, 
engineer and manager; Henry W. Wilder, office director. 
Alfred Stromberg, founder and vice-president of the 
Stromberg-Carlson Telephone Manufacturing Com- 
pany of Chicago, and Rochester, New York, whose 
plant is recognized as the most extensive and complete 
in the independent telephone field of America, is a native 
of Sweden, born near the city of Stockholm, March 9, 




VIEW OF PLANT, CHICAGO BRIDGE & IRON WORKS. 



type of hemispherical bottom, steel storage tanks for 
pressure, a large number of which have been constructed 
within the last ten years. The manufacture of water 
towers followed and the company became more widely 
known as a builder of water tanks and towers than of 
bridges. For the same reason it has become more 
widely known throughout the United States than any 
other bridge company. 

The Chicago Bridge & Iron Works has erected 
water towers in every state in the Union except six, and 
has built a large number in Canada, Mexico and Cuba. 
The company's plant is located in Washington Heights 
at One Hundred and Fifth and Throop streets, between 
the main lines of the Rock Island and Pan Handle rail- 
roads. On this site, which is about ten acres in area, the 
company built its first shop in 1889. It was constructed 
of wood and in the fall of 1897 was destroyed by fire. 
The following spring it was rebuilt entirely of brick 
and steel. For the first five years the company devoted 



1 86 1. Mechanical achievement was a familiar idea to 
him from infancy, he being the son of Andrew Strom- 
berg, one of the largest threshing-machine manufac- 
turers in Sweden. His early training in electrical work 
he acquired in his native country, side by side with 
L. M. Erickson, the well-known European telephone 
manufacturer. External influences, however, served 
to indicate the direction in which the marked abilities 
and energies of the boy were to operate, and whetted 
his enthusiasm in the progressive field of labor in which 
he has won his great success. Before coming to America 
he had some practical experience in his chosen spe- 
cialty, having assisted in the tests of the first pair of 
telephone instruments sent to Stockholm by the Bel! 
Telephone Company and having had charge of part of 
the work of installing their exchange, and later he con- 
ducted the construction and installation of numerous 
exchanges throughout the northern peninsula and Den- 
mark. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



173 



The year of 1884 found him entering upon his career 
in this country in the repair department of the Chicago 
Telephone Company, where he was given full charge, 
not only of the repairing but the changing of all instru- 
ments and the practical application of new ideas issuing 
from the engineering department. In 1885 young 
Stromberg entered the instrument department of the 
Bell Telephone Company in Chicago, and for the next 
five years was prominently connected with the manu- 
facturing department of the company's rapidly expand- 
ing business, inventing in the meantime a number of 
improvements, some of which are still used by that 
company. 

In 1890 he associated himself with the Chicago Elec- 
tric Protective Company as superintendent of their 
burglar alarm system, and while with that company 
made many improvements and inventions, which are 
still utilized by them, and through which was practi- 
cally secured to them the entire control of this line of 
business against the strongest opposition by the Bell 
Telephone Company. 

Upon the expiration of the fundamental patents of 
the telephone receiver in 1893, Mr. Stromberg, with 
Mr. Andrew^ Carlson, organized the Stromberg-Carlson 
Telephone Manufacturing Company, whose growth 
since that year, both in point of industrial dimensions 
and of reputation, is among the notable developments 
in the electrical field. The company was incorporated 
and all the capital possessed by Mr. Stromberg and Mr 
Carlson, which was considerable, was put in the busi- 
ness. The status of the company was sound. Conscien- 
tious care was taken not to infringe any valid patent 
claims of other concerns, and the electrical and 
mechanical engineers employed were experts in their 
special lines. The enterprise has always been under the 
control of Mr. Stromberg and Mr. Carlson. The estab- 
lishment was located on West Jackson boulevard and 
Clinton street, the massive brick building and the nearly 
half of a block it covers, being owned by the company 
and valued at $400,000. From fifteen 'phones per day 
the output increased to seven ruindred. Nearly all the 
improvements manufactured by the company are pro- 
tected by United States patents, issued to Mr. Strom- 
berg or to him and Mr. Carlson jointly, and these gen- 
tlemen have done more for the independent telephone 
patrons than all the other manufacturers combined. 

By the beginning of 1902 the business had grown 
to such proportions that additional capital was neces- 
sary to meet the demands upon the company for its 
apparatus and telephones, and Mr. Stromberg suc- 
ceeded in interesting capital from Rochester, New York. 
The result was that the Stromberg-Carlson Telephone 
Manufacturing Company was organized under the laws 
of the State of New York, and succeeded to the busi- 
ness of the company, which had been organized under 



the laws of Illinois, and Mr. Stromberg was made vice- 
president of the new company. The capital of the new 
company was $3,000,000, and plans were made for 
building another factory in Rochester. Since that time 
the capital has been increased, owing to the growing 
business of the company, and now it is $6,000,000, and 
the factory at Rochester has been built covering over 
seven acres of floor space, and all the latest and best 
machinery has been put in to manufacture the highest 
type of apparatus and instruments. 

The company employs about 3,000 people in all 
departments, and Mr. Stromberg's relations with his 
force and his good judgment in selecting employees are 
the most satisfactory and creditable. He is just in every 




ALFRED STROMBERG. 

way and as his business has prospered he has advanced 
the pay of his men without solicitation. Throughout 
his rise to his present enviable position he has main- 
tained the same pleasant attitude toward his help and 
given the same careful attention to the needs of his 
patrons, so that by both classes he is much appreciated. 

Mr. Stromberg is a family man, having been 
married in 1866 to Miss Ellen Johnson of Chicago. 
They have a family of four children, Minnie, Alice, Emil 
and Eva. In politics Mr. Stromberg is a stanch Repub- 
lican, but has never aspired to any prominence in this 
direction, his energies and interest having been concen- 
trated upon his chosen industry. One who has enjoyed 
a long business acquaintance with our subject says of 
him : 

''In some respects Mr. Stromberg is the most 
remarkable man I have ever known. Of humble origin, 



174 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



he lias by native ability, coupled with persistent effort, 
risen to his present high position in the business world 
as head of its largest independent telephone company. 
His quick perception enables him to grasp a situation 
at once and to master every detail of the proposition 
involved. His life is wrapped up in his enterprise, and 
he has put work into it which no one can appreciate 
except those who are intimately associated with him. 
A capable man at the outset, he has constantly 
developed with the growth of his business interests. 
From a working mechanic with a daily wage of two dol- 



pendent factory in the city, if not in the entire country, 
is that of the Automatic Electric Company, manufactur- 
ing automatic telephone switchboards and apparatus. 
This company is the successor of the Strowger Auto- 
matic Telephone Exchange in the manufacturing field. 
Three or four years before the launching of the Inde- 
pendent telephone movement, A. B. Strowger brought 
to Chicago a crude model of an apparatus designed to 
do away with telephone operators. This was called 
an automatic telephone switch. Strowger showed his 
invention to various people in an endeavor to secure 




AUTOMATIC ELECTRIC COMPANY'S PLANT. 



lars to a man of large affairs arid wealth in the short 
space of a dozen years is a record which few can boast ; 
but with it Mr. Stromberg has retained his simple and 
direct manners and the respect and esteem of his asso- 
ciates." 

Automatic Electric Company. Following the birth 
of the independent telephone movement, some ten 
years ago, Chicago became the center for the manufac- 
ture of apparatus for the independent companies, and 
at this date there are a score or more of these factories 
making everything from complete telephone plants 
down to the smallest appurtenances. The largest inde- 



financial backing. Mr. Joseph Harris was the first to 
recognize the latent commercial and financial possibili- 
ties in the invention and, with A. E. Keith and others, 
organized the Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange 
for the purpose of controlling the Strowger patents and 
developing and manufacturing the switch. Offices were 
opened in Chicago and an experimental station was 
established at La Porte, Indiana, in 1892, and used for 
three years. Several small exchanges were built, some 
of which, notably those at Albuquerque, New Mexico, 
and Manchester, Iowa, are still in operation and giving 
satisfactory service. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



175 



Mr. Harris and his associates allied themselves with 
the independent telephone movement at its commence- 
ment and therefore deserve to be classed among the 
pioneers in it, and the first in the automatic field. 
During the ten years in which the Strowger Automatic 
Telephone Exchange manufactured the switches more 
effort was devoted to bringing the apparatus up to a 
high standard of mechanical excellence than to- dispos- 
ing of the product, and it was not until the organization 
of the Automatic Electric Company, in 1901, that any 
great amount of progress was made in the selling of the 
apparatus. At that time, by additional patents and 
improvements, the system had advanced so far in its 
development that larger things could be and were under- 
taken. 

The first exchange of 20,000 capacity was built in 
Dayton, Ohio. It has an installation of 6,000 stations. 
This exchange was put in operation on June i, 1903. 
About the same time the first exchange with 100,000 
capacity was installed in Chicago, for the Illinois Tunnel 
Company with nearly 10,000 stations in operation. 

The largest exchange outside of Chicago is that at 
Los Angeles, California, which was completed in 
August, 1905, with more than 9,000 lines. The ulti- 
mate capacity of the Los Angeles exchange is 100,000 
lines, the same as that of the Chicago exchange. Other 
cities in which automatic exchanges have been installed 
and are in operation at present, are : Grand Rapids, 
Battle Creek, Pentwater and Traverse City, Michigan ; 
Columbus, Dayton, Van Wert and St. Mary's, Ohio; 
Lincoln and Hastings, Nebraska; Portland, Lewiston 
and Auburn, Maine; San Diego, Riverside, Ocean Park 
and Sawtelle, California; Wilmington, Delaware; Fall 
River and New Bedford, Massachusetts; and a number 
of smaller places. Other cities in which the automatic 
telephone exchange has been adopted, and at the 
present writing (August, 1905), is being built or 
installed, are: Sioux City, Iowa; El Paso, Texas; 
Havana and Marianao, Cuba ; Portland, Oregon ; and 
several smaller places. 

The officers of the Automatic Electric Company are : 
C. D. Simpson, Scranton, Pa., president; Joseph Harris, 
Chicago, vice-president and general manager; C. C. 
Wheeler, Chicago, secretary; A. G. Wheeler, Jr., New 
York, treasurer; and the following, in addition to the 
above-mentioned gentlemen, are directors : A. G. 
Wheeler, J. B. Russell and C. B. Eddy. A. E. Keith is 
general superintendent and chief engineer. 

The general offices and manufacturing plant of the 
company are located in a large six-story, brick building 
on the southwest corner of Van Buren and Morgan 
streets, Chicago. The factory is one of the most com- 
pletely equipped in the country for its work. Nearly 
eight hundred hands are employed, and the most mod- 



ern machinery, much of it automatic, is in use. So 
complete is the plant and the system of manufacturing 
that an entire automatic exchange of five hundred lines 
can be built in one day. The automatic telephone sys- 
tem manufactured by this company has proven itself 
a mechanical, commercial and financial success. It is 
revolutionizing the telephone business. The Automatic 
Electric Company is still allied with the independent 
telephone movement and sells only to independent 
companies. 

E. Schneider & Ca., one of the largest manufacturers 
in the world of candles, oil and glycerine, has been 
located in Chicago since 1865. The corporation was 
founded in St. Louis in 1842, and has had a continuous 
existence under the same name for sixty-three years. 
The firm was first organized for the manufacture of 
soaps, in addition to the lines to which it now confines 
its energies. E. Schneider was the company's first 
president and Anthony Schmitt entered office at the 
same time as secretary and treasurer. 

When the firm moved its office and factory to Chi- 
cago, it found that another concern was located here 
manufacturing the same lines. By mutual agreement 
E. Schneider & Co., discontinued the manufacture of 
soaps, which had grown to a large proportion of its 
business, and in return the rival concern abandoned the 
field as far as the manufacture of candles, oil and glyc- 
erine were concerned. 

The "stearic wax" candles of E. Schneider & Co. 
are now favorably known in every mining district of the 
world. The concern specializes in the making of can- 
dles for mining and such purposes. The glycerine it 
produces is in the crude state for trade purposes. Ever 
since the concern was incorporated in 1881, it has been 
a close corporation. After the death of Mr. E. Schnei- 
der, in 1889, his business associate, Anthony Schmitt, 
succeeded as president of the corporation. Mr. Schmitt 
has continued in that office since then. The other 
executive officers of the corporation are : A. G. 
Schmitt, vice-president and treasurer, and C. P. Wood- 
cock, secretary, who has been connected with the con- 
cern for many years. 

The main offices of E. Schneider & Co., are in the 
Fisher building, 277 Dearborn street. Its factory occu- 
pies the block fronting on Wallace street and bounded 
by Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth streets. 

The Cable Company, in the course of twenty-five 
years, has developed from a factory of insignificant 
size to the greatest institution manufacturing pianos and 
organs in the world. This phenomenal growth has been 
due largely to the two great factors which enter into 
the conduct of almost all institutions which reach 
supremacy the production of articles offered at prices 
which give the buyer the full measure of value and an 



17G 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



organization by which manufacturing and selling can 
be carried on with the highest efficiency. 

The results of the policy which has directed the 
interests of this company are shown in two immense fac- 
tories, branch houses in leading cities, agencies in all 
parts of the United States and Europe and a business 
which covers both hemispheres. 

The productions of The Cable Company comprise 
all grades of pianos and organs from the reliable, moder- 
ate-priced instrument to the masterpiece of design and 
craftsmanship. It has always been the accomplished 




CABLE BUILDING. 

purpose of this institution to make every instrument, 
whatever its grade, the best in every feature that could 
be offered at a given price. The natural consequence 
has been that these instruments have set the standard 
in their respective classes and have attained an unparal- 
leled popularity. 

In the entire conduct of its business this company 
has followed broad-gauge, progressive methods which 
have fully kept pace with the advance of modern com- 
mercial life. To visit its factories and offices is to be 
impressed at once with the splendid organization of 
even- department, the remarkable system by which 
even' department co-operates with all the others and 



with the executive ability which is demonstrated in their 
operation. 

It has always been the custom of the Cable Com- 
pany to employ supervising talent of the highest order, 
to select its workmen with regard to both skill and 
personal character and to train each one in some spe- 
cial operation. It has at its command, therefore, a force 
of specialists who naturally are much more accurate 
in the performance of their work than any general 
mechanic can be. 

A department is maintained where special machinery 
is designed and built exclusively for use in the com- 
pany's factories, and by this means it has introduced 
many devices which have increased the efficiency of 
operations to a remarkable degree and made it possible 
to reduce the cost of manufacturing to a minimum, 
and at the same time to improve the quality of the 
productions. 

Back of all this splendid manufacturing organiza- 
tion and office system is a policy, unhampered by tra- 
ditions, which does not hesitate to establish precedents ; 
a policy that points the way toward larger growth and 
greater prosperity, and it is but a natural result that 
such an institution should have attained pre-eminence in 
its field. 

The Stegcr Piano Company owes its existence and 
success to John V. Steger, its president and founder. 
In the year 1854, in the little city of Ulm, Wurtemburg, 
South Germany, John V. Steger was born, under hum- 
ble and unauspicious circumstances. At the age of four- 
teen he was apprenticed to a woodworker by his father, 
who was himself a cabinetmaker. He remained in his 
employ for three years, and then started for America. 

Having no knowledge of the English language, with 
a capital of but twelve cents, alone in a foreign land and 
among utter strangers, it was this sturdy German lad 
"started out to make his fortune." 

The first thing this young man did was to form a 
resolution which was never afterward broken. It was 
to live within his resources. Having as a capital with 
which to start in life but twelve cents, he made an expen- 
diture of five cents for a piece of pie, reserving the seven 
cents as a capital against need until he should have 
earned something. Within six hours John V. Steger was 
employed. He was engaged at rough carpenter work in 
the reconstruction of ice-houses on the Hudson river. 
It was not a desirable position, as he was fitted for 
something better, being fully competent to earn more 
than he would receive for this work, but it was the best 
available, and he took it. Within two months he 
returned to New York with his savings, which amounted 
to more than one-half of his wages. This sum he 
divided into two equal portions, one that was not to 
be expended under any circumstances, the other to 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



177 



supply his wants and necessities until he could again 
get work. 

Shortly afterward he secured a position at the bench 
as a cabinetmaker, and for a year his wages averaged 
$10.50 per week. Of this amount he invariably placed 
$5.50 into his reserve fund; always this much, sometimes 
more. He then resolved to seek a new location in Chi- 
cago. He was also intensely desirous of acquiring a 



all this period the indomitable purpose to accumulate 
prevailed. The sum of $12 was allowed for household 
expenses, and the balance of his earnings was placed in 
a bank. The sum grew until it reached $3,900, when it 
was withdrawn from the bank and invested in the piano 
business, the location chosen being 154 State street. 

In 1 88 1 a change was made to 109 Wabash avenue, 
the same having become necessary by reason of greatly 



. -I_ll 




STEGER PIANO WORKS. 



better knowledge of the English language, and it is 
needless to say that whatever John V. Steger set out to 
do he accomplished. 

After being in this country but two years, and, being 
a young man of rare good sense, he realized that he 
could not prosper if he remained single. Accordingly 
he sought the hand in marriage and was wed to Miss 
Louise R. Jacobs, a daughter of one of Chicago's first 
settlers. 

For eight years he worked for others, but during 

12 



increased business, which was annually becoming larger 
in volume. His quarters here were much more exten- 
sive than his former location, the rental being twelve 
times in excess. Within three years another change was 
necessitated by the demands for space, and the location 
chosen was Adams street and Wabash avenue. Here he 
lost everything in the Langham Hotel fire, and 
devoted the next four years in building up his business 
at State and Jackson streets. In 1891 he made his final 
removal to his present location, northeast corner of 



178 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



Jackson boulevard and Wabash avenue, where he has 
established a trade second to none in the United States. 

Mr. Steger has surrounded himself with a corps of 
able and efficient assistants, but still devotes his time 
to the active management of the immense interests con- 
nected with the business. He is in constant touch with 
his men. As fully and thoroughly acquainted with every 
detail of the vast works as is the most efficient of his 
employees, Mr. Steger evinces an interest in all that is 
going on, and with tireless energy superintends the oper- 
ations, and from early morning until late at night care- 
fully oversees the vast establishment, as well as keeping 
in touch with the selling branch of the business. This 
involves tireless, ceaseless vigilance, and as "eternal 
vigilance is the price of liberty," so John V. Steger 
believes it the price of business success. 

In the year 1891 there was purchased in the suburb 
of Chicago twenty acres of land, and a single building 
erected as a piano factory, in which the manufacturing 
of the Steger pianos was begun. To-day living in Steger 
are about 2,500 persons mainly composed of workmen 
in the extensive Steger piano manufacturing plant. 
Another such a town does not exist on the face of the 




JOHN V. STEGER. 

earth, and in no other collection of human beings of a 
similar extent in numbers does peace, happiness, plenty 
and contentment reign as here. Wherefore, John V. 
Steger may be rightly accounted as one who loves his 
fellowmen. 

The United States Peat Fuel Company is indeed 
a name to conjure with, for its business bids fair to 
rival some of the great industrial organizations of this 



century. Its general offices in the Fort Dearborn build- 
ing are among the most complete and elegant in this 
city, while its officers and directors are all men of affairs 
and prominence in commercial circles. 

Henry D. Bushnell, the president of the company, 
is a fitting head for this great institution. He is consicl- 




HENRY D. BUSHNELL. 

ered an authority on corporate organization and devel- 
opment, and is backed with exceptional executive 
knowledge and ability, the outgrowth of a lifetime of 
labor in the vineyard of corporate management. Mr. 
Bushnell is also the executive head of one of the largest 
American controlled foreign trading and transporta- 
tion companies and a director in several other corpora- 
tions of moment in the business realm. His services 
are in great demand and his advice is sought almost 
daily upon troublesome and intricate corporate ques- 
tions by prominent business men throughout the United 
States. Had Mr. Bushnell turned his energies to law 
instead of to commerce there is no question but what he 
would have stood head and shoulders among the great 
corporation lawyers of this country. This fact, coupled 
with his far-seeing executive ability, eminently qualifies 
him to direct the tremendous possibilities of the peat 
fuel business. 

John Addison, first vice-president, was for over 
thirty years one of Chicago's most noted architects, a 
gentleman of wide social and business acquaintance and 
recognized integrity. Many of this city's largest busi- 
ness edifices and palatial homes stand as monuments 
to his artistic talents and construction management. 
The other officers of the company are: Murry A. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



179 



Pierson, treasurer; Chas. H. Ade, secretary; J. Campbell 
Morrison, consulting engineer ; Dave Williams, mechan- 
ical engineer, and Daniel F. Flannery, general-attorney. 
All of these men are prominent in the business, profes- 
sional, social, club and fraternity life of Chicago, but 
space forbids a detailed record of their individual accom- 
plishments and successes. 

The United States Peat Fuel Company controls a 
monopolistic line of patents on the manufacture of peat 
fuel in this and some fifteen foreign countries. It is 
the parent organization governing the industry under 
its patented processes, systems and machinery in every 
land. A large number of subsidiary corporations have 
been organized in the United States and throughout the 
world. The list is growing steadily, and there seems no 
reasonable doubt but what the number of subsidiary 
plants paying tribute to the parent company will reach 
into the thousands. 

The industry is fast assuming gigantic proportions, 
and by some well informed authorities it is predicted 
that the business controlled by this corporation will 
within the years to come equal in magnitude and influ- 
ence that of coal mining. It must of necessity reach out 
and its branches will be permanent industrial factors 
in every civilized country. 

The company is now manufacturing its fuel in com- 
mercial quantities, and has contracted for the installa- 



tion of other large plants one of which is to be located 
a few miles from the business center of Chicago. This 
factory will be the mecca for engineers and fuel experts 
from every corner of the globe. 

The fuel has been demonstrated to be fully the equal 
of high-grade anthracite coal, but is smokeless, sulphur- 
less, sootless and clinkerless. The cost of manufacture is 
below the cost of mining coal, and the crude material 
used is nothing more or less than common bog, swamp 
or marsh land. 

But little stretch of imagination is necessary to fully 
realize the present and future commanding influence of 
this company, for by its efforts and under its process 
and machinery the vast bog lands of the earth are rap- 
idly being converted into fuel mines of stupendous 
output and value. 

The Corn Products Company was organized March 
i, 1902, for the production from corn of glucose, grape 
sugars, corn syrups, various grades of laundry and 
edible starches, dextrines of all grades and British gums. 
It is an amalgamation of a number of subsidiary organ- 
izations, each manufacturing one or more of the 
products of corn, and its expansion along only one of 
many lines has been such that it makes practically every 
brand of laundry and edible starch now on the market. 
The Corn Products Company grinds in the manufac- 
ture of its multitudinous products, thirty-five million 




PLANT OF THE CORN PRODUCTS COMPANY. 



180 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



bushels of corn per annum, or an amount equaling over 
one-fourth of the corn exported by the United States. 
Its works and factories, giving employment to six thou- 
sand persons, are located in fifteen different cities and 
towns as follows : Chicago, Illinois ; Buffalo, Oswego 
and Glen Cove, New York; Lockland and St. Bernard, 
Ohio ; Indianapolis, Indiana ; Nebraska City, Nebraska ; 
Waukegan, Rockford, Peoria and Pekin, Illinois ; and 
Des Moines, Davenport and Marshalltown, Iowa. 

Its Chicago factor}', located at West Taylor street 
and the river, covers an area of eight acres and is 
probably the largest, most modern and best equipped 
factory in the world. At this one factory of the com- 
pany the amount of corn ground daily is thirty thou- 
sand bushels. 

Corn syrup (glucose) and allied products have been 
produced for some years past, but the development of 
their manufacture and their popularization among con- 
sumers with the consequent increase of the demand to 
an enormous extent, both domestic and foreign, has 
been a matter of the last few years. The results have 
been most profitable to the American farmer since it 
has developed uses for corn formerly unpracticed, and 



thus supplies a daily cash buyer for the large surplus of 
this commodity. In affording employment in a new 
field, and in the consumption of coal, tin and other 
products necessary to its manufacture, also, the com- 
pany occupies a distinct and important place in the 
nation's economy. 

Among the well-known starches which it produces 
are Kingsford's Silver Gloss, a laundry starch, and 
Kingsford's Corn Starch, both of which brands have 
long been household necessities, and the high quality 
of which the Corn Products Company has maintained. 

Of corn syrups, its best known product is "Karo" 
Corn Syrup, compounded of 85 per cent of corn syrup 
and 15 per cent of cane syrup. It is a predigested 
article of food of exceptional purity, manufactured from 
starch contained in corn and its use is general, the low 
price at which it can be bought, added to its flavor and 
\vholesomeness, popularizing it throughout the world. 

The officers of the Corn Products Company are : 
C. H. Matthiessen, President : C. L. Glass, Vice-Presi- 
dent and Secretary; Benjamin Graham, Treasurer. 
Executive Committee: C. H. Matthiessen, W. J. Cal- 
houn, Charles E. Glass. 




GARFIELD PARK. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



CHICAGO'S BUSINESS INTERESTS. 




ARSHALL FIELD & COM- 
PANY. The name of Marshall 
Field and business integrity have 
become synonymous in Chicago 
and the West. In the jobbing 
trade and the retail business of 
the great firm of Marshall 
Field & Company, this repu- 
tation for square dealing is 
the foundation stone of its suc- 
cess. Of the millions controlled 
by it this good name is its chief asset. 
This application of the princi- 
ple of "a square deal" has resulted in mak- 
ing this company the largest mercantile institution 
in the world. Of the great throngs of buyers who 
enter Marshall Field & Company's establishments 
every day, there is not one of them but feels that 
every penny spent there will purchase its full value 
of the best goods of the kind the market affords. The 
neatly wrapped bundles bearing the name of "Marshall 
Field & Company" have upon them the stamp and guar- 
antee of integrity and quality. 

The very atmosphere of the establishment is refresh- 
ing. The uniform courtesy of every employee, the con- 
sideration they show to one another, the absolute 
frankness with which even the smallest transaction is 
carried on, the lack of all quibbling all make for one 
end the complete satisfaction of the purchasing public. 
It is the working out of the basic principle of the con- 
cern. "A satisfied customer first, a profit second,'' is 
the fundamental rule every employee of the store must 
follow. This has bred a confidence that makes every 
man, woman or child who enters the great house of 
Marshall Field & Company feel confident of fair and 
courteous treatment. And this confidence is indeed the 



greatest of all Marshall Field's millions of fairly won 
fortunes. 

The establishments of Marshall Field & Company 
present an array of merchandise as complete as human 
ingenuity, energy and wealth can secure. Its buying 
organization is the largest single factor in the world's 
markets. Every country or province produces some- 
thing in art, material or manufactures that goes to make 
up the stock. Permanent buying offices are maintained 
at New York, Paris, Manchester, Nottingham, Brad- 
ford, Chemnitz, Calais, St. Gall, Lyons, Plaueu, Anna- 
berg and Yokohama. In Kashmir, India, there is a 
large rug factory, operating 178 looms, controlled by 
Marshall Field & Company. The outputs of numerous 
other factories in almost every country are controlled 
by this house. 

The great retail store occupies practically the entire 
block bounded by State, Randolph and Washington 
streets and Wabash avenue. The lloor area is now 
about one million square feet, equivalent to twenty- 
three acres or eleven city blocks of ordinary size. The 
frontage on State street is 385 feet ; on Washington, 341 
feet; on Randolph, 190 feet; and on Wabash avenue, 
266 feet. A new 1 2-story building, now in process of 
erection, on Wabash avenue, will add about 30 per cent 
to the present area of the retail premises, making a total 
area of 1,300,000 square feet, or about 30 acres. The 
ultimate plan is to make the State street frontage of a 
uniform height of twelve stories of solid granite with 
an imposing central entrance. Over half of this front- 
age is now occupied by such a building. The main 
entrance on State street is marked by four large granite 
monolith columns and when the building to the south, 
extending to Washington street, is completed, will form, 
as it now does, the central feature of the State street 
front. The principal building is o{ steel construction, 



181 



182 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



faced with gray granite a simple and massive style of 
architecture. The foundation for this structure con- 
sists of 84 concrete caissons sunk down 100 feet to 
"hard-pan." 

Two immense light shafts extend from the first floor 
to the skylights, the extreme height being 234 feet. An 
ornamental iron and mahogany railing encloses the 
court on each floor. The view from the top story down 
is a grand panorama of a portion of the interior. The 
large white columns extending the length of the 



tending one entire block from Washington street to 
Randolph street, a distance of 385 feet. The showcases 
on either side are of solid mahogany and plate glass, the 
framework being of the lightest possible construction, 
which gives the effect of the cases being practically of 
solid glass. They are brilliantly lighted by invisible 
incandescents and, filled as they are with the most 
beautiful merchandise which the store affords, form a 
magnificent sight. This main aisle may be said to be 
one of the show places of Chicago, great throngs of 




MARSHALL FIELD & COMPANY'S WHOLESALE HOUSE. 



store form some of the most imposing colonnades in 
existence. 

On the first floor the aisles and showcases are 
arranged on a most generous scale for the comfort of the 
large crowds of shoppers that continually stream 
through the store. The usual crowding and discomfort 
of a large establishment is in this way entirely avoided. 
The same generous treatment of space for aisles, show- 
cases, counters and fixtures pertains throughout the 
entire establishment. In no city in the world can be 
found such a magnificent arrangement. The "main 
aisle" is a most remarkable interior thoroughfare, ex- 



people visiting it for the many beautiful displays which 
it affords. 

The first floor of the main building is devoted to 
dress accessories, laces, ribbons, gloves, hosiery, notions, 
shoes, men's furnishings, etc., all of which lend them- 
selves to a most artistic arrangement. On the second 
floor are the dress goods, silks, linens, prints and white 
goods, such as are sold by the yard. The third floor 
is devoted to muslin underwear, corsets, aprons, infants' 
wear and boys' clothing. The fourth floor is one of the 
attractive spots of the great establishment. Here are to 
be seen extensive displays of women's hats and millin- 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



183 



ery material, gowns and outer apparel and furs. On 
the fifth floor are found rugs and carpets of every for- 
eign, oriental and domestic weave ; trunks, toys, baby 
carriages, baskets, athletic goods, etc. The sixth floor 
is devoted, for the most part, to high class house fur- 
nishings, such as lace curtains, upholstery goods, fine 
furniture, pictures, metal beds and high-class wall paper. 
The tea and grill rooms occupy the entire seventh floor, 
there being accommodations for seating 2,000 persons. 
The upper floors are devoted to the shipping rooms 
and various manufacturing branches carried on in con- 
nection with the retail store. On the twelfth floor is a 
cold storage vault where during the summer furs belong- 
ing to customers, aggregating $3,000,000 in value, are 
kept at a temperature of 12 degrees below freezing. 

The Marshall Field & Company Annex is another 
modern fireproof structure, ten stories high, on the cor- 
ner of Washington street and Wabash avenue. The 
first floor of the annex is devoted to stationery, silver- 
ware, leather goods and toilet accessories. On the 
second floor are hall clocks, optical goods, photographic 
supplies, fancy needlework and American Indian wares. 
The next two floors, third and fourth, are devoted to 
pottery, bric-a-brac, cut glass and china. They present 
a most beautiful display of art objects. The third floor 
in particular, which is known as the "pottery floor," 
contains a most extensive collection of American and 
foreign art potteries, metals, Japanese wares, Tiffany 
favrile glass and lamps, candelabra, jardinieres and 
other art wares. The fourth floor is filled with a mag- 
nificent display of cut and Bohemian glass and fine 
china. 

Few expositions have ever exceeded in quality and 
the completeness of the display the wares shown along 
the magnificent aisles of this great retail store. Every 
convenience is afforded to the public. There are read- 
ing, writing and rest rooms for the patrons and visitors. 
An information bureau is maintained where general 
directions as to railroads, street cars, ocean steamships, 
hotels, theaters and other information are given out. 
There is a branch postofnce where stamps, money 
orders, registered letters and other postofnce business 
is transacted. Near this is a telegraph and cable office. 
There is a clock which shows the comparative time of 
all the great cities of the world, A carefully selected 
library containing well selected books, the leading maga- 
zines and representative newspapers, directories of the 
principal cities, and other reference books, is another 
attractive feature. An emergency hospital fitted with 
complete surgical outfits is maintained. Telephone 
booths are found in all parts of the store for local and 
long-distance connection. A staff of guides speaking 
various languages is kept in connection with the 
information bureau to conduct visitors through the 



store, showing to them the many interesting features 
which otherwise might be overlooked. 

The electrical plant supplies 30,000 incandescent, 
200 arc lights and 50 electric elevators. All showcases 
are illuminated by concealed bulbs. The store has a 
pneumatic tube cash system, an automatic fire sprinkler 
system, a refrigerating plant for storage and water cool- 
ing purposes, a water filtering plant, a telephone 
exchange of 250 lines and a delivery system of 100 
wagons and automobiles. 

The retail store opens at 8 a. m. and closes at 5 130 
p. m. Women employees report 30 minutes later in 
the morning and leave 10 minutes before closing time. 
An annual vacation of two weeks is allowed every 
employee who has been in the service more than a year 
and one week after six months. Lunch rooms, music 
rooms, gymnasiums, baths and such conveniences are 
provided for employees. 

In the retail establishment are between 6,000 and 
8,000 employees and in the wholesale are 3,000 more. 
These figures do not include the hundreds of persons 
scattered through all parts of the world in the service 
of the firm. 

The number of customers who enter the store varies 
from day to day from 80,000 to 125,000. During the 
holidays it reaches 200,000. The week of the opening 
of the new building on State street, in September, 1902, 
it averaged 350,000 per day, reaching 450,000 on one 
of the days of that week. 

Marshall Field, the head of the great mercantile 
house that bears his name, has been a prominent figure 
in the business interests of Chicago since he was a young 
man of twenty-one years. The business principles on 
which he started out in the Chicago field of commerce 
have been steadfastly adhered to and have characterized 
Mr. Field's leadership in the enterprise of which he is 
the head and which is now the greatest of its kind in 
the world. 

Mr. Field was born in Conway, Massachusetts, 
August 18, 1835. His father was a well-to-do farmer 
and gave his son the advantages of an education in the 
grammar schools and later at Conway Academy. But 
at an early age Mr. Field's bent was toward business, 
neither the life of a farmer nor the glamour of a college 
education appealing very strongly to him. 

When seventeen years old he started to work in a 
country store at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, remaining 
there until he came to Chicago in 1856. His first 
employment was as a salesman with Cooley, \Vadsworth 
& Company. One year later this firm was reorganized 
as Cooley, Farwell & Company, and in 1860, when Mr. 
Field was but twenty-five years old, he became a junior 
partner in the concern. He soon took the lead in 
molding the policy of this house and in the reorganiza- 



184 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



tion which took place in 1865 he became the senior 
member of a new firm known as Field, Palmer & Leiter. 
Two years later Mr. Potter Palmer retired to devote his 
time and attention to his great real estate interests and 
the name of the firm was changed to Field, Leiter & 
Company. Mr. Field's masterful grasp of business sys- 
tems and detail was never more manifest than during 
the trying times following the Civil war. During the 
financial storms which swept the country, when many 
erstwhile substantial business houses were going down, 



and thus the example of Field, Leiter & Company 
became the turning point in what was perhaps one of 
the greatest revolutions in business methods of the last 
century. This system has now reached such a perfec- 
tion that the percentage of losses through poor credits 
to Marshall Field & Company is only a very small 
fraction of i per cent. 

The fire of 1871 wiped out both the retail and whole- 
sale establishments of the firm. Coining as it did in 
the fall of the year when the heaviest stock is carried, 



IBSa 



SSSS 



P^ ;ir^^m - > > , , , vifr 1 ^ 1 ^ 

^p^mwnHU*Vsu*j i r^n^gi ^ 

^^y|^i,l Jjjjf_ _"i : i ; i- ill' 3 SiJ; jjj ;.; TTT 

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'' "I I'-'Il ,M.l.Vi I III '' 




MARSHALL FIELD & COMPANY'S RETAIL PREMISES. 

Viewed from the corner of Washington street and Wabash avenue, showing new building on the right. 



Field, Leiter & Company survived. For some time Mr. 
Field had been observing the evils of the credit system 
as it then existed in the business world generally, with 
its long datings and promissory notes, and deferred pay- 
ments, and to him must be given credit for turning back 
this tendency to the more sound methods which prevail 
to-day. At that time he established his wholesale busi- 
ness practically on a cash basis, giving discount for 
prompt payment, and paid cash on the same basis for 
all his purchases. The indisputable advantages of this 
system became more and more apparent to other houses, 



the loss aggregated $3,500,000. On this was carried an 
insurance of two and one-half million dollars, but little 
of this could be realized immediately and much of it was 
lost in the insurance failures that quickly followed the 
fire. In this crisis the cash system established by Mr. 
Field and which had placed the house on a sound 
financial basis, saved it from being involved in the 
general ruin. 

Work on starting in business again was begun the 
day after the fire. The old car barns at State and 
Twentieth streets were rented by the firm and their 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



185 



doors thrown open with but a slight interruption of busi- 
ness. Construction on the new building was got under 
way immediately and was completed the next year, 
the wholesale and the retail houses being located in dif- 
ferent parts of the city. The first wholesale building 
still stands at Madison and Market streets, and is used 
as a warehouse and for factory purposes. 

A new retail building was erected on the corner of 
State and Washington streets, and was occupied until 
1877, when it was burned. Business was temporarily 
resumed at the old Exposition building, on the site of 
the present Art Institute. The following spring the 
store was moved to Wabash avenue, where it occupied 
part of the block between Madison and Monroe streets. 
In 1879 the business was moved into a new building at 
the old site, State and Washington streets. In 1888 the 
two five-story buildings on State street, just north of the 
original building, were acquired. In 1892-1893 the 
establishment was enlarged by the erection of the 
"Annex" building on the corner of Washington street 
and Wabash avenue, and within a comparatively short 
time the three buildings on Wabash avenue, just north 
of the annex, were included. In 1901 the two north 
buildings on State street, together with the old Central 
Music Hall, were torn down, and in their places there 
was erected a twelve-story building of steel and granite. 
This gave the retail business possession of about seven- 
eighths of the block bounded by State, Washington and 
Randolph streets and Wabash avenue. In 1905 the 
three old buildings on Wabash avenue, north of the 
Annex, were torn down to make room for the erection 
of a new twelve-story building, similar to the new por- 
tion of the State street building. 

The great wholesale department of Marshall Field 
& Company occupies the block bounded by Adams, 
Quincy, Franklin and Fifth avenue, and bears the dis- 
tinction of being the "largest wholesale dry goods store 
in the world." In addition to this there are seven ware- 
houses, the floor space of which is nearly equivalent to 
the area of the retail premises. The wholesale house 
is of massive granite construction and though it follows 
none of the popular models for mercantile structures, it 
is considered one of the best specimens of commercial 
architecture in the country. 

In 1881 Mr. Levi Z. Leiter retired from the firm and 
the house became known as Marshall Field & Company, 
which name has been unchanged for a quarter of a 
century. 

Marshall Field has given unostentatiously to many 
public institutions in Chicago. The most notable of his 
benefactions is his endowment of one million dollars to 
the Field Columbian Museum. In 1893, toward the 
close of the Columbian Exposition, the movement was 
started to preserve the many priceless exhibits of scien- 



tific, historical and artistic curios which were being 
donated to the city by the exhibitors at the Fair, as a 
nucleus for a public museum. The enterprise was still 
in a formative state when Mr. Field came forward with 
his princely donation as an endowment. In recognition 
of this act the new institution was named the Field 
Columbian Museum and it has been rapidly taking a 
high rank among similar institutions of the world. The 
Fine Arts building of the World's Fair was left in 
Jackson Park as a temporary home for the museum and 
the enterprise organized. Since then Mr. Field has 
announced that he was ready to furnish the necessary 
funds for the erection of a permanent museum building 
as soon as the site could be provided for it in the exten- 
sion of Grant Park on the Lake Front. This extension 
to the park is being rapidly filled in and the erection of 
a magnificent museum is now the question of only a 
few years. Mr. Field has also given liberally to the 
University of Chicago. 

That Mr. Field still cherishes his New England asso- 
ciations is manifest in the Memorial library which he 
has erected in the village of Conway, Massachusetts, 
where he was born, in honor of his parents, John and 
Fidelia (Nash) Field. Mr. Field was married to Miss 
Nannie Douglass Scott of Ironton, Ohio, January 3, 
1863. He has had two children, a son, Marshall Field, 
Jr., recently deceased, and a daughter, Mrs. David 
Beatty, who makes her home in England. He is a 
member of the Presbyterian Church. 

Morris Selz, head of the great shoe manufacturing 
firm of Selz, Schwab & Co., was born in Germany in 
1826. He came to the United States at the age of sev- 
enteen, with a total capital of $15, and his first business 
undertaking was as a traveling retail merchant, carry- 
ing his stock with him. 

A little later he was employed as a salesman by a 
house in Hartford, Connecticut. From there Mr. Selz 
went South, to work in a general store in Georgia ; and 
after a little time there he started for the gold fields of 
California, by way of Panama. 

After several years on the Pacific Coast, Mr. Selz 
came to Chicago in 1854, and engaged in various small 
undertakings until 1871, when he invested all his capital 
and savings in the boot and shoe business. The estab- 
lishment was a small one, occupying about half of what 
is now one of the firm's lesser factories. It had a daily 
capacity of about three hundred pairs. The business 
was chiefly the making of boots, and the boots were so 
good that they soon gained a great reputation all 
through the West ; a reputation which still continues. 
In many localities "Selz boots" are still considered the 
standard of good quality, although the making of boots 
has become a minor feature of the business. 

In 1878 the firm became Selz, Schwab & Co., and it 



186 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



was incorporated in 1890. The rirm now operates seven 
large factories, with a daily capacity of 20,000 pairs; 
employs 100 traveling salesmen, 160 office and house 
employees, and more than 2,000 operatives. These 
factories produce all kinds of footwear, from the finest 
dress shoe for men and women to the heaviest mining 
or work shoe. The firm has also a rubber mill, making 
rubber footwear of all kinds. 

The prominent characteristic of Mr. Selz as a busi- 
ness man has shown all through his business life, and 
is the main idea in his business to-day. "Make nothing 
but good goods. Make the name Selz on a shoe the 
sign and mark of good quality; whenever anyone puts 




MORRIS SELZ. 

his confidence and his money in goods bearing that 
name let him be sure of getting his full money's worth ; 
and a little more if possible." 

Upon these principles his business has become the 
largest producer of good shoes in the world. 

Gage Brothers & Company, Chicago's largest and 
foremost wholesale millinery establishment, occupies the 
magnificent twelve-story building at 129-131 Michigan 
avenue, where it has been located since 1899. The 
business is an old one, having been founded in 1856 by 
Seth Gage and John N. Gage. The concern has since, 
however, passed into the hands of a stock company, of 
which Frederick Bode is the president, George Ebeling, 
the vice-president, and Geo. H. Hovey, the secretary 
and treasurer. 

A visit to the establishment as it is to-day reveals 
the magnitude and class of the business. The Gage 



building is a handsome structure of stone and brick, 
facing towards the Lake Front. The building was origi- 
nally eight stories, but it was found necessary to add 
four more floors in 1902, since which the house has 
achieved the reputation of being the largest importers 
in America, and having the most complete stock of mil- 
linery merchandise ever displayed under one roof. The 




GAGE BROTHERS & COMPANY'S BUILDING. 

first floor of the establishment is devoted to the recep- 
tion room, general offices and the ribbon and yard 
goods departments. On the second floor are the street 
and outing hats, with special display rooms. The third 
floor is given over to untrimmed hats. This floor is 
particularly interesting, showing as it does the founda- 
tions which later become elaborate creations. On the 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



187 



fourth floor are exhibited the flowers and feathers. This 
floor is a panorama of color. The fifth floor is occupied 
by the lace, ornament, millinery, notion and novelty 
departments. The pattern hat department, with special 
display rooms, is on the sixth floor. On the seventh 
floor is the tailored hat department with display rooms, 
with its large varied assortment. The factory itself, 
the most interesting part of the establishment, covers 
the eighth floor. The ninth and tenth are used for 
packing, shipping, casing and basketing, the eleventh 
is devoted to the reserve stock, while the top floor is 
used for miscellaneous purposes. The advertising 
department, naturally an important feature of the busi- 
ness, and the editorial rooms of The Gage, a quarterly 
publication issued by the firm, are on this floor. 

A fair notion of the methods and policy which have 
brought the house to its present prominent position can 
be derived from the pages of The Gage. It is well 
edited and finely illustrated, and its make-up, in gen- 
eral attractiveness, is superior to that of a 
majority of the magazines of the day. It 
editorially lays stress upon the fact that Gage 
Brothers & Company are the largest import- 
ers in the country and as a result offer decided 
advantages to the trade. In point of fact 
the house sets fashions rather than follows 
them. Every day hundreds of new styles and 
creations are produced in the Gage factory. 
The house employs the best talent in the way 
of designers and makers that money can pro- 
cure. The two elements to be observed in 
millinery manufacture are material and work- 
manship; both these phases are developed to 
the highest degree of perfection in the Gage 
establishment. They give the "Gage hat" a 
certain prestige or class that is denied the 
inferior article. One word expresses the 
Gage business slogan "quality." 

Spaulding & Co. The house of Spauld- 
ing & Co., jewelers, was established and 
incorporated in 1888. Mr. Henry A. Spauld- 
ing, one of the founders, and the first presi- 
dent of the company, had for years been 
prominently identified with the jewelry house 
of Tiffany & Co. in Paris. lie, together 
with a party of gentlemen, including Levi Z. 
Leiter and Edward Forman, of Chicago; 
Edward Holbrookof New York; E. J. Smith, 
then of Detroit, and George St. Amant of 
Paris, organized and established the present 
well-known house. The business was incor- 
porated with a paid-in capital of $500,000, 
and the following officers chosen : Henry A. 
Spaulding, president ; Edward Forman, secre- 



tary, and Edward Holbrook, treasurer. These were all 
men of business experience and ability, and all thor- 
oughly informed in the special departments to which 
they gave their attention. Mr. Lloyd Milnor of New 
York became treasurer in 1890 and president in 1896, 
succeeding Mr. Holbrook, who had been chosen to that 
office in 1894. Edward Forman died April 14, 1898, 
and Mr. E. J. Smith was made secretary. 

Within a short time it was demonstrated that Chi- 
cago could support such an establishment as it was 
the intention of the promoters to make it, and soon 
Spaulding & Co. became recognized as the leading 
jewelry house of the West. Located on the southeast 
corner of State street and Jackson boulevard, the com- 
pany occupies a six-story-and-basement building, two 
floors of which, each with a space of 147x40 feet, are 
utilized as salesrooms. On the upper floors are the 
manufacturing departments, and here all of the diamond 
mountings are made, and the special designs in gold and 




SPAULDING & CO.'S BUILDING. 



188 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



silverware, for which the house has established such a 
wide reputation. There is also a very complete sta- 
tionery department, and everything connected there- 
with, including embossing, is done in the building. The 
main floor is devoted to the sale of jewelry, diamonds, 
silvenvare, gold and silver mounted leather goods, sta- 
tionery and a full line of English hall and mantel clocks. 
On. the second floor is to be found the art department, 
where everything in the way of statuary, bronzes, rich 
cut-glass and costly bric-a-brac are gathered in pic- 
turesque display. Throughout the entire building one 
is impressed with the taste shown in the furnishings, as 
well as the artistic arrangements, making it one of the 
best-appointed shops of its kind in the world. 

Spaulding & Co. also maintain a branch establish- 
ment in Paris at 36 Avenue de 1'Opera, said to be the 
most conspicuous American addition to that city in the 
way of adornment and trade. The showrooms are 
handsomely decorated in white and gold, and the "even- 
ing room," draped in black velvet, like the 
"gem boudoir" of the Chcago house, is of 
special interest to the large number of 
visitors who throng the place. The Paris 
house is of special value in connection with 
the American house, as it enables them to 
secure all the newest Parisian novelties as 
they make their appearance. And in this 
regard it may be said that Chicago, with 
its close proximity to the mineral wealth of 
the great Northwest, is rapidly becoming 
the center of the jewelry trade of the 
country. 

The E. L. Mansure Company, the lead- 
ing upholstery and drapery concern in 
Chicago, was established in 1890, with 
small quarters at 45 Randolph street. The 
advancement in the business was rapid 
from the outset; in 1900 they removed to 
their present quarters at 74-76-78 Michi- 
gan avenue. The company occupies the 
entire seven floors and basement, the 
largest establishment devoted exclusively 
to their line of business in the West. The 
building houses the offices, salesrooms, 
stockrooms and manufactories of the com- 
pany. On the first floor are the offices, 
shipping rooms, show and receiving rooms, 
etc. The second floor is devoted to the 
finishing department, where 150 girls are 
employed. Here is done the measuring 
and inspecting and various details are 
smoothed over and the goods are made 
ready for shipping. The matching and 



stock departments are on the third floor. Here the 
colors are matched and goods selected. The fourth and 
fifth floors are devoted to the manufacture of cord, cot- 
ton and silk, respectively, requiring dozens of spinning 
machines of the latest models. The hand looms are on 
the sixth floor; here are employed scores of workmen 
skilled in their craft. They do the difficult work, such 
as the manufacture of special pieces of draperies, fringe, 
etc. The large po\ver looms are on the seventh floor; 
these machines turn out the larger pieces of thirty-six 
and seventy-two yards. The basement of the building 
shelters all the raw materials employed in the manufac- 
ture of the firm's finished products. Here are stored 
bales on bales of cotton and bags of worsted. On every 
floor is a fireproof vault in which is stored the silk, which 
comes in large skeins. These are extremely valuable 
and extra precautions are taken to guard them against 
being spoiled or destroyed. Altogether over 500 peo- 
ple are employed in the establishment. The firm's 




THE E. L. MANSURE COMPANY'S BUILDING. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



189 



machinery and equipment are of the most improved 
models. The company has a branch factory in Phila- 
delphia, smaller than the local plant, to accommodate 
the eastern trade and help out the local people in rush 
orders, and turn out special work. They also have a 
New York sales office in the Hartford building'. 

The company's trade extends over the United 
States and Canada. They both make draperies, uphol- 
stery, fringes, portieres and similar household equip- 
ment of their own designs, and according to special 
orders. Carl Weilert, designer of their embroideries, is 
the cleverest man in his line in the country. Mansure's 
work has always been artistic, though utility has not 
been overlooked. 

Mr. E. L. Mansure. founder of the business, has 
been its president since its establishment. He was asso- 
ciated with the drapery business many years previous. 
H. F. Walliser is vice-president, P. R. Rudhart is secre- 
tary, and John H. Van Arsdale, treasurer. 

George M. Clark & Company has been a leading 
name in the stove manufacturing business for the past 
twenty-four years. The firm was founded by George M. 
Clark in 1881, and since then has made rapid progress. 
The home offices are at 72 Lake street. The firm has 
made a specialty of the manufacture of gasoline and gas 
stove ranges and appliances, known as the "Jewel." 
The growth of the business necessitated the removal of 
the factory in 1897 to Harvey, Illinois, where four hun- 
dred hands are employed. In 1902 the business was 
merged, with other companies, in the American Stove 




GEORGE M. CLARK & COMPANY'S PLANT. 

Company, of which Mr. Clark became first vice-presi- 
dent and general manager of the George M. Clark Com- 
pany division. 

George Mark Clark was born at Westminster, Ver- 
mont, June 10, 1841, the son of Mark and Sarah (Hall) 
Clark. Mr. Clark received his education in the public 
school at \Vestminster. He began his business life in a 



general merchandise store in Brattleboro, Vermont, 
where he lived from 1858 to 1864. The opportunities 
of the West tempted him to come to Chicago in 1864. 
He accepted a position with Jessup, Kennedy & Com- 
pany, which firm afterward became Crerar, Adams & 
Company, manufacturers of railway supplies. Mr. Clark 




GEORGE M. CLARK. 

soon became superintendent of the works. In 1874 the 
Adams-Westlake Manufacturing Company was incor- 
porated, taking over the manufacturing interest of Cre- 
rar, Adams & Company. Mr. Clark was made superin- 
tendent of the new corporation, which position he held 
until 1885. In 1881 Mr. Clark, with Mr. Adams, started 
a new company for manufacturing gasoline and vapor 
stoves, incorporating same under the name of Myers 
Manufacturing Company. In 1886 the name was 
changed to George M. Clark & Company. 

Mr. Clark was married to Miss Elizabeth M. Keep 
at Oberlin, Ohio, June 18, 1872. They have two chil- 
dren, Alice Keep and Robert Keep. Mr. Clark is a 
Republican in politics and is a member of the Union 
League Club. The family residence is at 460 Dearborn 
avenue. 

Moses Bensinger, the late president of the Bruns- 
wick-Balke-Collender Company, Chicago, New York 
and Cincinnati, with branch houses in all the principal 
cities of the United States, France, Germany, Canada 
and Mexico, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, August 
17, 1839, and died October 14, 1904, in his sixty-sixth 
year. 

Mr. Bensinger commenced his business career as a 
jeweler's apprentice and watchmaker, continuing in that 



190 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



line until 1869, when he became identified with J. M. 
Brunswick, the pioneer manufacturer of billiard tables, 
with factories in Cincinnati and Chicago. By persistent 
effort and energetic push, he soon mastered the details 




MOSES BENSINGER. 

of the business and became the practical head of the 
business. Owing in a large measure to his foresight and 
capability as an organizer, the rival house of Julius 
Balke of Cincinnati and St. Louis was induced to join 
forces with the J. M. Brunswick Company, under the 
corporate name of the J. M. Brunswick & 
Balke Company. Mr. Bensinger, one of 
the partners in the new firm, assumed the 
management of the principal establish- 
ment in Chicago. Subsequently through 
Air. Bensinger's efforts, the H. W. Col- 
lender Company of New York, which was 
at that time a formidable competitor, was 
absorbed, and the corporate name of the 
company changed in 1884 to its pres- 
ent title, The Brunswick-Balke-Collender 
Company. 

The office of the president of the com- 
pany was held in succession by J. M. 
Brunswick, Julius Balke and H. W. Col- 
lender. Upon the death of the latter in 
1890, Mr. Bensinger was unanimously 
chosen for the important position, which 
he held until his death. The company has for many 
years been known as the oldest and largest manufac- 
turers of billiard and pool tables in the world, but under 
Mr. Bensinger's able management the output of the 



concern has been increased to something more than 
four times that of 1890, when he took direct charge of 
the great establishment. He was too enterprising and 
energetic to rest content with a business which he con- 
sidered susceptible of enlargement and improvement. 
He told several of the stockholders who were opposed 
to development that new methods, new life and vigor 
were essential to continued prosperity, and that without 
them the great business that he and the two or three 
other living founders of the company had built up would 
die out of dry rot, and disintegrate of itself. 

He did not by any means have clear sailing, so to 
speak. There were numerous rocks and shoals, which 
might have brought a less skillful or less determined 
mariner to disaster. 

Mr. Bensinger was a member of the Chicago Ath- 
letic and Standard Clubs, and was of a jovial, good- 
natured disposition, to which, in a measure, can prob- 
ably be attributed his populartiy. He was never so 
happy as when relating anecdotes of the good old days 
when he was roughing it as traveling salesman and gen- 
eral utility man for the company of which he was the 
head for a number of years. 

Mr. Bensinger was married to Eleanora, one of the 
daughters of J. M. Brunswick, in 1865. Of his three 
children, B. E. Bensinger, his only son, has succeeded 
his father as president of the company. * 

Monarch Book Company. The civilized world 
agrees with the philosopher who suggested that we 
bless the man who invented books.' It must be con- 
ceded, however, that he who publishes and sells books 




BRUNSWICK-BALKE-COLLENDER COMPANY'S PLANT 

merits equal, if not more, consideration from those who 
may be disposed to bestow benedictions on the members 
of the book craft. 

The business of publishing and selling books has 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



191 



made great strides during the past twenty-five years, 
and the Monarch Book Company has been a leader in 
the advance movement at all times. This concern was 
founded in 1882, by two college students at Beloit, Wis- 




LINCOLN W. WALTER. 

- 

consin, who shortly thereafter finished college and 
moved the business to Chicago, where, under able and 
farsighted management, it has been developed from the 
small beginning to the present large business institu- 
tion. 

Originally this company sold only such books as it 
could buy from other publishers, but its business grew 
so rapidly that it shortly engaged in publishing its own 
books, and has been for a number of years regarded as 
one of the leading publishing houses of the world. It 
was a pioneer in publishing juvenile literature and sell- 
ing these books through agents during the holiday sea- 
son. It is safe to say that millions of its children's books 
have been purchased for Christmas presents, which 
have been a never-ending source of amusement and 
instruction to the little ones. This house has always 
been ahead of its competitors in introducing new fea- 
tures, with the result that its books have been made 
more attractive from year to year. Besides children's 
books, its list of publications includes historical, bio- 
graphical, religious, educational and works of reference. 
The Monarch Book Company has from the beginning 
employed the best authors obtainable, and its list of 
writers contains the names of the most famous men and 
women in literature of the last quarter of a century. 
Among these are the Rev. Frank W. Gunsaulus, presi- 



dent of Armour Institute of Technology, the Rev. Sam- 
uel Fallows, the Rev. J. J. McGovern, Theodore Roose- 
velt, William McKinley, Grover Cleveland, Henry 
Cabot Lodge, George William Curtis, George F. Hoar, 
James Bryce, James Cardinal Gibbons, Seymour Eaton, 
Dr. Henry Hopkins, president of Williams College; 
David Starr Jordan, president of Leland Stanford Uni- 
versity; Hon. Murat Halstead, Edward S. Ellis, Dr. 
John Lord, Evelyn H. Walker, Anna A. Gordon, Opie 
Read, Press Woodruff, Samuel L. Clemens, the Rev. J. 
S. Kirtley and niany other eminent scholars and writers 
equally well known. 

The Monarch Book Company has always enjoyed 
the esteem of the public because of its sterling honesty 
and fair dealing, and its strong financial condition is 
due to the fact that its publications have invariably been 
successful, many of them reaching enormous sales in a 
short space of time. Of the Life of McKinley over 750,- 
ooo copies were sold in less than four months after his 
death. Several hundred thousand Bibles, both family 
and teacher's editions, have been sold. Enormous sums 
in royalties have been paid to the authors. The W. C. 
T. U., through Anna A. Gordon, received over $24,000 
royalty from the sale of the Life of Frances E. Willard. 
The Monarch Standard Atlas and Illustrated World is 
a monumental work and its sale has reached over 300,- 
ooo copies. Barnes' Bible Encyclopedia in three vol- 




GORDON G. SAPP. 

times and the History and Government of the United 
States in six volumes have been but recently issued and 
are already in great demand. 

To properly market its great output, this company 
employs hundreds of travelers, who visit every section 



1012 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



of the country several times each year, and thousands of 
local agents. The management early adopted the policy 
of rewarding faithful work by advancement, and the 
result is that to-day every department is in charge of 




WILLIAM H. RIDER. 

thoroughly experienced and competent managers, and 
the grand success of the house is due, in no small degree, 
to the hearty and efficient co-operation of its army of 
workers. 

The main office in Cliicago and the branch office in 
Philadelphia are veritable hives of industry. The officers 
of the Monarch Book Company are : Lincoln W. Wal- 
ter, president and treasurer; Gordon G. Sapp. vice-presi- 
dent, and William H. Rider, secretary and general man- 
ager. These gentlemen also constitute the board of 
directors. 

The Blakcly Printing Company. In 1898, when 
the Stercotypers' union marched out in a body and 
the Chicago newspapers were compelled to suspend 
publication, at a time when the public thirsted for news 
of the Spanish-American War, it remained for an enter- 
prising printing firm, The Blakely Printing Company, 
to fill in the gap and supply the public with a news- 
paper that contained complete and authentic intelli- 
gence. It will be remembered that the Chicago papers 
did not appear on July 2, at the time when Shatter 
was knocking at Santiago's gates and an encounter 
between Schley's and Cervera's naval forces was hourly 
expected. C. F. Blakely, vice-president of The Blakely 
Printing Company, 126-132 Market street, -and W. M. 
Knox, president of the Press Club, heard of the 



walk-out, and decided to supply the deficiency. The 
Blakely Company had all the necessary facilities, 
presses, etc. Knox organized his "staff" at three in 
the morning, and offices were established at Blakely's. 
Telegraphic service was secured ; at eight in the morn- 
ing the presses started, and in five minutes the sheet 
was on the street. It was a four-page affair, as large as 
the Inter-Ocean. It contained not merely the latest 
war news, with full details of the American victories in 
Cuba, but all the current news, even including the base- 
ball scores. The paper's circulation the first day 
reached 40,000; on the fourth it sold 1,000,000 copies. 
The publication was suspended as soon as the dailies 
resumed issue. The projectors pocketed a handsome 
profit and a handsomer reputation for enterprise and 
push. 

The Blakely Printing Company, among the oldest 
concerns of its kind in Chicago, was established in 1871 
on Green street, near Randolph street, on the West 
Side, since which time they have grown to be one of 
the largest and most modern equipped printing houses 
in the West. They are now located at 126-132 Market 
street, occupying a large portion of the front and rear 
buildings. 

Their plant is in operation both day and night, 
employing a large force of the most skilled and intelli- 
gent workmen. 

The company has a reputation for turning out high- 
class work. This volume is a product of their press- 




C. F. BLAKELY. 

rooms. Their most worthy pieces of work were the 
two volumes "The Book of The Fair" and "The Book 
of Wealth." The latter was the most expensive modern 
book ever published. The edition de luxe was limited : 
each volume sold for $2.500. W '. K. Vanderbilt, J. Pier- 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



193 



pont Morgan, Alva E. Belmont, Caroline Astor, J. J. 
Astor and Helen Gould were among the subscribers. 

Mrs. David Blakely is president of the company; 
C. F. Blakely, vice-president and founder, is its active 
head. J. I. Oswald, secretary and manager, has been 
associated with the concern for twenty-five years ; Haw- 
ley Olmstead, the treasurer, has been with them for 
the last fifteen years. 

Peter Reinberg, alderman of the Twenty-sixth 
ward, whose florist establishment is the largest in the 
world, was born on a farm at Rosehill in 1858. His 
father had settled on a thirty-two-acre tract there ten 
years previous, when only Indian roads stretched 
through the forests in the direction of Chicago. 

While a boy, Alderman Reinberg attended the rural 
schools about his home and herded cattle in the district 
now known as Ravenswood. As Chicago grew vege- 
table raising became profitable and he was engaged 
in this pursuit on his father's farm until 1887, when 
he laid the foundation of his great flower industry by 
building his first greenhouses. These were very small 
affairs in comparison with the ones which he now 
puts up a block at a time. 

For the first two years, Mr. Reinberg grew lettuce 
and cucumbers in his greenhouses. With an addition 
of four more greenhouses he then turned his attention 
from truck gardening to growing roses and carnations. 
He has kept adding to these greenhouses until the 
present time when his greenhouse property aggregates 
1,200,000 square feet of glass, the largest in the world. 

Alderman Reinberg regards the flower habit as con- 
tagious and his endeavor has been constantly to edu- 
cate the public to an appreciation of his products. 
There are times in the vear when the flower market is 



dull and when prices are extremely low. Most florists 
are then disposed to. gather their blooms and dump 
them as waste fertilizing material. This is not so with 
Mr. Reinberg, however. His philosophy has been to 




PETER REINBERG. 

market the flowers regardless of the prices they bring. 
The working of this theory is seen in the rapidly increas- 
ing use of flowers in Chicago. 

"Where flowers are brought into a house because 
they are cheap at some particular season," he says, 
"these same flowers are likely to find their way into 



- 



- _ ; 
. i \_ i 




SECTIONAL VIEW OF PETER REINBERG'S PLANT. 



194 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



the home when they cost a great deal more. There is 
no doubt that the per capita consumption of flowers 
has increased greatly and that it is still growing." 

Ordinarily when a visitor sees the twenty-six acres 
of Mr. Reinberg's plant under glass, he wonders about 
the cost of the glass. As a matter of fact the glass 
represents only about one-seventh of the cost of a 
greenhouse establishment. The framework for the 
glass, the benches for the plants, the steam piping for 
heating and even the ventilating apparatus by which 
all of the windows may be opened simultaneously by the 
turning of a ratchet wheel, are all expensive items. Mr. 
Reinberg's establishment represents an investment of 
nearly one million dollars. In the last year the steam 
plants at his greenhouses have consumed more than 
12,000 tons of coal. The main offices of his green- 
houses are at 3468 Robey street. 

Until the spring of 1904 Mr. Reinberg was inter- 
ested in politics only as a looker-on. He had persist- 
ently refused to run for office. The mayor and sheriff 
then persuaded him to run for alderman. Although 
his ward is normally republican by 1,500, he swept the 
ward on the democratic ticket with a plurality of 2,293. 

Brock & Rankin. The edition book business of 
Brock & Rankin was established in 1892, the firm occu- 




A. J. BROCK. 

pying quarters at 327 Dearborn street. From its incep- 
tion the growth of the business was rapid and a year 
later they moved into larger quarters at 87 Plymouth 
place. In 1897 they removed to 155 Plymouth place, 
the increase in business again necessitating a change. 



Finally, in 1902, they erected their present establishment 
at 383 La Salle street to accommodate the needs of the 
concern. It is a modern fireproof seven-story structure, 
of which four floors are devoted exclusively to their 
printing and binding business. They have 70,000 square 




CHARLES W. RANKIN. 

feet of floor space, and their equipment represents the 
very latest developments in composition, printing 
and binding machinery. They employ 250 people in 
their plant. 

Their business embraces the composition, printing 
and binding of books, catalogues, encyclopedias, his- 
tories, fiction, et al. They do a very large amount of 
school book work, supplying as they do school books 
in over half the states in the Union. Their work is of 
the highest quality; this volume is a product of their 
binding department. 

The two members of the firm are A. J. Brock and 
Charles W. Rankin, both of whom are men who have 
been identified with Chicago's business growth for 
thirty years, during which time they have both been 
connected with the printing and book business. They 
have contributed their share towards developing the 
printing and binding industry in Chicago. Some idea 
of its expansion can be gained from the fact that Brock 
& Rankin's present plant has a capacity twice that of 
all the Chicago plants of thirty years ago combined. 

Chicago Edison Company. Climatic and commer- 
cial conditions peculiarly favorable to the manifold 
applications of electric current for power and lighting 
purposes, together with the remarkable growth of the 
city within the last decade, have made Chicago one 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



195 



of the foremost electrical centers of the country. The 
prevailing fogs of the winter season, aggravated by the 
"smoke nuisance" and intensified by the lofty office 
buildings and narrow streets of the down-town district, 
necessitate the use of a tremendous amount of artificial 
illumination, and this demand has been greatly aug- 
mented during recent years by the almost universal 
acceptance of electricity as the most efficient and desir- 
able medium for residential, store and sign lighting and 
as the most flexible and economical form of applied 
power. 



that ample provision had been made for future expan- 
sion, became heavily overloaded, thus necessitating the 
erection of a larger plant. This need was increased by 
consolidation with several other companies, the largest 
of which was the Chicago Arc Light and Power Com- 
pany, operating a high-tension arc lighting plant at 
Washington street and the river. Land was accordingly 
purchased on the west bank of the Chicago river at 
Harrison street, and plans were prepared for what then 
seemed an immense plant, equipped with the most 
modern apparatus, laid out in accordance with the 




SECTIONAL VIEW OF THE CHICAGO EDISON COMPANY'S WORKS. 



The development of this important industry in Chi- 
cago is largely due to the Chicago Edison Company. 
Incorporated in April, 1887, as an outgrowth of the 
old Western Edison Electric Light Company, its first 
central station, located at 139 Adams street, was placed 
in commission in August, 1888, with a total capacity 
of about 50,000 lights and a connected business of 
16,800 sixteen candlepower equivalent, contracts for 
which had been secured during the erection of the 
plant. 

The growth of business was rapid, and within three 
years the Adams Street station, in which it was thought 



latest ideas in central station construction and designed 
to take care of the anticipated increase in business for 
the next decade. The Harrison Street station was com- 
pleted in August, 1894, when the entire load of the 
Adams Street station was transferred to the new plant, 
the station at 139 Adams street being permanently 
shut down. 

It did not seem practicable to raise all the feeders 
which had formerly centered at the Adams Street 
plant, and it was therefore decided to connect the 
Harrison Street station to 139 Adams street by an 
immense trunk line capable of carrying several 



196 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



times the amount of current turned out by the 
old station, which thereby became the ''center of dis- 
tribution." As soon as the trunk line was completed 
the building at 139 Adams street was reconstructed 
to accommodate the company's general offices and 
some of its operating departments. 

In the meantime a demand had sprung up in the 
southern residence section of the city and to meet this 
a station was built on Wabash avenue just south of 
Twenty-sixth street and a new system of conductors 
reaching nearly to that of the down-town system, was 
laid in the streets. In 1894 a corresponding station 
was erected for the northern residence district, located 
at Clark and Ohio streets, for the purpose of supplying 
the territory bounded by the river, North avenue and 
the lake. 

The original installation at Harrison street was 
kept in service from 1894 to 1897, after which, during 
another period of rapid expansion from 1897 to 1902 
this plant was also developed to the full extent per- 
mitted by the property, while the Washington Street 
station (acquired from the Chicago Arc Light & 
Power Company) was likewise developed to the limit of 
its capacity. 

In 1897 the advance of the science made it commer- 
cially possible to transmit high potential current and 
to convert the same current to lower voltages for dis- 
tribution over existing low-tension lines, whereupon 
the first three-phase transmission line at 2,300 volts 
(which one year later was raised to 4.500 volts) was 
installed to supply alternating current to rotary con- 
verters located in the Twenty-seventh Street station. 
These machines and the auxiliary step-down trans- 
former received high potential alternating current and 
delivered direct current to the low-tension distributing 
system. 

The larger area which could now be economically 
supplied from a single large station gave a great 
impetus to sub-station development, and the transmis- 
sion voltage was raised to 9,000 volts. The smaller 
generating plants were gradually converted into rotary 
sub-stations with auxiliary steam reserve, while Harri- 
son Street station was equipped with larger units rang- 
ing up to 3,500 kilowatts, to take care of the con- 
stantly growing demand. 

In order to supplement its central station capacity 
during the period of maximum load, and as an addi- 
tional safeguard against possible interruption of service 
the company decided to install a huge storage battery 
in the basement of 139 Adams street, the installation 
of which was completed in May, 1898. In October, 
1899, a second battery was placed in the same building 
and two years later a third was installed, thus insur- 
ing the utmost possible protection to the company's 



customers in the event of trouble at the generating 
stations. 

The changes occasioned by gradual betterment of 
the service have involved amongst other improvements 
the substitution of direct current constant potential arc 
lighting for the old series arc system and the abolition 
of 500 volt power, this having been superseded by 220- 
volt service. 

At the present time the Chicago Edison Company 
operates one large generating station, three subsidiary 
steam plants which are operated the greater part of 
the year as sub-stations, and eighteen other sub-sta- 
tions for direct current distribution to the company's 
customers, a number of these sub-stations being 
equipped with storage batteries in addition to the con- 
verting apparatus, while four of them are storage bat- 
tery sub-stations pure and simple, their sole function 
being the accumulation of a reserve supply of energy to 
supplement the direct supply to the distribution system 
during the period of heavy load. 

The company has been remarkably successful in 
displacing isolated plants with its central station service, 
and practically all of the larger stores, clubs, office 
buildings and hotels are now supplied with light and 
power by the Edison company. The development of 
its power business has also increased very rapidly dur- 
ing the last few years as the economical possibilities 
of small direct-connected motor installations are becom- 
ing more widely understood and appreciated. Some 
idea of the company's growth may be derived from a 
comparison of its present connected business with that 
of ten years ago. 

Light. 

Fiscal year ending 1894 183,400 16 candlepower 

Fiscal year ending 1905 775,900 16 candlepower 

Power. 

Fiscal year ending 1894 3,600 horsepower 

Fiscal year ending 1905 55,ooo horsepower 

The officers of the company are: Samuel Insull, 
president ; Robert T. Lincoln, first vice-president ; Louis 
A. Ferguson, second vice-president; William A. Fox, 
secretary and treasurer: Robert L. Elliott, assistant 
secretary ; John H. Gulick, auditor. 

Commonwealth Electric Company. About the 
year 1889, in the small towns then existing around 
Chicago, which have now become a part of the 
city, a number of small companies or individuals 
almost simultaneously obtained franchises for the erec- 
tion of poles for systems of electrical distribution in 
the various sections, and small lighting businesses were 
started. Many of these districts overlapped each other, 
and all were in contact with competitors, so that 
1896 found no less than ten small companies operating 
in what had now become the new portion of the city. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



197 



Most of these properties were not very profitable to 
the holders of their securities, and some were hardly 
able to pay their bond interest. Continuous require- 
ments for additional investment for extensions, taken 
perforce from earnings, and a ruinous competition had 
seriously interfered with the success which promised 
at the time of their establishment. About this time 
certain gentlemen of discriminating judgment in the 
matter of lighting fields and of wide experience in the 
electric lighting business generally, controlling ample 
means of financing any proposition which received their 



Power Company, Hyde Park Thomson-Houston Light 
Company, Hyde Park Electric Company, Englewood 
Electric Company, Mutual Electric Light Company, 
West Chicago Light & Power Company, Western 
Light & Power Company, Edgewater Light Com- 
pany, and Miller Electric Light Company. 

The new company found itself the owner of a hetero- 
geneous assortment of plants and systems, supplying 
various kinds of electric energy over a district compris- 
ing about one hundred square miles of territory. As 
soon as conditions would permit, a number of the less 




SECTIONAL VIEW OF THE COMMONWEALTH ELECTRIC COMPANY'S WORKS. 



endorsement, began the movement which, in 1898, 
resulted in the purchase of all the companies by a corpo- 
ration formed at that time, named the Commonwealth 
Electric Company. This company was possessed of a 
broad and liberal .franchise for the installation and oper- 
ation of underground systems of conductors for the 
distribution of electricity in the finer portion of the old 
city, and pole line systems in the balance of the 
old city and all of the new city. The following plants 
were thus consolidated : People's Electric Light & 
Motor Power Company, People's Electric Light & 



important plants in the southern district were shut 
down and their business transferred to several of the 
larger plants acquired by the consolidation. A little 
later, the several inherited systems of varying press- 
ures and frequencies having meanwhile been standard- 
ized and inter-connected, these remaining stations were 
in turn superseded by a large and modern oo-cycle 
polyphase generating plant which the Commonwealth 
Company erected at Fifty-sixth and Wallace streets 
and which was placed in operation in the latter part 
of 1900. The original capacity of the station was 1.400 



198 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



kilowatts, but this was increased to 2,400 kilowatts dur- 
ing the following year. The output of this station is 
distributed by means of a 3-phase, 4-wire, 2,300-4,000- 
volt, 6o-cycle overhead system of primary distribution, 
with H5-23O-volt single-phase secondary for lighting, 
and 22O-volt, 3-phase current for power service, sup- 
plying practically all of the southern residential dis- 
trict. About a year after the completion of the Fifty- 
sixth Street station, the plant of the old Western Light 
& Power Company (now known as the Lake View 
station) was rearranged for 3-phase, 6o-cycle distribu- 
tion. Thereupon ensued an era of sub-station develop- 
ment with 25-cycle, g.ooo-volt transmission from the 
generating stations. The economic necessity for one 
great generating center, however, soon became appar- 
ent, and the ultimate relegation of both the Fifty-sixth 
Street and Lake View stations to the subordinate posi- 
tion of subsidiary steam plants was determined upon 
when plans were prepared for the imposing Fisk 
Street station. The building of this vast plant, one 
section of which was completed and put in operation 
in September, 1903, marked the advent of the large ver- 
tical steam turbine in central station service, and as far 
as Chicago was concerned, the gradual conversion of 
6o-cycle generating plants into sub-stations equipped 
with frequency-changing apparatus fed by an inter- 
connected system of 25-cycle 
transmission lines from the Fisk 
Street station. This station is 
located at the junction of Fisk 
street and the south branch of the 
Chicago river, about three miles 
from the center of the down-town 
business distrct. It stands in the 
center of a 23-acre plat of land, 
and the building, as at present 
constructed, consists of the boiler 
house, 190 by 165 feet, the turbine 
house, 225 by 65 feet, both of steel 
construction, and the separate 
switch house, 140 by 50 feet. 
These structures are designed for 
future expansion to three and one- 
half times the present capacity. 
Of the French style of archi- 
tecture, with red pressed brick 
walls and cut stone trimmings, 
they form a pleasant contrast to 
the ordinary river front property. 
The present installation con- 
sists of three complete units, con- 
sisting of coal conveyors, boilers, 
Curtis turbo-generators, steam 
and electrical auxiliaries and 



switching apparatus, having a total capacity of 18,000 
kilowatts. A fourth unit is nearly completed, and the 
fifth and sixth are under way. The ultimate installa- 
tion contemplates fourteen units, with an aggregate 
capacity of over 1 00,000 kilowatts. 

The growth of the company's business during the 
last seven years is shown by the following comparison : 

Light. Power. 

16 cp. horse 

equivalent. power. 

Fiscal year ending March 31, 1899. . 130,700 350 

Fiscal year ending March 31, 1905. .553,400 11,700 

The executive offices of the company are located in 
the Edison building, 139 Adams street, and its officers 
are: Samuel Instill, president; Robert T. Lincoln, first 
vice-president ; Louis A. Ferguson, second vice-presi- 
dent; William A. Fox, secretary and treasurer; Robert 
L. Elliott, assistant secretary; John H. Gulick, auditor. 

The People's Gas Light & Coke Company was 

organized under special perpetual charter by act of the 
Legislature of Illinois February 15, 1855, amended 
February 7, 1865, to carry on the business of furnishing 
gas and its bi-products in the city of Chicago and vicin- 
ity. August 2, 1897, the Chicago Gas Light & Coke 
Company, the Consumers' Gas Company, the Equitable 
Gas Light & Fuel Company, the Suburban Gas Com- 




PEOPLE'S GAS LIGHT & COKE COMPANY'S BUILDING. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



199 



pany, the Lake Gas Company, the Illinois Light, Heat 
& Power Company and the Chicago Economic Fuel 
Gas Company became merged into the People's Gas 
Light & Coke Company, so as to form a single cor- 
poration, pursuant to the laws of Illinois. The above- 
named companies have ceased to exist, and their capital 
stock was canceled at the time the People's company 
increased its capital to $25,000,000. 

The officers of the People's Gas Light & Coke 
Company are : Chairman of the Board, C. K. G. Bil- 
lings; President, George O. Knapp; Vice-President, 
Anthony N. Brady; Second Vice-President, Walton 
Ferguson ; Third Vice-President, C. K. Wooster ; Secre- 
tary, L. A. Wiley; Assistant Secretary, H. W. Wolcott; 
Second Assistant Secretary and Treasurer, F. A. Crane ; 
Treasurer, W. S. McCrea ; Assistant Treasurer, J. S. 
Zimmerman. Directors : C. K. G. Billings, A. N. 
Brady, Walton Ferguson, A. R. Fowler, George O. 
Knapp. 

The capital stock of the People's Gas Light & Coke 
Company has been increased to $35,000,000, authorized 
in shares of the par value of $100 each, of which $32,- 
969,100 is outstanding. Bonds to the amount of $34,- 
496,000 are outstanding. 

The supreme court of Illinois recently sustained the 
constitutionality of the act of the General Assembly 
passed in 1897, under which this company acquired the 
properties of several other companies theretofore 
engaged in manufacturing and distributing gas in Chi- 
cago. The company was successful in the court below, 
and the state appealed to the supreme court, which 
in a very full and elaborate opinion held the act of 1897 
to be constitutional, and not subject to any of the attacks 
made upon it by the state. More recently the United 
States Circuit court for the Northern District of Illinois 
held that the city of Chicago did not have the legal power 
to pass an ordinance to fix the price of gas, and that the 
ordinance adopted by the city council in October, 1900, 
in force January i, 1901, whereby the city sought to 
compel the People's Gas Light & Coke Company to sell 
gas for 75 cents per thousand cubic feet, was invalid 
and void, and an injunction restraining the enforce- 
ment of that ordinance was ordered. 

The Ogdcn Gas Company was organized in 1895, 
when a construction company was created, called the 
Western Republic Construction Company. Its direc- 
tors were Thomas Gahan, E. R. Brainard, A. J. Gra- 
ham, Roger C. Sullivan, Jacob Franks. Thomas Gahan 
was president ; E. R. Brainard, vice-president, and 
Roger C. Sullivan, secretary and treasurer. Applica- 
tion for a permit under the city ordinances was made 
in March, 1896, but construction operations were not 
begun until some time thereafter. The plant, having 



a capacity of about 1,000,000 feet a clay, was erected 
between Hawthorne avenue and the north branch of 
the Chicago river, near the tracks of the Chicago, Mil- 
waukee & St. Paul Railroad, and twenty-two miles of 
mains were laid in the North Side. The present 
capacity of the plant is between four and five million 
cubic feet per day, and the mileage of mains has been 
more than trebled. 

The company has an authorized capital of 
$10,000,000, of which only $5,000,000 has been issued. 
It has $6,000,000 45-year 5 per cent gold bonds out- 
standing. 

Present directors: John R. Walsh, John M. 
Smyth, John A. Spoor, Thomas Gahan, Roger C. Sul- 
livan. 

Officers : Acting president, secretary and treasurer, 
Roger C. Sullivan; general manager, T. V. Pur- 
cell. 

The Ogden Gas Company is now doing the largest 
business it has ever done during the history of the 
company. While its street mains have not been ex- 
tended to any considerable extent the company has 
found all it could possibly do to meet the con- 
stantly increasing demands of new consumers along 
the line of mains heretofore laid. With all the new 
machinery and apparatus installed during the previous 
years, it has been able to meet every demand. The 
general public has shown beyond all question that it 
fully appreciates the fact this company has given them 
the go-cent rate, while before its coming no rate lower 
than $1.00 had ever been known. 

One of the important departments of this company 
and one that has been of material help to patrons, is 
the supply house at 653 North Clark street, where 
every appliance in the way of gas ranges, piping and 
fixtures, arc lights, water distillers, etc., which may be 
paid for in cash or bought on the easy payment plan, 
are available. 

The main offices of the company are located at 115 
Dearborn street. The Ogden Gas Company, unlike 
some private corporations, has always acted with a 
lively sense of the rights of the public. "Make the 
service better and better" is the constant aim of the 
Ogden management. The company spares neither 
time nor money in its efforts to make its relations with 
the public pleasant and satisfactory'. It requires all its 
employees to show the greatest courtesy to the public 
under all circumstances and in all matters. Any dis- 
courtesy in manner or in speech toward any con- 
sumer of the gas company, whether such visitor is 
applying for gas or paying a bill is immediately repri- 
manded, and repetitions of the offense result in the dis- 
missal of the employee. 



200 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



Chicago Telephone Company. \Yhen one consid- 
ers the great area of the city, the tremendous amount 
of business transacted daily and the well-known strenu- 
ous habits of its citizens, it is not surprising' to record 
the fact that Chicago has always been, in the amount of 
service required, the leading telephone city in the world. 
In Chicago everybody uses the telephone. There is 
hardly to be found a man or woman who cannot give 




CHICAGO TELEPHONE COMPANY'S BUILDING. 

their telephone address, representing the telephone 
either in their own homes or places of employment or 
the nearest telephone at which they can be reached. 
The telephone directory is the Blue Book of the city as 
far as business firms or residences are concerned. By 
means of nearly 100,000 telephones now installed in the 
city exchange, and 40,000 in surrounding suburban dis- 
tricts, the Chicago Telephone Company is affording 
service to the city which, in volume, has probably never 
been reached in any other part of the world. 



In 1893, when the number of telephones in Chicago 
reached 10,000, the Chicago telephone exchange was 
the largest in the world, and by many it was thought 
that the limit had been about reached. Within a few 
years from that time, however, the ever-increasing num- 
ber of telephone users began to appreciate the fact that 
what they wanted was not the telephone, but the tele- 
phone service or message either within the limits of a 
city exchange or its suburbs or the surrounding country. 
In New York, perhaps, there was a first appreciation of 
this fact, and measured service was there introduced 
which provided that the subscribers should pay for the 
service in accordance with the number of messages sent. 
At about the same time operating plans and apparatus 
were introduced making it possible for the user of a 
telephone to pay for his service at the time it was ren- 
dered, making the measured service a "pay as you go" 
proposition. The exchange in New York under these 
plans proceeded to grow at a phenomenal rate. 

In the Chicago exchange provision was made as 
rapidly as possible for the offering of service on both of 
these plans, and immediately the exchange began a phe- 
nomenal growth, which is still under way, so that within 
the city exchange at the present time nearly 100,000 
telephones are operated, a very large majority being on 
the measured service plan, and generally on what is 
called the "nickel-in-the-slot" basis. There were nat- 
urally a number of difficulties to be surmounted in pro- 
viding apparatus which would handle nickel service, but 
improvements in the machinery have kept pace with the 
demand for the introduction of the service, and the 
nickel-in-the-slot telephone is extending its field of use- 
fulness every day. 

It is an attractive proposition to anyone that tele- 
phone service may be paid for at the time it is rendered, 
and that the payment is made by the person getting the 
service, so that from the smallest private residence, 
where, at a guaranty of five cents a day for service, it is 
possible to have the telephone available at all hours, 
up to busy offices and warehouses where it is desired 
that the use of the telephone shall be restricted to the 
necessary business of a company or firm, the pay-as-you- 
go instrument meets with hearty appreciation. 

There are some things about the Chicago exchange 
which are not generally understood. Originally .its 
limits reached only to Fullerton avenue on the North 
side and Thirty-ninth street on the South side. Its area 
has widened as the density of population has warranted 
construction of telephone lines in sufficient number. 
Now the company has extended the northern limits to 
reach the boundaries of Rogers Park exchange district. 
On the south the limits have been gradually extended 
year by year by the company until they now reach Sev- 
enty-ninth street, while the western boundary is about 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



201 



along the line of Fortieth avenue. This territory, nearly 
eighteen miles long and more than five miles wide, is 
greater than that embraced in any other one telephone 
exchange, and it requires a tremendous plant in the way 
of exchange buildings and offices filled with switching 
apparatus, as well as of underground cables and wires, 
to furnish such a widespread service. Within the limits 
of this Chicago exchange there is communication at 
standard rates without any added toll. 

It has been supposed by many that the field of 
operations of the Chicago Telephone Company was the 
city of Chicago alone. This is by no means the case. 
The company operates in the territory embraced in a 
radius of about fifty miles from Chicago, having 114 
separate exchanges and seventy-six toll stations in this 
territory, such exchanges as Elgin, Joliet, Aurora, Oak 
Park, Evanston, etc., being the leading ones in the point 
of size. In ten of these cities the company has erected 
office buildings for its own use, and its plants of wires 
and cables is co-extensive with their limits. In addi- 
tion, the company has more than 12,000 miles of toll 
lines, extending in a network from Chicago to each of 
these cities and towns, and from one to the other, mak- 
ing it possible to communicate by telephone at a cost 
ranging from 10 cents upward, according to distance. 

Running into nearly all of these suburban and 
country exchanges are lines reaching not only the sur- 
rounding villages and towns within the various coun- 
ties and townships, but also the residences of farmers, 
who to the number of several thousands are already fur- 
nished with telephone connection by the company and 
may speak from their houses not only to the nearest 
town or county seat, but with Chicago and the sur- 
rounding country. In some parts of the country efforts 
have been made to develop this farmers' line service by 
a cheap class of construction, stringing an indefinite 
number of subscribers on one wire, as many as thirty 
in some cases, the result being generally a demoralized 
service. The Chicago Telephone Company has endeav- 
ored to avoid this by providing a high class of con- 
struction and special plans of operating, by means of 
which as many as eight farmers are accommodated on 
one circuit with a minimum of interference. The natural 
result of such an extended and available service has been 
to increase very greatly the demand for it, and this has 
been such that it is almost impossible to keep pace with 
it except by a tremendous expenditure of capital and 
greatest effort on the part of the staff of the company. 

The increase in the number of telephones during the 
last three years has been at the rate of 20,000 a year, and 
at one time was at such a rate that the company was 
obliged to cease all advertising and canvassing and 
accept such orders as were proffered subject to inevitable 
delay occasioned by their great number. 



It is difficult to appreciate the extended scope of the 
service without a close inquiry into its details. Interest- 
ing features, however, are found in the fact that tele- 
phones are now installed in more than 25,000 private 
residences in Chicago; that in all of the leading 
hotels telephones are .installed in every room, and 
equipped for city exchange or toll-line service through 
a private switchboard in the hotel office; that in more 
than 1,000 places of business, including nearly every 
newspaper, railway, express company, packing-house 
and like industry, private branch exchanges are located, 
a special operator being employed to handle telephone 
calls and trunk lines being extended to the nearest tele- 
phone exchange. In such establishments the telephone 
on the desk of the head of a department is just as impor- 
tant as the pen. 

Every large department store in the city has a pri- 
vate exchange of this character, and nickel telephones 
enclosed in soundproof booths are found on every floor 
and in every department for the convenience of cus- 
tomers. One of the largest retail establishments in the 
city has more than 400 telephones of this kind and 
employs twelve operators constantly to attend to the 
service. In a number of the leading restaurants it is so 
provided that a telephone may be brought to any table, 
and conversation carried on directly from it. It is almost 
impossible to appreciate what a tremendous saving of 
time is accomplished by the service of such a telephone 
exchange. At a cost of 5 cents one may reach any 
one of 100,000 telephones, within an area of nearly 
100 square miles, and one may provide himself with a 
telephone to meet the requirements of his own service 
on any one of the various plans necessary for such 
requirements, and at a cost for some classes of service as 
low as 5 cents a day. 

The Illinois Tunnel Company owns and operates the 
largest tunnel system in the world. At present it 
stretches under the streets of Chicago for a distance of 
forty miles. All this has been built without accident 
or injury to the immense skyscrapers which tower 
about it in the business section of the city. When the 
system is completed its bores will reach on each of the 
three sides of the city to a distance of seven miles from 
the loop center. 

New York, Boston, London and other cities have 
tunnels that are more widely known than those of the 
Illinois Tunnel Company. The subways of other cities 
are for passengers, while the tunnels of Chicago are 
for freight. Chicago keeps the streets for its citizens 
and handles its freight and heavy traffic underground. 
It is the pioneer city to build tunnels for this purpose 
and the construction work already completed is the 
marvel of the engineering world. 

The Illinois Tunnel Company's tunnels are com- 



202 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



pleted forty feet under .the surface of every street in this 
territory. Every building located on these streets can 
transfer freight through the tunnels to any part of the 
United States. 

Chicago's business center has been confined to a 
small area of territory extending i^ miles north and 
south and one mile west, with Lake Michigan on the 
east and the river on the north. The railways have 
located their freight yards south, north and west so 
close to this center that the commercial interests have 
been confined to this territory. The enormous growth 



not in the tunnels. This not only prevents any conges- 
tion in the tunnels, but furnishes a capacity many times 
the present requirements. 

The transfer of coal to the tunnel company's cars 
is through gravity yards. The coal bins in the yards 
are between the track level and the roof of the tunnel. 
When delivered to the buildings it is dumped into a 
hopper, and by means of coal conveyors is taken up 
into the basement and dumped into other bins. Ashes 
are passed down through chutes into the tunnel cars. 

Since the completion of the tunnel system all new 




SECTIONAL VIEW OF THE ILLINOIS TUNNEL COMPANY'S TUNNELS. 



of the city's business has so congested the streets within 
this area that the cost of cartage of freight to business 
houses has increased over 100 per cent in the past few 
years. Five years ago a team could handle five and six 
loads per day; to-day it is impossible for the same teams 
to exceed two or three loads per day. 

The first necessity in the Illinois Tunnel Company's 
transportation system was to establish a car which 
could be elevated into the basement of any building, 
without cost of alteration to the premises. All cars are 
loaded and unloaded in the warehouse basements and 



buildings being constructed in the business section of 
the city have the excavation and building material trans- 
ported through the tunnels. The public enjoys the bene- 
fit of having this offensive traffic taken from the streets. 
The Illinois Tunnel Company is owned by the inter- 
ests which control the railroads. The tunnels not only 
benefit the community by removing traffic congestion 
from the streets, but also they enable all the railroads 
to receive and deliver freight twenty-four hours each 
day. By teams they were able to transfer freight only 
8 or 10 hours per day even when the weather permitted. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



203 



This tunnel system is now only in its infancy ; no one 
can foretell the purposes and uses to which it will be put 
in the future. It may solve the smoke nuisance. By 
locating a central steam plant it could supply steam for 
heating and power to all of the buildings in the business 
district at less cost than the smoky individual plants 
now operated by coal can be maintained. Refrigeration 
can be furnished from the same central power plant, fur- 
nishing cold storage to buildings, hotels, restaurants 
and factories. 

Nothing has ever been developed in the history of 
any city which will prove such beneficial results to the 
whole community as these tunnels. They will work 
out the method of better paved and cleaner streets ; will 
prevent loss of that business to the city which increased 
cost of handling, owing to congestion of its streets, has 
gradually diverted to other cities, and will permit the 
use of the streets to every citizen with less risk to life 
or limb. 

The company proposes to extend its system of tun- 
nels to cover the residence district for the delivery of 
packages, etc. No public improvement of this or any 
other age ever equaled this undertaking, and Chicago 
prides itself with being the pioneer city of the world in 
adopting an improvement which means : The streets 
for the people subways for freight. 

George W. Jackson, as consulting and contracting 
engineer, has managed the expenditure of over $25,- 
000,000 for construction work in twenty-five years. 
He is credited with being the first engineer in this 
country to complete an all concrete underground con- 
struction, and with being the first engineer to design 
and install a successful pneumatic tube system for the 
transmission of packages underground, having designed 
and constructed over fifteen miles of pneumatic tubes 
for the City and Associated Press Associations of 
Chicago. 

Under Mr. Jackson's management was con- 
structed a fourteen-foot, all concrete, storm-water 
sewer system for Reading, Pennsylvania. He built the 
Strickler tunnel, one and a quarter miles in length, 
through the Pike's Peak Range, at an elevation of 
12,700 feet above sea level, and has constructed subways 
at Indianapolis. Indiana, Columbus, Ohio, and Musca- 
tine, Iowa. He built the bridges at North Halsted, 
Randolph, Loomis, Eighteenth, Harrison and Twenty- 
second streets for the city and sanitary district of Chi- 
cago ; constructed tiie Wentworth avenue and Belmont 
avenue drainage systems, the Sixty-seventh street low- 
level drainage system and miles of other drainage sys- 
tems for Chicago and St. Paul ; laid the entire conduit 
system in the downtown district for the Chicago Tele- 
phone, Western Union and Postal Telegraph and Chi- 
cago Underground Sectional Conduit companies, and 



has done a large part of the construction work for the 
cable systems of the traction companies, and for the 
lighting systems of the South and West Park boards. 

Mr. Jackson has designed and patented what is 
known as the first practical steel sheeting, as well as the 
steel forms and ribs for forming concrete, and what is 
known as the Jackson column bar for driving rock 
tunnels. In 1903 he was appointed by Mayor Harrison 
hydraulic engineer for the High Pressure Water Com- 
mission, and designed for it a high-pressure system. 
He was chosen by the city council's local transportation 
committee as consulting engineer, to advise it as to the 




GEORGE W. JACKSON. 

construction of traction subways. He has also devised 
for the city a new sanitary sewer system. 

During the past five years he has been chief engineer 
and general manager of the Illinois Telephone & Tele- 
graph and the Illinois Tunnel companies, for which he 
has engineered and managed the construction of thirty- 
three miles of tunnels, which have been constructed in 
every street within the district bounded by Fifteenth, 
Halsted and Illinois streets and Lake Michigan. He 
has equipped the system with rails, trolleys, drainage 
facilities and a telephone system. 

Mr. Jackson is president of the Jackson & Corbett 
Bridge & Steel Works ; the Jackson & Corbett Company 
and the Interlocking Steel Sheeting Company, and is 
advising engineer for the Pike's Peak Hydro-Electric 
Company. 

Mr. Jackson was born in Chicago, July 21, 1861, 
and is of English-Irish descent. He received his 
education in the public and technical schools, and in 



204 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



the school of experience. He graduated from the tech- 
nical schools in 1878, and entered upon a construction 
and engineering 1 business in 1880, in which he has been 
engaged continuously ever since. 

His family consists of his wife, Rose Theresa Jackson, 
his daughter. Rose Casey Jackson, aged eighteen years, 
and his son, Thomas Casey Jackson, aged twenty years. 
Mr. Jackson has lived for twenty years in the heart of 
the business district, his residence being a handsomely 
appointed flat on the top floor of the building at 177 
Monroe street. 

W. S. Bogle, president of the Crescent Coal & Min- 
ing Company, was born in Dover, New Hampshire, of 
Scotch parentage. He came to Chicago with his parents 
in 1861, his -father, Daniel Bogle, being one of the noted 




W. S. BOGLE. 

engraver experts. He was awarded the gold medal for 
excellence in engraving at the Crystal Palace, New 
York, the first World's fair held in this country. 

Mr. Bogle graduated from the Chicago High School 
in 1868, and immediately afterwards went into the coal 
business with his father, and has been in it ever since. 
He organized the Crescent Coal & Mining Company in 
1891, previous to which time he had been western sales 
agent for the Delaware & Hudson Company for a num- 
ber of years. From a comparatively small beginning 
the Crescent Company has grown to be one of the 
largest firms in point of tonnage in the Chicago market. 
Mr. Bogle has also owned and developed a great many 
bituminous coal mines, independent of the Crescent 
Company, in West Virginia, Ohio and Indiana, his prin- 
cipal operations having been in Indiana. He founded 



the W. S. Bogle Coal & Mining Company, of which he 
was president ; the Torrey Coal & Mining Company, of 
which he was also president, and the Indiana Fuel Com- 
pany in which he held a half interest, and was vice-pres- 
ident of the Baltimore & Ohio Coal Company of Colum- 
bus, Ohio. He recently disposed of all his mining 
interests to the different syndicates which had been 
absorbing the Indiana mining properties. At the pres- 
ent time, in addition to being president of the Crescent 
Coal & Mining Company, he is also president of the 
Consolidated Anthracite Coal Company of Spadra, 
Arkansas, which controls practically all of the territory 
in which this coal is found. This coal is equivalent in 
all respects to the Pennsylvania anthracite, and the 
demand for it is so great that the company has difficulty 
in developing fast enough to supply it. 

Mr. Bogle is a Democrat, and for many years was 
active in party management of Cook County. He 
retired from politics in 1892, after having served as 
chairman of the Central committee of the party for sev- 
eral years. For a number of years he was vice-president 
of the Iroquois Club, and served one term as president, 
refusing on the expiration of his term to accept of the 
second nomination. He is also a member of the Union 
League Club, Chicago Yacht Club, Germania Man- 
nerchor of Chicago and the Manhattan Club of New 
York. 

In 1872 he was married to Miss Delia Stearns of 
Chicago. He has three children, two daughters and 
one son. The son, Walter S. Bogle, Jr., was educated 
at the Cornell University as mechanical and mining 
engineer, and is now general manager of the Consoli- 
dated Anthracite Coal Company of Spadra, Arkansas, 
having full charge of the operation of the mines. 

Thomas J. O'Gara started in the coal business 
eight years ago with practically no capital. To-day he 
controls mining and coal interests worth $6,000,000. 
Mr. O'Gara started in the business in 1897 as a jobber 
with little capital and no prospect of ever becoming 
a mine owner. In 1905, he owned and operated twenty- 
seven mines, organized a $6,000,000 coal corporation 
of which he is the president and principal owner, and 
is now recognized as one of the leading coal men of 
the country. 

Mr. O'Gara was born in Ireland about forty years 
ago, and came to Chicago in 1886. For several years 
he worked as a salesman in the coal business, but found 
time to study law, and after taking a course in the Chi- 
cago College of Law, was admitted to the bar in 1893. 
In 1897 Mr. O'Gara established the copartnership of 
O'Gara, King & Co., the members of the firm being 
T. J. O'Gara, John King and William Lorimer. In 
1899 Mr. O'Gara bought out his partners and has since 
been alone in the business. Since that time Mr. O'Gara 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



205 



has acquired extensive mining properties in West Vir- 
ginia, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana, and built up a large 
business. 

O'Gara, King & Company, or rather T. J. O'Gara, 
own and control the following coal mining corporations : 
Green Ridge Mining Company of Green Ridge, Illi- 
nois; Jefferson Mining Company of Springfield, Illinois; 
Summit Coal & Mining Company of Summit, Indiana ; 
Vivian Coal Mining Company of Jasonville, Indiana; 
Lincoln Coal Mining Company of Clinton, Indi- 
ana; Staunton Mining Company of Staunton, Indiana; 
O'Gara Coal Mining Company of Wolf Summit, West 
Virginia; Harrisburg-Big Muddy Mining Company of 
Harrisburg, Illinois ; Chicago-Springfield Coal Company 
of Springfield, Illinois; Imperial Mining Company of 
Cambridge, Ohio ; United States Coal Company of Chi- 
cago, Illinois. 

These companies comprise twelve modern mining 
plants, and produce 3,000,000 tons of coal annually. 
Mr. O'Gara has, also, obtained control of all the mines 
in Saline County, Illinois, fifteen in number, and over 
75,000 acres of coal lands adjoining, giving him control 
of the best bituminous coal fieVl west of Pittsbursr. 




THOMAS J. O'GARA. 

Mr. O'Gara's latest and greatest exploit in the coal 
business is the organization of the O'Gara Coal Com- 
pany, with a capital stock of $6,000,000. He controls 
this large corporation and is its president and general 
manager. The control of the O'Gara Coal Company, 
with the mines already owned by Mr. O'Gara, gives 
him twenty-seven mines, all in operation, and having a 



capacity of 7,000,000 tons a year. His latest enterprise 
places Mr. O'Gara in the ranks of the leading coal mine 
owners and operators in the Nation. 

James McDonald was born at Lincoln, England, July 
21, 1865, the son of John and Elizabeth (Halliday) 
McDonald. Mr. McDonald was educated at the Lin- 




JAMES MCDONALD. 

coin Grammar School, the alma mater of so many 
famous Englishmen. His scholastic career culminated 
in 1881 when he won the degree of A. A. (Associate of 
Arts) from the ancient University of Oxford. 

In 1882 Mr. McDonald determined to follow Berke- 
ley's famous admonition and "come west." Attracted 
by the opportunities for young men in Chicago he 
came in the fall of that year. In 1883 he identified 
himself with the Chicago, Wilmington & Vermillion 
Coal Company as general accountant. Later he took 
charge of the company's jobbing department, and for 
several years acted as general sales agent. In April, 
1903, Mr. McDonald organized the Interstate Coal & 
Coke Company of Illinois, with large interests in 
Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio coal fields. Associated with 
Mr. McDonald is William Job, a large Ohio and 
Indiana operator. Mr. McDonald is also secretary and 
general manager of the Mammoth Vein Coal Company 
in Sullivan County, Indiana, of which company Mr. 
Job is president. Mr. McDonald is also secretary of 
Job's Ohio Hocking Coal Company, with large mines 
in Perry County, Ohio. Mr. McDonald was natural- 
ized in 1886, and has voted the Republican ticket ever 
since. He takes a great interest in the politics of his 



206 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



adopted country, but has never seen fit to identify him- 
self with any political organization. 

Mr. McDonald was married in 1891 to Miss Flor- 
ence R. Lemmon and has a son and a daughter, Paul 
A., and Bessie Mae McDonald. The son Paul is at 
present attending the Lake Forest Academy and as he 
has already evinced a decided taste for business is ex- 
pected to follow in the father's footsteps. Mr. McDon- 
ald attributes his success in business to the fact that all 
through his career he has insisted upon the faithful per- 
formance of all contracts. In coal circles Mr.' Mc- 
Donald's word is as good as his bond. Hence his envi- 
able reputation among the representative men of the 
Middle West. 

Robert R. Hammond, president of the Dering 
Coal Company of Chicago, and formerly second vice- 
president and general manager of the Chicago & 




ROBERT R. HAMMOND. 

Eastern Illinois Railroad Co., is a native of Iowa. He 
was born at Ottumwa, February 14, 1857. At nineteen 
he entered the service of the Burlington Railroad Co. as 
agent and operator. He left the Burlington in 1881, 
going to Kansas City for the Kansas City, Fort Scott & 
Memphis (now a part of the Frisco system). His pro- 
motion in the road's service was rapid. In turn he 
became train dispatcher, chief train dispatcher, division 
superintendent and general superintendent, holding the 
latter post after the road had been merged with 
the Frisco. He was appointed superintendent of the 
maintenance for the Frisco in August, 1901, and the 
following year he joined the "Katy" (Missouri, Kansas 



& Texas-) forces, becoming assistant general manager. 
As general manager of the Chicago & Eastern Illinois 
he came to Chicago in January, 1903. At this time the 
road was a part of the Frisco system, and in April, 1904, 
he was transferred to St. Louis, having been elected 
second vice-president of the entire system, with 5,000 
miles of trackage under his jurisdiction. He returned to 
Chicago last fall to become second vice-president and 
general manager of all the Frisco lines east of the 
Mississippi, which embraced the management of the 
Chicago & Eastern Illinois, the Evansville & Terre 
Haute and the Evansville & Indianapolis roads. 

His official duties put him in close contact with 
the coal trade, as the volume of coal shipments over 
these lines is enormous. Mr. Hammond developed 
the system to a high degree of efficiency, which proved 
beneficial both to the Frisco system and the immense 
coal interests of the West. In March, 1905, he severed 
all connection with the railway service and became 
president of the Dering Coal Company, the largest 
coal concern west of Pittsburg. The Dering Com- 
pany, which has its offices in the Old Colony building, 
is a consolidation of six different concerns, of which 
the Crescent Coal & Mining Company and the West- 
ville Coal Company were the largest. The company 
operates fifteen properties in Sullivan, Vigo and Ver- 
milion counties, Indiana, and Vermilion and Franklin 
counties, Illinois. Among these are some of the most 
valuable coal properties in the West. The company 
conducts both a wholesale and retail business, the latter 
having been instituted but recently. J. K. Dering, for- 
merly president of the J. K. Dering Coal Company, 
now a part of the big concern, is vice-president. 

Mr. Hammond, in addition to his affiliation with 
the principal coal trade organizations, belongs to some 
of the leading clubs here. 

Col. A. L. Sweet is president of the Chicago, Wil- 
mington & Vermillion Coal Company, one of the oldest 
and largest concerns in the state. Few men have con- 
tributed more towards the development of the immense 
coal interests of the West. Colonel Sweet is a native of 
Illinois. He was born in Jacksonville, August 21, 1831. 
His father, the Rev. Joel Sweet, was one of the pioneers 
of the Baptist clergy in the state. Mr. Sweet's first 
business experience was in the commission line, in St. 
Louis, but he shortly afterwards became an agent for 
the Rock Island Railroad at La Salle, Illinois. 

His first association with the coal trade dates from 
1865, when he secured a situation with E. D. Taylor & 
Son of Chicago, in the capacity of general salesman. 
Three years later he accepted a similar position with the 
Chicago & Wilmington Company. His promotion in 
their employ was rapid, and he was made superintend- 
ent of the company in 1870. When, in 1872, the Chi- 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



20? 



cago & Wilmington and the Vermillion companies were 
consolidated, Col. Sweet was elected secretary and 
general manager of the new company, known to this 
day as the Chicago, Wilmington & Vermillion Coal 
Company. In 1890 he was elected president, in which 
capacity he has served ever since. Maj. T. A. Lemmon 
is the company's secretary and treasurer. 

The Chicago, Wilmington & Vermillion Coal Com- 
pany, whose general offices are in the Old Colony build- 
ing, ranks as one of the largest coal producers in the 
state, the output of its properties at Thayer, South 
Wilmington and Streator for 1904 being 1,250,000 tons. 
The mine at Thayer, Sangamon County, which yields 
more than its share of the total output, is a wonder. The 
development of this property has been remarkably 
rapid. The first shaft was sunk in June, 1900, and by 
the following January the mine produced 250 tons a 




COL. A. L. SWEET. 

day. By December, 1901, the mine's daily capacity was 
2,000 tons, which average it has since maintained. The 
plant is one of the newest and best equipped in the 
state. 

T. A. Lemmon, secretary of the Chicago, Wilming- 
ton & Vermillion Coal Company and one of the leading 
coal men of the West, was born at New Albany, Indiana, 
April 1 6, 1841. His parents were Michael and Martha 
(Griffin) Lemmon, his mother being a grandniece of 
Thomas Jefferson. Young Lemmon obtained his 
schooling in his native town. Shortly after graduating, 
in 1861, he enlisted in the Fifth Ohio Cavalry, fighting 
at Shiloh and several other large battles. Throughout 



the war he was attached to the Fifteenth Army Corps of 
the Army of the Tennessee. After being mustered out, 
in 1866, he came to Chicago, entering the employ of 
E. D. Taylor & Son, coal dealers on Market street. 
Col. A. L. Sweet, president of the Chicago, Wilmington 




T. A. LEMMON. 

& Vermillion, secured his start in the coal business with 
the same people. In 1868 Mr. Lemmon established a 
business of his own, but the fire of 1871 wiped it 
out. After serving in several capacities he became sec- 
retary and treasurer of the Chicago & Wilmington Coal 
Company, in 1887. 

Mr. Lemmon married Miss Sara C. Berry of New 
Albany, Indiana, in 1865. He has a family of two sons 
and a daughter, Mrs. James McDonald of this city. 
Both sons are engaged in the coal business. 

The La Salle County Carbon Coal Company was 

organized in 1883 and is one of the most prominent 
operative concerns in the La Salle County field. Its 
large properties in Illinois produce a high grade of fuel 
coal, which is shipped to Chicago and other distributing 
points in immense quantities. The offices of the com- 
pany are in the Old Colony building. 

Franklin O. Wyatt, manager and secretary of the 
La Salle County Carbon Coal Company, is one of the 
best known coal operators in the West. He was born 
at Norwich, Vermont, June 12, 1838, the son of Joseph 
P. and Abigail Wyatt. He was educated in the public 
schools and Asbury University, now DePauw Uni- 
versity, at Greencastle, Indiana. He began his business 
life as a civil engineer and was engaged in railway con- 



208 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



struction and in the operation of railways from 1867 to 
1885. Toward the close of this period he became inter- 
ested in a number of coal properties, and in 1884 be- 
came manager of the La Salle company. 

He was married at Honesdale, Pennsylvania, in 1872, 
to Miss Marian L. Purely. They have three daughters, 
Edith F., Faith and Phyllis M. The family residence is 
at 1761 Sheridan road. 

The Standard Washed Coal Company, in the short 
time since it was organized, April i, 1901, has grown 
to be one of the largest of the many fuel companies 
doing business in Chicago. Though the corporation is 
comparatively new to the Chicago field, its executive 




W. T. DELIHANT. 

officers have had many years' experience in the local 
trade. 

The concern was organized and incorporated by 
W. T. Delihant, now its president, and M. C. O'Donnell, 
its present secretary. Shortly after incorporation the 
Clear Lake and Spaulding mines in the Springfield dis- 
trict were acquired by the company. Later the Car- 
tersville mine in the district of that name also came under 
the same control. The entire output of the company 
now comes from these three properties. 

The product of these mines is such that it is said to 
improve to a large degree by the process of washing. 
The popularity of the product is proven by the fact that 
the company ranks second among Chicago's coal con- 
cerns in wagon business, handling about 750,000 tons 
per year. 

The Standard Washed Coal Company specializes in 
supplying coal in car-load lots, and for steam purposes, 



such as for office buildings. Its car business is exten- 
sive in Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska. In Chi- 
cago it has coal yards at the following places : On the 
Illinois Central railroad at South Water street, Twenty- 
sixth street, and Fifty-first street ; on the Chicago, Bur- 
lington & Quincy railroad at Twenty-first and Jefferson 
streets, and on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul 
railroad at Roscoe street and Racine avenue. 

The company was incorporated in 1901, with a 
capital stock of $30,000, and an office consisting of 
one room in the Fisher building. The following year 
the stock was increased to $70,000, and the concern 
moved to the Plymouth building. Last year it took 
possession of the entire third floor of the Plymouth 
building, and this spring increased its capital stock to 
$200,000. 

Closely associated with the Standard Washed Coal 
Company is the Commercial Coal & Coke Company. 
It was organized in April of 1904, with a capital stock 
of $30,000. The latter company confines itself exclu- 
sively to the retail trade, and does not encroach on the 
field of the older corporation. The Commercial com- 
pany secures its coal from the Chicago & Eastern 
Illinois Railroad, and has its yards at Twenty-second and 
Jefferson streets. 

The officers of the two companies at present are : 
W. T. Delihant, president; T. J. Hudson, Jr., vice-pres- 
dent; M. C. O'Donnell, secretary, and Albert Tebo, 
treasurer. E. W. McCullough is mine manager for the 
Standard Washed Coal Company, and George W. Ford 
occupies a similar position for the Commercial Coal & 
Coke Company. 

President Delihant started in the coal business in 
1 88 1, with W. P. Rend & Company. Later he was 
with the Peabody Coal Company for ten years, the 
Edwin F. Daniels Company for five years, the F. G. 
Hartwell Company, and many other .larger coal com- 
panies in Chicago. He was born in Missouri, March i, 
1862, and came to Chicago in 1864. He is a member 
of the Illinois Athletic Club and the Royal Arcanum. 

Vice-President Hudson is a son of T. J. Hudson, Sr., 
the general traffic manager of the Illinois Central Rail- 
road. He entered the coal business in 1894 with the 
Independent Fuel Company, and in the fall of 1903 
came to the Standard Washed Coal Company. 

Secretary O'Donnell and Treasurer Tebo have both 
been in the coal business for the better part of the past 
twenty years. They have worked with the same firms 
as Mr. Delihant, and have been with the Standard 
Washed Coal Company since its organization. Mr. 
McCullough has spent his life in the Illinois mining 
fields and is considered one of the best mining managers 
in the country. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



209 



Wells Brothers Company. The building and con- 
tracting firm of Wells Brothers Company had its incep- 
tion, strictly speaking, directly following the Chicago 
fire in 1871. Warren A. Wells, founder of the busi- 
ness, had come here from St. Paul to engage in some 
manufacturing enterprise. The fire occurred shortly 
afterwards and Mr. Wells, seeing his opportunity, estab- 
lished a contracting and mason business with his eldest 
son, Addison E. From the outset the concern kept 
abreast of the latest methods in construction, to which 
fact they attribute their success. 

The bi-partnership was retained until 1885, when 
Fred A. Wells was admitted into the business ; the cap- 
tion of the firm these years was W. A. & A. E. Wells. 
The elder Mr. Wells died in October, 1900, and two 
years later the business was incorporated under the 
style of Wells Brothers Company. The present officers 
of the corporation are Addison E. Wells, president ; 
Fred A. Wells, vice-president and treasurer ; and W. G. 
Luce, secretary. 

Among the buildings erected by Wells Brothers 
Company and W. A. & A. E. Wells are the Stude- 
baker, Fine Arts, Studebaker Repository, Cable build- 
ing, McClure building, Republic and Chicago Savings 




ADDISON E. WELLS. 

Bank buildings, all "in Chicago ; the Mississippi State 
Capitol at Jackson, Mississippi ; Stock Exchange at 
Philadelphia, and Belvidere Hotel, Baltimore. One 
of their earliest jobs was the erection of the old Inter- 
State and Industrial Exposition building on the Lake 
Front, in 1872. The company have the following build- 
ings under way : Baltimore & Ohio office building at 

14 



Baltimore, the $1,000,000 Onondagua court house at 
Syracuse, New York, the new Mandel building, Chi- 
cago, and others. 

Addison E. Wells, president, is a native of Janes- 
ville, Wisconsin, where he was born February 4, 1856. 
After completing his high school education he entered 
business with his father. Fred A. Wells was born 




FRED A. WELLS. 

July 26, 1859, at Mitchell, Iowa. He went through 
the public schools and graduated from high school in 
1877. He was employed by Fowler Brothers and 
W. J. Quan & Company, packers at the Union Stock 
Yards, prior to his association with the contracting 
business. There is one other son, Judd E. Wells, who 
is vice-president of Wells Brothers Company of New 
York, contractors. 

MacArthur Bros. Company. The well-known con- 
tracting firm of MacArthur Bros. Company was estab- 
lished in New York State in 1860 by Archibald Mac- 
Arthur, together with his two brothers, James and Wil- 
liam, and until 1893 was known under the name of 
MacArthur Bros. Up to 1884 its specialty was the 
construction of railroads and canals, but since then the 
firm has undertaken successfully all kinds of construc- 
tion work, including that of railroads, canals, streets, 
sewers and all kinds of other heavy work of this 
nature, as well as the erection of buildings and 
bridges and the laying of their foundations. The firm 
located in Chicago in 1874, and since that time, 
has done a great deal of important work through- 
out the West and Northwest, although its field of 
operations is by no means limited to this portion of the 



L'10 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



country. In the line of railroad construction, which they 
have engaged in since their establishment here thirty 
years ago, may be mentioned the building of the larger 
portion of the heavy work of the Santa Fe extension 
from Chicago to Kansas City ; the Chicago, Burlington 
& Ouincy extension to St. Paul ; many of the smaller 
extensions of the Manitoba Railroad in Minnesota, and 
similar work for the Chicago Great Western Railroad. 
In 1891 and 1892 seventy-five miles of road for the Chi- 
cago & Eastern Illinois Railroad were constructed in the 
central part of the state, and there has also been con- 
siderable work of a like nature done for the Illinois Cen- 
tral Railroad. This company have had contracts for con- 
struction with nearly all the railroads coming into Chi- 
cago. Between 1884 and 1890 the company had an es- 
tablished office in St. Paul, and during that time com- 
pleted over half of all the street improvements then 
being made in that city, and between 1886 and 1890 
about a million dollars of street work was also done for 
the city of Duluth. For the World's Columbian Expo- 
sition the firm executed contract No. i, which included a 
large amount of dredging and the grading of the entire 
grounds. They also erected the Horticultural building, 
the Dairy building, the police station, the docking on 
the lagoons and numerous smaller buildings. They had 
an important part in digging the Drainage canal, doing 
all the work on Section 2 and Section 4 and having 
joint contracts for portions of Sections N and O. 

Other contracts completed by the firm include the 
construction of the foundation for the new Postoffice 
building of this city and the building of two immense 
locks for the government on the Cumberland River, 
near Nashville, Tennessee. 

In 1903 they were doing contract work in thirteen 
states, extending from Massachusetts to Oklahoma, hav- 
ing twenty-eight different contracts under execution at 
one time. The company have at this time (1905) a large 
contract with the United States Government for exca- 
vating a channel through the rock at the west side of 
Neebish Island, in St. Mary's River, near Sault Ste. 
Marie, amounting to nearly $3,000,000; also a contract 
with the city of New York for the construction of a 
masonry dam on the Croton water system, amounting 
to about $1,500,000, also several large railroad contracts 
under execution at this time. They have just completed 
the Wachusett dam for impounding water for the city 
of Boston, which dam contains about 300.000 cubic 
yards of stone masonry. 

In 1893, shortly after the death of James Mac- 
Arthur, the business was incorporated under the name 
of Mac Arthur Bros. Company and in 1903 was 
incorporated under the laws of New Jersey as Mac- 
Arthur Bros. Company. The present officers of Mac- 
Arthur Bros. Company are : Archibald MacArthur. 



president : Arthur F. MacArthur, vice-president and 
general manager; John R. MacArthur, secretary and 
treasurer. 

Archibald MacArthur, president of the firm of Mac- 
Arthur Bros. Company, w'as born at Mount Morris, N. 
Y., in 1834. His father was a prominent contractor in 
New York State at that time, and from him his son 
gained his first knowledge of the contracting business ; 
his education was academic, in which he pursued a 
course of civil engineering, but never followed civil 
engineering as .a profession. 

At that time the contracting business was far differ- 
ent from what it is now ; without definite headquarters, 
contractors traveled from place to place, wherever a 




ARCHIBALD MAcARTHUR. 

piece of work could be secured ; these temporary loca- 
tions were generally retained only so long as was neces- 
sary to complete the contract. In this rather itinerant 
mode of life, contractors saw a considerable portion of 
the world. Mr. MacArthur traveled through all of the 
United States and Canada, Mexico, Central America, 
South America, West Indies and the principal countries 
of Europe. 

At the age of twenty-one, together with his brothers, 
James and William, he became one of the firm of Mac- 
Arthur Bros., which, for nearly a quarter of a century, 
engaged successfully in business, with its headquarters 
in New York State ; its location being removed to Chi- 
cago in 1873. 

Arthur f. MacArthur, vice-president and general 
manager of MacArthur Bros. Company, was born at 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



211 



Oramel. New York, October 24, 1860. His parents are 
Archibald and Keturah (Pratt) MacArthur. 

He came to Chicago in 1874 and prepared for a col- 
legiate course at the Chicago Academy, entering Har- 
vard in the fall of 1878, from which institution he was 
graduated with the class of '82, receiving the degree of 
A. B. He then returned to Chicago and for the follow- 




ARTHUR F. MACARTHUR. 

ing two years was connected with the Chicago yard of 
The W. & A. MacArthur Lumber Company of Cheboy- 
gan, Michigan. In 1884 he moved to St. Paul, Minne- 
sota, to take charge of the large street contracts under 
execution for the city of St. Paul by the MacArthur 
Bros. Company, contractors, but returned to Chicago in 
1890 in order to take charge of the work being done by 
them in preparing the grounds of Jackson Park for the 
World's Fair. He was admitted to the firm in 1887, 
and in 1893 became its treasurer. 

Mr. MacArthur has traveled quite extensively. In 
1888 he made a trip through Egypt, the Holy Land and 
continental Europe, and in the winter of 1889 he spent 
some months in visiting the countries of South Amer- 
ica. He was married in 1889 to Miss Mary S. Barnum, 
daughter of Mr. David Barnum of New York City. 

John Meiggs Ewen, engineer and builder, vice- 
president of the Thompson-Starrett Company, was born 
at Newtown. New York, September 3, 1859. His father. 
Warren Ewen, was for many years chief engineer of con- 
struction for the railroads in Chili and Peru, South 
America, among them the famous railroad in the clouds 
to Oroya. Young Ewen spent his boyhood days in 



South America with his father, but at the age of twelve 
was sent to the Russell Military Academy at New- 
Haven, Connecticut, and then to the Stevens Institute 
of Technology, from which he was graduated in 1880. 

Shortly afterward he was engaged as engineer in 
charge of construction for the J. B. & J. M. Cornell 
Iron Works at New York, where he had charge of the 
erection of many buildings and also of the elevated 
roads to Brooklyn. He next joined the forces of W. 
L. B. Jenney, the Chicago' architect, going from there 
to Burnham & Root, where he became general manager. 
He left them in 1889 to organize the original Fuller 
Company with George A. Fuller. He was vice-presi- 
dent and general manager for years. He went to Lon- 
don for the purpose of introducing American construc- 
tion methods, but abandoned the idea and returned to 
this country. After acting as consulting engineer for 
the George A. Fuller Company until 1903, he became 
vice-president and western representative of the 
Thompson-Starrett Company, the largest builders in the 
country, which position he now holds. 

Mr. Ewen is a member of the American Society of 
Civil Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical 




JOHN MEIGGS EWEN. 

Engineers and the Western Society of Engineers. Dur- 
ing the career of twenty-four years he has figured in the 
construction of some of the largest office buildings in 
the country, many of them in Chicago. He lias recently 
been appointed to serve on the county commissioners' 
committee to select plans for the new Cook County 
court house. He is also one of the committee of engi- 
neers appointed by the commissioner of Public Works to 



212 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



to report upon the construction of the Illinois Telephone 
Company's subway of this city. The Thompson-Starrett 
Company is now erecting the new Wanamaker store in 
Philadelphia, the Union Station at Washington, the 
Rockefeller building in Cleveland, the new Northern 
Trust Bank building of this city, and the great plant for 
Sears, Roebuck & Company. They recently completed 
the Heyworth building and the Thomas Orchestra 
building, both in Chicago, the Kuhn-Loeb, Empire- 
Realty, Aeolin, Navarre Hotel, Marie Antoinette and 
St. Regis hotel buildings in New York, the Touraine and 
Title Guarantee and Trust buildings in Brooklyn, the 
Penn building at Philadelphia, the Keystone Bank at 
Pittsburg, the Union Bank in Winnipeg, Canada, and 
others, ranging from twelve to twenty stories in height. 
The Thompson-Starrett Company have offices in New 
York, Chicago (Railway Exchange building), Boston, 
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, St. Louis, Cleve- 
land, Pittsburg, Toronto and Winnipeg. 

Henry W. Schlueter, well known as a contractor and 
builder, was born at Unterluebbe, Westphalia, Ger- 
many, on February 22, 1861. He spent his boyhood 
days on his father's farm. After receiving an element- 
ary education at the village school he entered the 
gymnasium at the age of fourteen, studying architect- 
ural drawing, engineering and kindred technical 
branches. He graduated in 1880 and came to America 
in October of the same year. 

Finding his way to Wisconsin, he obtained employ- 
ment in a lumber camp and sawmill in the northern 
part of the state, and subsequently secured a posi- 
tion as estimator and draughtsman for a large sash 
and door factory. After learning the business he estab- 
lished a factory of his own at Topeka, Kansas. The 
following year the mill burned to the ground and the 
business was abandoned. In June, 1891, he came to 
Chicago, attracted by the World's Fair, and organized 
the Congress Construction Company, of which he was 
the vice-president and secretary and Gustav Ehrhardt 
the president. 

Mr. Schlueter established in 1898 an independent 
contracting and building business, the offices of which 
have been in the Marquette building for a number 
of years. 

At the St. Louis Exposition he erected the Trans- 
portation building, the Fraternal Temple, the Cali- 
fornia, Massachusetts and Wisconsin State buildings, 
the Government Indian school, the foundation for the 
Ferris Wheel, and the foundations for the installation 
and testing plants for the Pennsylvania Railroad in the 
Transportation building, for testing the speed and 
power of locomotives. In addition to these, Mr. 
Schlueter has erected numerous other large structures, 
among them the Bartlett Gvmnasium at the University 



of Chicago, the Sears, Roebuck & Co. building, the 
court house at Des Moines, Iowa, where he had his own 
sawmill and stone yards on the ground, and many 
others. He is now engaged on several important jobs 
in Iowa, the Deaf and Dumb school at Council Bluffs, 
the Hall of History at Des Moines, and three buildings 




HENRY W. SCHLUETER. 

at the Iowa State College at Ames, all of the above 
being state institutions. 

Mr. Schlueter was married to Miss Minnie Meyers 
of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and his two sons, Walter M. 
and Christian H., and one daughter, Lillian. His eldest 
son, Walter M., is now superintending the work at 
Council Bluffs. Mr. Schlueter is a member of the 
Automobile Club and the New Illinois Athletic Club, 
besides being affiliated with a number of trade organi- 
zations. 

Robert W. Hunt & Co. The engineering and in- 
specting firm of Robert W. Hunt & Co., with their 
general offices in The Rookery, Chicago, and branch 
offices in New York, Pittsburg and London, England, 
was established in April, 1888. The firm is composed 
of the following gentlemen : Robert W. Hunt, John J. 
Cone, A. W. Fiero, James C. Hallsted and D. W. Mc- 
Naugher. 

The principal business of the firm is the inspection 
of railway materials, such as rails, splice bars, bolts, 
nuts, spikes and cars, also structural material for bridges 
and buildings. They also have a special depart- 
ment for the testing of the efficiency of engines and 
boilers, notably city waterworks engines. In this con- 
nection they have been employed by the city of Chicago 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



213 



to supervise the construction and erection of the 
engines purchased by it during the last few years, and 
in addition have represented the city in the final duty 
tests on which the engines were accepted. They also 
represented the city of St. Paul in the same capacity, 
and later the city of Buffalo. 

They have designed several electric power stations 
and cement factories. 

The investigation and reporting upon manufactur- 
ing establishments has become a very important 
branch of their business. Some of the largest indus- 
trial concerns in the United States have been reported 
upon by them, and on such reports the reorganization 
and the placement of bonds have been based. 

In connection with the growing export trade of 
the United States in both metals and machinery, the 
firm has been employed by foreign purchasers to super- 
vise the execution of their contracts. This covers not 
only railway materials, but pumping engines, cars and 
bridges. 

The senior member of the firm, Robert W. Hunt, 
was identified with the manufacture of Bessemer steel 
in America from its earliest introduction, and had 




ROBERT W. HUNT. 

charge of the first Bessemer steel plant operated in 
America, located at Wyandotte, Michigan, and after- 
ward the steel works of the Cambria Iron Company, 
Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and the Troy Steel & Iron 
Company, Troy, New York. In fact, the earliest steel 
rails manufactured in this country on a commercial 
basis were under his direction, and it was based upon 
his long experience as a manufacturer that the firm 



of Robert W. Hunt & Co. was established, and the 
business developed. The other members of the firm 
are all educated engineers and men who have had long 
practical experience in manufacturing and inspection, 
as well as other engineering work. 

Mr. Hunt is a past president of the American Insti- 
tute of Mining Engineers, the American Society of 
Mechanical Engineers and the Western Society of 
Engineers, and is also a member of the American 
Society of Civil Engineers, and acted as secretary of 
the committee of that society which designed and rec- 
ommended the rail sections, which are now recognized 
as the standard ones by the majority of the railroads of 
the United States. He is also a member of the Insti- 
tute of Civil Engineers and the Institute of Mechan- 
ical Engineers and the Iron and Steel Institute. Mr. 
Hunt's specifications for the manufacture of steel rails 
are recognized as standard ones, and his papers, con- 
tributed to the several scientific societies to which he 
belongs, have had a very large influence upon the 
development of the steel industry of America. In fact, 
he is recognized as an authority on that subject, both in 
this country and in Europe. 

As necessary to their business, the firm have thor- 
oughly equipped chemical and physical laboratories, in 
which the assaying of ores and the analyses of metals, 
oils, paints, etc., as well as the physical testing of materi- 
als, are conducted. So well is the firm's reputation 
established, that they have for their patrons nearly all 
the most prominent railway systems of the country, 
fully 75 per cent of the rails manufactured in America 
being subject to their inspection. 

Albert W. Fiero, civil engineer and member of the 
firm of R. W. Hunt & Co., was born in Calhoun County, 
Michigan, in June 1849. His parents, P. V. and Jane 
(Halliday) Fiero, were early settlers in that county, 
coming from New York State in 1836. After graduat- 
ing from high school in 1871, he obtained employment 
with the Grand Trunk Railroad, and the following 
year he was made assistant engineer and put in charge 
of the road's construction work between Cassopolis, 
Michigan and Valparaiso, Indiana. 

He resigned in 1873 to. accept a more responsible 
position with the Chicago & Illinois Railway, as engi- 
neer of construction, with headquarters at Joliet, Illinois. 
Two years later he became inspector of rails for the Iron 
and Steel Works of Joliet, whence he removed to St. 
Louis, in 1876, to become foreman of the finishing 
department of the Vulcan Iron and Steel Works of that 
city. He returned to railroad work in 1878, assuming 
charge of the construction of the line from Mexico, Mis- 
souri, to Kansas City, but he was subsequently trans- 
ferred to Joliet. He became identified with the R. W. 



lil-t 



THR CITY OF CHICAGO. 



Hunt Company in 1888. of which firm lie has since 
become a member. 

Mr. Fiero is a member of the Western Society of 
Engineers and the Engineers' Club of New York City, 
the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance of 
Way Association, the American Institute of Mining 
Engineers, and the Union League Club of Chicago, 
and is politically a Republican. He was married in 1881 
to Miss Florence Carpenter of Joliet, Illinois, and has 
two children, Emilie Louise and Conro. The latter, who 
was graduated from Yale University in June, 1904, is 



cardinal duty of a good citixen. National and local 
elections always find him ready to "do his duty as God 
gives him to see his duty.'' 




ALBERT W. FIERO. 

assistant engineer for the San Pedro, Los Angeles & 
Salt Lake Railroad and also assistant engineer of the 
Indiana Harbor Railroad. 

John C. McMynn, mechanical engineer for Robert 
W. Hunt & Company, was born January 16. 1869, at 
Racine, Wisconsin, the son of Colonel John G. McMynn 
and Marion (Clark) McMynn. Mr. McMynn was edu- 
cated at his father's academy and at the University of 
Wisconsin (1887-88-89). In 1890 he was given the 
degree of B. A. at Williams College, Massachusetts. 
He got his M. E. and M. M. E. from Cornell in 1891 
and 1892 respectively. 

In 1892 Mr. McMynn accepted an offer to come to 
Chicago and associate himself with Robert W. Hunt & 
Company. 

Mr. McMynn is a prominent clubman. He holds 
membership in the C. A. A., the Marquette, the Chicago 
Yacht and the Columbia Yacht clubs. Politically he is 
a dyed-in-the-wool Republican. Although an excep- 
tionally busy man, Mr. McMynn never forgets the 




JOHN C. McMYNN. 

Mr. McMynn was married on January 15, 1904, to 
Miss Elsie Voche of Chicago. Chicago has many brainy 
young men. but few of them who have been the archi- 
tects of their own fortune have such great gifts as has 
young Mr. McMynn. 

Bion J. Arnold was fourteen years o!d, when, using a 
magazine picture for a model, he constructed the first 
bicycle ever seen in Nebraska. Succeeding years have 
trained and developed the mechanical genius of the one- 
time precocious country boy, until to-day he is con- 
sidered one of the leading electrical engineers of the 
world. His father was a western pioneer and a mem- 
ber of the first territorial legislature of Nebraska. 
Other ancestors were leaders in the colonial and revo- 
lutionary days of this country. Joseph Arnold wanted 
his son to follow in his footsteps and read law, but the 
successful completion of the bicycle convinced the 
father that his son's talents were not those of a barrister. 
A locomotive that would run was young Arnold's tri- 
umph in his eighteenth year. The next year he left 
home to come east, where he could meet older engi- 
neers and attend school. 

At the present time, Mr. Arnold divides the week 
between his Chicago and New York offices. In Chicago 
he is the consulting engineer for the city and upon him 
devolves the burden of planning a satisfactory munici- 
pal transportation system and reorganizing the 
$100,000,000 worth of traction properties. In New 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



215 



York he is acting' as consulting engineer for the New 
York Central and the Grand Trunk Railway companies 
and is a member of the commission that is designing 
and installing- the $30.000.000 system by which the 
New York Central Railroad will propel all trains within 
thirty miles of the Grand Central station by electricity. 

Mr. Arnold was born at Casenovia, near Grand 
Rapids. Michigan. August 14. 1861. The family moved 
to Nebraska where he attended school until entering 
Hillsdale (Michigan) College, which gave him the 
degree of B. S. in 1884. and the honorary degree of 
M. Ph. in 1889. In 1903 his alma mater conferred on 
him a testimonial diploma in recognition of his "dis- 
tinguished learning and achievement in invention and 
mechanical and electrical engineering." Mr. Arnold 
also attended Cornell University and holds an honorary 
degree from the University of Nebraska. He was only 
27 years old and mechanical engineer of the Great 
Western Road when he resigned the position to enter a 
post-graduate course at Cornell. Not satisfied with a 
position in which many an older engineer would have 
been contented, he was willing to start anew in order 
to equip himself for further advance in his profession. 

After leaving Hillsdale College, Mr. Arnold's first 
position was with the Upton Manufacturing Company 
of Port Huron. From there he went to the Edward P. 
Allis Company of Milwaukee. In 1887-1888 he was 
mechanical engineer of the Chicago & Great Western 
Railroad; from 1888 to 1889, general agent of the 
Thomson-Houston Electric Company of St. Louis, and 
from 1890 to 1893, consulting engineer for the General 
Electric Company. 

Since that time he has been in business for himself. 
He designed the Intramural Railway at the World's 
Columbian Exposition and its equipment was an inno- 
vation in electrical engineering. The electrical plant 
of the Chicago Board of Trade which is copied by many 
office buildings where economy of space is desired, was 
planned and installed by him. 

The Chicago & Milwaukee Electric Railway, 
equipped by him. demonstrated to the world the prac- 
ticability of his theory of long-distance electrical rail- 
roading. One of the mountain lines of the Burlington 
system was also equipped by him. Mr. Arnold holds 
patents covering his inventions and has written various 
technical articles of value to his profession. 

He has always been a pronounced advocate of the 
merits of the storage battery and has probably done 
more than any other man to demonstrate and prove its 
efficiency and economy of operation. So positive were 
his opinions when he installed the sub-station rotary 
converter storage-battery system for the Chicago & Mil- 
waukee Electric Railway, that he financially guaran- 
teed the efficiency and operation of the entire line. So 
great was the saving over previous methods of opera- 



tion that now electric roads are generally equipped with 
the same system. His pioneer work in single-phase 
traction has recently caused another advance in the art 
of electric railroading and makes practicable the electri- 
fication of many steam roads. The problem of operat- 
ing the trains of the New York Central with electricity 
is one of great difficulty. Upon its successful solution 
will depend whether electricity is to be installed as a 
motive power for railroads. 

Numerous reports on Chicago's traction problem 
have been presented by Mr. Arnold since he first took 
up the work. The first comprehensive plan for routing, 
equipping and operating all lines elevated, surface or 
subway was presented November i, 1902, after four 




BION J. ARNOLD. 

months' investigation. Supplementary reports have 
since followed. Traction negotiations even in other 
cities are based on these reports of the Chicago situ- 
ation. 

Mr. Arnold is president of the Arnold Company, an 
electrical engineering corporation, operating for many 
of the principal steam railway companies of the coun- 
try. He also is president of the Kenosha (Wisconsin) 
Electric Railway Company. He is a member and a 
former president of the American Institute of Electri- 
cal Engineers, and was one of its five representatives 
at the International Electrical Congress at Paris in 
1900. He is a trustee of Hillsdale College and has 
served as a trustee of the Western Society of Engineers. 
He was first vice-president and chairman of the execu- 
tive committee of the International Electrical Con- 
gress at St. Louis in 1904. He is vice-president of the 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



United Engineering- Society of New York, an organi- 
zation having charge of the $1,500,000 donation of 
Andrew Carnegie for the construction of a joint engi- 
neering building for the American Institute of Electri- 
cal Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical 
Engineers and the American Institute of Mining 
Engineers. 

Mr. Arnold is also a member of the Union League 
Club of Chicago, the Transportation and Engineering 
clubs of New York, the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science, the American Society for the 
Promotion of Engineering Education and the Ameri- 
can Society of Civil Engineers. 

Lyman Edgar Cooley, civil engineer, was born at 
Canandaigua, Ontario County, New York, December 
5, 1850, the son of Albert B. and Aksah (Griswold) 
Cooley. He is a great-grandson of John Cooley, who 
removed to western New York from Connecticut 
early in the nineteenth century, making his home on a 
farm a few miles west of Canandaigua. 

The family is traced to Sir William Cooley in 
England, before whose time the name is found written 
Cowley and Colley. A collateral branch was the Well- 
esley or Wesley family, and from one Richard Colley, 
who assumed this name to inherit estates, Arthur 
Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington, was descended. 
The original Cooley in this country came to New 
England prior to 1636, and from this stock has sprung 
many able men, among whom is the late Judge Thomas 
M. Cooley of Michigan. 

After a course of study at the Canandaigua Acad- 
emy, Lyman E. Cooley taught in that institution in 
1870-1872, and then attended the Rensselaer Polytech- 
nic Institute at Troy, where he was graduated in 1874, 
having covered the course in two years. In 1874-1877 
he became the professor of engineering at North- 
western University, and in 1876-1878 was associate 
editor of the Engineering News. In 1878 he aided 
William Sooy Smith in the construction of the railroad 
bridge over the Missouri, at Glasco, Missouri. Later 
in the year he was engaged under Major (now Colonel) 
Suter, on the improvement of the Missouri and Mis- 
sissippi rivers, with headquarters at St. Louis. For 
four years following he had charge of local improve- 
ments and surveys in Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, 
Arkansas and Tennessee. For two years more he 
was chief assistant, in general charge of all local 
work on the Missouri River below Yankton. Return- 
ing to Chicago toward the end of 1884, ^ r - Cooley 
became editor of the American Engineer, but in 
1885 severed his connection with that journal. 
Later he became interested in sanitary agitation. As 
a member of a sub-committee of the Citizens' associa- 
tion, he drew the report, in September, 1885, which 



began the public agitation in favor of a sanitary canal, 
and aided in securing the organization of a drainage 
and water supply commission, of which he was chief 
assistant in 1886-1887. In 1888, he was consulting 
engineer to the city, and to the commission that framed 
the sanitary district act, and represented the city and its 
seven civic organizations in promoting the bill to a 
passage by the State Legislative in 1889. He acted as 
engineer to the commission that determined the bound- 
aries of the Sanitary District in 1889, and was the first 
chief engineer during 1890. He became a member 
of the board of trustees in 1891, serving until the expira- 
tion of his term in December, 1895, and during the 
entire time was chairman of the Engineering Com- 




LYMAN EDGAR COOLEY. 

mittee. He also acted as consulting engineer of the 
Sanitary District in 1897. Since 1889 he has taken an 
active interest in the extension of the taxing power in 
the district : in fact, has stood sponsor for all legislation 
thus far had in relation to this question. In 1895 he 
was appointed by President Cleveland a member of the 
international deep-watenvays commission (a joint 
commission with Canada), together with Dr. James 
B. Angell, of Michigan, and John E. Russell, of Massa- 
chusetts, and had charge of the investigation. Surveys 
have since been made for ocean navigation from the 
Atlantic seaboard to Chicago and Duluth via the Great 
Lakes. Of the international association to promote this 
project, he is the American vice-president. In the fall of 
1897, Mr. Cooley, with a number of contractors and 
engineers selected by him, went to Nicaragua, incidently 
visiting Panama, for the purpose of advancing the 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



217 



Nicaragua Canal. The events of the Spanish war 
interrupted their plans, and the project has since been a 
matter of government concern. 

In the summer of 1898 he acted as advisory engi- 
neer to the committee appointed by Governor Black 
to investigate the expenditures for the improvements 
of the canals of the state of New York under what is 
known as the "Nine Million Act." In 1896-1897 he 
served as a member of the expert committee appointed 
by Mayor Swift of Chicago to devise a remedy for the 
pollution of Lake Michigan by means of intercepting 
sewers, etc. He has been a member of the Western 
Society of Civil Engineers since 1875, and in 1888 was 
its secretary, and was its president two terms, 1890- 
1891. In 1901 he was a member of the Expert Com- 
mission on a comprehensive plan for the completion 
of the works of the Sanitary District of Chicago. He 
has been the consulting engineer for the Union Water 
Company, Denver, Colorado, during the construction 
of the Cheesman dam, which controls the flow of the 
South Platte near the outlet of South Park. This dam 
is the highest in the world, requiring four years for its 
construction. It is 225 feet high and forms a reservoir 
with a depth of 210 feet, and is designed to control a 
reserve supply of water for the City of Denver, and is 
sufficient for three years. Mr. Cooley is engineer for 
the Keokuk & Hamilton Water Power Company, 
which recently secured the consent of congress to the 
construction of a dam across the Mississippi River at 
the foot of the Des Moines rapids. This dam will be 
over a mile long, and 30 to 35 feet high, and will pro- 
duce a minimum of over 60,000 horse power. Mr. 
Cooley has continued to promote the deep waterway 
between Chicago and St. Louis, which formed part of 
his original conception of the sanitary solution in 1885. 

Mr. Cooley is a member of the American Society of 
Civil Engineers, the Western Society of Engineers, the 
Chicago Academy of Sciences, the National Geographic 
Society, and the Chicago Press Club. 

He has lectured at the State Universities of Wis- 
consin, Illinois and Michigan. His most important 
publications on his special subject are : "Lakes and 
Gulf Waterways" (1888-1889), and a more elaborate 
work with the same title in 1891. 

He was married at Canandaigua, New York, 
December 31, 1874, to Lucena, daughter of Peter and 
Lucena McMillan. They have two sons and a daughter. 

Henry M. Byllcsby, president of H. M. Byllesby & 
Company, incorporated, is one of the well-known 
mechanical engineers of the city, whose name con- 
nected with a big commercial enterprise is looked upon 
as a guarantee of its success. He was born in New 
Jersey, the son of the Rev. DeWitt C. and Sarah 
Mathews Byllesby, and was educated in Lehigh Uni- 



versity as a mechanical engineer. He afterward served 
in the shops and drafting office of Robert Wetherill & 
Co., Chester, Pennsylvania, and was subsequently in the 
engineering department of the Edison Electric Light 
Company, New York. Mr. Byllesby then became first 
vice-president and general manager of the Westing- 
house Electric Company, managing director of the 
Westinghouse Electric Company, Limited, of London, 
England, and afterward president of the Northwestern 
General Electric Company. 

Mr. Byllesby's rapid advance in the world of electric 
development soon gave him a foremost position among 
the electrical experts of the country. During the first 
few years after his leaving college he was constantly 




HENRY M. BYLLESBY. 

identified with the development of electric light, street 
railways, power transmission and gas plants. He 
launched into a business career for himself when H. M. 
Byllesby & Company was incorporated and he became 
president of the corporation. The company is engaged 
in the business of consulting, designing and construct- 
ing engineers for all classes of railway, light, gas, 
hydraulic and power transmission plants. 

The company is largely interested as managers and 
engineers and also as part owners in utility properties 
at San Diego, California, Oklahoma City. Oklahoma 
Territory, Fort Smith, Arkansas, Zanesville, Ohio, 
Mansfield. Ohio, as well as a large number of prop- 
erties distributed generally throughout the country. 

Although his business interests have been vast, Mr. 
Byllesby has found time to indulge in the social ameni- 
ties of life and is a member of the Union League Club, 



IMS 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



Chicago, tlie Midlothian Country Club, Chicago, the 
Lawyers' Club, New York City and the Queen City 
Club, Cincinnati, Ohio. 

He married Margaret Stearns, daughter of the late 
H. P. Baldwin of the New Jersey Central Railroad 
Company. His residence is at 4642 Lake avenue, 
Chicago. 

James Ormerod Heyworth, one of the most success- 
ful of western civil engineers and contractors, was born 
at Chicago, June 12, 1866. His elementary education 
was secured in the grammar and high schools of this 
city. After graduating from high school with honors, 
Mr. Heyworth entered Yale University and completed 
his college education at that institution. 

Even as a boy, Mr. Heyworth's tastes inclined 
to engineering and scientific work. His studies and 




JAMES ORMEROD HEYWORTH. 

collegiate training were directed along the lines he pre- 
ferred and he started active engineering work imme- 
diately after leaving college. As a general contractor 
he has supervised and completed important engineering 
undertakings in many parts of the United States. The 
immense jetties at Port Arthur, Texas, were con- 
structed by him. Those at Fernandino, Florida, also, 
are the result of his planning and work. The locks and 
dams of the Warrior river in Alabama are others of 
his accomplishments. Various sections of Chicago's 
superb track elevation system now are being built by 
Mr. Heyworth. A number of other large engineering 
tasks are under his charge and nearing completion. 

Mr. Heyworth's parents were James O. and Julia 
F. (Dimon) Heyworth. He was married to Miss Mar- 



tica G. Waterman of Southport, Connecticut, and has 
his home at Lake Forest, Illinois. Mr. Heyworth 
is a member of numerous social and professional 
clubs. Among the number are : The University Club, 
the Calumet Club, the Engineers Club, the Onwentsia 
Club, the Washington Park Club, the Chicago Yacht 
Club and the Tolleston Club. His business office is 
in the Railway Exchange building. 

Kohler Brothers, contracting engineers, specialize 
in the complete installation of lighting and power 
plants, the building of electric railways and various 
phases of newspaper and printing press engineering. 
The reputation of the firm in the latter line is world- 
wide, and it owns many valuable patents which increase 
the production of press rooms, save time and paper, 
and govern and control presses and other machinery 
by means of electric push buttons. 

The firm was organized in 1891 by G. A. Edward 
Kohler and Franklin W. Kohler. Its main offices are in 
Chicago, occupying suites 1804 to 1812 Fisher build- 
ing. The factory is located at 54-56 Custom House 
court. The New York office is in the Metropolitan 
Life building and the European office is in London at 
56 Ludgate Hill. 

Among the electrical contracts that the company 
has completed in and near Chicago are the following : 
Chicago & Alton railroad shops, Chicago, Burlington 
& Quincy railroad shops, the Illinois Central terminal 
and suburban stations, the Oregon Short Line shops, 
South Side Elevated Railroad entire installation, the 
Union Pacific Railroad shops, the lighting and heating 
plants of the Illinois Eastern Hospital for the Insane 
and the Illinois Northern Hospital for the Insane, the 
lighting plant of the St. Charles Home for Boys, and 
numerous other public and private institutions. 

The devices of Kohler Brothers are used in printing 
establishments in all parts of the world. Collectively 
these inventions are known as The Kohler System, 
and are adopted in their entirety by most of the best 
equipped newspaper offices. The Kohler System 
includes patents covering Stone magazine reels, for 
continuously feeding paper without stopping the press, 
pneumatic lifts, paper carriers, trucks and lifts, plate 
trucks, auto-plate controllers, flat-bed press controllers 
and all devices entering into the operation of news- 
paper and printing plants. Their electric push-button 
method of control is the most distinctive feature of the 
system. 

After the great Baltimore fire, every new press- 
room in the city, except one, was designed, recon- 
structed and equipped with The Kohler System. 

Notable printing establishments which use this sys- 
tem for the electrical operation and speed control of 
their presses and other machinery are : The United 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



21!) 



States Government Printing Office, the Chicago Daily 
News, the Chicago Tribune, the Brooklyn Eagle, the 
Baltimore American, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 
Frank A. Munsey, R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company, 
the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Sears, Roe- 
buck & Company, Arbuckle Brothers, the Morning 
Post of London, Le Matin of Paris, El Mercuric 
of Santiago, Chili, and hundreds of others. 

The Roebling Construction Company, after a long 
series of practical experiments, has perfected one of the 
most effective and economical systems of fireproof con- 
struction for modern buildings, and its systems of floors 
and partitions is rapidly becoming one of the best known 
and most favored throughout the country. 

Fireproof construction as an economic feature of 
modern buildings has in recent years attained a position 
of great importance and has been the subject of exhaust- 
ive investigation by engineers and architects, and claims 
an important place in all engineering and architectural 
journals. Numerous methods are now on the market, 
only a few of which satisfactorily fulfill the requirements, 
and some of these are so expensive as to preclude their 
extensive use. 

The main offices of The Roebling Construction 
Company are located in New York City, where it 
employs a very large force of engineers. Its factories 
are at Trenton, New Jersey. Branch offices are located 
in the principal cities of the country, and the company 
is prepared to make estimates promptly and execute 
contracts in all parts of the United States, Canada and 
Mexico. 

The Chicago office is in charge of Mr. Andrew \Y. 
Woodman, who is not only the Western but also the 
New England agent of the corporation, having another 
office at Boston, where he spends part of his time. He 
is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology and has been associated with The Roebling Con- 
struction Company since its incorporation. His early 
experience in structural work was obtained in the East, 
where he served for a number of years with one of the 
leading bridge companies, after being graduated from 
college. 

Among the fireproof buildings in Chicago in which 
the company has erected its system of floor construction 
may be mentioned : Orchestra Hall, the addition to 
the Rialto building, the addition to the Union League 
Club, The Inter Ocean's new building, Brooke's Casino, 
McVicker's and other theaters and numerous high-class 
apartment buildings and hotels. 

Some of the largest works of the company have 
been carried on in New York dty, as that city has the 
reputation of erecting more new buildings than any 
other citv in the country. It has built its floors in some 
of the finest hotels and private residences in the coun- 



try, notably: the Astoria, the St. Regis, the Astor and 
the Belmont hotels, the Andrew Carnegie, P. A. B. 
Widener and Edwin J. Benvind residences. At present 
the company is engaged upon the largest fireproof build- 
ing in the world, the store of John Wanamaker at Phila- 
delphia, a building which will contain about forty acres 
of floor space. 

The system of floors as developed by the company 
is capable of economic use in any and all kinds of build- 
ings, and in each case the type of floor used is scientific- 
ally designed so as to properly meet the existing condi- 
tions. By its method the company can with ease build 
floors capable of sustaining the heaviest loads, as proof 
of which may be cited the fact that its construction has 
in several instances been used for the floors of heavy 
bridges. Experiments made of a section of flooring 
previously subjected to a five-hour fire test, in which 
the temperature reached a height of 2,350 degrees, 
proved that it could sustain a load of 4,100 pounds per 
square foot. 

The Roebling system is impregnable to fire, can be 
quickly installed and assures immunity from those 
unsightly stains which so generally appear on ceilings 
where other forms of floors are used. It is the cheapest 
and most successful of all the fireproofing systems, and 
buildings where it is used are assured of the lowest rates 
of insurance. 

E. C. & R. M. Shankland, of the Rookery building, 
is one of the leading engineering firms in the West. The 
firm was organized in 1898, both brothers at that time 
being connected with D. H. Burnham & Company, the 
architects. Edward Clapp Shankland came into interna- 
tional prominence in 1892, when he acted as engineer 
of construction of the World's Columbian Exposition 
and later as chief engineer of the fair. He was born in 
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, August 2, 1854. At an early 
age he went with his parents to Dubuque, Iowa, where 
he was educated in the public schools. In 1878 he was 
graduated from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 
Troy, New York, as a civil engineer. . Immediately after 
his graduation he was employed by the national govern- 
ment on the improvement of the Mississippi and Mis- 
souri rivers, being engaged in this work for five years. 
From 1883 to 1889 Mr. Shankland made a reputation as 
an engineer in bridge work at Canton, Ohio. In the 
latter year he joined the staff of Burnham & Root in 
Chicago, designing the steel work for many of the 
modern skyscrapers in the country. In 1894 he became 
a member of the firm of D. H. Burnham & Company, 
where he remained until he entered into partnership 
with his brother. The specialty of the firm is the 
designing of steel work for modern buildings. 

Mr. Shankland has received many testimonials of 
his ability. He has been awarded the Telford gold 



220 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



medal and premium from the Institute of Civil Engi- 
neers for a paper read by him on "Steel Skeleton 
Structure in Chicago." Cornell College, Iowa, gave 
him the honorary degree of M. A. He is a member of 
the American Society of Civil Engineers, American 
Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Institute of 
Civil Engineers, Western Society of Engineers, Ameri- 




EDVVARD CLAPP SHANKLAND. 

can Society of Testing Materials, and Franklin Institute. 
He is also a member of the University, Midday, Press 
and Engineers' clubs. He resides with his wife and 
three children at 4808 Champlain avenue. 

Ralph Martin Shankland was born in Dubuque, 
Iowa, September 8, 1863. He was graduated as a 
civil engineer from the University of Michigan in 1888. 
In 1890 he came to Chicago and entered the employ of 
D. H. Burnham & Company. He remained there until 
1898, when he formed the present partnership with his 
brother. 

He is a member of the American Society of Civil 
Engineers, the Western Society of Engineers, Kenwood, 
Homewood, University and Midday clubs. 

In 1894 he married and with his wife and one son 
makes his home at the Hyde Park hotel. 

Thomas Elevator Company. The construction or 
material elevator is the mechanical heart whose throbs 
mark the life and growth of a modern skyscraper. The 
use and development of the elevator has accompanied 
and been a phase in the adoption of the present style 
of office building. Twenty-five years ago when build- 
ings were few stories in height, elevators to carry 
materials and tools were unnecessary and unheard of. 



To-day, even the temporary disabling of a construction 
elevator means the halting of all work on the building. 

The Thomas Elevator Company of Chicago is the 
pioneer in the devising, manufacturing and operating 
of such elevators. It was the first concern to perfect 
and install the electrical hoist, and there is hardly a large 
building in Chicago in whose construction this com- 
pany has not assisted. 

In the construction of the immense new plant of 
Sears, Roebuck & Company, thirty electrical hoists are 
now being operated by the company. This is the 
largest number ever in use in one building at one time 
and for their maintenance alone it was necessary that 
the elevator company install a sub-station at a cost of 
$4,000. 

The Thomas Elevator Company has been operating 
since the Chicago fire in 1871. With the advent of 
the high building came the era of the steam machine 
hoist. Four years ago, realizing the possibilities of 
electrical appliances, the company began experimenting 
with electrical hoists, though to adopt them meant the 
discarding of more than one hundred steam engines. 
The electrical machine was found to be far superior 
in doing away with steam, smoke, water, grease and 




E. A. THOMAS. 

other dirt, and the engines were thrown away. The 
electrical hoists were first used in the construction of 
the Trude building. Since that time they have beer, 
used with absolute success in every large building in 
the down-town district. 

They are operated at an average speed of one story 
per second the top floor of a twenty-story building 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



221 



being reached in twenty seconds. This means to the 
builder that his material arrives as promptly and his 
work is conducted as cheaply on the twentieth as on 
the second story. Contractors realize the vital charac- 
ter of the elevators and their stopping means the tie- 
up of the material and all the workmen on the building. 

As a safety precaution a stringent rule is always 
enforced against carrying workmen on these elevators. 
The machinery is not rented to contractors but the 
elevator company receives a subcontract to furnish, 
install, maintain and operate these machines when a 
building is being constructed. 

The steam hoists are still used on small buildings 
and outside of the business sections of cities. On some 
buildings even horsepower hoists are used. The first 
hoists a generation ago were operated by hand power, 
and still continue in use on small flat buildings. 

The main office, factory and store house of the 
Thomas Elevator Company are at 113 to 115 South 
Hoyne avenue. A branch office for Chicago is at State 
and Fifty-first streets. In 1895 another branch office 
was started in New York, which has come to be one of 
the largest of its kind in the East. 

E. A. Thomas, the head of the company, was born 
in Delavan, Wisconsin, March 19, 1850. He came to 
Chicago in 1871 and took a place with his brother, the 
late Charles E. Thomas, in the present business. Chi- 
cago has been his permanent home since that time. He 
has always taken an interest in the business affairs of 
the city and is a director of the Builders' Club and a 
member of the Chicago Athletic Association. 

The Illinois Brick Company was incorporated March 
31, 1900, under the laws of Illinois, to consolidate under 
one ownership and control the principal brick interests 
of Chicago. The properties acquired by the company 
embrace thirty-six brick-making plants, including those 
of the Hoyt & Alsip Brick Company, Alsip Brick Com- 
pany, Purington-Kimbell Brick Company, Weckler 
Brick Company. Weckler-Prussing Brick Company, 
Wehl Brothers, Purington Brick Company, Thomas 
Moulding Company, Evanston Brick Company, Jeffer- 
son Brick Company, Bernard F. Weber, Harms-Schlake 
Brick Company, Will Brothers, Riemer, Labahn & 
Kuester, Henry J. Lutter, Wolff & Blaul, Robinson 
Brick Company, Gray Tuthill Company, J. Hundriser 
Company, Harland Brick Company, Shermanville Brick 
Company, Michael Myers, John Busse & Son and Wil- 
liam Mensching. 

The capital stock is $4,000,000, 6 per cent cumula- 
tive preferred, of which $3,550,500 was issued, and 
$5,000,000 common, of which $4,350,500 is outstanding. 
The preferred shareholders are entitled to priority as 
to assets. 

The company has $370,000 trust deed obligations 



among its liabilities, and as an offset thereto has 
$300,000 bonds in the treasury. 

The officers of the Illinois Brick Company are: 
President, George C. Prussing; vice-president, A. J. 
Weckler; secretary, W. E. Schlake; treasurer, C. D. B. 
Howell ; auditor, Charles B. Ver Nooy. The directors 
are : Geo. C. Prussing, William Schlake, C. D. B. 
Howell, C. B. Ver Nooy, Wm. Legnard, Adam J. 
Weckler, Joseph Moulding, Phillip Lichtenstadt, D. R. 
Forgan, E. C. Potter, M. A. Farr. 

Martin B. Madden's rise from a farmer boy to a 
member of Congress is a story of political and business 
success with few parallels. He was born in England, at 
Darlington, March 20, 1855. His father, John Madden, 
was one of the Third Estate and his mother, Eliza 
O'Neill, was descended of the ancient ruling family. The 
Maddens migrated to America in 1860, arriving at 
Lemont, Illinois. When Martin was six years old he 
was sent to the public schools, which he attended four 
years. In his early youth he worked on neighboring 
farms, the while attending night school. 

His life was not particularly eventful, except for 
his marriage to Miss Josephine Smart of Downer's 
Grove, Illinois, 'in 1878, and his purchase of an interest 
in the Joliet Stone Company in 1881, until April. 1889, 
when his political endeavors commenced. He was 
elected alderman to represent the Fourth Ward, and 
two years later he was returned to his seat by the over- 
whelming majority of 1,500 votes. He served a third 
term from 1891 to 1893, his third election being marked 
by a 2,000 plurality. During these six years of public 
service Mr. Madden made an enviable record for him- 
self. He was the chief sponsor for the civil service 
reform movement. The final passage of the Merit law, 
in 1895, during his fourth term, may be ascribed to his 
efforts. He accomplished much in the way of improv- 
ing the city's finances, and also busied himself very 
largely with the traction problem. 

Three times Mr. Madden was urged to run for 
Mayor, but he stepped aside for George B. Swift, whose 
ticket was successful by a majority of 4,000. He played 
a prominent part in the national campaign of 1896, 
probably the most memorable in history, when Bryan 
espoused the silver cause. As an orator of abilty, Mr. 
Madden was instrumental in making votes for Me Kin- 
ley and returning Illinois to the Republican ranks by a 
comfortable margin. 

Business duties curbed his political activities for 
eight years following. He had become president of the 
Western Stone Company in 1891, and the concern had 
by this time grown to an enterprise of some magnitude. 
To-day it represents the consolidation of twelve distinct 
stone companies, and is one of the largest industries 
in the state. In this connection Mr. Madden's views 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



upon the trust and labor problems are interesting. He 
is himself a large employer of labor, in addition to being 
an organizer, and is consequently equipped to offer a 
solution for these economic questions. The remedy he 
suggests is to apply the national bank method of super- 
vision to all trusts or combinations that make or handle 
articles of universal necessity, and having the states 
adopt similar methods of supervising local combinations. 

In the national election of 1904, Mr. Madden, at a 
great personal sacrifice, accepted the nomination for 
Congress in the First district, where he was elected by a 
good margin in a hitherto Democratic stronghold. 

Mr. Madden's success calls to mind a prophetic 
utterance of his mother, when Martin was yet in his 
teens : 

"I have raised a son," she said, "who will not lie, 
nor take anything that does not belong to him, nor own 
anything that he has not paid for in full. He will not 
say anything against his neighbor, even if that neighbor 
be his enemy. He will not go into debt for himself. 
He will live on less than he earns and ever have money 
011 hand to help himself and his friends along. He will 
all his days do for his employers more than he may be 
paid to do. He has a fine mind, a good tongue and a 
clean soul, and he will keep them that way as long as he 
lives, 1 know. He cannot easily be deceived, can take 
care of himself, and will never deserve any shame. He 
will rise from the time he left home and will not fall 
until he dies, and he will always stand up tall and 
straight among his fellow men. I am satisfied alto- 
gether with him and proud of what I have done in 
rearing him. The greatest statesman can do no more 
for the country than I have done in giving Martin to 
it God bless them both." 

The Meacham & Wright Company. The firm of 
Meacham & Wright, manufacturers' agents and dealers 
in hydraulic cements, stucco, etc.. was organized in 1874 
by Floras D. Meacham and Frank S. Wright. It is the 
sole distributing agents for the Utica Cement companies 
of La Salle County, Illinois, and its business ramifica- 
tions extend to all points throughout the country where 
the Utica hydraulic cement has been known and used 
for upward of fifty years. The firm is likewise one of the 
largest dealers in imported and domestic Portland 
cements in the Central and Western states, and for years 
it has furnished the cementing material for a large 
majority of the celebrated engineering and architectural 
works executed in Chicago, St. Louis, Denver, Kansas 
City, St. Paul, Detroit, Cleveland, Indianapolis, etc., and 
for practically all the railroads radiating from Chicago. 
The well-known Utica cement, whose entire output of 
3,000 barrels per diem is alone controlled and distributed 
by this firm through its Chicago and St. Louis houses, 
has been exclusively used since 1853 in the construction 



of the entire water supply and sewerage systems of the 
city of Chicago, and largely in its gas works and cable 
traction and other street railroad systems, and in its 
roadway and sidewalk paving foundations. On January 
14, 1903, the firm was incorporated under the name of 
the Meacham & Wright Company. Its officers are 
Floras D. Meacham, president : Frank S. Wright, vice- 
president. 

Florus D. Meacham, of the firm of Meacham & 
Wright, was born at Whitehall, Washington County, 
New York, on April 26. 1843. He is the son of Floras 
D. and Lucinda (Church) Meacham. 

Mr. Meacham came to Chicago with his parents in 
1857, and up to the time of the Civil war was engaged 




FLORUS D. MEACHAM. 

as a clerk in the offices of the Illinois Central Railroad. 
When the war broke out he would have been one of the 
first to enlist had he followed his own inclinations, but 
he yielded to the entreaties of his parents and remained 
at home. A year later, however, when it was found that 
the suppression of the rebellion was not to be as easy 
as was at first thought, a number of young men, com- 
posed for the greater part of employees of the large mer- 
cantile houses of the city, organized the Chicago 
Mercantile Battery. The name of Floras D. Meacham 
was on the enlistment roll, and he went to the front with 
others who had lain down their work that they might 
help save the Union. 

Mr. Meacham served until the close of hostilities. In 
the first year of army life he took part in the Mississippi 
River campaign, and in the following year went through 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



the siege at Vicksburg from its commencement in the 
early spring- until the final surrender on July 4. After 
the capitulation of this place he was with General Banks 
on the Red River campaign, and after this his battery 
was sent to New Orleans, and subsequently took part, 
under General Davidson, in the land operations against 
Mobile, which was among the last of the Southern ports 
to fall. 

Returning to Chicago in 1865, Mr. Meacham was 
mustered out with the remaining members of his battery 
who had survived the three years of service in the field. 
Taking up civil life where he had left it, he was engaged 
in various mercantile pursuits until 1874, when, with 
Mr. F. S. Wright, he organized the firm of Meacham & 
Wright, dealers in Utica and Portland cements. This 
business has been very successful, and is by far the 
largest of its kind in the country. 

Mr. Meacham is a Republican in his political affilia- 
tions, and, although he has never sought office, he was 
honored by the Republican County Convention of 1898 
with the nomination for member of the Board of Review, 
to which position he was elected November 8, 1898, 
and reflected in November, 1904. This office, which is 
one of the most important to the taxpayer, is the arbiter 
in all matters that pertain to both real and personal tax- 
ation, and his election was but a just recognition of his 
executive ability and his successful business career. 

Mr. Meacham is a member of the Loyal Legion and 
of the Grand Army of the Republic. He is also identi- 
fied with the Illinois and Lincoln clubs, and has a high 
standing among the business men of Chicago. 

Frank S. Wright, of the firm of Meacham & Wright, 
is a native of the Badger State, having been born at 
Milwaukee, July 27, 1846. He is the son of Peter B. and 
Elizabeth (Ledden) Wright. Mr. Wright received his 
education in the common schools of his native city and 
in those of Sheboygan in the same state, to which latter 
place his parents removed when he was ten years of 
age. When he was fifteen, however, he gave up his 
studies and came to Chicago in search of work. His 
first employment was with the commission house of 
Shackford & How. afterward better known, perhaps, 
under the name of George M. How. Here he remained 
until the spring of 1867, when, although not yet of age, 
he formed a partnership with Mr. A. C. Scoville, under 
the name of Scoville & Wright, and engaged in the com- 
mission business at No. 44 West Lake street. This firm 
had a prosperous career until January i, 1869, when Mr. 
Wright withdrew and entered the employ of Haskin, 
Martin & Wheeler, wholesale dealers in salt and cement. 
He remained with them until the formation of the pres- 
ent firm of Meacham & Wright, some few years later. 

Mr. Wright is a strong Republican in his political 
views and a member of the Illinois Club. He takes 



much interest in the welfare of the fraternal order known 
as the Royal League, and as a member of its Supreme 
Council was very active during its early years in building- 
it up and placing it on its present secure footing. 




FRANK S. WRIGHT. 

He was married January 4, 1866, to Miss Mercy A. 
McClevey, daughter of Colonel Smith McClevey of Chi- 
cago, and has a family of four daughters and one son. 

The Northwestern Terra Cotta Company, [t is 

not generally known that the majority of our great 
skyscrapers are built of clay. A visit to the immense 
plant of the Northwestern Terra Cotta Company, 1000 
Clybourn avenue, will prove the truth of this, however. 
This company is the largest terra cotta concern in the 
world, in size as well as output. The plant covers about 
twenty acres of ground on the north side. 

To see carloads of clay come in at one end and 
watch it through various metamorphoses, until it is 
shipped out as architectural terra cotta, of almost end- 
less colors and designs and of a durability that will 
withstand the wear of centuries, is an interesting study. 
Coming into the plant, the clay is ground to a powder 
and then mixed with water until it becomes pliable and 
elastic. It is next put into molds of plaster of Paris. 
These molds have been made from models done in 
modeling clay by sculptors. Having received their 
forms in these molds, the pieces of soft clay are put 
into a drying room until all moisture has evaporated, 
leaving them hard and firm. The surfaces are then semi- 
glazed or enameled by being sprayed with a chemical 
mixture with compressed air. The material is then 
ready for the final process, that of burning. In great 



224 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



kilns, of which there are twenty-six at the plant, each 
as large as a house, it is subjected to the constant heat 
of a roaring fire for seven days. The brick door of the 
kiln is gradually taken down when the fire is extin- 
guished, the ware being allowed to cool for several 
days. The kiln is then opened and terra cotta, a 
material of high compressive strength and lightness, 
taken out, where clay had been put in. The inside of 
each block of terra cotta is hollow for brick filling. 

In the thirty years the Northwestern Terra Cotta 
Company has been in existence it has furnished terra 
cotta for numberless skyscrapers and for government 



rotunda in cream-colored terra cotta, instead of marble. 
This work was done by the Northwestern Company 
as was the exterior of the Railway Exchange building. 

The officers of the concern are skilled by long expe- 
rience in the manufacture of terra cotta, dating back 
to the time of their predecessors, the Chicago Terra 
Cotta Company. The president, G. Hottinger, was a 
sculptor. John R. True, vice-president and treasurer, 
gained his first experience as a clerk, and F. Wagner, 
the secretary, was an architect. 

Cameron L. Willey, importer, exporter and manu- 
facturer of foreign and domestic hardwood lumber and 




THE NORTHWESTERN TERRA- COTTA COMPANY'S PLANT. 



and public buildings thoughout the country. Seven 
hundred and fifty employees, working in eight-hour 
shifts, make the plant a scene of industry, night and 
day. At the St. Louis Fair the products of the company 
received the grand prize, in a competition with seventy 
exhibitors. First awards were also received at New 
Orleans in 1884 and at Chicago in 1893. An interesting 
exhibit of the work done by the company is made at 
its branch office in the Railway Exchange building. The 
walls of the room are built of inlaid enameled terra 
cotta in an almost infinite variety of shades and colors. 
At the time the Railway Exchange building was 
erected an innovation was made in executing the 



veneer, is the proprietor and operator of the largest 
veneer plant in the world. His offices, yards, docks 
and factories are located at 1225 Robey street, south of 
Blue Island avenue. The eastern and export office is 
at 130 Pearl street, New York city; the foreign office is 
at No. 45 Exchange Chambers, Liverpool, England. 

The Chicago business of C. L. Willey was estab- 
lished in 1891. Previous to that he had been in business 
for himself in Pittsburg, selling out his interests there 
in 1889. The Eastern business had been established in 
1877 and grown steadily. After coming west, Mr. Willey 
pushed his plant forward until now it outranks all com- 
petitors and is the only one of five in the United States. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



The ability to produce the choicest veneer is acquired 
only through long experience in manufacturing and by 
having access to a vast quantity of hardwood logs from 
which to make selection. The whole world is ransacked 
for the logs that are sawed in this mill, and constant 




CAMERON L. WILLEY. 

investigation keeps the concern in the foreground in 
advanced methods of manufacture. 

Agents for. Mr. Willey are constantly traveling 
through the United States and in foreign countries in 
search of material. He has just returned from an 
extended trip through Europe, where he studied the 
foreign methods of veneer manufacture. Mr. Willey 
personally supervises the opening and sawing of the logs 
for the finest and most costly veneer. There are few 
other industries in which quality is so flexible, or the 
matter of opinion so variable. Mr. Willey's method 
makes it possible to meet all requirements of the users 
of forest productions of the hardwood variety. 

Mr. Willey was born in Dansville, New York, in 
1855. His earlier education was secured in the schools 
of that town, and later he attended Duffs College at 
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1871. His first 
practical business experience was secured in his father's 
saw and shingle mill 'at Warren, Pennsylvania, where he 
worked for seven years. When he had sufficiently mas- 
tered the trade to start business for himself, he moved to 
Pittsburg. 

Mr. Willey's home is at 4750 Grand boulevard. He 
has one son, Charles B. Willey, who is now associated 
with him in business. He is a member of the Union 

15 



League Club, the Chicago Athletic Association, the 
Washington Park Club and the Builders' and Traders' 
Exchange. 

The John Spry Lumber Company, one of the largest 
and foremost in the West, was founded in 1885 
as a successor to the Gardner & Spry Lumber Company, 
one of the pioneer lumber concerns of Chicago. The 
company's yards which have an annual capacity of 
sixty million feet are situated at Ashland avenue and 
Twenty-second street, over a half mile in length, and 
extending from the waterworks to the Chicago river's 
south branch. The business has expanded steadily 
since its inception and to-day the company's trade 
extends to every part of the United States. 

John Spry, the founder and for many years president 
of the company, was a native of Cornwall, England, 
where he was born August 3, 1828. He came to 
America with his parents when a child. The Sprys 
located in Chicago, and John, at the age of thirteen, 
secured employment in the lumber yard of Andrew 
Smith. The position was humble, but the boy acquired 
a thorough knowledge of the business, which later 
qualified him for one of the principal factors of the 
American lumber industry. At the age of twenty-seven 




SAMUEL A. SPRY. 

he secured a working interest in the yard of F. B. 
Gardner, and in 1866, he became an active partner, 
organizing the firm of Gardner & Spry, with F. B. Gard- 
ner as senior partner. In 1869 it became the Gardner 
& Spry Lumber Company. When Mr. Gardner retired, 
in 1885, Mr. Spry reorganized the business as the 



226 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



John Spry Lumber Company, which name has since 
endured. 

Mr. Spry was prominent in public affairs, was one of 
the early members of the Board of Trade and was a 
leading Mason. After his death, which occurred in 
Chicago, February 5, 1891, his sons, John C, Samuel 
A. and George E. Spry, assumed control of the business. 
The first named, the eldest of the three children, was 
born in Chicago in 1857. After receiving an education 
in the public schools and a business college, he entered 
the employ of Gardner & Spry, working his way up to 
the presidency, which he assumed in 1891, after the 
death of his father. He was succeeded in 1900 by Sam- 
uel A. Spry, who had hitherto served as vice-president, 
while George E. Spry, the youngest son, who had 
been secretary and treasurer, became vice-president 
and treasurer. 

In addition to their lumber manufacturing business 
the Sprys are largely interested in pine lands. Finan- 
cially they are resourceful, while they are regarded as 
stimulating factors in the lumber industry. 

The Reginald J. Davis Company stands at the head 
of the firms in Chicago which make a specialty of high- 
class interior finish work and building contracting. It 
was incorporated in 1900 by Reginald J. Davis and is a 
close corporation, being owned and controlled solely by 
Mr. Davis, its founder. Its work is to be seen in many 
of the largest and finest buildings of Chicago, among 
them being the Marshall Field new retail store at 
State and Randolph streets the Railway Exchange 
building at Jackson boulevard and Michigan ave- 
nue, the Heyworth building at \\abash avenue and 
Madison street, the First National Bank building, and 
in many of the finest residences in Chicago. The firm's 
reputation has extended all over the country, so that it 
is frequently called upon to bid upon out-of-town struc- 
tures. At present it is engaged upon the contract on 
the new San Francisco Chronicle building, San Fran- 
cisco, California. The company has its offices at 1451 
Railway Exchange building and it operates three fac- 
tories in Chicago, located at 2300 to 2310 La Salle 
street, 22 and 24 South Jefferson street and 2253 to 
2257 Wentworth avenue. 

Reginald J. Davis, the president of the company, is 
known as one of the experts in the line of interior finish 
in the United States. He was born August 18, 1848, in 
South Wales, England, and learned his profession in 
the old country, serving a long indoor apprenticeship 
and perfecting himself in the many branches which have 
proved so useful to him in his subsequent career. His 
apprenticeship covered the technical as well as the prac- 
tical side of his profession and he took the first prize 
in his examination at the London Technical School, 
receiving a percentage of 97 out of a possible 100. He 



came to the United States in 1878 and settled in St. 
Paul. He came to Chicago in 1882. and speedily forged 
to the front as a contractor. His incorporation of the 
firm of R. J. Davis & Company was the result of close 
application to business and taking advantage of the 
opportunities for fine work when Chicago took the lead 
in the erection of skyscraper buildings. Mr. Davis 




REGINALD J. DAVIS. 

is independent in politics, is a Royal Arch Mason, a 
member of the New Illinois Athletic Club and of the 
Hinsdale Golf Club. He was married in the old country- 
previous to coming to America, and leads a quiet life at 
his home at 945 Sawyer avenue. 

Arthur Nollau, of the Nollau & Wolff Manufactur- 
ing Company, was born in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, in 
1859. He is one of the best known manufacturers of 
general millwork and interior finish of the Middle West. 
Some of the most modern and handsome buildings in 
Chicago and vicinity have been fitted with the products 
of his firm. He began his successful career as a cash 
boy in a Manitowoc general merchandise store, but 
soon was promoted to clerk, and later to bookkeeper. 
With his savings he came to Chicago in 1884 and 
formed a partnership with Otto E. Wolff under the 
firm name of Wolff & Nollau. Their plant is located 
at 35 to 45 Fullerton avenue, covering half a block. It 
has gradually increased from a small factory employing 
20 men to their present capacity of 200 men. In 1900 
the firm was incorporated as the Nollau & Wolff Manu- 
facturing Company. The floor space of the present fac- 
tory is more than 48,000 square feet, not including dry- 
ing kilns, engine rooms, large lumber yards and the 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



227 



offices. The plant of the Nollau & Wolff Manufactur- 
ing- Company is to-day considered one of the best 
equipped and best located for interior finish and general 
milhvork in the United States. 

The new Chicago & North-Western Railway's office 
building at Jackson boulevard and Franklin streets, the 
Majestic theater and office building on Monroe street 




ARTHUR NOLLAU. 

near Dearborn street and Sears, Roebuck & Com- 
pany's new plant at Hamlin and Harvard streets are 
among the recent structures in which the Nollau & 
Wolff Manufacturing Company furnished all the mill- 
work and interior finish. 

Mr. Nollau is a member of the Chicago Athletic 
Association, a prominent Mason and a member of 
several other organizations and fraternities. 

B. F. Weber is a native Chicagoan, born January 6, 
1853, at a date when the population of the City of Chi- 
cago scarcely exceeded 50,000 souls. He is the son of 
Michael and Anna M. Weber, pioneer settlers of the 
city. He acquired a practical education in the public 
schools, and in Dyrenfurth College. Upon attaining 
his majority he engaged in the real estate and loan busi- 
ness on his own account, having offices in the Ewing 
block, and has since been interested in the business, 
being the senior partner of the firm of Weber, Kransz & 
Company, located since 1881 at 84 La Salle street. He 
is one of the original fifty members of the Chicago 
Real Estate Board, and still remains a member. In 
1889 he extended his business operations to include an 
interest in the Jefferson Brick Company, of which he 



was the president, until the formation of the Illinois 
Brick Company, which combination was effected in 
April, 1900. 

In 1891 he organized the Weber-Labahn Company, 
of which he was president until he disposed of his inter- 
est and established his own works, which for many 
years was the model yard of the Illinois Brick Company, 
known as Yard No. 5. 

Mr. Weber was vice-president of the Illinois Brick 
Company until his resignation in February of this year, 
when he resigned to accept the presidency of the 
National Brick Company, recently organized with a 
capital of $500,000, now erecting plants at Weber Sta- 
tion, Illinois, on the Chicago & North-Western Railway, 
Maynard, Indiana, and Chicago Heights, Illinois. 
When completed, the company will have a capacity 
of 1,250,000 brick per clay, the largest output of any 
establishment in this line in the world, not a trust or a 
combination. The company's offices are at 84 La Salle 
street. 

While engaged in the brick business, Mr. Weber 
did as much to develop and improve the territory 
between Chicago and Evanston as any one man. As a 





B. F. WEBER. 

builder, he erected within the past three years over 200 
first-class residences within the territory from Grace- 
land avenue on the south, to, and including Rogers 
Park on the north. He has improved miles of streets 
with first-class paving and sidewalks and all under- 
ground improvements. Many tracts of highly improved 
property are the best testimonials of his efforts. 

He has also built several miles of railroad extending 



228 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



from Oakton avenue to Peterson avenue along the 
township line between Evanston and Niles. This terri- 
tory owes its appreciation in land values solely to his 
efforts, being formerly one vast unimproved semi-wil- 
derness. It now has large manufacturing plants employ- 
ing a thousand or more people. 

Mr. Weber has entirely withdrawn from public 
affairs in which he formerly took considerable part, 
having served in both the Thirty-second and Thirty- 
third General Assemblies as representative from the 
old Sixth senatorial district, which comprised all the 
towns in Cook County outside of the then limits of 
the City of Chicago. He also served two terms as 
assessor and member of the board of trustees of the 
Town of Lake View, and was elected and served two 
terms in the city council, after the annexation of Lake 
View to the City of Chicago in 1895. He was appointed 
election commissioner by Judge Scales, which office he 
subsequently resigned to accept from Governor Altgeld 
a place on the Lincoln Park Board. 

Mr. Weber was married October 14, 1884, to Miss 
Anna M. Kransz, daughter of Nicholas Kransz, one of 
the earliest settlers and prominent citizens of Lake 
View. This union was blessed with seven children, 
three of whom are deceased. Those living are: Clar- 
ence J., Cassius M., Cressie O., and Bernard F., Jr. He 
is a member of Our Lady of Lourdes parish, of which 
he is a regular attendant, belongs to North Shore 
Court, Catholic Order of Foresters, and is also a mem- 
ber of the Knights of Columbus. 

Mr. Weber is a member of the Ravenswood Club, 
Illinois Athletic, and other social organizations. 

Rudolph S. Blome, senior member of the well-known 
firm of Rudolph S. Blome Company, cement paving and 
concrete contractors, is one of the best examples of what 
a young man possessing business ability can accomplish 
in the metropolitan city of the West. The adage of 
"young blood will tell" seems to be especially appro- 
priate in this instance, for although only slightly more 
than thirty years of age it is his energy that has been 
the life of the firm ever since he became connected 
with it. 

Mr. Blome was borne at Monroe, Michigan, in 1871, 
and after graduating from the local high school, com- 
pleted his studies in the University of Michigan at Ann 
Arbor, following which he pursued further work at the 
University of Detroit. He then came to Chicago to 
become identified with Mr. Joseph Stamsen in the 
cement paving business and in 1894 entered into part- 
nership with him under the firm name of Stamsen & 
Blome. 

Upon the death, in 1896, of Mr. Stamsen, Mr. Blome 
became sole proprietor of the business and later changed 
the firm name to Rudolph S. Blome Company, and in 



January, 1904, gave an interest to Mr. William Sinek, 
who had been with the concern a number of years. 

Since Mr. Blome's connection with the business this 
firm has executed nearly all of the larger contracts of 
cement floors and sidewalks, concrete foundations, and 
other forms of concrete construction in and about Chi- 
cago. The field of operations has extended as far north 
as Hamilton, Canada, east to Washington, D. C., 
south to Alabama and west to Salt Lake City, and the 
number of men employed increased from ninety in 1894 
to as high as fourteen hundred in 1904. 

Some idea of the magnitude of the operations of this 
concern may be gained from the fact that during the 
greater part of the season of 1904 they were at work in 




RUDOLPH S. BLOME. 

twenty-two cities outside of and in addition to Chicago. 
Also, while the laying of cement sidewalks is but one 
of the many forms of concrete work they execute, the 
firm has built more cement sidewalks than any other 
concern in the world, aggregating on December 31, 
1904, slightly more than 26,000,000 feet. 

The firm occupies large and well-appointed offices 
on the bank floor of the Unity Building, 79 Dearborn 
street, where all business comes under the personal 
supervision of Mr. Blome. It may here be remarked 
that the success and envied reputation of this firm are 
partially due to the fact that they solicit and execute a 
first-class and superior grade of work only, as is proven 
by the vast amount of their work now in use. Mr. 
Blome is, and has been for three successive terms, pres- 
ident of the Chicago Concrete Contractors' Association. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



229 



He is also a member of the Builders and Traders 
Exchange, and the Union League, Germania Manner- 
chor, Illinois, Athletic and Marquette clubs. 

The Palmer House, located at State and Monroe 
streets in the heart of the retail business district, main- 
tains its position as one of the leading hotels of the city, 
despite the fact that it was built more than thirty years 
ago. Massive in size and built of the finest materials, 
mere alterations have been found necessary to keep 
it up to the standard of the hotels more recently erected. 



conventions of various mercantile associations. With 
its 781 guest rooms, the hotel ranks as one of the largest 
in America. 

Since the death of Potter Palmer a change has been 
made in the system of management. The Chicago 
Hotel Company, organized in 1904, leases and conducts 
the house. Willis Howe, for many years manager of 
the house, was the first president of the Chicago Hotel 
Company and continued in charge of the house until 
the spring of 1905. After his retirement, W. C. Vier- 




PALMER HOUSE. 



Within the last ten years the dining rooms have 
been remodeled, an electric light plant installed and a 
large laundry established in the basement. The parlors 
have been redecorated frequently and many fine paint- 
ings added to the collection that was already on the 
walls. Only recently a new heating plant was estab- 
lished in the basement and a telephone system with 
wires connecting with each of the guest rooms installed. 

The spacious main dining room on the parlor floor 
of the hotel, famous in years gone by, is perhaps the 
scene of more large banquets than any other room in 
Chicago. The club rooms are also a favorite place for 



buchen, for many years head clerk in the hotel, was 
elected president of the Chicago Hotel Company and 
manager of the house. Mr. Vierbuchen still retains 
the position. 

The history of the hotel is known to most Chi- 
cagoans. Work on its construction was begun before 
the great fire of 1871. When it was up to the first 
floor it was destroyed with many of the neighboring 
buildings. With renewed energy Mr. Palmer began 
again the construction of one of the best and most 
costly hotels in America. The hotel was completed 
in the fall of 1873. 



L'iiO 



THE CITY Or CHICAGO. 



The Auditorium Hotel opened a new era in hotel 
construction in America. Until the granite pile had 
been built at the northwest corner of Michigan boule- 
vard and Congress street, there was not an entirely non- 
combustible hotel in the country. For nearly twenty 
years previous to the opening of the hotel in 1890, there 
had been no advancement or improvement in hotel con- 
struction in Chicago, and it was not until after that date 
that the first fireproof and thoroughly modern hotel 
was erected in New York City. The Auditorium was, 
therefore, in a sense, the pioneer of the great, magnifi- 
cent, indestructible, palatial hotels of America. 

Not only was it, when first completed and opened, 



regarded as the most beautiful room of its kind in the 
United States, and the grand dining room on the tenth 
floor which is even larger than the banquet hall, and is 
also frequently used for banquets. Other dining facili- 
ties of the Auditorium proper include a large restaurant 
on the ground floor, and a grill room which was the 
first to be opened in Chicago. 

The World's Columbian Exposition made the 
erection of an additional building necessary and in 1892 
ground was broken at the southwest corner of Michigan 
avenue and Congress street, and the construction was 
begun of the hotel which has since become famous all 
over the world as the Auditorium Annex. This is a 




AUDITORIUM HOTELS. 



a magnificent hotel far superior to anything the United 
States had seen up to that time, but it contained many 
other than the hotel features and some of them were of 
an exceedingly important and interesting character. 

The Auditorium Hotel was so named from the fact 
that the building contains under the same roof with the 
hotel, an auditorium for public gatherings which is, in 
fact, the largest and finest opera house or theater west 
of New York City. The fact that patrons of the Audi- 
torium Hotel may attend the opera or other entertain- 
ment in the Auditorium theater without stepping out 
of doors is of such importance as to need only passing 
mention. 

Other features of the original Auditorium building 
include a banquet hall on the sixth floor, which is 



much larger hotel, so far as the number of rooms is con- 
cerned, than the original Auditorium, and the entire 
structure is given up to hotel purposes. 

The Auditorium Annex is connected with the Audi- 
torium proper by means of a white marble tunnel 
directly underneath Congress street. Thus it is that 
the patrons of the Auditorium Hotel, the Auditorium 
Annex, the Congress Apartments, the Auditorium 
Theater and Fine Arts building are easily enabled to 
intermingle, passing from one great structure to the 
other and enjoying all the privileges and features of 
each without stepping out of doors. 

So great has been the success of the Auditorium 
Annex that a still further enlargement of this magnifi- 
cent hotel was found necessary, and in the spring of 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



231 



1902 the erection was begun of the building known as 
the Congress Apartments. 

The greater portion of the first floor of the new 
building is given up to the Pompeiian room, which, 
since its opening last autumn, has become known from 
one end of the country to the other as an apartment of 
surpassing grandeur and artistic beauty, the counter- 
part of which has never been heretofore encountered 
in hotel construction or equipment. The prominent 
feature and chief attraction of this room is the celebrated 
Tiffany fountain, which was on exhibition at the Pan- 
American Exposition in Buffalo and was considered by 
many visitors as one of its most attractive features. 

The location of the Auditorium Hotel and its 
annexes is superb. Facing Lake Front park, near the 
northern terminus of Michigan boulevard, and over- 
looking the broad expanse of Lake Michigan, its sur- 
roundings and environments are such as no other hotel, 
located close to the business center of a great city, 
can offer. 

The Congress Hotel Company has recently 
acquired the two lots adjoining its property on the 
south, and known as Nos. 228 and 229 Michigan 
avenue. It is intended to erect on these lots a build- 
ing to be operated in connection with the Annex 
hotel. This building will contain about 150 guest 
rooms, a magnificent banquet hall and assembly 
rooms. A large portion of the first floor will be used 
to enlarge and add to the present Pompeiian room. 
This new building will be built on a magnificent scale, 
in keeping with the Congress Hotel Company's 
properties. 

R. H. Southgate is president of the Congress 
Hotel Company, which owns and manages the three 
properties. A. G. Bullock is the vice-president and 
Thomas H. Joyce, secretary and treasurer. The 
board of directors consists of R. H. Southgate, J. 
Frank Lawrence, G. B. Shaw, R. H. Southgate, Jr., 
J. H. Breslin, A. G. Bullock and E. H. Carmack. 

R. H. Southgate is the general manager of all 
the properties. W. S. Shafer is assistant manager in 
charge of the Auditorium Hotel and J. E. Kennedy, 
of the Annex. 

The Great Northern Hotel is one of the best 
equipped and most centrally located hostelries in the 
city. Convenient to the business districts, both 
wholesale and retail, all elevated and steam railway 
stations within easy reach, and near to the theaters, 
it has become the recognized headquarters of 
commercial men, and popular with the traveling pub- 
lic generally. 

Tt is a fourteen-story fireproof structure, fronting 
on Jackson boulevard, Dearborn and Quincy streets, 



with 400 rooms, 250 of which have bathrooms connect- 
ing. There are more rooms with connecting bathrooms 
at the Great Northern than at any hotel in the city. 
The hotel was opened in 1892. and the number of 
guests since then have averaged 400 a day. 

At the present writing, improvements costing over 
$140,000 are being made throughout the house. A new 
kitchen, the finest in the city, done in white tile, has 
recently been completed. All employees in the kitchen 
are dressed in spotless white uniforms, giving a general 
aspect of cleanliness not generally met with in the 
kitchens of big hotels and restaurants. The hotel is run 
strictly on the European plan. A cafe on the parlor 
floor and a grill room in the basement furnish ample 
accommodations for those guests who wish to take 
advantage of the excellent cuisine of the Great North- 
ern. A banquet hall on the parlor floor has recently 
been opened. 




GREAT NORTHERN HOTEL. 



232 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



Besides the usual equipment of the modern hotel, 
every room in the Great Northern is equipped with a 
long distance telephone, an advantage which only a 
few other hotels in the city have. What is said to be 
the finest and most complete barber shop in the country, 




MAJESTIC HOTEL. 



a system of compressed air cleaning throughout the 
house, and an $18,000 ^Eolian organ in the lobby on 
which nightly concerts are given, are but a few of the 
features which attract the wayfarer to the Great 
Northern. 

The basement of the hotel presents a busy scene, 
where new boilers and an improved system of heating 
are being installed. A new electric light plant has 
recently been finished. 

Hotel Majestic is located in Ouincy street, between 
State and Dearborn streets, 150 feet from the main 
Dearborn street entrance of the new Chicago postoffice. 
The hotel is a model steel structure and absolutely fire- 
proof. Built in the form of a quadrangle with halls 
running lengthwise, every room is an outside room, 
insuring fresh air and sunshine to every patron. All 
the bathrooms are beautifully finished with tile and 
furnished with porcelain bath tubs, marble wash stands 
and nickel trimmings. Each room is provided with a 
long distance telephone, is steam heated, lighted by 
electricity and furnished with hot and cold water taps. 
It is no exaggeration to say that the Hotel Majestic is 
one of the most desirable of Chicago's down-town 
hotels. The 200 rooms are unexcelled in Chicago for 
size and elegance of appointments, light, ventilation 
and general desirability. The rates at this hotel are 
extremely reasonable considering the nature and quality 
of the accommodations provided. At the top of the 
house there is one of the most beautiful restaurants in 
Chicago, St. Hubert's Inn. Situated as it is on the 
seventeenth floor, it affords the visitor a splendid view 
of Chicago, Lake Michigan and the surrounding 
country. 

Hotel Majestic is adjacent to the great down-town 
shopping district. All street car lines pass within one 
to three blocks and the Board of Trade, Stock 
Exchange, banks, large office buildings, and the main 
jobbing houses of Chicago are within easy walking 
distance, making it one of the most desirable hotels in 
Chicago for patrons to whom time is a valuable con- 
sideration. 

A modern compressed air vacuum system of dust- 
less cleaning is used at the Majestic. It has a sta- 
tionary air-compressing plant in its basement, with 
standpipes connecting all floors. By this method all the 
rooms in the hotel are kept sweet and clean and sani- 
tary. All the carpets, rugs, draperies, upholstered fur- 
niture, pillows, mattresses, etc., are renovated and 
cleaned with the compressed air vacuum system. 
"Fresh Air" is the motto of the Majestic. The perfect 
ventilation of every room is further enhanced by the use 
of pure atmosphere in removing all dust and microbes, 
producing a sanitary condition that can be attained in 
no other manner. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



PROMINENT MEN, PAST AND PRESENT. 




YRUS HALL McCORMICK, in- 
ventor, manufacturer and benefac- 
tor, was born February 15, 1809, at 
Walnut Grove, Rockbridge County, 
Virginia. The surroundings of his 
early life were extremely pic- 
turesque, the Blue Ridge towering 
above the valley to the east, the 
Alleghanies not far away on the 
west, and the valley itself presenting 
a panorama of fields and waving 
grain, interspersed with streams, hills and 
comfortable homes. Such environment, and the 
inherited genius of his father, together with the prac- 
tical ability of his mother, all combined to fit him for 
his life task. 

His father, Robert McCormick, was a farmer, 
possessing one thousand eight hundred acres of excel- 
lent land, upon which he operated, in the patriarchal 
fashion of the South, a number of industries, including 
a flour mill and saw mill, and a carpenter and blacksmith 
shop. Characterized by tireless industry and imbued 
with mechanical talent, he invented a number of devices 
to simplify the labors of the farm, including a hemp 
break, a threshing machine and a tub-shaped bellows toi 
the blacksmith shop. The idea of constructing a reap- 
ing machine as a means of saving much of the heavy 
work and time consumed in harvest had engaged his 
attention for many years. In 1816 he made a crude ma- 
chine in his own shop, in which he sought to obtain his 
object by means of a row of upright cylinders, armed 
with sickle blades, rotating against a stationary cutting 
edge. The several stalks fell on leather straps, which 
carried them to one side and threw them on the ground. 
The contrivance illustrated the inventor's ingenuity, but 
was not operative, and after another unsuccessful trial in 
1831 it was abandoned. 



The son, Cyrus H. McCormick, who had gained 
partly by inheritance, partly by practice, a love for the 
mechanical arts, watched his father's experiments and 
mechanical work in many lines with a boy's interest. He 
attended an old field school every winter, and in the 
open months of the year learned, by his own experience 
in the work of the farm, the importance of a machine 
which would relieve the husbandman of his heaviest toil 
in harvest time. 

At the age of fifteen he constructed an ingenious, 
light and symmetrical grain cradle, which enabled him 
to keep pace in reaping with the workmen. 

In 1831 he patented a hillside plow, to throw a fur- 
row alternately to the right and left, and in 1833 another 
improved plow, which he called "self-sharpening." 

The father's experimental reaping machine, laid by, 
was a familiar object to young Cyrus in his early years, 
as he has often said. In 1831 Cyrus H. McCormick, 
filled with the idea of a successful reaper, conceived a 
machine upon an entirely different plan, and with re- 
markable energy constructed it and tried it in the field 
during that harvest. The operation was successful and 
the machine thus brought forth, by meeting the difficul- 
ties which had baffled previous efforts, determined the 
line of future development of harvesting machinery. 
So well had he wrought that the essential features of the 
first reaper have never been departed from. The inventor 
used in this machine the vibrating blade, operating in 
fingers, or supports, to the grain being cut, a principle 
which has been retained throughout the development of 
the reaper. The platform for receiving the cut grain 
after it had been severed by the cutting apparatus, and 
from which it was raked to the side in gavels, ready to 
bind, remains the same in principle to-day. The neces- 
sity for the reel to bring the standing grain to the knife, 
and finally incline it upon the platform, was also recog- 
nized in this first machine. The divider also was made 



233 



234 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



a part of this machine, to meet the difficulty found in 
separating effectively the grain which was cut from that 
left standing. The construction upon two wheels, like a 
cart, thus avoiding the awkwardness of some previous 
attempts, has been preserved, as well as the concentra- 
tion of most of the weight of the machine upon the 
driving wheel, a feature which is readily seen by the 
practical man to be important. 

Much thought and repeated improvements during 
the first twenty years had combined to produce a 
machine that, when exhibited at the World's Fair in 
London, in 1851, astonished the world and saved the 
American exhibit from being regarded as commonplace, 
although the London Times had ridiculed the McCor- 




CYRUS HALL McCORMICK. 

mick reaper before the exhibition as a "cross between 
an Astley (circus) chariot, a wheelbarrow and a flying 
machine." It was compelled to acknowledge, after a 
test had been made in the fields, that this machine was 
"worth to the farmers of England the whole cost of the 
exhibition." Writing of this glorious success, Honor- 
able William H. Seward said: "So the reaper of 1831, 
as improved in 1845, achieved for its inventor a triumph 
which all then felt and acknowledged was not more 
a personal one than it was a national one. It was justly 
so regarded. No general or consul, drawn in a chariot 
through the streets of Rome by order of the Senate, 
ever conferred upon mankind benefits so great as he 
who thus vindicated the genius of our country at the 
World's Exhibition of Art in the 'Metropolis of the 
British Empire in 1851." 



Important improvements were added to Mr. McCor- 
mick's machines, and they constantly led in the race to 
produce the best machines for reaping the great harvests 
of the world. The raker and driver had been given 
seats on the machine by 1847, and the one was relieved 
of the drudgery of walking and the other of riding a 
horse. In 1858 experiments were made with the self- 
rake of McClintock Young, and machines with this 
invention were put upon the market in 1860. Scylla & 
Adams had in 1853 conceived the idea of making a 
machine upon which the binders could ride. Marsh 
Brothers further improved this in 1858. and Mr. McCor- 
mick had such a machine on the market in 1873, but 
not much was done with this, for he had experimented 
with a wire binder in 1872, and had such harvesters 
ready to sell in 1875. The twine binder was already 
planned, and he began to supply them to the trade 
in 1881. 

When Mr. McCormick thus saw the modern machine 
develop from his original invention, he built up a manu- 
facturing business for the introduction of his reaper 
to the markets of the world, and thus guided its subse- 
quent development to meet the demands of each 
successive period. He had the satisfaction of developing 
in this manner the largest business of its kind in the 
world. In nearly every national and international exhi- 
bition of the century, Mr. McCormick's reaper was 
awarded the first honor, and he himself was the recipient 
of many marks of distinction. From the first machine of 
1831 up to the latest Right-hand Automatic Binder 
of 1900, there has been a. gradual evolution in the 
McCormick machines, so natural, so important and so 
far-reaching in their benefits to bread winners, as to 
place his name high on the roll of the illustrious men of 
our land. But his life-work would not be adequately 
apprehended if we should stop here. He was a philan- 
thropist and benefactor as well. In 1859 ne proposed to 
the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church to 
endow, with $100,000 the professorships of a theological 
seminary, to be established in Chicago. This was done, 
and during his life-time he gave about half a million 
dollars to this institution, the Presbyterian Theological 
Seminary of the Northwest, now McCormick Theolog- 
ical Seminary. The McCormick professorship of natural 
philosophy in Washington and Lee University of Vir- 
ginia, and gifts to the Union Theological Seminary at 
Hampden-Sidney, and to other colleges under Presby- 
terian influence, also attest his solicitude for the church 
in which he had been reared, and of which he had been 
a member since 1834. In 1872 he came to the aid of 
the struggling organ of the Presbyterian Church in the 
Northwest, The Interior, and used it to foster union 
between the old and the new schools in the church, and 
to aid in harmonizing the Presbyterian Church in the 
Northwest. Under his care and advice The Interior 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



235 



grew to be a mighty voice, expressing the convictions, 
the aspirations and hopes of a great church. 

In 1858 Mr. McCormick was married to Miss Nettie 
Fowler, a daughter of Melzar Fowler of Jefferson 
County, New York. Seven children were born to them, 
of whom five are yet living. Mr. McCormick died May 
13, 1884, in Chicago, leaving an honored name to 
his family. 

Potter Palmer is one of the best known names in 
Chicago. So closely was Mr. Palmer identified with 
the early growth and development of the city that there 
is hardly a landmark in it that does not bear his signet. 
For fifty years he was a conspicuous figure in the his- 
tory of the city and its leading commercial character. 

He was born in Albany County, New York, May 20, 
1826, the son of Benjamin and Rebecca (Potter) Pal- 
mer. He was a descendant of Walter Palmer who was 
a companion of John Endicott, colonial governor of 
Massachusetts, 1629, who later settled at Wequete- 
quock, Connecticut, the scene of present day re-unions 
of the Palmer family. Mr. Potter's early ancestors in 
America were attracted to the sea. Many of them were 
established at New Bedford, Massachusetts, where they 
were engaged in foreign commerce. Three members 
of the family were lost at sea in one year and this so 
shocked the others that they abandoned the sea. The 
direct ancestors of Potter Palmer moved from New 
Bedford to Albany County, New York, in the early 
part of the nineteenth century, where they became 
prominently connected with the affairs of a growing 
community. Benjamin Palmer, father of Potter Pal- 
mer, engaged in stock raising, and at one time owned 
three large stock farms. He married Rebecca Potter, 
daughter of Samuel and Deborah (Ricketson) Potter. 

Potter Palmer, the fourth son of this marriage, 
lived with his parents until he was seventeen years old, 
when he left home for the purpose of learning the ways 
of commerce with his father's promise that as soon as 
he demonstrated his ability he would supply him with 
the needed capital to start him in business. His first 
work was as a clerk in a country store, postoffice and 
bank at Durham, New York. Here his abilities won 
speedy recognition and at the end of two years he was 
given entire charge of the establishment. 

Shortly thereafter he started a dry goods store 
in Oneida, New York, which he later disposed of to 
open a larger one in Lockport. He chafed under the 
stagnancy of small towns and the limit on his capacities, 
and he determined to seek a larger field for his efforts. 
He first thought of going to New York, but the won- 
derful progress then being made in the Middle West 
attracted him and after a visit to Chicago in 1852 he 
decided to move here and establish himself as a dry 
goods merchant. After selling out his business in 



Lockport and adding the capital given him by his 
father, he purchased a stock of goods in New York 
and opened an establishment in Lake street, which was 
the foundation of the immense fortune he amassed and 
the cornerstone of the business integrity of the city. 
His store prospered and the name of Potter Palmer 
became known throughout all the territory tributary 
to Chicago, and was a synonym for honesty and fair 
dealing everywhere. His business was founded upon 
his known insistence upon generous dealing and full 
value in return for the money of customers. 

Many innovations in the business of retailing dry 
goods were inaugurated by the young merchant, and 
though they were bitterly opposed by his competitors 




POTTER PALMER. 

all of them have since been adopted and though they 
worked a revolution of the business modern retail dry 
goods merchants the world over acknowledge the wis- 
dom of them. 

Mr. Palmer was the first to start the bargain day. 
He was the first to set aside certain days for the sale 
of certain articles. He was the first to adopt the plan 
of exchanging goods or refunding money to customers 
who were not satisfied. He was the first to start the 
general and extensive advertising that is now a feature 
of all retail dry goods houses. He was the first to 
arrange show windows and dress and decorate them. 
He was the first to inaugurate the system of delivering 
goods to the homes of customers. 

These innovations rapidly drew trade to his store 
and while his competitors opposed him they were one 
by one compelled to follow. Under this plan of deal- 



236 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



ing the Potter Palmer establishment soon became 
known as the largest of its kind in the northwest 
country and the mere association of the name of the 
firm with the name of the city resulted in a greater 
confidence being placed in the plans proposed by the 
growing metropolis of the West and contributed in 
itself largely to the development of the place. The 
head of the firm of Macy & Company of New York, 
heard of the business plans of the young Chicagoan 
and a special agent was sent to Chicago to study them. 
On his return the New York house immediately adopted 
them and after a few years the same plans were being 
put into practice in London, Paris and Berlin. 

Through all Mr. Palmer's career he never had a 
business partner. All his work was accomplished alone 
and it stands a monument to himself. The arduous 
labors spent in the building up of his business and in 
helping the city generally on its road of progress told 
on the remarkable abilities in the end, however. The 
physical and mental structures were not able to with- 
stand the strain, and in 1867, on the advice of phy- 
sicians, Mr. Palmer gave up his business and devoted 
several years to rest and travel. 

The business he had built up was turned over to 
Marshall Field and Levi Z. Leiter, and, in order that 
they might begin where he left off, under the most aus- 
picious circumstances, the retiring founder of the firm 
left them his name and part of his capital. For several 
years the business was conducted under the old title, 
or until they were able with their own resources to con- 
trol the business. 

After nearly three years spent in travel Mr. Palmer 
returned to Chicago, bettered in health and eager to 
get into the world of affairs once again. Still acting 
under the advice of his physicians, he decided he would 
not take up the more confining and arduous labor of his 
old business, and he determined to turn his millions 
into real estate. It was this decision that has resulted 
in a greater good to Chicago than the decision of any 
other one man. 

State street then was a narrow, ill-kept and 
unsightly thoroughfare. The main street of the city 
was Lake street. As his far-seeing judgment told 
him the best foundation upon which to build his dry 
goods business, an equal prescience told him that if 
Chicago was to grow ,its main thoroughfare must run 
parallel with the Lake Front, and he set about the task 
of turning the tide of the city's business from east and 
west to north and south. He bought the land on either 
side of State street for more than a mile, fought through 
the city council a bill widening the street twenty feet 
and providing for its paving, and he then used his sur- 
plus capital in erecting one after another the finest com- 
mercial buildings the city had then seen. The irregular, 
poorly-built structures gave way to the handsome new 



buildings, the narrow ill-drained street was widened 
into the State street of to-day, and as if by magic the 
commercial enterprises on Lake street turned to the 
new thoroughfare and in the space of a few years the 
whole tide of the city's business had been turned into 
a new and better channel. 

Then came the fire of 1871, and the flames swept 
out the patient work of years. When the fire had at 
last been extinguished the general scene of devastation 
seemed to spell ruin for the man whose millions had 
been swept away as well as for the city itself. With 
equal courage, however, the man and the city turned 
to the work of rebuilding. Though the fire had 
destroyed in all thirty-two buildings belonging to Mr. 
Palmer, his credit enabled him to borrow $1,700,000 
from the Mutual Life Insurance Company of Connecti- 
cut, the largest sum that had till then been loaned by 
that company, and with his new capital he set about 
building even finer structures in the place of those 
destroyed. The State street of to-day speaks eloquently 
of his success. 

The turning thus of the entire life of a city was not 
the only achievement of the man. After he had accom- 
plished that he spent thousands of dollars in the pur- 
chase of the then waste and swamp lands north of Chi- 
cago avenue and east of Rush street. In a few years 
he had turned the swamps and sand dunes into the most 
valuable property district in the city. It bordered the 
Lake Front and was bounded on the north by Lincoln 
Park and to the south abutted the expanding business 
district of the city. The Lake Front was parked and 
inside it the beautiful Lake Shore Drive was laid out 
and the homes of Chicago's wealthiest and most exclu- 
sive now border it, facing the lake and looking upon 
the same scene toward which Mr. Palmer faced his own 
magnificent residence, almost midway between the ends 
of the fashionable driveway. 

In 1871 Mr. Palmer married Bertha, daughter of 
Henry H. Honore, a prominent capitalist and real estate 
holder of Chicago. Through all his efforts in the build- 
ing up of the city she was his constant aid and it was 
largely through her encouragement that the hard days 
following the fire were safely bridged. By his mar- 
riage he had two sons, Honore and Potter Palmer, 
who have both risen to prominence in the life of the 
city. 

During his long years there were few projects of 
worth that did not receive his support, and that sup- 
port was usually material. He was an incorporator 
of the Chamber of Commerce, an early member of the 
Chicago Library Association and one of the first sub- 
scribers to the Chicago May festivals. He was one of 
the three founders of the Chicago Interstate Industrial 
Exposition and vice-president and director of the 
World's Columbian Exposition, to which he contrib- 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



237 



utect both time and money and through his efforts it 
was crowned with success. Mrs. Palmer was chief of 
the Women's Commission of the fair and contributed 
largely to the success of the enterprise. 

Though he was always keenly interested in matters 
of public welfare and took an active part in them when 
it was for the interest of Chicago, he did not care for 
the distinction which comes from holding public office. 
He preferred the pleasure of accomplishment more than 
the honor of mere position. In 1870 he declined the 
Interior portfolio in President Grant's cabinet. On 
many other occasions he was offered positions of politi- 
cal honor, but he declined them all. His one position 
that might be called political was as commissioner of 
the South Park board. That he accepted in order that 
he might be instrumental in beautifying the south end 
of the city by laying out a splendid boulevard system 
in that section of the town. The result of his work 
speaks for itself. It was largely through his efforts that 
Chicago can now boast of the finest park system in 
the world, and in the most complete boulevard system 
connecting all the parks in a continuous driveway. 

No man ever worked more for the joy of working 
and less for self-aggrandizement. He died in Chicago, 
May 4, 1902. 

Philip Danforth Armour, son of Danforth and Juli- 
anna (Brooks) Armour, was born at Stockbridge, Mad- 
ison County, New York, May 16, 1832. His parents, 
who were farmers, gave their family of six boys and two 
girls such educational advantages as were to be 
obtained in the near-by country schools, and some of the 
children also attended a neighboring village seminary. 
Among them was Philip, and many anecdotes have 
been told of his boyish pranks while a student at that 
institution. 

During the winter of 1851-52, Mr. Armour was 
one of a small party that succumbed to the California 
gold craze, and in the early spring of 1852 this band 
of goldseekers began their journey toward the far 
West. Six months later they reached their destina- 
tion, having traveled by the overland route, and encoun- 
tering all the hardships incident to making the trip in 
this manner. 

Mr. Armour returned to the East in 1856, after 
having had a varied experience in mining enterprises, 
and it was conjectured at the time that he brought 
back with him considerable of the golden dust, but 
the facts of this interesting matter are known only to 
himself. He devoted a few weeks to visiting his parents, 
after which he again started West, this time locating in 
Milwaukee. Here he formed a partnership with Fred- 
erick B. Miles in the commission business. This firm 
continued until 1863, when Mr. Armour became asso- 
ciated with John Plankinton in the pork-packing 



industry. This venture was probably the turning point 
in Mr. Armour's career, since Mr. Plankinton had for 
many years been connected with Frederick Layton, one 
of Milwaukee's pioneer residents, and not only stood 
high and commanded the respect of the citizens of Mil- 
waukee, but had also built up an industry of no. small 
magnitude. This partnership enjoyed a thriving busi- 
ness, and the fluctuations in the price of provisions at 
the close of the war left the firm a fortune. 

Mr. Armour's brother, Herman O. Armour, had 
established himself in Chicago in 1862 in the grain com- 
mission business, but three years later he was induced 
to surrender his interests here to a younger brother, 
Joseph F. Armour, and take charge of a new firm in 




PHILIP DANFORTH ARMOUR. 

New York, under the name of Armour, Plankinton & 
Company. The firm name of H. O. Armour & Company 
was continued in Chicago, however, until 1870. They 
continued to handle grain, and commenced packing 
hogs in 1868. This part of the business, however, was 
conducted under the firm name of Armour & Company, 
and in 1870 the firm of Armour & Company assumed 
all the business transacted at Chicago. 

In 1871, in order to keep abreast of the demands of 
the market, the firm of Plankinton & Armour was 
established at Kansas City, under the charge of Simeon 
B. Armour, and in 1875 Philip D. Armour came to 
Chicago, where he resided until his death, January 6, 
1901. Mr. Armour gave largely of his wealth to various 
charitable and educational institutions, to say nothing 
of his numerous gifts toward other worthy enterprises, 
and the various other endowments of which no public 



238 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



mention has been made. In 1881, upon the death of 
his brother, Joseph F. Armour, he was given charge of 
a trust of $100,000, with which to found an institution 
whose purpose should be to reach the people with the 
teachings and influences of the gospel of Christ, and to 
insure the care and development of the children and 
youth of that part of Chicago where it should be located. 
Mr. Armour took his brother's bequest as a suggestion, 
and his benefaction has multiplied the amount many 
times, his own gift reaching the sum of two millions 
of dollars. The result has been, not only the building 
of the Armour Mission, but the Armour flats, and later 
the Armour Institute, the public being made aware of 
the latter gift on Christmas Eve, 1892. 

Mr. Armour was married at Cincinnati in 1862 to 
Miss Belle Ogden, daughter of Jonathan Ogden. Two 
sons have been born to them, Jonathan Ogden Armour 
and Philip D. Armour, Jr., who died January, 1900. 

Gustavus Franklin Swift was born June 24, 1839, 
at Sandwich, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and died in 
Chicago, March 29, 1903, at the age of sixty-three. 

Mr. Swift was one of eight sons in a family of twelve 
children. His parents were plain New England people, 
his father being a farmer, the boys working on the farm 
in their younger days. Feeling that his father's farm 
was not capable of supporting the entire family, Gus- 
tavus F. Swift determined to branch out into some 
other occupation and obtained employment with the 
town butcher at Sandwich. Having acquired a knowl- 
edge of butchering, he decided after a few years to go 
into the business for himself and started with a peddling 
wagon, selling from house to house. He afterwards 
moved to Barnstable. Massachusetts, where he con- 
tinued his business and established a small slaughter 
house. 

On January 3, 1861, Mr. Swift was married to Annie 
M. Higgins, and continued to reside at Barnstable until 
1869, when he moved to Brighton, Massachusetts, a 
suburb of Boston, which was then the principal live 
stock market of New England. 

Shortly after his arrival in Brighton, he entered the 
employ of J. A. Hathaway, subsequently becoming a 
partner under the firm name of Hathaway & Swift. 
They bought cattle in Albany and Buffalo and shipped 
the animals to Brighton, Mr. Swift visiting the cattle 
markets and making most of the purchases. 

It was about this time that Chicago began to 
attract attention as a live stock center and Mr. Swift 
bought cattle in Chicago for eastern shipment to his 
firm. In 1875 he moved his family to Chicago and the 
partnership with Mr. Hathaway was dissolved, Mr. 
Swift going into business under the firm name of Swift 
Bros. & Co. 



During the year 1877 Mr. Swift started to slaughter 
cattle in the Union Stock Yards, Chicago, and in the 
winter of that year he first shipped dressed beef from 
Chicago to eastern markets, using ordinary box cars for 
the railroad journey. The idea was at first considered 
impracticable, but as the result proved profitable, ship- 
ments were continued until the refrigerator car finally 
solved the problem of transporting fresh meat over long 
distances. From this time the business increased rap- 
idly and the firm prospered. 

In 1885 Swift & Company was incorporated with 
$300,000 capital and Mr. Swift elected president, the 
corporation taking over the business of Swift Bros. 




GUSTAVUS FRANKLIN SWIFT. 

& Co. In 1905 the company had a capital of $35,- 
000,000 and had over 25,000 employees on its payroll. 

Mr. Swift made it a rule to keep in close touch with 
all branches of his business and was familiar with every 
detail of it. He was a firm believer in quality and 
constantly aimed to produce the best in all the varied 
products manufactured by the modern packing house. 

The exceptional growth of Swift & Company can 
be directly traced to the successful management and 
rare executive ability of the man who conducted its 
affairs from its inception until within a few clays of his 
death in 1903. He was always enthusiastic about his 
business and had the faculty of instilling that enthu- 
siasm into his associates and employees. He was a man 
typical of his time and was quick to see the advantage 
of any new idea which could be applied to the packing 
industry. The continual development of scientific 
methods for the handling of by-products, of economy 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



239 



in operation and of mechanical refrigeration were all 
factors contributing- to the success of the Swift business 
and he who was ever on the alert to further the interests 
of the company took the greatest personal pride in its 
expansion and progress. 

It is perhaps worthy of remark that his success was 
won by strictly business methods. He was not a specu- 
lator, although there was no keener judge of market 
conditions and no one knew better than he the trend 
of trade affairs. 

Among his employees he was as plain and matter-of- 
fact as when he was comparatively poor. Many of the 
men who had been employed under him for years, he 
knew intimately and he was familiar with the names 
of scores. 

Outside of his business his whole life interest was 
centered in his home and his church. His home life 
was ideal and he left behind him a family consisting 
of his widow; two daughters and seven sons. His 
eldest son, Louis F. Swift, is now president of the com- 
pany, and Edward F. Swift is vice-president, and all of 
the other sons, with the exception of the youngest, are 
connected with the company. 

Mr. Swift's charities were numerous, but little was 
heard of his gifts, as he was much opposed to having 
such matters made public. Many educational. institu- 
tions and scores of struggling churches all over the 
country were constant recipients from his thoughtful 
and kindly purse. 

Coming to Chicago at a time when that city was 
on the threshold of its commercial glory, Gustavus 
Franklin Swift foresaw the many opportunities lying 
before him and the vast work he constructed and per- 
fected is a fitting monument to his greatness. 

Philip F. W. Peck came to Chicago in 1830, when 
the city was nothing but a frontier post, known as Fort 
Dearborn. He came by sailing vessel from Buffalo 
and brought with him from the East a stock of goods, 
proposing to locate here or continue south. The natu- 
ral advantages of this point, however, and the future 
which he foresaw for it, induced him to decide upon 
remaining. 

Born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1809, Mr. 
Peck had been brought up in New England, which had 
been the home of several generations of his ancestors, 
the American progenitor of the family having immi- 
grated to that region from England some time before 
the middle of the seventeenth century. His educational 
and industrial training had been of that practical kind 
which the men who became pioneers in building up 
western trade and commerce had generally received. 

He grew to manhood with correct habits, a capacity 
for close application to business, and a comprehensive 
knowledge of the principles which govern the building- 



up of centers of commercial activity. He was ambi- 
tious, enterprising and self-reliant, and, as his subse- 
quent career demonstrated, had a genius for finance, 
and was possessed of unusual business foresight. 

He came to Chicago with, or perhaps shortly before, 
Captain Joseph Napier, founder of the town of Naper- 
ville at one time the county seat of DuPage County 
and was for a short time associated with the latter in 
business. His first merchandising operations in Chi- 
cago were carried on in a small log building, which he 
erected near old Fort Dearborn, in 1831, and which he 
occupied until the fall of the same year. 

At that time he had completed or at least had got 
in fit condition for occupancy a two-story frame 




PHILIP F. W. PECK. 

building, located at what is now the southeast corner 
of South Water and La Salle streets, into which he 
moved his stock of goods. But one frame building had 
been erected in Chicago prior to that time, and Mr. 
Peck's building was, in fact, the first of this character 
to be used as a "store building." The land upon which 
this building was located is still owned by members of 
his family. 

It was in the unfinished second story of this building 
that the first Sunday-school organized in Chicago held 
some of its earliest meetings, and in which also the 
Rev. Jeremiah Porter, the first minister, to hold regular 
religious services in the town, established his study and 
found a lodging place. It was in this for that time 
superior structure, too, that Mr. Peck laid the founda- 
tion of a fortune, which has since been developed into a 
rich estate. Here he carried on the business of mer- 



240 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



chandizing until such time as it became necessary for 
him to give his whole attention to his realty interests 
and the care of his growing fortune. 

A resident of Chicago two years before it had 
a recognized corporate or municipal existence, Mr. 
Peck was a pioneer of the pioneers. He was one of the 
volunteers who went out from the straggling settle- 
ment around Fort Dearborn to aid in suppressing the 
famous Indian chief, Black Hawk, in 1832, and he 
helped to organize the settlement into a town in 1833. 
He was a member of the first fire company organized in 
Chicago and a voter at the first city election. The first 
brick dwelling erected in the city at the corner of 
Washington and La Salle streets was built by Mr. 
Peck as a residence in 1836, and the site is also still 
owned in the family. He was "in at the birth" of the 
town, witnessed the transition from town to village, 
from village to city, and from a provincial city to the 
great metropolis of the Northwest, and, two weeks be- 
fore his death, which resulted from an accident and 
occurred on the 23d of October, 1871, he saw the city 
that had sprung up under his observation practically 
swept out of existence by the great fire of that year. 
Such are not the experiences of an ordinary lifetime. 

The accumulator of a large fortune, Mr. Peck dem- 
onstrated that adherence to approved and conservative 
business methods builds up more substantial estates 
than those which result from speculative enterprises. A 
sagacious and far-seeing man, who had always great 
confidence in the continued growth and prosperity of 
Chicago, he was never carried away by the speculative 
excitements which swept over the city from time to 
time, to be followed by corresponding periods of busi- 
ness depression and financial distress. His own affairs 
were kept so well in hand that he passed safely through 
financial crises like those of 1837 and "857, when many 
of his contemporaries met with reverses from which 
they never recovered. 

These periods of general business depression did not 
weaken even temporarily his faith in the ultimate 
growth and prosperity of Chicago, but rather had the 
effect of stirndlating him to make investments at the 
more advantageous terms offered under such circum- 
stances. His conservatism was such that he met with 
no reverses of consequence during his business career, 
and his fortune grew steadily from the date of his com- 
ing to Chicago to that of his death. 

In 1835 he was married to Miss Mary K. Wythe, a 
Philadelphia lady, of English parentage, a niece of the 
celebrated Baptist divine, Dr. Staughton of Phila- 
delphia. She died in 1899. Their family consisted of 
eight children, all of whom were born in this city. Four 
of them died in infancy, and one of the sons, Harold 
S. Peck, died some years since. The other sons, Wal- 
ter L., Clarence I. and Ferdinand W. Peck, are all 



leading citizens of Chicago, which they have greatly 
benefited by their enterprise and public spirit. The 
latter has become widely known through various public 
institutions with which he has been prominently con- 
nected and the public-spirited enterprises which he has 
projected. He was one of the founders of the Illinois 
Humane Society and also of the Chicago Athenaeum, 
of which he is the president, and the vice-president and 
chairman of the Finance Committee and one of the 
directors of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. 
He conceived the idea of the renowned Auditorium 
building, containing a vast auditorium hall, a hotel and 
other features, organized the company for its erection, 
and, as its president, carried it through to completion 
and successful operation. 

This great building is to-day the pride of Chicago, 
an object almost, if not quite, as conspicuous among 
the splendid structures by which it is surrounded as 
was the framed store building built by the elder Peck 
among the log shanties of Chicago seventy-four years 
ago. He was also commissioner-general of the Paris 
exposition of 1900, appointed by President McKinley. 

David R. Fraser, deceased, was born at Berwick-on- 
the-Tweed, Scotland, on May 18, 1824. He came to 
this country in 1848, and obtained employment in a 
machine shop in Pittsburg. That same year he 
removed to Chicago, entering the 'ehiploy of Gates & 
Hoag, later Gates & McKnight. One of his fellow 
employees was Thomas Chalmers, with whom he created 
the firm of Fraser & Chalmers twenty-three years later. 
In 1850 Mr. Fraser was struck by the gold craze that 
swept the country and crossed the plains to California, 
but fever and ague drove him back, he returning by 
way of Panama. 

In 1852 he returned to California, where he secured 
a position in a machine shop, but the climate did not 
agree with him, and he returned to Chicago, becoming 
foreman in the locomotive works of Scoville & Sons, 
which stood on the site now occupied by the Union 
depot at Canal and Adams streets. He superintended the 
construction of the first locomotive ever built in Chi- 
cago, and personally ran it over the plank road on Canal 
street up to Kinzie street, delivering it to the old Galena 
& Chicago Railroad. In 1854, when the Scoville 
works shut down, Mr. Fraser became associated with P. 
W. Gates & Co., where he built engines by contract. 
He served as foreman until 1857, when he became a 
partner of the firm. Later on he aided in organizing 
the Eagle Works Manufacturing Company at the corner 
of Canal and Washington streets. Both he and Mr. 
Chalmers were stockholders and superintendents in this 
enterprise. After the fire in 1871 the business \vas aban- 
doned and the firm of Fraser & Chalmers established. 



THE CITY OP CHICAGO. 



241 



It retained its name until 1890, when it was purchased 
by an English syndicate. 

In 1890 Mr. Fraser went to England and erected 
the English works of Fraser & Chalmers, Ltd., at Frith 
on the Thames, a short distance from London. He 
remained there for three years, until the works were 
completed, except for an occasional trip to Chicago to 




DAVID R. FRASER. 

assume charge of the local factory when it was deluged 
with orders for mining machinery. His executive ability 
in shop management was remarkable ; it alone enabled 
the firm to meet its orders. He retired from active busi- 
ness in 1893, though he was vice-president and largest 
stockholder of the Chicago Portland Cement Company, 
of which his son, Norman D. Fraser, is president. On 
May 29, Mr. Fraser was stricken with apoplexy, and 
after twenty-four hours of unconsciousness he suc- 
cumbed, at the ripe age of eighty. 

He was married in November, 1851, to Miss Lydia 
H. Scoville. Three children were born to them : Airs. 
E. F. Minor, Mrs. W. F. Main and Norman D. Fraser. 
Their golden wedding was celebrated in November, 
1901, on which occasion they were surrounded by their 
children and grandchildren. Mr. Fraser, as a mechan- 
ical engineer and inventor, occupied a front rank 
in America. He invented many devices and contributed 
very largely to the development of modern mining 
machinery. He was a man of winning personality, his 
generosity arid kindness extending down to his dealings 
with his humblest employees. 

Joseph Edward Otis, capitalist and real estate owner, 
was born in Berlin. Erie County, Ohio, April 30, 1830, 
16 



the son of Joseph and Nancy (Billings) Otis. After 
receiving a common school education in his native town 
he took a three years' academic course in the Huron 
Institute, at Milan, Ohio. At the age of twenty-one 
he was appointed postmaster of Berlin, serving in that 
capacity until 1855, when he became cashier of the 
Milan Bank. Shortly afterwards he acquired a half 
interest in the institution by purchase, but the business 
was brought to a close in 1862. Through his connec- 
tion with the bank he came into possession of several 
vessels on the Great Lakes, so he removed to Chicago, 
in 1860, to assume charge of them. The boats were 
used for shipping grain to Buffalo and Oswego, New 
York, and bringing back coal, from Erie and Cleveland. 
In those days shipping rates were high and the business 
was profitable, the coal cargoes yielding large profits 
in Chicago. The firm was dissolved in 1865, owing to 
the death of one of the partners. 

About this time Mr. Otis began to recognize the 
possibilities of future growth for Chicago, in a commer- 
cial and business way, and selected this city as a field for 
investment. In 1868, in connection with Matthew 
Laflin, John V. Farwell, P. Willard, James Woodworth 




JOSEPH EDWARD OTIS. 

and others, he organized the Chicago Fire Insurance 
Company, which was chartered under the state laws 
with a capital of $100,000. He was chosen president of 
the board of directors, serving in this capacity for three 
years. In 1870 he was elected alderman from the Second 
ward, on the Republican ticket. During his term of 
office he was on the finance committee and the com- 
mittee on streets and alleys for the South Side. He 



'2-1-2 



TIlll CITY OF CHICAGO. 



retired from active business a number of years ago, 
spending much of his time abroad, though he still 
devoted some time to his large real estate interests, 
located largely in the down-town district. Mr. Otis 
visited nearly every civilized land on the globe, achiev- 
ing quite a reputation as a traveler. In 1888 he visited 
Egypt, spending an entire year there to study the 
antiquities of that country. He made a trip around the 
world in 1894. He was especially interested in Cuba, 
where he made an extensive study of that island's con- 
ditions aiid industries. He was making a trip through 
the West Indies in the spring of 1898, at the time the 
Maine was destroyed in the harbor of Havana. In the 
winter of 1901-1902 he contracted a fatal illness which 
extended over a period of several months, his death 
occurring on March 9, 1902. 

Mr. Otis was married to Miss Ellen Marie Taylor, 
daughter of Judge S. F. and Judith (Kellogg) Taylor, 
of Milan, Ohio. Four children survive them, Joseph 
E. Otis, Jr., Ralph C. Otis, Mrs. J. E. Jenkins and Mrs. 
H. YY. Buckingham. 

Thomas H. Wickes, late vice-president of The Pull- 
man Company, devoted the best part of a lifetime to the 
organization and development of that great corporation. 




THOMAS H. WICKES. 

He was born in Leicestershire, England, August 28, 
1846, and died suddenly in Chicago, March 28, 1905. 
On April i, 1868, he entered the railway service in 
the position of an assistant to the agent of the Pullman 
Palace Car Company. From April, 1868 to 1870 he 
held this place in the East St. Louis offices of the com- 
pany. In the latter year he was advanced to an assistant 



superintendent, and in May, 1873, he became superin- 
tendent of the St. Louis division. He filled this posi- 
tion, making his headquarters in St. Louis, for the next 
twelve years. 

In May, 1885, his headquarters were transferred 
to Chicago, and he was made western general superin- 
tendent. He was promoted to the responsible position 
of general superintendent of the company in September 
of the following year. On New Year's day, 1889, he 
was elected second vice-president of the company and 
took control of the operating department. He was 
elected first vice-president, October 15, 1896, and con- 
tinued in this office when the corporation was reorgan- 
ized as The Pullman Company. Mr. Wickes held this 
position at the time of his death. 

He was interested financially in numerous other 
ventures and took an active part in affairs of the day, 
but The Pullman Company was the only corporation to 
whose interests he devoted his entire time. 

Thomas Gahan was in many ways one of the most 
prominent figures in the political, business and social 
activities of Chicago during the past decade. For over 
twenty-five years he was the leader of the Cook County 
Democracy and for eight years represented his state 
on the national committee of his party. As president of 
the Ogden Gas Company he held a high place in the 
business world. 

Mr. Gahan was born in what is now known as 
Arlington Heights, Cook County, April 7, 1847. His 
first public position was that of captain of police in the 
old town of Lake, in which position he won distinction 
by establishing and maintaining law and order. This 
was especially true during the great strike of 1884. 

Through his police connection he drifted into poli- 
tics, organizing the Democracy of the town of Lake. 
He brought about the nomination of the late Julius S. 
Grinnell for state's attorney, who was the only demo- 
crat on the ticket to be elected. When the town of 
Lake v\?as annexed to the City of Chicago he was 
elected alderman to represent the new ward, the 
Twenty-ninth, having served several terms as super- 
visor before annexation. Mr. Gahan served in the city 
council from 1889 to 1893, when he resigned to 
become railroad and warehouse commissioner under 
Governor Altgeld, whose nomination and election he 
had been instrumental in securing. In 1896 he was 
elected a member of the Democratic National Com- 
mittee for Illinois and re-elected in 1900. Ill health 
prevented his acceptance of the honor in 1904. He 
also served as chairman of the Democratic Central 
Committee, Cook County, from 1895 to 1902. He 
was elected delegate to each Democratic national con- 
vention from 1884 to 1904. inclusive. 

In politics Mr. Gahan was a power. He secured 
the nomination and election of such men as Governor 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



248 



Altgeld, Mayor Hopkins, of whom lie was a close 
friend and adviser, and many others. He exerted a 
large influence in state and national politics, taking an 
active part in every campaign from the Cleveland- 
Elaine struggle in 1884 to the McKinley-Bryan cam- 
paign in 1900. 

His business career was marked by the same suc- 
cess as attended his political endeavors. He was asso- 
ciated with Thomas Byrne for many years in general 
contracting business, during which time they built 
three sections of the drainage canal, the Robey Street 
sewer and all the underground work at the Columbian 
Exposition. 

Saturday evening, April 29, 1905, Mr. Gahan con- 
tracted an acute attack of Bright's disease, with which 
he had been ailing for two years. His condition 
rapidly became worse and the following evening he 
succumbed at his residence, 4619 Grand boulevard. 

Mr. Gahan was a member of the Sheridan, Cook 
County, Ellerslee Cross Country, and Iroquois clubs, 
and of the Knights of Columbus. He was a liberal 
and silent giver to charity and always evinced a deep 




THOMAS GAHAN. 

interest in the schools of Chicago. He was married 
November 8, 1877 to Miss Sarah A. McNarney, who 
survives him, together with his daughters, Sarah, 
Olive, Agnes and Rose. 

Charles Emmerich, the founder of the largest 
feather-pillow manufactory in the United States, was 
born August 31, 1840, and died September 14, 1903. 
He came to this country at the age of sixteen. 



Shortly after arriving he connected himself with 
Wiglieb & Co., who were then in the feather and leather 
business. Following the feather branch, he was soon 
placed in charge of a branch store. This proved very 
successful ; in fact, this business in a short time sur- 
passed that of the home office. Mr. Wiglieb, about this 
time decided to retire from business, and sold the feather 




CHARLES EMMERICH. 

branch to Mr. Emmerich, from which sprang the pres- 
ent company of Chas. Emmerich & Co. 

The success of the house is due to the untiring efforts 
and honorable dealings of its founder. That he had 
much to contend with its evidenced by the fact that in 
the great Chicago fire, not only was his business place 
entirely destroyed, but he also* lost his home, and all its 
contents. He had nothing but what was due him from 
his customers, and it was a long time, on account of 
poor postal facilities, before he received anything from 
this source. With renewed energy he again opened up 
a temporary office, and soon had the business on a pay- 
ing basis again. In 1905 the plant of Chas. Emmerich 
& Co. was again totally destroyed by fire, but, as in the 
former case, it arose from this calamity and to-day holds 
an enviable position among the business houses of 
Chicago. 

William H. Bush. In a great commercial center, 
in the most attractive period of the world's existence, 
it is pleasing to note the philanthropy of a practical 
business man, successful and unselfish. The death 
of William H. Bush removed not only a prominent 
factor in the piano industry of America, but a man 



214 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



whose sterling name and substantial achievements are 
interwoven with the wonderful growth of Chicago and 
the development of the West. 

Mr. Bush came here from Baltimore more than half 
a century ago, beginning business at a time when stren- 
uous and honorable individual effort assisted so much 
in the advancement of Chicago as the metropolis of the 
West. His energies were ever in the direction of the 
higher citizenship and a sterling standard for integrity 
in the career of the man, the merchant and the manu- 
facturer. 

When Chicago was almost obliterated by the great 
fire Mr. Bush was engaged in the lumber business, and 
all of his worldly possessions, the day after the great 
conflagration, consisted of two small charred schooners 
laden with lumber, that had been towed from the river 
to the outer harbor. His first thought was for Grace 
M. E. Church, where he had been a deacon for a quarter 
of a century. From his meager stock he generously 
aided in the rebuilding of a church on the site of its 
predecessor that was completed within a week after its 
destruction. Then came anew the struggle for exist- 
ence, and Mr. Bush was unusually successful. 

With a well-grounded belief in the North Side, Mr. 
Bush in 1875, securing the services of Edwin Burling, 




BUSH TEMPLE. 



architect, erected a large two-story brick building on the 
northwest corner of North Clark street and Chicago 
avenue, with the idea of establishing a market fashioned 
after the old Lexington market in Baltimore. Mr. 
Bush devoted the basement, and the three-story addi- 
tion in the rear, facing on Chicago avenue, to his pack- 
ing interests. 

As a market-house with the stall plan was not so 
successful as had been anticipated, the free delivery sys- 
tem in vogue in this city militating against the old-fash- 
ioned style of marketing, the building was remodeled 
into stores. In 1882, after seven years in the packing 
business, Mr. Bush sold out his interests in that line and 
retired, merely devoting his attention to real estate 
holdings. But Mr. Bush preferred the activity of a busi- 
ness life, and late in 1885 formed a partnership with Mr. 
John Gerts, a practical piano man, for the purpose of 
manufacturing pianos. The business thus promulgated 
flourished with unprecedented success, and Mr. Bush 
was still at the helm guiding and directing its large 
interests when stricken with the illness which robbed 
Chicago of one of its most successful financiers and a 
citizen of whom it might well be proud. 

The late William H. Bush, while taking a justifiable 
pride in his business, had loftier ambitions in bettering 
the general conditions of the community. He 
was active in the work of the Church for over forty 
years, a thorough believer in practical Christianity, 
a member of the Civic Federation, the Society for 
the Prevention of Vice and other beneficial munic- 
ipal organizations. He was ever a strong advo- 
cate for temperance, and the encroachment of the 
saloons in the Clark street neighborhood was to 
him a sore trial. Personally he would tolerate no 
affiliation with liquor interests in any property that 
he owned or controlled. 

In addition to his many charities, one in which 
he was particularly interested was the Methodist 
Old People's Home, on Foster avenue, in Edge- 
water. It was his first donation of $35,000, that 
made the building of Bush Hall possible, and his 
gift of the lots adjoining will enable the directors 
to add the projected wings of the completed build- 
ing. The present Bush Hall is a substantial four- 
story building, accomodating sixty inmates. The 
completed building plan includes three continuous 
buildings, of which the one erected is the middle 
building, and a chapel on the corner adjoining. 
The Home completed will take care of two hun- 
dred and fifty people. 

An inspection of the Home demonstrates that 
it has the inviting atmosphere of a home, with 
cozy rooms well lighted and heated and comfort- 
ably furnished. The furnishings are substantial 
and have been selected with taste. Many nidi- 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



245 



viduals, Epworth Leagues and other Societies, have 
furnished rooms. An institution of this nature must 
have an endowment fund, and one of the last bequests 
of Mr. Bush was the sum of $30,000 for this purpose. 
The Home was dedicated three weeks after Mr. Bush's 
death. Interested friends have already promised the 




WILLIAM H. BUSH. 

necessary money to erect the second building of the 
series projected. 

Mr. Bush had a sincere fondness for the old corner 
where he had been in business so long, and an abiding 
faith in that particular section of the North Division. 
During the last ten years of his life he had several times 
planned to remodel the building, but two years before 
his death ordered plans for an entirely new building 
upon the site. It was his desire that it should be freed 
as far as possible from the environments of commer- 
cialism, a monumental structure that should be beautiful 
as well as useful. A few weeks before the time appointed 
for the breaking of ground preparatory to the erection 
of the building Mr. Bush was seized with a fatal illness. 
His last request of his two sons was that they should 
carry out his projects in regard to the building. As a 
result of this request and its faithful execution, the Bush 
Temple of Music, a beautiful and imposing structure 
now stands as a memorial to one of the most honored 
citizens, successful business men, and broad minded 
philanthropists of the great western metropolis. 

Charles Netcher when fourteen years old started 
work as a cash boy and bundle wrapper, and at the time 
of his death, thirty-eight years later, was sole proprietor 
of one of the largest mercantile houses in the world. By 



unceasing work and keen business ability he built up 
as a monument to his name, the great retail store where 
he passed all the working hours of his life. The history 
of his life reads like a young man's sermon on how to 
succeed. 

Born in Buffalo in 1852 Mr. Netcher when fourteen 
years of age entered the dry goods business of Edward 
and C. W. Pardridge as cash boy and bundle wrapper. 
When the Pardridge brothers came to Chicago in 1869 
young Netcher came with them. It is said that after 
he became manager of the store at State and Madison 
streets, receiving $4,000 a year, he worked eighteen 
hours a day and slept on the counter in the store in 
order to be at work early the next morning. 

After the Chicago fire in which the firm lost every- 
thing with the exception of a few cases of goods, which 
were on the road in transit, Mr. Netcher suggested they 
construct a shanty on Twenty-second and State streets, 
which was done, with any available lumber they could 
find. They made a success of this undertaking and this 
was the beginning of Mr. Netcher's upward career. 

When the Pardridges turned their attention to 
wheat deals, Mr. Netcher gradually acquired an interest 
in the dry goods house over which he was their mana- 




CHARLES NETCHER. 

ger. Five years later they relinquished all their hold- 
ings in the business and he became the sole proprietor 
of the Boston Store. 

Although Mr. Netcher never considered his health 
in his close application to business, the brief fatal ill- 
ness preceding his sudden death came as a surprise to 
even his closest friends. He had been operated upon 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



for appendicitis and the family was confident of a 
speedy recovery when he was stricken with apoplexy. 
Death occurred on June 20, 1904. 

A short time before his death, Mr. Netcher pur- 
chased the Champlain block, one of the large office 
buildings of the city. The lower floors of the block 
were utilized for the expanding business of the Boston 
Store and it was his intention to ultimately rebuild the 
old store building to the height of the new structure, 
making one of the finest building blocks in the city, to 
be known as the Charles Netcher block. 

Mr. Netcher cared little for those outside activities 
of political and public affairs which attract so many 
business men. He adhered closely to business and all 
his spare time was devoted to his family. He developed 
the Boston Store from an obscure position to one of the 
leading retail establishments of the city and increased 
his real estate holdings until they were among the 
largest in Chicago. 

Only a few months before his death, Mr. Netcher 
took out a life insurance policy for $500,000, of which 
his widow was the beneficiary. She has assumed with 
rare executive ability the active management of his 
vast business interests. Immediately after Mr. 
Netcher's death, the employees of the Boston Store 
met and passed resolutions, pledging themselves to 
carry on the business on the lines taught by their late 
employer. 

Mr. Netcher's home life was iclea.1. While his idea 
was to save, yet for his wife and family there was 
nothing too good. In his entire married life of 
thirteen years, Mr. Netcher spent all his time, which 
was not given to his business, with his family, where 
he found contentment and rest after strenuous clay's 
work. His life was above reproach, and his habits were 
of the best. 

Jacob Forsyth, who died January 29. 1899, was one 
of Chicago's pioneer land owners and real estate dealers. 
He was born in the north of Ireland, January 12, 1821, 
and came to this country when he was fifteen years old, 
settling in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He was employed 
in a commision house in that city for twenty years 
before coming to Chicago. 

In 1857 he entered the employ of Clarke & Co., the 
western through transportation agents of the Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad. A few years later he became the north- 
western agent for what was then the New York & Erie 
Railroad. Previous to this he married a sister of George 
W. Clarke, at that time an extensive owner of Chicago 
property. General H. F. Clarke, who gave distin- 
guished sen-ice in the Mexican war, and later as a mem- 
ber of General McClellan's staff, and Colonel R. D. 
Clarke, were other brothers-in-law of Mr. Forsyth. Mr. 
Forsyth's widow survived him little more than three 
months, 



He laid the foundation for his fortune in realty 
when he purchased 10,000 acres of land in Lake County, 
Indiana, in 1866. By this one transaction, he became 
the largest single land owner in the Calumet region 
near Chicago. In the same year, George W. Clarke 
died leaving much of his property to his sister and con- 
siderably increasing the acres under Mr. Forsyth's 
control. 

For years Mr. Forsyth was involved in litigation with 
squatters on his immense tracts. He was finally suc- 
cessful, and they were expelled. Another bitter contest 
to establish his title was with the city of Hammond, 
Indiana. Former President Harrison represented him 
in this litigation and carried it to a termination favorable 
to his client. During these long years of litigation, Mr. 
Forsyth was an eager student and reader of authorities 
and literature on riparian rights, and was one of the best 
posted men in the country on this phase of land liti- 
gation. The East Chicago Improvement Company 
purchased 8,000 acres from him, and at the same time he 
donated i ,000 additional acres as a site for the town of 
East Chicago. In 1888, a further inroad into the 
immense holding was made when he transferred to the 
Standard Oil Company the land which is now covered 
by the corporation's plant at Whiting, Indiana. 

Mr. Forsyth was a man of pronounced opinions and 
great physical vigor. His purchases of realty were 
made at a time when the barren sand dunes of the 
Indiana shores were considered valueless, except as a 
cause for paying taxes. It was not until several years 
later that his opinion of their ultimate value was realized. 

He was survived by four daughters and five sons, of 
whom Oliver O. Forsyth, now administers the affairs 
of the estate. 

John V. Farwell, 5r., a pioneer and a chief among 
the wholesale dry goods merchants of Chicago, was 
born in Steuben County, New York, July 29, 1825, the 
son of Henry and Nancy (Jackson) Farwell. While he 
was in his thirteenth year his parents came to Illinois 
and settled on a farm on Rock river, in. Ogle County. 
Like many others of our great merchants and eminent 
professional men, Mr. John V. Farwell was inured to 
labor in his youth. Indeed, until the latter half of this 
century had begun, comparatively little trade was done 
without reference to the value of farm products. The 
country merchant took grain from his customers in 
exchange for other goods, and frequently offered it as 
payment in whole, or in part, to the jobber from whom 
he purchased his stock. Mr. Farwell relates that in his 
youth he sold wheat at forty-five cents a bushel, after 
hauling it a hundred miles, to Mr. Wadsworth, head 
of a dry goods house, and after selling it he helped to 
store it in an elevator which was worked by a rope. 
Wadsworth & Company, which became the commercial 
parent of the far greater firm of J. Y. Farwell & Com- 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



L>47 



pany, dealt, until 1851. in dry groceries, as well as in 
textile fabrics. In the panic of 1857-58, when stumptail 
money was the only currency in the Northwest, this firm 
paid its debts by buying and shipping wheat to 
New York. 

After a preliminary education in the common schools 
of New York and Il'inois. Mr. Farwell became a student 
in the seminary at Mount Morris, Illinois. He came to 
Chicago in 1845, and after several years of service as 
clerk in various dry goods stores he became a partner 
in the firm of Wadsworth & Phelps, in 1851. The firm 
of Wadsworth & Company was established in 1835, and 
thus its great offshoot, the incorporated firm of J. V. 
Farwell & Company, lays claim to the title of the oldest 
wholesale dry goods house in Chicago. From the time 
of Mr. Farwell's entrance as a partner the business of 
the firm was confined solely to the sale of dry goods 
and their legitimate adjuncts. In 1870 the headquarters 
of the firm were at 72, 74 and 76 Wabash avenue, and in 
this year the stock was all but completely destroyed by 
fire. Scarcely had this disaster been overcome before the 
great fire of 1871 involved the firm in new difficulties. 
Undismayed by these calamities, the firm, now John V. 
Farwell & Company did business in a wood building on 
Michigan avenue, and within six weeks from the destruc- 
tion of their premises on Wabash avenue, they converted 
their stable and warehouse into a five-story brick store 
on Monroe street, near the river. Ten years later the 
new Farwell block, that occupies all the space on 
Market street between Adams and Monroe and abutting 
on the river with a 4OO-foot frontage on Market street, 
was built and occupied. Here, as he sits in his 
private office, that is occasionally darkened by the 
towering hull of some great iron-built steamer, Mr. 
Farwell calls to mind that he saw and assisted in the 
joyful celebration of the event of the first canal boat 
to enter the Chicago river. The circumstance was 
regarded as prognostic of great enlargement of the 
trade between the city and country, and for many years 
after this arrival of the first boat, the advent of a barge 
was regarded as important. The firm of John V. Farwell 
& Company became an incorporated concern in 1891. 
It has grown with the city's growth, and has strength- 
ened with its strength, and stands in the front rank of 
the commercial institutions of a metropolis of 2,000,000 
inhabitants, just as it stood in the first rank when Chi- 
cago was but a flourishing and ambitious city of the 
third class. In addition to his labors as manager of the 
great firm with winch his name is associated, Mr. Far- 
well was active in the establishment of the Union 
National bank, and served as one of the directors until 
several years after the great fire. 

In politics Mr. Farwell is Republican. He was a 
member of the electoral college that cast its vote for 
Lincoln in 1860, and for six vears held the honorable 



and arduous, though unprofitable, office of Indian Com- 
missioner during the first and second administrations of 
President Grant. Though frequently solicited to accept 
a nomination for various political offices, Mr. Farwell 
has declined to become a candidate for any elective 
office, or to hold any lucrative federal appointment. 
His political work has been of the unpaid and patriotic 
order. During the progress of the war for the Union 
Mr. Farwell served as chairman of the Northwestern 
Christian Commissions, and in that capacity devoted 
most of his time to advancing the temporal and spiritual 
welfare of the soldier in the field. There is no nonsec- 
tarian, religious or philanthropic movement to which 
Mr. Farwell has not given liberal and unostentatious aid. 




J. V. FARWELL, SR. 

Old -Farwell Hall," now the finest Y. M. C. A. build- 
ing on earth, is, perhaps, the most widely-known 
manifestation of zeal and munificence toward the 
propagation of Christian doctrine. 

Mr. Farwell has been twice married : first, to Miss 
Abigail Taylor of Illinois, and, second, to Miss Emeret 
Cooley of Hartford. Connecticut. There are five sur- 
viving children. 

Frederick Augustus Smith, appellate justice of the 
Branch Court, First District of Illinois, is the son of 
Israel G. and Susan (Penoyer) Smith, and was born 
at Norwood Park, Cook County, Illinois, February 11, 
1844. His early education was acquired in the common 
schools of Chicago, and in 1860 he entered the old Uni- 
versity of Chicago. He was making excellent progress 
in that institution, when in 1863, fired by patriotic ardor, 
he threw aside his books and. enlisted as a private in 



248 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



Company G, I34th Illinois Volunteers. Me remained 
in the service with his regiment, participating in the 
campaign of Missouri and Kentucky, in which his regi- 
ment was engaged, until mustered out in 1864. Return- 
ing to civil life, he took up the interrupted course in the 
University, and was graduated with honors in 1866. 
Following out a long cherished plan he began the study 
of law at the Union College of Law, receiving his 
diploma from that institution in 1867. He immediately 
began practice, forming a partnership with present 
United States District Judge C. C. Kohlsaat, which 
continued until 1872. The firm of Smith, Helmer & 
Moulton was formed in 1890. Afterward Mr. Price's 




FREDERICK AUGUSTUS SMITH. 

name was added, and the firm name became Smith, Hel- 
mer, Moulton & Price. 

Mr. Smith had always been an unswerving Republi- 
can, and in 1898, became the party's candidate for judge 
of the Circuit Court. He failed of election that year, but 
again in 1903 was honored by receiving the nomina- 
tion for the next term, and was elected, being one of the 
three Republicans chosen that year out of the fourteen 
candidates of his party for the Circuit Bench. Since 
his elevation to the bench. Judge Smith has occupied 
his position with all honor and dignity, fulfilling in the 
highest degree the confidence and expectations of his 
friends. Still greater honors were to come to him, 
however. In December, 1903, lie was chosen by the 
members of the Supreme Court to be one of the justices 
of the Branch Appellate Court, First District of Illinois. 

Judge Smith has been successful since his admission 
to the bar. The honors that have come to him have 



been fairly and honestly earned, won by meritorious 
and constant application to the trusts confided to him. 
As a practicing lawyer, his clients' interests were care- 
fully and faithfully guarded, and his conscientious efforts 
in protecting the many intricate and important litiga- 
tions confided to his care brought to him a large prac- 
tice, and the good will and esteem of all who came in 
touch with him. His bearing on the bench has been 
marked with the confidence and dignity which come 
from deep knowledge, and thorough understanding of 
the law in all its phases and complicated details. 

Judge Smith has always been a man of great public 
spirit, and has been actively connected with many benev- 
olent and educational measures. Among the many 
social and professional organizations in which he is 
prominent may be mentioned the Union League Club; 
the Hamilton Club, of which he has been president ; 
the Chicago Bar Association, to which he was also 
chosen president in 1890, and the Chicago Law Club, 
one of the most select and successful organizations of 
lawyers in Chicago, and in which he has also filled the 
executive office, being elected to that position in 1897. 
He" is a member of the board of trustees of Rush Medi- 
cal College, and has also been a member of the board of 
trustees of the University of Chicago since its founda- 
tion, and has participated actively in the organization 
and growth of that great educational institution. 

Judge Smith was married July 26, 1871, to Miss 
Frances B. Morey, daughter of the Rev. Ruben and 
Mrs. Abby (demons) Morey, of Merton, Wisconsin. 

Willard Milton McEwen, judge of the Superior 
Court, was born on a farm in Milan Township, De Kalb 
County, Illinois, December 15, 1863. When he was 
five years old his parents moved to De Kalb and he 
received his grammar and high school education in that 
town, graduating from the De Kalb high school in 1882. 

Judge McEwen came to Chicago in 1885 and took 
a course at the Union College of Law. After his grad- 
uation in 1887 he entered the law office of Edward W. 
Russell, who was then counsel for several large corpora- 
tions. He remained with Mr. Russell three years be- 
fore he began practicing for himself. 

In October, 1890, he formed a partnership with 
Charles S. Deneen, present governor of Illinois, under 
the firm name of Deneen & McEwen. The partnership 
was dissolved a year later and Judge McEwen formed 
a partnership with Frank B. Pease under the firm name 
of Pease & McEwen. 

When Charles S. Deneen was elected attorney for 
the Drainage Board in 1895, Judge McEwen left his 
partnership to become Mr. Deneen's assistant. He 
took Mr. Deneen's place when the latter was nominated 
for state's attorney. 

In February, 1896, Judge McEwen became first 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



249 



assistant state's attorney, retaining- the position until 
January, 1900, when he resigned to practice law for 
himself again. His most notable work as assistant 
state's attorney was the breaking- np of the so-called 
jury bribing "ring." His ten months' investigation 
resulted in the flight of Daniel Coughlin and James J. 
Lynch and the subsequent indictment of Alexander 




WILLARD MILTON McEWEN. 

Sullivan when Lynch returned and turned state's evi- 
dence. The alleged fixing of juries involved several 
street railway cases. 

As assistant state's attorney, Judge McEwen also 
attracted widespread attention through his prosecution 
of the Adolph Luetgert and Emil Rollinger murder 
cases and the embezzlement charges against Charles W. 
Spalding. Luetgert was sent to the penitentiary for 
life for the murder of his wife and Rollinger was hanged 
for a similar offense. Spalding was convicted of embez- 
zling $419,000 of the State University's funds. 

In 1902 he was elected judge of the Superior Court. 

Abncr Smith, for two terms a judge of the circuit 
court of Cook County and now of the firm of Smith & 
Caswell, attorneys and counselors at law, with offices at 
630 Chicago Opera House building, is of thorough 
American lineage. His ancestors, alike on the mother's 
and father's side, "were among the earliest settlers of 
Massachusetts. He was born at Orange, Massachusetts, 
August 4. 1843. His mother, prior to her marriage, was 
Miss Sophronia A. Ward. The head of the Ward 
family settled in Massachusetts as early as 1639. and 
many of its members have been distinguished in judicial, 
military, legislative and clerical circles. 



While Abner Smith was but a child his parents 
moved to Middlebury, Vermont, attracted by the supe- 
rior advantages that town offered for the education of 
their family. After due preparation in the public and 
other schools, Abner Smith was enrolled as a student 
of Middlebury college, and was graduated in 1866. The 
Undergraduate, the journal of Middlebury college, in a 
review of the professional career of Judge Smith, charac- 
terizes him as "one who never aimed at ephemeral bril- 
liancy or at the attainment of signal momentary results, 
but careful to avoid errors of judgment, and wisely dis- 
trustful of mere temporary achievements." These attri- 
butes have distinguished the judge through life and 
have been the dominant factors of his successful career. 

After leaving college Mr. Smith was in charge of 
Newton Academy at Shoreham, Vermont, for about a 
year, when he decided to go west. Arriving at Chicago, 
he became a student in the law office of J. L. Stark. 
Mr. Stark himself was from the Green Mountain State 
and was a descendant of that Colonel Stark who, in the 
Revolutionary W r ar, had come to the aid of Judge 
Smith's maternal ancestor, Major-General Ward. There 
was a warm feeling of friendship between preceptor and 
pupil, and in due time Abner Smith was admitted to the 




ABNER SMITH. 

practice of law and became a partner with Mr. Stark. 
The firm of Stark & Smith was dissolved by the death 
of its senior member. Judge Smith continued the busi- 
ness of the firm and enlarged it. Subsequently Mr. 
Smith formed a partnership with Mr. John M. H. Bur- 
gett, and the firm of Smith & Burgett was well known 
to lawyers and clients for a period of ten years. 

After forming other partnerships of brief duration, 



250 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



Mr. Smith for a period beginning in 1887 practiced as 
an individual, and won his most notable legal victories 
by his own generalship. While eminent as a general 
practitioner, Mr. Smith attained the highest measure of 
success as a commercial and corporation lawyer, and has 
been retained as standing counsel by some of the most 
famous corporations of this and other states. In 1893 
he was elected to the bench of the circuit court, a posi- 
tion that he filled with honor to himself and to his con- 
stituents for two successive terms. 

Judge Smith was married in 1869 to Miss Ada C. 
Smith, daughter of the late Sereno Smith of Shoreham, 
Vermont. He is of eminently domestic and artistic 
tastes, and his home. No. 15 Aldine square, reflects his 
artistic and musical disposition. 

Simeon P. Shope, former justice of the Supreme 
Court of Illinois and one of the leading members of the 




SIMEON P. SHOPE. 

Illinois bar, is a native of Akron, Ohio, where he was 
born December 3, 1837. Two years later his parents 
moved to Marseilles, Illinois. He obtained an academic 
education and later taught school, in the meantime pur- 



suing his studies. After teaching for several years he 
entered the law office of Judge Elihu N. Powell and sub- 
sequently that of Judge Norman H. Purple of Peoria, 
Illinois. After being admitted to the bar in 1858, he 
practiced his profession in the various courts of Illinois 
until 1877, when he was elected to the circuit bench. 

He served two terms in the old tenth circuit, with 
Judge Chauncey L. Higbie as one of his associates. He 
was elected in June, 1885, to the Supreme bench of the 
state, for a period of nine years. At the expiration of 
his term he was urged for the renomination, but he 
declined the honor. Removing to Chicago in 1894. 
he resumed his law practice. He is well known as a 
prominent member of the Chicago bar. He is now 
senior member of the firm of Shope, Mathias, Zane & 
W r eber. 

Judge Shope has interested himself largely in public 
affairs. Prior to his judicial election he had been a con- 
servative Democrat, taking an active part in his party's 
activities. He is a Mason, Knight Templar, Elk and 
Knight of Pythias. He was married in 1858, his wife 
dying in Florida, on January 4, 1883. There were four 
children born to them, of whom the two younger are 
still living. 

Ephraim Banning comes of good legal stock, his 
mother, who was a Kentuckian, being a sister of the 
late Judge Pinkney H. Walker of the Supreme Court 
of Illinois, and having among her people others who 
attained distinction in the science of law. Her father, 
Gilmer Walker, had a large practice, and his brother, 
Cyrus Walker, was a distinguished practitioner in Ken- 
tucky until he removed to Illinois, where he achieved 
still more noteworthy success Lincoln, Douglass, S. T. 
Logan and Cyrus Walker ranking at one time as the 
four leading lawyers of the state. 

Mr. Banning's name may be placed on the long 
roll of successful men whose characters have been 
formed largely by maternal influence, but the character 
of his father, after whom he was named, was far above 
the average. A Virginian by birth, and of the class 
to which in that early day few opportunities of educa- 
tion were offered, he became a person highly esteemed 
among the early settlers of Illinois and Kansas. He 
turned his back upon slavery, and at a very early day 
settled in McDonough County, Illinois, where Ephraim 
Banning was born, July 21, 1849. Subsequently the 
family moved to Kansas, and in that territory the early 
boyhood of Ephraim was spent, and by the incidents 
of his life among the early, sturdy, freedom-living set- 
tlers of "John Brown's Commonwealth," his earnest 
devotion to the cause of civil and religious liberty 
doubtless was largely determined. From Kansas the 
Banning family moved to Missouri, and while there 
the Civil war broke out. Two of Mr. Banning's 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



251 



brothers promptly enlisted for service in the cause of 
the Union, Ephraim then about twelve years of age 
becoming his father's "right-hand man'' on the farm. 
One of the brothers gave his life to the national cause, 
the other served with honor till the close of the war. 
The educational advantages of a frontier settlement in 
Missouri during the war times were not of the best, but 
young Banning made the most of them, and in his seven- 
teenth year had learned all the schools of the neighbor- 
hood could teach, and afterward attended the 
Brookfield, Missouri, Academy, where, under the tutor- 
ship of the Rev. J. P. Finley, D. D., he studied the 
classics and other courses of a liberal education. Subse- 
quently he became a student at law in the office of Hon. 
Samuel P. Huston of Brookfield. 

In 1871 Mr. Banning came to Chicago and acted as 
student and clerk in the law office of Messrs. Rosenthal 
& Pence, and was admitted to the bar of Illinois by 
the Supreme Court in June of the following year. In 
October he opened an office for himself, and without 
the advantage of influential friends or political patron- 
age soon succeeded in gaining a fair clientage as a suc- 
cessful practitioner. Speaking of his early experience, 
the late Judge Henry W. Blodgett has said that "he had 
a large and varied practice" in his court, and that "he 
showed himself a good admiralty lawyer, was well 
equipped on all questions arising under the bankrupt 
law and in commercial cases generally, as \vell as in 
real estate law." 

Mr. Banning' s mind was directed by circumstances 
attendant on his practice and by natural tendency to 
a special study of the law of patents, and after about 
ten years he practically withdrew from general prac- 
tice and made a specialty of patent cases. There is 
no doubt that Mr. Banning would have achieved 
marked success as a general practitioner, for he has an 
intellect that is both quick and cautious, and is a very 
convincing speaker; but he did well in following the 
bent of his nature. In 1877 he was joined in practice by 
his brother, Thomas A. Banning, and in 1888 by George 
S. Payson, who was succeeded in 1894 by Thomas F. 
Sheridan, who retired from the firm in 1900. Samuel 
W. Banning, son of Thomas A., was admitted to the 
firm in 1903. and Walker Banning, son of Ephraim, in 
1905. For twenty-five years or more the firm has been 
not only eminent, but prominent, in the management of 
litigations relative to patents and other intellectual 
property. Their briefs are familiar in the Supreme 
Court of the United States and in the Federal courts at 
Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburg, St. Louis, St. 
Paul, Cincinnati, Kansas City. Boston, Philadelphia, 
New York, New Orleans and other places. 

Though an ardent Republican, Mr. Banning 
remained "a private in the ranks" until elected a 



McKinley presidential elector in 1896. In 1897 he was 
appointed by Governor Tanner to the unpaid, but hon- 
orable and responsible, office of member of the State 
Board of Charities, the duties of which he was peculiarly 
well fitted to perform. Early in 1899 he was strongly 
urged for the office of United States District judge at 
Chicago, for which he was supported by Senators Cul- 
lom and Mason and a majority of the Chicago congress- 
men five out of seven and, as stated by one of his 
opponents, endorsed by "the Republican organizations 
of the state, county and city, together with the bar asso- 
ciation and the leading citizens of Chicago." The Presi- 




EPHRAIM BANNING. 

dent, however, had other plans, and, in pursuance of 
these, made a personal appointment. 

Mr. Banning is a member of the Union League Club 
and of the American. State and Chicago Bar associa- 
tions, in the latter of which he has at times been 
an active factor. For several years he was a mem- 
ber of the committee of the Chicago Bar Associa- 
tion on legislation with reference to Federal judges and 
practice in the Federal courts. He was also a member 
of its committee on legislation to establish the juvenile 
court in Chicago and revise the laws relating to the 
care of delinquent and dependent children in Illinois. 
He served as chairman of the committee on Organiza- 
tion of the Congress on Patents and Trademarks, held 
under the auspices of the World's Congress Auxiliary of 
the World's Columbian Exposition, in 1893. and which 
was presided over by Judge Blodgett, formerly of the 
United States Court at this city. He was chosen by 
this congress as one of five to present certain industrial 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



questions, specially relative to patents and trademarks, 
to the Congress of the United States. 

In religion Mr. Banning is a Presbyterian, and is 
an elder in that church. He has been twice married 
first, to Miss Lucretia T. Lindsley, who died in 1887, 
leaving three sons, all of whom survive ; and, second, 
to Miss Emilie B. Jenne. He resides on Washington 
boulevard, near Robey street, and has been a resident 
of that vicinity for over thirty years. 

John Stocker Miller, son of John and Jane (McLeod) 
Miller, was born at Louisville, St. Lawrence County, 
New York, May 24, 1847. Pursuing his earlier 
studies in the common schools and academy in his native 
town, he later entered the St. Lawrence University at 




JOHN STOCKER MILLER. 

Canton, New York, and received his bachelor's degree 
from that institution with the class of '69. He then 
entered upon the study of law in the legal department 
of the same university, and in the following year was 
admitted to the bar at Ogdensburg. 

Mr. Miller did not at once enter upon the practice 
of his profession, but devoted himself to teaching, 
becoming professor of mathematics in his alma mater 
during the school year of 1871-72, and of Latin and 
Greek for the two years, 1872-74. He then resigned, 
and in the early part of the year last mentioned came 
to Chicago. 

Mr. Miller's preparation in the law had been most 
thorough and his preceptors men of high standing at 
the bar. As a natural result of this he had no difficulty 
in securing a foothold and building up a satisfactory 



clientage from the beginning of his career in this pro- 
fession. From 1874-76 he practiced alone, and, fol- 
lowing this time, in association with George Herbert 
and John H. S. Quick, under the firm name of Herbert, 
Quick & Miller. After the death of Mr. Herbert some 
years later, the firm was continued under the name of 
Quick & Miller, until 1886, when Mr. Miller became 
associated with Senator Henry W. Leman. Four years 
later Merritt Starr was admitted to the firm, and since 
then George R. Peck has succeeded Mr. Leman, the 
style of the firm name being now Peck, Miller & Starr. 

Mr. Miller has come to be ranked among the ablest 
and most successful chancery lawyers in Chicago, and 
his connections with numerous important cases of this 
nature, among them the "Flagler," "Riverside" and 
"Phillips and South Park" litigations, brought him 
prominently before the public. The manner in which he 
acquitted himself in these and other cases led to his 
being appointed corporation counsel of Chicago by 
Mayor Washburn in the spring of 1891. 

This most important post Mr. Miller held for the 
following two years, and in this time was exceedingly 
active in behalf of the interests of the city in several 
cases against railroad companies, involving the eleva- 
tion of tracks and extension of the city streets over 
the same. The celebrated "Lake Front" case against 
the Illinois Central Railroad Company was also argued 
by Mr. Miller in behalf of the city during this period. 
He retired from this office in 1893 and has since then 
devoted himself to general practice. 

Mr. Miller is an influential Republican and a mem- 
ber of St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal Church in Ken- 
wood. He is affiliated with the Union League, 
Chicago, Hamilton, Kenwood and other clubs. He was 
married December 12, 1887, to Miss Ann Gross of this 
city, and has two children, a son and a daughter. 

William W. Gurley, prominent in transportation 
circles of the United States on account of his connec- 
tion with several traction companies as general counsel, 
was born in Mt. Gilead, Ohio, January 27, 1851. He 
was the son of John J. Gurley, also a lawyer, who was 
a member of the constitutional convention of Ohio and 
who served as probate judge of Morrow : County. 

After attending the public schools of Mt. Gilead, 
Mr. Gurley entered Ohio Wesleyan University, and was 
graduated in 1870. During the year after his gradua- 
tion he was superintendent of public schools of Seville, 
Ohio. He then gave up teaching, read law in his 
father's office and was admitted to the bar in June, 



Mr. Gurley came to Chicago in September, 1874, 
and has been practicing law here since. His work has 
been principally corporation practice, and during his 
more than thirty years in Chicago he has organized and 
acted as general counsel of many large companies. He 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



253 



became identified with traction interests first in 1888, 
when he aided in the organization of and became gen- 
eral counsel of the South Side Elevated Railroad. 

He was one of the incorporators of the Metropolitan 
West Side Elevated Railroad, which was organized in 
March, 1892, and has up to the present time acted as 
general counsel of the company. In 1901 he was 




WILLIAM W. GURLEY. 

appointed general counsel of the Union Traction Com- 
pany and has been brought prominently before the 
public since, owing to the protracted litigation between 
the company and city over the company's rights. 

Mr. Gurley is a member of the Chicago, Union 
League, Washington Park, Chicago Golf, Exmoor, 
Country and Edgewater Golf clubs. The New York 
Club and the Transportation Club of New York City. 
His wife is a daughter of Joseph Turney, who served 
two terms as state treasurer of Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. 
Gurley and their one daughter, Helen Kathryn, reside 
at 528 North State street. Mr. Gurley's offices have 
been in the Marquette building for several years. 

Charles M. Aldrich, one of the leading lawyers of 
Chicago and one of the foremost exponents of corpora- 
tion law in the country, was born in Lagrange, Indiana, 
August 26, 1850. Both his father and mother. Hamil- 
ton M. and Harriet (Sherwood) Aldrich, came from 
the East, the former from Vermont and the latter from 
New York. The Aldriches spring from old English 
stock, though the family have been native Americans 
for the last few generations. As a boy Mr. Aldrich 
worked on his father's farm until the age of sixteen, 
obtaining in the meantime such elementary education as 



a common school would permit. His parents then 
moved to Orland, Steuben County, Indiana, to allow 
their children better educational advantages. Charles 
H. entered the Orland seminary at sixteen, and, com- 
pleting his studies there, entered the high school at 
Coldwater, Michigan. Thence he went to the University 
of Michigan at Ann Arbor, graduating with the class of 
'75, receiving a bachelor's degree, classical course. In 
1893 the faculty conferred upon him the honorary 
degree of M. A. 

Mr. Aldrich began the practice of law at Fort 
Wayne, Indiana, then the second city to Indianapolis in 
the state in point of population, wealth and progress. 
From the outset he assumed a leading place at the 
Indiana liar. In 1884 he was urged by leading Repub- 
licans to become a candidate for the nomination to the 
state's attorney-general's office. Without making any 
campaign whatsoever to promote his candidacy, he fell 
short of the nomination by only a few votes. In 1886 
he moved to Chicago. He gained a national reputation 
in the Central and Southern Railroad, the Union Pacific 
Railroad and the Western Union Telegraph cases, in 




CHARLES H. ALDRICH. 

which he successfully upheld the side of the federal gov- 
ernment against the most eminent lawyers in the coun- 
try. These cases both served to augment his profes- 
sional reputation and practice, and led to his selection 
as Solicitor-General under President Harrison. After 
serving the Republican administration for several years 
he returned to Chicago to resume his private practice, 
which has since continued uninterruptedly. Among his 



254 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



clients are some of the largest corporate interests in 
the West. 

Mr. Aldrich is an ex-president of the Chicago Law 
Club and trustee of the Chicago Law Institute. He has 
also served as vice-president and member of committee 
of political action of the Union League Club. He was 
married on October 13, 1875, to Miss Helen Roberts 
of Indiana. They have a family of one son and two 
daughters. 

Charles S.Thornton was born in Boston, Massachu- 
setts, April 12, 1851. He attended the public schools of 
Boston, including the Boston Latin School, and grad- 
uated from Harvard College in 1872. He came to Chi- 
cago and has remained here continuously since that 
date. He was admitted to the bar on examination by 
the Supreme Court of Illinois in the fall of 1873. He 
entered into active practice immediately, and has con- 
tinued ever since. He entered into business relations 
with Mr. Justus Chancellor in 1883. 

For many years Mr. Thornton has been the senior 
member of the firm which has always been known as 
Thornton & Chancellor, although for many years the 




CHARLES S. THORNTON. 

firm comprised eight practicing lawyers. Mr. Thornton 
has served the public as president of the board of edu- 
cation of Auburn Park, where he resides, and has 
been a member of the several boards of education of 
Illinois, Cook County and Chicago. He was corpora- 
tion counsel of the Town of Lake and afterwards cor- 
poration counsel of the City of Chicago. His practice 
at the bar has been largely in the direction of corpora- 



tion and real estate litigation. In politics he has always 
been a Democrat, and has managed several local cam- 
paigns for his party. He is a member of the Masonic 
and Odd P'ellows orders. 

Adams Augustus Goodrich, senior member of Good- 
rich, Vincent & Bradley, has a large practice in both the 
civil and criminal courts of Cook County. At different 




ADAMS AUGUSTUS GOODRICH. 

times he has been elected to the offices of state's attorney 
and judge. 

Mr. Goodrich was born at Jerseyville, Jersey County, 
Illinois, January 8, 1849. His grandfather, Clark H. 
Goodrich, was one of the pioneer lawyers of the state, 
coming here in 1840 and becoming district attorney of 
the old first district, of which Peoria was then a part. 
Mr. Goodrich received his early education in the Jersey- 
ville elementary and high schools. 

When he was sixteen years old his uncle, Congress- 
man A. L. Knapp, secured an appointment for him in 
the United States military academy at West Point. He 
followed his studies there for three and a half years, and 
when the course was almost completed decided to 
abandon his military prospects on account of ill health 
and a preference for a professional career. After a two 
years' trip through the West he began reading law in 
the office of his uncle, Robert M. Knapp, at Jerseyville, 
and later at Springfield, Illinois, in the office of the 
Hon. A. L. Knapp. 

At the bar examination of 1873 he was admitted, 
and at once started to practice in Jerseyville. In 1878 
he was elected state's attorney of Jersey County, and 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



255 



re-elected with increasing majorities to the office in 1880 
and 1884. In October, 1887, he resigned the prose- 
cutor's office to enter the field as a candidate for county 
judge of Jersey County, and was elected to this office 
in November, 1887. 

While still a judge he opened law offices in Chicago, 
and in 1889 moved here and made his permanent resi- 
dence in this city. When Judge Richard Prendergast 
was county judge of Cook County, it was often neces- 
sary that he be absent from the bench, and during such 
occasions Judge Goodrich invariably was invited from 
his Jersey County bench to preside for him. Later Mr. 
Goodrich became attorney for the drainage board and 
had charge of the immense number of condemnation 
suits that were fought by that body. 

Judge Goodrich is a Democrat in politics, and dur- 
ing the incumbency of the younger Mayor Harrison 
was chairman of the board of Bridewell inspectors. He 
has always taken an active part in municipal affairs, but 
has never been a candidate for any political office in 
Chicago. 

In 1895 he was appointed by Governor Altgeld one 
of the five trustees to select a location, establish and 
build the Northern Illinois Normal School. He was 
the first president of the board when the school was 
established at De Kalb. In 1900 he was re-elected for 
another five-year term. 

Judge Goodrich is a Knight Templar, Odd Fellow 
and Knight of Pythias and a member of the Chicago 
Athletic, the Iroquois, the Washington Park, Chicago 
and other local clubs. 

Albert J. Hopkins, junior senator from Illinois, is a 
distinctive product of the state he represents in the 
upper house of the Congress of the United States. He 
shares with General John A. Logan the distinction of 
being the only native born Illinoisan to represent his 
state in the Senate. As a lawyer and as a member of 
both houses of Congress, Senator Hopkins has a strong, 
clean and clear-cut record. 

He was born on a farm in De Kalb County, August 
15, 1846. This environment developed a strong, robust 
constitution and an ambition for a thorough education. 
To attain this end much self denial and painstaking 
economy was practiced. After the usual experience 
of the country boy in the district school and the town 
schools he entered Hillsdale (Michigan) College. He 
was graduated from this institution in the spring of 
1870, and his alma mater has since honored him with 
the degree of LL. D. The bar was his aim from the 
start, and after graduation he studied law and com- 
menced the practice of his profession at Aurora. He 
soon entered politics, and was elected state's attorney of 
Kane County in 1872, holding that office for four years. 
His record as state's attorney brought him a large and 



lucrative practice. He kept up his interest in political 
affairs and was a member of the Republican state central 
committee from 1878 to 1880, and was on the list of 
presidential electors on the Elaine and Logan ticket in 
1884. 

Senator Hopkins was first elected to Congress to 
fill a vacancy caused by the death of the Hon. Reuben 
Ellwood, during the Forty-ninth Congress. From then 
on he served continuously during the Fiftieth, Fifty-first, 
Fifty-second, Fifty-third, Fifty-fourth, Fifty-fifth, Fifty- 
sixth and Fifty-seventh Congresses. This service 
of nearly eighteen years in the House of Repre- 
sentatives gave him a leading position in the Illinois 
delegation in Congress. During the time he served 




ALBERT J. HOPKINS. 

on many of the leading committees of the House, 
notably the merchant marine and fisheries, post- 
offices and postroads, and ways and means. The import- 
ance of his work on the ways and means committee, 
which is the most important committee in Congress, 
extended over a period of twelve years. The sub-com- 
mittee which framed the Dingley law was guided in a 
large measure by him. As a member of that sub-com- 
mittee he helped to frame all the tariff legislation that 
has been enacted by Congress since the McKinley bill. 
In 1902 when the Republicans of the state began to 
cast about for a suitable candidate for the senate to 
succeed the Hon. Wm. E. Mason, the logical man for 
the honor was Representative Albert J. Hopkins. For 
many years he had been one of the leading members of 
the Illinois delegation in the House, and this combined 
with his clean record as a lawyer and a citizen made him 



25(> 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



the most available man. His choice was settled upon at 
the state convention in the fall of 1902, and this action 
was confirmed by the legislature in January of the next 
year. He took his seat in the Senate at the extra ses- 
sion of that body on March 4, 1903. Though one of 
the comparatively new members in the Senate his ability 
has been already recognized in his appointment on a 
number of the important committees. He is chairman 
of the fisheries committee and also member of the fol- 
lowing: Commerce, corporations in the District of 
Columbia, Cuban relations, enrollment of bills, Inter- 
oceanic canals, Mississippi river and its tributaries, priv- 
ileges and elections and disposition of documents. In the 
reorganization of the Senate at the coming session he 
will no doubt be recognized even more fully than he 
has been. 

Senator Hopkins has always been a friend of labor 
and has taken an active interest in all legislation that 
tended to shorten working hours, and to ameliorate 
the condition of the working man. Much of the legis- 
lation that has improved the condition of the American 
sailor was secured by his active support and cooperation 
while a member of the committee on merchant marine 
in the House of Representatives. He has already taken 
a prominent part in the deliberations of the Senate con- 
cerning the building of the Panama canal. While the 
treaty between the United States and Panama was pend- 
ing in the Senate he ably defended the action of the 
administration in recognizing the Republic of Panama, 
and in negotiating the treaty which secured the authority 
to the United States of constructing and maintaining 
the canal. 

Senator Hopkins is a strong, virile individual. 
Intellectually and physically he might be said to be in 
his prime. His friends and constituents in Illinois look 
forward to seeing him take a leading and commanding 
position in the Senate of the United States within the 
next few years. Within recent years he has identified 
himself more closely with Chicago interests than for- 
merly. The large practice that has come to him has 
necessitated his moving his law offices to this city, and 
he is now the senior member of the firm of Hopkins, 
Peffers & Hopkins, with offices in The Temple. His 
home he still keeps in Aurora. Senator Hopkins was 
married to Emma C. Stolp of Aurora. They have an 
interesting family of four children. 

William 5. Forrest, the celebrated criminal lawyer, 
was born in Baltimore, July 9, 1852. After receiving a 
thorough school education in his native city, he entered 
Dartmouth College, where he was graduated in 1875, 
with a classical degree. From Dartmouth he went to 
Boston, reading law there for three years. Coming to 
Chicago, he readily passed the Illinois bar examinations 
and commenced his practice. 



Equipped with a comprehensive knowledge of the 
various branches of law and endowed with the gift of 
oratory, he has been peculiarly qualified to succeed in 
his particular branch of jurisprudence, criminal law, of 
which he has become one of the most eminent expo- 
nents in the country. He has figured in many notable 
cases which gave him a national reputation, of which 
the famous Cronin murder cases probably attracted the 
widest attention. In the John Lamb case, almost 
equally famous, Mr Forrest secured the defendant's 
acquittal after a four-year fight. In this case Lamb had 
been adjudged guilty of murder through circumstantial 
evidence, and sentenced to be hanged. The case was 
appealed, and the first decision reversed. The chief 




WILLIAM S. FORREST. 

point of contention was the liability of a conspirator for 
the acts of a co-conspirator. The Schank case was an- 
other where Mr. Forrest distinguished himself. Here 
he secured the acquittal of the defendant upon a murder 
charge by showing that the deceased party met his death 
through malpractice of the attending surgeon after the 
stabbing. 

Another example of his astuteness was exhibited in 
the McLain brothers case, in which the defendants 
were charged by the federal government with using 
the mails for fraudulent purposes. The McLain brothers 
were prominent board of trade operators, and the charge 
was "bucket-shopping." Mr. Forrest raised the con- 
tention that bucket-shopping was gambling rather than 
fraud, and, after a month's argument, during which no 
evidence was introduced, the court sustained his point 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



257 



and the men were discharged. He secured an acquittal 
in the case of the state against Officer John Baginski, 
charged with killing an Italian and wounding two others. 
In defending E. S. Dreyer, the banker, he secured a 
disagreement of the jury. The Chandler embezzlement 
case ended in an acquittal. In the first case of John 
Dal ton, who had been sentenced to the penitentiary for 
two years for fraudulent use of the mails, Mr. Forrest 
carried the case to the United States Court of Appeals, 
and the decision was reversed. In the second case, 
where Dal ton was tried for sending lottery advertising 
matter from one state to another, the prosecution intro- 
duced eighty-six witnesses, and the defense none, but 
the case ended in a disagreement. He secured the 
release of Alderman John J. Brennan, who had been con- 
victed of election fraud, by having the decision set aside 
in the appellate court. 

He also successfully defended Charles Spalding, 
Thomas J. O'Malley, John D. Snearly and James Maney, 
lieutenant of the Fifteenth United States Infantry, and 
Baron von Beidenfeld. He has been equally successful 
in conducting prosecutions, notably Mannow and Wind- 
rath, who were hanged for the murder of Carey B. Birch, 
Lake and Griswold, who received a life sentence for kill- 
ing Patrick Owens, and Healy and Robbard, who were 
tried in Dubuque, Iowa, and sentenced for life for the 
murder of two private policemen. He was retained by 
the civic federation in 1894 to prosecute sixty-nine 
Democrats for election frauds. Three were sent to the 
penitentiary, and forty-nine were fined. He conducted 
the criminal prosecutions for the Chicago, Milwaukee & 
St. Paul Railroad for three years, securing during that 
time 189 convictions. 

During his legal career Mr. Forrest has participated, 
either for defense or prosecution, in over two hundred 
and fifty homicide cases, in which his percentage of suc- 
cesses has been so great as to entitle him to his present 
high rank in criminal law. 

Granville W. Browning was born at Indianapolis, 
Indiana, March 14, 1856. After graduating from the 
Literary Department of Michigan University with the 
class of 1877 he came to Chicago, read law in the office 
of the late William H. King, and was admitted to the 
bar in June, 1880. 

Since his admission to the bar Mr. Browning has 
been actively engaged in the practice of his profession, 
devoting himself to real estate and corporation law. He 
was first a partner of Judge Samuel M. Moore, for a 
long time chancellor of the Superior Court, and after- 
wards was associated with Col. Alexander M. Wool- 
folk. Since 1898 he has been associated with Stuart G. 
Shepard. Mr. Browning was a candidate for judge on 
the Democratic ticket in 1893 and 1897, but both 
tickets went down in landslides. Mr. Browning 

17 



received the highest number of votes cast for any can- 
didate on the ticket in 1897. 

Mr. Browning was appointed first assistant corpora- 
tion counsel of the City of Chicago by Mayor Harri- 
son, in July of 1897, and has represented the city as 
special counsel since 1899 m many important cases with 
uniform success. His most notable victory was in the 
famous "Lake Front" case, in the Supreme Court of the 
United States, which had dragged along in the courts 
in different forms for twenty years, the riparian rights 
and real property in dispute being estimated to be worth 
$100,000,000. Mr. Browning conducted the final liti- 
gation in the case, defeating the claims of the Illinois 
Central Railroad Co., to enlarge its use of the lake shore 




GRANVILLE W. BROWNING. 

along the entire Lake Front to Fiftieth street. He also 
won the case of the People's Gas Light & Coke 
Company against the city, in the Supreme Court of the 
United States, where all contract rights to charge one 
dollar per 1,000 feet of gas, as set up by the company, 
were defeated. He also won the Van Buren street 
tunnel case, wherein the Illinois Supreme Court ordered 
the West Chicago Street Railway Company to lower 
the Van Buren street tunnel, so that the navigation 
of the Chicago river might be restored. Mr. Browning 
took the position that the tunnel destroyed navigation 
and must be lowered as a nuisance at the company's 
expense and the Supreme Court sustained his posi- 
tion. 

He has recently won the Westfall case, wherein one 
party sought to reduce Lake avenue south of Jackson 
Park to a street eighty feet wide, and others sought to 



258 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



recover the entire street as private property. He 
obtained a decree, maintaining the street perpetually 
as a street 150 feet wide. Mr. Browning' also won the 
League ball club case, establishing the militia law in 
this state ; the Eisendrath case, recovering Sangamon 
street, for many years used as private property ; the 
Shirk case, reclaiming the corner of Park Row and 
Michigan avenue, and restoring it to the public, and 
many other cases involving important public questions. 

Mr. Browning has also been a Master in Chancery 
of the Superior Court of Cook County for some years. 
He is a member of the Fourth Presbyterian Church and 
of the University, Chicago, Onwentsia and Saddle & 
Cycle clubs and of the Law Club, the Bar Association 
and other organizations. Mr. Browning was married in 
1903 and lives in the Twenty-first Ward. 

Paul Brown of the law firm of Horton & Brown, 
although still a comparatively young man, has been 
prominent in legal circles of Chicago for a score of 




PAUL BROWN. 

years. He is the son of Dr. Henry T. Brown, one of 
the early settlers of Illinois, who came to McHenry 
County from New York. His mother is a native of 
Vermont. His primary and higher English education 
was obtained in the common and high schools of 
McHenry County, his native county. 

After completing his high school course. Mr. Brown 
came to Chicago and studied law in the office of Hoyne, 
Horton & Hoyne, then one of the most prominent 
firms in the city. In the spring of 1885, he was 
admitted to the bar and a few months later was 
appointed Master in Chancery of the Circuit Court of 



Cook County. So well did Mr. Brown meet the 
requirements of the position that he was reappointed 
three times. In the fall of 1893 after eight years serv- 
ice he resigned in order to devote his entire time to 
private practice. 

In 1889 Mr. Brown formed a partnership with 
Clarence A. Knight, and this continued until 1903. 
They were largely engaged in corporate and chancery 
practice and represented several railway companies as 
general solicitors. After leaving the firm of Knight & 
Brown Mr. Brown, in the fall of 1903, formed a part- 
nership with Oliver H. Horton, then but recently 
retired from the Circuit Court bench, where he had 
served for sixteen years. While engaged in a general 
practice, the firm is counsel for a large insurance com- 
pany and has recently administered the affairs of an 
elevator company, handling more than a million dollars 
in a year. 

Mr. Brown is a member of the Union League, Mid- 
day and Calumet clubs. In 1888 he was married to 
Miss Grace A. Owens, daughter of O. W. Owens of 
McHenry County and they have a family of two boys 
and a girl. 

Thomas S. Hog<m, conspicuous in legal circles of 
Chicago, was born in Chicago, January 31, 1860. His 
father, M. W. Hogan, also an attorney, moved to St. 
Louis soon after the subject of this sketch was born, 
became state's attorney and held the office for twelve 
years and other state and municipal offices during his 
long residence in that city. 

After graduating from the St. Louis University with 
the degree of Master of Arts, Mr. Hogan studied law 
in the office of Ex-Governor Reynolds of Missouri and 
Judge Irwin Z. Smith. He later attended the Wash- 
ington University, where he obtained the degree of 
LL. B., and was admitted to practice in the courts of 
Missouri, April 10, 1882. Returning to Chicago in 
1886, Mr. Hogan was within a month admitted to the 
bar of Illinois and has since been engaged in general 
practice in the state and federal courts. 

In the course of his practice in Chicago Mr. Hogan 
has been engaged as counsel in much important litiga- 
tion. As associate counsel for plaintiff he helped to 
secure the largest verdict ever rendered in a personal 
injury case, the amount being $40,000, in the case of 
Bush vs. the Northern Pacific Railroad Company. The 
case was heard before Judge Gresham in the 
United States Circuit Court. Mr. Hogan also rep- 
resented Richard Mansfield in the litigation brought 
against the actor by S. E. Gross involving the author- 
ship of the play, Cyrano de Bergerac. The case 
involving the title of the play, Sherlock Holmes, in 
which he represented Charles Frohman, William Gil- 
lette and Conan Doyle in the Supreme Court of Illi- 
nois was decided in favor of his clients. He also repre- 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



259 



santed Mr. Frohman in the Little Minister case. In 
the Iroquois theater cases before the Cook County 
coroner he successfully guarded the interests of his 
clients, Kla\v and Erlanger. He has been frequently 
called to other American cities and to London, Eng- 
land, to represent clients. 

Mr. Hogan is a director in the National Printing 
& Engraving Company, the United Chemists' Asso- 
ciation, the Credit Protective Association, the San 
Marcos Rubber Plantation Company, the Colonial Min- 
ing Company, the American Amusement Company and 
the United States Amusement Company. He is a 
member of many of the leading clubs of Chicago, and 
an honorary member of clubs in New York, 
Boston, St. Louis, London and Paris. At present he is 
a member of the firm Hogan & Hogan, which has 
an extensive practice throughout the country. 

Mr. Hogan is not married and resides at 1578 Jack- 
son boulevard. He has probably one of the finest 
private libraries in Chicago. He is the author of 
several plays and has a reputation for public speaking. 




THOMAS S. HOGAN. 

Mr. Hogan has never held a public office. Several 
times he has been tendered the nomination for judge, 
but has declined each time. 

Edward J. Brundagc was born at Campbell, New 
York, May 13, 1869, and attended the public schools in 
Detroit, Michigan. At the age of fourteen lie entered 
a railroad office in Detroit, remaining there until the 
removal of the general office to Chicago, in 1885. Mr. 
Brundage at once took up the duties of the position at 
Chicago and remained with the company until 1898, 



at which time he had risen to the position of chief clerk. 
He studied law at night, was admitted to the bar in 
1892, and was graduated from the Chicago College of 
Law the following year. In 1898 he was elected a 
member of the Forty-first General Assembly. He was 
appointed by Governor Tanner as one of the two vice- 
presidents from Illinois to the Pan-American Exposi- 
tion and was later named as a member of the Illinois 




EDWARD J. BRUNDAGE. 

State Commission. In 1902 he was again elected a 
member of the Illinois General Assembly. Pie was 
elected president of the board of commissioners of Cook 
County on the Republican ticket in November, 1904. 
Mr. Brundage is engaged in the practice of law, and has 
represented the state on several occasions as special 
counsel. 

John f. Smulski has achieved success in more lines 
of effort than often fall to the lot of a man of his age. 
He has been successful in business, in law, in politics 
and in the public service. For seven years he has been 
the president of the Pulaski Lumber Company, a pros- 
perous and growing concern; with his father, William 
Smulski, he has been instrumental in building up an 
extensive and profitable publishing business; he has 
built up a lucrative law practice, and four times in the 
last eight years the people have approved his acts as a 
public servant by re-electing him by increasing major- 
ities. 

Mr. Smulski was born in German Poland in 1867. 
and came to this country when thirteen years old. His 
education was begun in Germany, but completed in this 
country, when he graduated from St. Jerome's College, 



260 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



Berlin, Canada, in 1884. After his graduation he joined 
his father in the publication of the Polish Catholic 
Gazette, to which he devoted his energies for four years. 
It was the first Polish paper established in this country, 
its publication having been begun in 1871 by William 
Smulski. who came to America in 1869. 

In 1888 Mr. Smulski decided to study law. He 




JOHN F. SMULSKI. 

graduated from the Union College of -Law in 1890, and 
at once entered upon the practice of his profession. 

But it is in politics that Mr. Smulski has achieved his 
greatest success. From boyhood he had taken an 
interest in the politics of his ward, always affiliating 
with the Republican party. In 1896 the Republicans of 
the Sixteenth ward insisted that lie make the race for 
alderman against Peter Kiolbassa, the Democratic 
candidate. Mr. Kiolbassa had always been popular 
among the Polish voters, who largely constitute its 
citizenship, and he entered the contest with the prestige 
of having just come from two years' service as city 
treasurer. The ward was nominally Democratic by 
3,000 majority, but Mr. Smulski was defeated by only 
sixty-three votes. 

In 1898 Henry Ludolph, one of the Democratic 
aldermen, was killed in a railroad accident and Mr. 
Smulski was elected to fill the unexpired term. He was 
continuously re-elected alderman until 1903, when he 
was elected city attorney on the Republican ticket, 
being its only successful candidate. When he entered 
the office he found the dockets crowded with personal 
injury cases against the city, the damage claims aggre- 



gating $36,000,000. In two years he practically cleared 
the dockets and the first year reduced the average judg- 
ment against the city from $1,000 under his predecessor 
to $426. The next year he reduced the average to $273. 
In the spring of 1905, Mr. Smulski was renominated 
for city attorney and again was the only Republican 
candidate elected. While the Republican candidate for 
mayor was defeated by 24,000 votes, Mr. Smulski was 
elected by a plurality of over 19,000 votes. In all his 
candidacies Mr. Smulski has never sought the office. 
In each race it has been a case of the office seeking the 
man. 

Hugo Pam, member of the law firm of Pam & Hurd. 
was born in Chicago, January 20, 1870. He received 
his education in the public schools of Chicago, and grad- 
uated from the West Division High School in 1889. 
He entered the literary department of the University of 
Michigan, and graduated with the degree of Ph. B. in 
1892. In the fall of 1892 Mr. Pam entered the law 
offices of Moses, Pam & Kennedy, and was admitted to 
the bar in January, 1894. 

In February, 1897, Mr. Pam withdrew from the firm 
of Moses, Pam & Kennedy and opened his own office 




HUGO PAM. 

in the New York Life building. By this time his repu- 
tation was such that his services were in wide demand, 
and in 1898 he became a member of the firm of Pam, 
Donnelly & Glennon and continued as a member of the 
firm of Pam, Calhoun & Glennon, after Judge Donnelly 
had been elevated to the circuit bench. Mr. Pam now 
is a member of the firm of Pam & Hurd, the two other 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



261 



members of the firm being his distinguished brother, 
Mr. Max Pam, and Mr. Harry B. Kurd. 

Mr. Pam is a strenuous worker, and the knottier 
the problem at hand the more enjoyment does lie take 
in its solution. As an advocate, his command of the 
details of a case when addressing court and jury, and his 
accurate knowledge of the law, have won him a high 
position at the bar. In addition to a large general prac- 
tice, his firm numbers among its clients many of the 
large corporations in the country. 

In conclusion, it may be said that Mr. Pam is a 
thorough American in his ideals and sentiments. He is 
a Republican in his political affiliations, but he is not a 
politician, since to him the study and practice of his pro- 
fession is everything. He holds membership in many 
social and professional clubs, but he is not a club man 
for the same reason that he is not a politician. 

M. W. Borders, one of the leading members of the 
Chicago Bar Association, is general counsel for Nelson 
Morris & Company, meat packers. His rise in the law 
has been steady. He was born on a farm in Randolph 
County, Illinois, May 9, 1867, the son of James J. and 
Mary A. Borders. He was graduated from Monmouth 
College in 1888 and began his study of law in the office 




M. W. BORDERS. 

of Keorner & Horher in Belleville, Illinois, and was 
admitted to practice before the courts of the state in 

1890. For the term of 1890-91 he attended the 
Columbia Law School, New York City, and on July 15, 

1891, he formed a law partnership with James M. 
Hamill for the practice of his profession in Belleville. 
This partnership continued for ten years. 



Mr. Borders was city attorney of Belleville for two 
terms, was master in chancery of St. Clair County two 
years and occupied an enviable position in his general 
practice. In April, 1903. he moved to Chicago to 
become the general counsel for Nelson Morris & 
Company. 

Mr. Borders was married in February, 1892, to Miss 
Alice Emma Abbey of Kirkwood. Illinois. He has four 
sons, James, Melville, Edward and Horatio, aged 
twelve, eight, ten and six years, respectively. 

He is one of the prominent club men of the city, 
being a member of the Elks, the Chicago Athletic, the 
New Illinois Athletic, the Mid-day, the Iroquois and 
the Colonial clubs. 




JAMES J. GRAY. 

James J. Gray, master in chancery and formerly pres- 
ident of the board of Cook County assessors, is a native 
of Chicago. Since his birth, November 23, 1862, he 
has lived in the Twenty-first ward, on the North Side. 
After obtaining an education in the Chicago public 
schools and a business college, he secured a posi- 
tion with the printing firm of J. M. W. Jones & 
Co., remaining in their employ until 1893, when 
he became deputy probate clerk, ' studying law in 
the meantime. In 1895 he became one of the 
deputies, being assigned to Judge Tuley's court as 
minute clerk and record writer. 

He was admitted to the bar in 1896, and a year later, 
resigning his deputyship and associating himself with 
M. J. Moran, he established the law firm of Gray & 
Moran, with offices in the Ashland block. 

In 1897 Mr. Gray was elected assessor of the north 



THE CITY OP CHICAGO. 



town in a rattling campaign, in which he ran 4,000 votes 
ahead of the Democratic ticket. In his own ward he 
received 900 more votes than Carter H. Harrison, the 
mayoralty candidate. He was re-elected in 1898, and 
the following spring he was made a member of the Cook 
County board of assessors, serving with that body for 
six years. He was president of the board during 1903 
and 1904. He was re-nominated in the fall, but was 
defeated in the Roosevelt landslide, in which, however, 
he ran 40,000 ahead of Judge Parker in Cook County. 
He was appointed master in chancery by the circuit 
bench. 

Mr. Gray is a member of the Chicago Athletic, the 
Iroquois and the Germania Clubs and a number of fra- 
ternal societies. 

Charles McGavin, member of the National House of 
Representatives for the Eighth Illinois district, is one of 
the youngest men in Congress. His rise in politics has 




CHARLES McGAVIN. 

been rapid. \Yhen twenty years of age he lost his left 
arm in a railroad accident, which decided him to abandon 
a business career and study law. He has met with sig- 
nal success. 

Representative McGavin was born at Riverton, San- 
gamon County, Illinois, June 10, 1874, being the young- 
est of a family of ten children. He attended public 
school at Springfield until eleven years of age, when he 
went to make his home with a married sister at Mount 
Olive, Illinois, his mother having died when he was but 
six years old. At Mount Olive he attended the gram- 
mar and high schools and there made the acquaintance 



of Representative William A. Rodenberg of East St. 
Louis, who at that time was principal of the Mount 
Olive High School. At the age of fifteen he entered the 
office of the Smithboro Coal Company at Smith1>oro, 
Bond County, Illinois, as a clerk, his brother-in-law be- 
ing interested in the firm. His sister's family, with 
whomi he was living, removed to Springfield in 1890 
and he went with them. For a short time he was em- 
ployed with the Sangamon Coal Company and after- 
ward became connected with the agency of the Dupont 
Powder Company. The railroad accident in which he 
lost his arm occurred in 1894, and as soon as he had re- 
covered he decided to take up the study of law, and en- 
tered the office of Orendorff & Patton as a clerk. Three 
years of close application to law followed, and in 1897 
he was admitted to the bar. Seeking a wider field, he 
came to Chicago in 1899, where he has been a practic- 
ing attorney ever since. Mr. McGavin always took an 
active interest in politics, but it was not until 1903 that 
he began to take a lead in the Republican ranks of the 
Eighteenth ward. In this year he was nominated for 
alderman, but, the Eighteenth ward being strongly 
Democratic, he was defeated. The energetic campaign 
he conducted at the time attracted much attention, and 
in recognition of his ability he was appointed assistant 
city attorney under John F. Smulski. In the fall of 1904 
he was nominated for Congress in the Eighth district, 
which is nominally a Democratic stronghold. Under 
normal conditions it has been carried by the Democrats 
by about 8,000 majority. Mr. McGavin made the most 
energetic campaign, and not only overcame the Demo- 
cratic majority but polled 7,000 additional votes. Mr. 
McGavin is not married. He has offices in the Unity 
building, Chicago. He took his seat in Congress at the 
regular session, December, 1905. 

Dr. Edwin Hartley Pratt, A. M., M. D., LL. D., 

illustrates by his life and achievements what may be 
won by persistent and painstaking effort. Not only 
is he one of the leaders in his chosen profession, but 
also a diligent student of all that is best in literature 
and the broader affairs of the world. 

Dr. Pratt was born in Towanda, Pennsylvania, 
November 6, 1849. He comes of a family whose names 
are well known in the annals of medicine and surgery. 
His father was the celebrated Dr. Leonard Pratt. His 
mother, before her marriage, was Miss Betsey Belding, 
and of English descent. 

In recognition of his merit, and the great part he has 
taken in advancing the science of medicine and surgery, 
Dr. Pratt has had many honors conferred upon him. 
The University of Chicago honored him with the degree 
of Doctor of Laws in 1886. He received his master's 
degree from the same institution in 1874. One year 



TIH-. CITY OF CHICAGO. 



263 



previously be earned his doctor's degree at Hahnemann 
Medical College of Chicago. 

He is an honorary member of the Ohio Medical 
Society, the Missouri Medical Society, the Kentucky 
Medical Society and the Southern Association of Phy- 
sicians. He is an active member of the Illinois State 
Medical Association, the Chicago Academy of Med- 




DR. EDWIN HARTLEY PRATT. 

icine, the American Institute of Homeopathy, and 
numerous less prominent medical organizations. 

The science of orificial surgery is a triumph of Dr. 
Pratt's scholarly and untiring efforts. He is the pioneer 
in this branch of medical thought and is the author of 
a handsomely illustrated volume on the subject which 
has run into its fourth edition. 

Lincoln Park Sanitarium was built for Dr. Pratt's 
use, and was a mecca for a steadily increasing throng of 
physicians seeking to master the principles of orificial 
surgery. The patronage of the institution was large and 
consisted of only the more advanced and best members 
of the profession. 

Dr. Pratt was married to Miss Charlotte Kelley, 
February 26, 1900. Aside from his large and lucrative 
practice, Dr. Pratt finds time to devote many spare 
hours to the literature of the day. His library is one of 
the finest private collections of books in Chicago. 

In physique. Dr. Pratt is of a commanding stature 
six feet in height, weighing 250 pounds and finely pro- 
portioned. His mentality shows the cheerfulness and 
hopefulness of his celebrated father, and the energy, 
courage and perseverance of his mother. 



Alexander Hugh Ferguson, M. D., C. M., professor 
of surgery in the Chicago Post-Graduate Medical School 
and Hospital, was born in Ontario County, Canada, 
February 27, 1853, the son of Alexander and Ann 
(McFadyen) Ferguson, both natives of Scotland. He 
received his education in the common schools, Rock- 
wood Academy, Manitoba College, Toronto University 
and Trinity Medical School, from which latter institu- 
tion he was graduated in 1881. He received post-grad- 
uate training in New York, Glasgow, London and 
Berlin, where he took a thorough course in bacteriology 
under the celebrated Professor Koch. 

Dr. Ferguson began the practice of his profession in 
Buffalo, New York, but in 1882 he went to Canada and 
settled in Winnipeg, where, in the same year, he was 
appointed registrar of the College of Physicians and Sur- 
geons of Manitoba, and in the following year he took 
a most active part in founding the Manitoba Medical 
College, which has had a phenomenal success, and now 
enjoys the name of being one of the high-grade medical 
schools of Canada. He was professor of physiology and 
histology in this institution for three years, and in 1886 
he took the professorship of surgery upon the resigna- 




ALEXANDER HUGH FERGUSON. 

tion of Dr. James Kerr, who now holds a similar chair 
in Columbia University, Washington, D. C. He was a 
member of the staff of the Winnipeg General Hospital, 
surgeon-in-chief to the St. Boniface Hospital, and also 
the chief operator at Brandon and Morclon hospitals 
in the same province. He was the first president of the 
Manitoba branch of the British Medical Association, 
and he was also appointed by the Governor as a member 



TIUl CITY OF CHICAGO. 



of the Provincial Board of Health. His connection 
with the Manitoba Medical College covered a period of 
eleven years, and he was identified with it, not alone 
as registrar, but also as treasurer and a member of the 
University Council. He enjoyed the respect and con- 
fidence of the profession and people, as well as the loyal 
devotion and veneration of his students, and when he 
severed his connection with the Hospital of the Sisters 
of Charity before leaving Canada to locate in Chicago, 
his resignation \vas not accepted, in the hope that some 
day he might return. 

On December 18, 1893, Dr. Ferguson was offered 
the chair of surgery in the Chicago Post-Graduate Med- 
ical School and Hospital, and assumed his duties in 
June, 1894. Since locating here his services have been 
in great demand, and he now holds the position of sur- 
geon to the Post-Graduate Hospital, surgeon-in- 
chief to the Chicago Hospital, also surgeon to the Cook 
County Hospital for the Insane, and consultant to the 
Provident Hospital. 

It has been as a teacher of surgery and as an opera- 
tor that Dr. Ferguson has gained his wide reputation. 
There is hardly a major operation on the body that he 
has not performed. His work on Hydatids of the Liver 
has been the most extensive of any man in America, 
and was instrumental in first bringing him into notice. 
He has successfully performed partial hepatectomy, 
splenectomy, nephrectomies, craniectomies, thyroidec- 
tomies, hip-joint amputations, excisions, thoracoplasty, 
(Schede) cholecyst duodenostomies, appendicectomies, 
etc., all of which would be too numerous to mention. 
Suffice it to say that Dr. Ferguson has opened the abdo- 
men over a thousand times. He was the first to use 
Murphy's button to unite the duodenum to the stomach 
after removing a cancerous pylorus, and he was also the 
first to make an anastomosis with Murphy's button after 
excision of a cancerous cecum, in both of which cases 
he was successful. 

The doctor has been an extensive contributor to the 
medical press. It is only possible to mention a few of 
his more important papers, among which are : Hyda- 
tids of the Liver, Operative Treatment of Diseases 
of the Gall Bladder, Pylorectomy in America, Tho- 
racoplasty in America and Visceral Pleurectomy, with 
Report of a Case, Typic and Atypic Operations for 
the Radical Cure of Hernia. 

Dr. Ferguson is recognized as one of the best sur- 
geons in Chicago, and all his time is devoted to the 
teaching and practice of surgery. He is a member 
of the British Medical Association, International Medi- 
cal Congress, American Medical Association, Chicago 
Medical Society, Chicago Gynecological Society, the 
Physicians' Club of Chicago, Chicago Surgical Society, 
Military Tract Medical Association, Wayne County 
Medical Society, and also a fellow of the Chicago 



Academy of Medicine and of the American Association 
of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. 

In religion he is a Presbyterian. He is a member 
of the Scottish Rite, thirty-second degree, A. F. and 
A. M., and other societies. He was married in 1882 to 
Miss Thomas, daughter of the late Edward Thomas, 
Esq., a wealthy pioneer of Nassagaweya, near Guelph, 
Ontario, Canada. His family consists of two sons, Ivin 
Havelock and Alexander Donald. 

Dr. Trances Dickinson. The day was chill frost 
was in the air. Company shivered in the old-fashioned 
parlor of Mrs. Thomas Church, and marveled at the 
coatless, hatless little girl on the street. "Pity? Please 
don't!" said Mrs. Church. "That little girl with the 
bright eyes and long brown braids never wears hat nor 
coat. She is the daughter of my neighbor, and 'neath 
the front steps you will find she has hidden her wraps, 
rolled in a bundle." 

She was on her way to school, the old Dearborn 
school, opposite McVicker's theater, where they used to 
receive children at the age of five. At recess she was 
most popular and in great demand by the boys; both 
sides wanted her. She never 'could "bat," but she was 
the very best shortstop catch. 

Again we see her in front of her home (where Car- 
son, Pirie, Scott & Company is now located) on Wabash 
near Madison street, a happy, light-hearted, wholesome 
girl, walking the new curbstone, one of the first the 
city put down, and as she romped and played we noticed 
the old-fashioned garden, with its flowers and its cab- 
bages, and saw her sisters, Hannah and Melissa, and 
her brothers, Albert. Charles and Nathan, come and 
go. The little girl was Frances Dickinson. 

To-day Dr. Frances Dickinson is one of the most 
intelligent, industrious and successful women in the 
city of Chicago. She was born in Chicago, January 19, 
1856; graduated at the Central High School in 1875. 
The next four years were spent as a teacher in our pub- 
lic schools, but, finding the scope limited, and having 
decided to enter the medical profession, she abandoned 
her first work for the broader field. Accordingly, in 
1880 Frances Dickinson matriculated at the Woman's 
Medical College in Chicago, where she took the full 
course and proved an earnest student, graduating in 
1883. 

She served as interne in the Women's and Children's 
Hospital, under Dr. Mary Harris Thompson. Having 
meanwhile resolved to make a specialty of ophthalmol- 
ogy, she took the course in that branch at the Illinois 
State Eye and Ear Infirmary, Chicago. In 1883 in Lon- 
don Dr. Dickinson studied under the celebrated sur- 
geon, Dr. Cooper, in the Royal Ophthalmic Hospital 
at Moorfields, and also attended the ophthalmic clinics 
at the Royal Free Hospital in Gray's Inn Road. 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



265 



In Germany, at Darmstadt, she was for five months 
under the private tutorship of Dr. Adolph Weber, who 
had a large private clinic and hospital of sixty beds 
attached to his home. This was the Dr. Weber to 
whom Yon Graefe, the "father of ophthalmology,'' 
willed his instruments, and under so devoted a teacher 



a daughter and two sons, both of whom became dis- 
tinguished as physicians, and John, the elder, founded 
the American branch of the family. He was born in 
Hempstead, England, and sailed for America in the 
ship Hercules, April 16, 1634. 

Dr. Dickinson's brothers developed The Albert 



she could hardly have failed to receive lasting benefit Dickinson Company of this city, which is the leading 
and inspiration. firm dealing in grass seeds the world over. This unique 

Dr. Dickinson is the leading woman practitioner in and extensive business further exemplifies the organiz- 
her specialty in this country. At one time she enjoyed ing ability of the doctor's family, 
the distinction of being the only woman engaged as 
post-graduate instructor in ophthalmology, filling that 
chair in the Chicago Post-Graduate School of Medicine. 



Dr. Dickinson was the first woman to hold a large 
down-town meeting for women, bringing the women 
together to hear Mrs. Chant at Central Music Hall in 



She is president of Harvey Medical College, where she 1889. She was also a party to the forming of the first 
fills the chair of ophthalmology. 

Dr. Dickinson is an active and honored member of 
the City and State Medical societies and of the American 
Medical Association, of the Chicago Ophthalmological 
Society, the American Academy of Political and Social 
Science and the Chicago Academy of Sciences. She 
was the first woman received into the International 
Medical Congress, in which she was admitted to mem- 
bership at its ninth convention, held in 1887 at Wash- 
ington, D. C. Since that year women have not been 
denied membership, in spite of the fact that congresses 
have been held in foreign cities, where women are not 
allowed equal privileges with men at the universities. 

Many of Dr. Dickinson's maternal ancestors were 
physicians, and in the paternal line are found a number 
of schoolmasters ; and in both lines we find them fre- 
quently being honored with and honoring public office. 
Her father, a man of broad character and wide sym- 
pathies, was a prominent business man in Chicago for 
many years. His wife, Ann Eliza Anthony, like him- 
self, was a native of Massachusetts, a woman of strong 
personality and the organizer of the First Society of 
Friends in this city, and an aunt of the famous woman 
suffragist, Susan B. Anthony. 

The first of the Anthony family of whom there is any Union of Physicians, regardless of the pathies. They 




DR. FRANCES DICKINSON. 



mention is William Anthony, born in Cologne, Germany, 
who came to England during the reign of Edward VI, 
and was made chief graver of the royal mint and master 
of the scales, continuing to hold office through the 
reigns of that monarch and Mary and part of the reign 
of Elizabeth. His crest and coat of arms are entered 
in the royal enumeration. His son Derrick was the 
father of Dr. Francis Anthony, born in London in 1550. 
He graduated at Cambridge with the degree of Master 
of Arts, and became famous as a physician and chemist, 
but was intolerant of restraint and in continual con- 
flict with the College of Physicians and Surgeons. He 
died in his seventy-fourth year, and was buried in the 
church of St. Bartholomew the Great, where his hand- 



are now united on sanitation. 

During the World's Fair, Dr. Dickinson was a 
member of the Board of Lady Managers, and in con- 
nection with Dr. Waite formed the first medical union 
composed of women of the various schools of medicine 
the Illinois Medical Women's Sanitary Association 
which immediately sent Dr. Kate Bushnell, Dr. Alice 
Ewing and, later. Dr. Rachel Hickey, to the scene of 
the Johnstown disaster. They were the first on the 
ground to commence the relief work, and remained 
seven weeks in the prosecution of their noble purpose. 

Dr. Dickinson is one of the most progressive women 
of the day, one of the best known club women of Amer- 
ica, as well as one of the leading oculists of this country, 



some monument is still to be seen. Dr. Anthony left a woman who commands respect and holds attention. 



L'66 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



Samuel W. Allerton has all the characteristics of the 
New York Yankee. He is quick to conceive an idea, 
cautious in determination of its value, resolute in its 
accomplishment when once he has decided upon a course 
of action, and it must also be said that he is public- 
spirited as well as mindful of his personal welfare. Born 
in Duchess County, New York, in 1829, of farmer par- 
ents, and with only such advantages of education as 
could be gained from the somewhat inefficient public 
schools of the first half of the century, Mr. Allerton has 
attained commercial, social and political distinction. 
He is a director of the First National Bank and of the 
Chicago City Railway Company and has large interests 
in the principal stockyards of the United States. Mr. 




SAMUEL W. ALLERTON. 

Allerton has not achieved wealth by any gigantic specu- 
lation ; he has built his fortune on the sure and honorable 
foundation of industry, economy, sound judgment and 
resolute action. 

He worked on a farm until he was eighteen years of 
age; then he began stock raising on his own account. 
By the time he was twenty-one he had accumulated 
nearly $5,000. That was nearly sixty years ago, and 
sixty years ago $5,000 had a larger operative power 
than it now has. With this capital Mr. Allerton pur- 
chased a stock farm in Piatt County, Illinois. Yet even 
then Chicago had its fascinations for Mr. Allerton. He 
was a frequent visitor to the future metropolis, but 
always with intent to sell or buy. He soon became 
famous as a successful breeder and raiser of stock. His 
farms increased in number and his flocks and herds in 
value and magnitude. He also was a shrewd purchaser 



of real estate in what was to be the great city of the 
West. He was among the first to discern the needs 
and uses and profits of stockyards as centers of the 
cattle trade and was among the earliest and most active 
promoters of the system. And thus, by the exercise of 
strict industry, strict integrity and sound judgment, Mr. 
Allerton has achieved rank among the millionaires of 
the country. 

But it is not alone as a financier that Mr. Allerton 
is known and respected. His political acumen is as 
remarkable as his commercial capacity. Few moves 
are made on the Republican checker board of Illinois 
without the knowledge of Mr. Allerton. He never has 
sought office, but in 1893 the Republican nomination 
for mayor literally was thrust upon him. He made a 
gallant fight, but it was an "off year" for Republicans, 
and that past master of political tactics, the late Carter 
H. Harrison, defeated him. In the same year Mr. Aller- 
ton rendered great service to the public as a member 
of the World's Fair directory. Mr. Allerton has been 
twice married. He has two children, Robert H. and 
Katie R. 

Frankin Harvey Head, a gentleman who has dem- 
onstrated the compatibility of literary instinct and cul- 
ture with business acumen, was born January 24, 1835, 
at Paris, Oneida County, New York. His father, Harvey 
Head, and his mother, who prior to her marriage was 
Miss Calista Simons, came of families long resident in 
the vicinity of Paris. Mr. F. H. Head received a sound 
preparatory education at the Academy in Cazenovia, 
New York, and afterward enrolled as a student in Ham- 
ilton College, and was graduated as B. A. in 1856, and 
received the degree of M. A. three years later. He was 
also graduated from the law school of his alma mater in 
1858, and subsequently was honored by it with the 
degree of LL. D. 

In 1858 Mr. Head settled in the West, and in con- 
junction with his uncle, Mr. O. S. Head, founded the 
law firm of O. S. & F. H. Head, at Kenosha, Wis- 
consin. The firm continued in existence and enjoyed a 
lucrative practice for about nine years, when Mr. F. H. 
Head was compelled by failing health to retire from so 
sedentary a business. After spending a time in Europe 
he went to Utah and to California, in which states he 
acquired proprietary interests in a cattle ranch and in 
a mine. Supervision of their business occupied his atten- 
tion, and was productive of profits for three or four 
years, when, his health being restored, he returned to 
what in those days were called "The States" by settlers 
in the Far West, and entered into partnership with 
Messrs. Wirt Dexter and N. K. Fairbank in the 
manufacture of lumber and charcoal iron at Elk Rapids, 
Michigan. While exercising a general supervision over 
these large industries, Mr. Head made his home in 
Evanston, Illinois, for several years. In the meantime 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



207 



lie acquired interests in banking and manufacturing 
enterprises in Chicago, of which city he became a per- 
manent resident about ten years ago. Mr. Head served 
for several years as president of the Chicago Malleable 
Iron Company, and as director of the American Trust 
and Savings Bank, and of the Northwestern National 




FRANKLIN HARVEY HEAD. 

Bank, in all of which institutions he retains a considera- 
ble interest. 

In addition to the successful management of numer- 
ous business enterprises, Mr. Head has found time to 
contribute many interesting articles on financial and 
commercial questions to The Forum, the New England 
Magazine, Current Topics and to other high-class peri- 
odicals. Though actively Republican in politics, Mr. 
Head never has aspired to office. He was, however, 
intrusted by the national administration with the super- 
intendency of Indian affairs while resident in Utah. He 
has twice been president of the Union League Club, and 
is a member of the Commercial, Chicago, University, 
Literary and Quadrangle clubs. Mr. Head was married 
in 1860 to Miss Catherine Putnam Durkee of Kenosha, 
Wisconsin. There are three daughters. He has an ele- 
gant home at No. 2. Banks street. 

Jacob L. Loose, the organizer and first president 
of the American Biscuit & Manufacturing Company 
and a prominent figure in the western cracker and con- 
fectionery trade, was born in Pennsylvania, June 17, 
1850. At the age of ten he removed to Illinois with 
his parents, who settled in Springfield, but the boy 
was sent back to his native state to complete his educa- 
tion. His first business experience was as a clerk in a 



dry goods store in Decatur, Illinois. In 1870, together 
with his elder brother, he established a store in southern 
Kansas, on what was then the frontier. There he 
remained until 1882, when he went to Kansas City and 
engaged in the biscuit and confectionery business. 

Before long he conceived the idea of consolidating 
the western trade for mutual protection and advance- 
ment and in competition with the New York Biscuit 
Company of the Atlantic coast. The result was the 
inception of the American Biscuit & Manufacturing 
Company, with himself as its president. He held this 
position for seven years, until ill health compelled him 
to abandon business duties for some time. The forma- 
tion of the American company was unique, inasmuch as 
there was no common stock or outside capital used, no 
promoter's fees paid or any "rake-offs" allowed. It was 
singularly free from the stock jobbery that usually 
accompanies such operations. 

Mr. Loose traveled extensively in Europe and the 
Orient until he regained his health. Since then he 
has resumed his interest in the baking and confection 
trade, being one of the ruling spirits of the Loose-Wiles 




JACOB L. LOOSE. 

Cracker & Candy Company of Kansas City, which 
plant employs from a thousand to twelve hundred hands. 
Mr. Loose is also largely interested in bakeries at 
Minneapolis, St. Louis and Dallas, Texas. 

Daniel Francis Crilly, one of Chicago's representa- 
tive real estate men. and the man who is generally 
spoken of as "the father of McKinley Park," was born 
at Mercersburg, Franklin County, Pennsylvania, Octo- 
ber 14, 1838. Mr. Crilly's parental grandfather was a 



268 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



native of Ireland where the Crilly family is an old one. 
A descendant of the Crillys is now a member of the 
British parliament. Mr. Crilly's father was John D. 
Crilly, editor of the Perry County Standard, published 
at Bloomfield, Pennsylvania. Mr. Crilly was educated 
in the common schools of Pennsylvania, and at the 
age of seventeen he was indentured to John Wilson, a 
contractor and mason. On the latter's removal to Iowa 
City, Iowa, Mr. Crilly accompanied him in 1856. After 
serving his apprenticeship young Crilly sought an open- 
ing for his talent in Louisiana. He erected the exten- 
sive buildings on the plantation of the Hon. Richard 
Pugh, which were considered the finest of their kind 
in those days. After perilous adventures during the 




DANIEL FRANCIS CRILLY. 

years of the war of the rebellion, Mr. Crilly reached 
St. Louis and later Chicago. Here he spent his first 
three winters as superintendent of the tank department 
in the packing plant of Robert Law. His summers he 
devoted to building. He erected the first Methodist 
Church block, and many prominent down-town struc- 
tures, steadily acquiring extensive real estate holdings. 
He retired from the contracting business in 1878, 
and has since devoted much of his time to the manage- 
ment of his own property. He built all the residences 
in Crilly place, on the North Side. He lost heavily in 
the great fire, but regained it all and more by his energy, 
integrity and indomitable perserverance. The "Crilly 
Divisions" near the south end of Lincoln Park, are his 
property, among other holdings, which comprise 141 
flats, twelve residences and ten business buildings. He 
also owns the old Stock Exchange building. 



It is difficult to estimate what a city like Chicago 
owes to such men as Mr. Crilly, who gave it the be-t 
part of his life. His name stands for everything thai 
represents solidity and morality. He was appointed 
South Park commissioner by the Circuit Court in 1900 
to fill the unexpired term of Commissioner Ellworth, 
who took up his residence in New York. At the end 
of this term Mr. Crilly was re-elected for a five years' 
term. He filled the office of president of the commis- 
sion for one term. It was on Mr. Crilly's suggestion 
that McKinley Park was named after our martyr presi- 
dent, and the handsome McKinley monument which 
he unveiled July 4, 1905, is said to be to a large share 
the donation of Mr. Crilly. He carried on the work 
of the subscription for the balance of the required sum 
for the purchase of the monument. 

Mr. Crilly was married in London, Pennsylvania, 
March 3, 1863. to Miss Elizabeth Snyder. He is the 
father of six children, Erminnie, George S., Frank I,., 
Edgar, Isabelle and Oliver D. Mr. Crilly has been a 
pew holder of the Plymouth Congregational Church 
since it was built, and is now one of its trustees. 

He is a member of the Hamilton Club, one of the 
first-year members of the Union League Club, a member 
of the Sheridan Club and a charter member of Home 
Lodge, No. 508, Ancient and Accepted Masons. Mr. 
Crilly has for years been treasurer of the Apollo Com- 
mandery No. I, and is now a trustee. He is also promi- 
nently connected with other lodges. He has been the 
treasurer of the Knights Templar Charity Ball since its 
organization, with the exception of one term. Mr. 
Crilly has always been active in national and local poli- 
tics and he was a member of the famous executive com- 
mittee of the McKinley Club, which was organized by 
the leading Republicans of Chicago. 

John Sutphin Jones. In the ranks of the sound and 
substantial business men of this land of opportunity are 
many illustrations of success earned by sturdy and 
honest endeavor, and wealth and position won by those 
who started without any advantages beyond the com- 
mon, and have worked their own way to the top. No 
better example of self-earned success and prominence 
in the business world can be cited than is afforded by 
the career of Mr. John Sutphin Jones, now one of the 
foremost coal operators of the country. 

His parents, William R. and Elizabeth M. Jones, 
were of Welsh birth, and from their native Montgom- 
eryshire, in North Wales, came to the United States 
in 1831. They settled on a farm in Fayette County, 
near Washington Court House, Ohio, and it was there 
that their son John was born January 4, 1849. He was 
brought up on the farm and did his share of the farm 
work while attending the neighboring schools, and 
when he had absorbed the branches of knowledge pro- 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



26<> 



vided by the common schools of the locality, he became 
a telegraph operator for a year. 

While so engaged he became impressed with the 
opportunities of a railroad career, and determined to 
fit himself for that service. He began as freight brake- 
man and soon advanced to a conductor's position, first 




JOHN SUTPHIN JONES. 

on a freight train and later on a passenger train. From 
that position to trainmaster and assistant superintend- 
ent, and then by another step to superintendent, he ad- 
vanced by faithful and efficient service. Leaving Ohio 
he became division superintendent of the Milwaukee, 
Lake Shore & Western Railroad in Wisconsin, holding 
that position until 1889, when he resigned it to become 
western manager of the Columbus & Hocking Valley 
Coal & Iron Company, with offices at Chicago. He gave 
efficient management to the large interests placed in 
his hands by that company and supervised the erection 
of several coal docks and after a while retired to estab- 
lish the business of the Jones & Adams Company, oper- 
ating coal docks at Ashland and West Superior, Wis- 
consin and Duluth. Minnesota, with offices at St. Paul 
and Minneapolis, and general offices in Chicago. The 
company do a large jobbing business in coal, own and 
operate coal mines in the Springfield and Danville 
regions, and also in the Hocking Valley District in 
Ohio. A chartering office for the shipment of the com- 
pany's products to their docks on Lake Superior is 
maintained at Cleveland. Of the business carried on by 
this company, Mr. Jones is the principal owner, and he 
is also president of the National Hocking Coal Com- 
pany, which owns 40.000 acres of coal lands in Ohio. He 



is connected also with the Buckeye Steamship Com- 
pany, which owns several boats engaged in the coal 
and iron trade on the Great Lakes. 

These successive steps were each of them earned 
by energetic methods and the application of practical 
ideas to every undertaking in hand. Mr. Jones is 
regarded as one of the foremost representatives of the 
great mining industry of the Middle West. His suc- 
cess has been rapid and continuous, and yet prosperity 
such as he has enjoyed does not occur by accident. 
Persistency in effort toward the achievement of his 
plans has brought legitimate fruitage in a career that 
has been continuously prosperous. 

Mr. Jones was married at Granville, Licking County, 
Ohio, October 22, 1884, to Miss Sarah F. Follett, only 
daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Alfred Follett, and has added a 
life of domestic happiness to a career of financial prosper- 
ity. He has for years been identified with the Masonic 
order and is a member of Apollo Commandery, Knights 
Templar, and of Medinah Temple in the Ancient Arabic 
Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He is a member 
of the Union League, Kenwood, Washington Park, 
Mid-day and Midlothian Golf clubs, and is as popular 
in his social relations as he is prominent in business life. 
Mr. Jones and Mrs. Jones still retain the old house at 
Granville, Ohio, as a summer home, and a farm to which 
he is much devoted, now called Monomoy Place. 




HOMER H. PETERS. 

Homer M. Peters, who has been identified with 
various enterprises since his coming to Chicago in Jan- 
uary, 1889, is one of the city's substantial business men. 
He is a native of Michigan, having been born at Scio, 



270 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



that state, January 20, 1854. He is a graduate of Ann 
Arbor. 

For fifteen years Mr. Peters was a member of the 
Chicago Board of Trade, being connected with the firm 
of Bartlett, Frazier & Co.. now Bartlett. Frazier & Car- 
rington. In 1903 he was made president of the Buffalo, 
Dunkirk & Western Railroad Company (electric), to the 
duties of which office he now devotes the major portion 
of his time. He is also president of the Crescent Oil, 
Asphalt & Gas Company. He is one of the most suc- 
cessful business men of the city, arid is well and favor- 
ably known by financial men not only in Chicago but 
through the country generally, both east and west. He 
is vice-president of the First National Bank of San 
Diego, California, where he has a beautiful winter resi- 
dence, considered one of the handsomest homes on the 
Pacific coast. He also has a beautiful home at 5528 
East End avenue, numbered among the finer residences 
of the city. 

Washington Porter is a fine representative of a class 
much more numerous in Chicago and throughout the 
United States than is suspected by the politicians and 
professional traders in nationalities. He is of good Eng- 
lish stock, both on the paternal and maternal side. The 
family of Porter was known for full three hundred years 
among the large landed proprietors of the English 
County oi Norfolk, whence Thomas W. Porter, father 
of Washington Porter, came to the United States in 
1830. He married Miss Charlotte Lane, also of Eng- 
lish birth. Mr. Thomas W. Porter, settled first in 
Buffalo County, New York, in which place he engaged 
actively in merchandising, but in a short time the heredi- 
tary instinct for land owning and management of agri- 
cultural affairs asserted itself, and he moved to Boone 
County, in this state, and became a successful farmer 
on a large scale. Washington Porter was born at the 
Boone County homestead, October 26, 1846, and was 
educated first in the public schools of the neighbor- 
hood, and afterwards at the high school of Belvidere. 
After some preliminary commercial experience in 
the country, Mr. Washington Porter came to Chicago 
in 1869. He was then twenty-three years of age, and, 
true to the instincts of his family, began to exploit the 
great fruit-growing resources of the Far West. Dur- 
ing his first year of residence in this city he shipped 
the first full carload of fruit that ever came to Chicago 
from California. This was simultaneous with the open- 
ing of the first transcontinental railway. At a later 
period Mr. Porter furnished the money for the planting 
of the first orchard and vineyard in Fresno County, 
California. Fresno is now one of the great fruit-pro- 
ducing regions of this continent, but in 1869 it took 
men with such perseverance and courage as Mr. Porter 
always had displayed in the management of business 



affairs to promote what seemed to many a visionary- 
project. In 1869 Mr. Porter also brought the first full 
carload of bananas to Chicago from the Isthmus of 
Darien, or Panama, as it is now generally called. 
Mr. Porter maintained an active commercial interest in 
the fruit trade between the Pacific States and the states 
of Central America and Chicago, until his retirement 
a few years ago from active business. He now enjoys 
the ease and dignity of a large property owner, whose 
fortune is the result of foresight, energy and honesty. 
The public life of Mr. Porter has been of signal bene- 
fit to the citizens of Chicago. He was one of the small, 
resolute and brainy coterie to whose efforts the estab- 
lishment of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chi- 




WASHINGTON PORTER. 

cago was due. He was a member of the committee 
appointed to wait upon Congress with intent to secure 
legislation favorable to Chicago, and from the first clay 
of the session of 1890 until the passage of the act by 
which the metropolis of the West was designated as the 
place to which the eyes of the world should be turned 
in 1893, as the center of the most wonderful exposition 
ever made of the arts, sciences, agriculture and manu- 
factures of all nations, Mr. Porter was incessant in argu- 
ment with representatives and senators from all the 
states. During the constructive period of the great 
enterprise Mr. Porter was an active member of the 
Ways and Means Committee, and when the great expo- 
sition was an accomplished fact he was chairman of the 
sub-committee of directors, under whose management 
the first half-dollar souvenir coin was sold for the fabu- 
lous sum of $10,000. He was also a member of the 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



271 



committee for reduction of expenditures, by the efforts 
of which the running expenses of the great institution 
were reduced from $23,000 to $15,000 per day. At the 
close of the exposition Mr. Porter made strong efforts 
to have the great Manufactures building removed from 
the exposition grounds to the Lake Front, there to 
remain as one of the attractions of the park that is tak- 
ing the place of the old dreary waste of cinders that 
used to stretch from Randolph to Twelfth street. The 
destruction of the World's Fair buildings by fire ren- 
dered the public-spirited plan of Mr. Porter nugatory. 
It may be said, in passing, that Mr. Porter was among 
the first, and probably absolutely the first, to advocate 
and champion the permanent improvement of the Lake 
Front into a spacious and elegant plaisance. 

Mr. Porter has a good war record. He enlisted at 
the age of sixteen years in the Ninety-fifth Illinois Vol- 
unteers, and was in action at Champion Hill and at the 
Siege of Vicksburg, participated in the Red River Expe- 
dition and was seriously wounded in the affair at Guns- 
town, Mississippi, June 10, 1864. 

Mr. Porter is a Mason of high degree, a member of 
the Washington Park and Athletic clubs, and of several 
other social organizations. He married, June II, 1891, 
Miss Frances Paulina Lee of Chicago. Mr. and Mrs. 
Porter have three children, Paulina C., Washington and 
Frederick C. Porter. 

John George Shortall, son of John and Charlotte 
(Towson) Shortall, was born at Dublin, Ireland, Sep- 
tember 20, 1838. When he was between two and three 
years of age his parents emigrated, with their family, to 
this country, joining an elder branch that had been long 
settled in New York City. 

After the death of his parents, the subject of this 
sketch was employed by the late Horace Greeley in 
the editorial rooms of the New York Tribune, and here, 
for the following three years, he was brought in close 
contact with Mr. Greeley and other master minds who 
molded the public opinion of the day. This period in 
his life proved to be a period of education that he feels 
he could in no way have dispensed with. 

In the summer of 1854, following the advice of Mr. 
Greeley, he came West, and located in Galena, Illinois, 
where he was engaged for a short time upon the con- 
struction and survey work of the Illinois Central Rail- 
road, then building between that place and Scales 
Mound. Late in the fall, however, he came to Chicago 
and secured a position on the Chicago Tribune, but soon 
afterward withdrew from the newspaper business to 
enter the office of J. Mason Parker, where he took up 
the study of real estate law and titles, a profession he 
has followed to the present time. He is a member of 
the Illinois bar. When Mr. Shortall entered this office 
Mr. Parker was engaged in preparing the real estate 



abstract books, afterward known as the Shortall & 
Hoard Abstracts, and which are now the property of 
the Title Guarantee and Trust Company of Chicago, 
of which Mr. Shortall is a director. 

At the time of the fire of 1871, the firm in which 
Mr. Shortall was interested was one of the three ab- 
stract firms in Chicago. Each saved a portion of its 
records, but no one set was complete. A consolidation 
was therefore effected between them, and Mr. Shortall 
remained actively connected with his associates in the 
conduct of the business until 1873. 

Mr. Shortall has led an active life along other than 
purely business lines. In musical, literary, educational 
and social circles he has been especially active. For 




JOHN GEORGE SHORTALL. 

years he was one of the directors of the old Philhar- 
monic Society, and afterward president of the old Bee- 
thoven Society, during almost its entire existence. For 
years also he was a director of the Chicago Public 
Library, and served three terms as president of the 
board. It was under his administration that plans for 
the present superb Library building were selected and 
that the negotiations were conducted which finally 
secured Dearborn Park as the site for the erection of 
the structure. 

Along few lines of work, however, has the name of 
Mr. Shortall become so widely known as through his 
connection with the Illinois Humane Society. He was 
one of the organizers of this commendable institution 
in 1869, and in 1877 was chosen its president, a posi- 
tion to which he has ever since been annually elected. 
Mr. Shortall was also instrumental in the founding of 



272 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



the American Humane Association in 1877, and was 
elected its president in 1884, being re-elected in 1892, 
and annually thenceforward to 1898, inclusive. At the 
World's Fair he was chairman of the Men's Committee 
on Moral and Social Reform of the Auxiliary Con- 
gresses, and conducted the Humane Congress in Octo- 
ber, 1893, which was so successful. 

In social circles he is a member of the Chicago Club, 
the Chicago Literary Club and the Reform Club of New 
York. He is also an honorary member of the Amateur 
Musical Club of Chicago and of the Pennsylvania 
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. He 
was married September 5, 1861, to Miss Mary Dun- 
ham Staples of Chicago, who died August 24, 1880, 
leaving one child, John L. Shortall. 

George E. Lincoln, general western manager for 
the Mergenthaler Linotype Company, is one of the 
best known men in the country among members of 
the printing and publishing trade. From the time when 
he completed his apprenticeship in Philadelphia until he 
took up his permanent residence in Chicago in his 
present position, he traveled through the United States 
first as a journeyman printer and later as the represent- 
ative of the Mergenthaler Company. 

When the company opened a branch in Chicago on 
January i, 1902, Mr. Lincoln was sent here to take 
charge. At that time he had been with the company 
longer than any other traveling man. Mr. Lincoln had 
always urged strongly the opening of a Chicago branch 
office and the fact that its monthly business is now 
almost as great as that of the New York office is evi- 
dence of his sound judgment. 

Practically all of Mr. Lincoln's life has been spent 
in various branches of the printing trade. He was 
born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, September 2, 
1848. When he was three years old the family moved 
to a farm along the Pennsylvania pike, near Parkes- 
burg, Chester County. Mr. Lincoln still makes it a 
practice to spend several weeks each summer on the 
old homestead. He left the farm when a boy and 
started in as a printing apprentice at Ashmead's book 
office in Philadelphia, the first establishment in the 
United States to use a power press. He completed his 
apprenticeship when twenty-one years old and suddenly 
decided to come West. After his first trip to the West, 
Mr. Lincoln traveled back and forth across the country 
working as a printer in hundreds of towns and cities. 
At one time he was part owner of the North Missouri 
Courier of Hannibal and also proprietor of a brewery in 
the same town. At another time he published a string 
of Colorado mining town papers. Again he was a 
plainsman with the J. & J. outfit. In 1880 Mr. Lin- 
coln went on the road selling printing material. In 
1886 he entered the employ of the Mergenthaler Lino- 
type Company. In the first four years of that com- 



pany's existence, on account of temerity of publishers 
and violent opposition from printers, not a machine was 
sold. The promoters spent $2,000,000 pushing the 
invention before the printers realized that with its aid 
they could make money easier and quicker than by set- 
ting type by hand. Since then the sale of the machines 
has been rapid. In the United States there are now 
10,000 in 2,000 different offices. Though the matrices 




GEORGE E. LINCOLN. 

must be replaced, the machines never wear out and 
Nos. 30, 31, 32 and others are still in use in the office 
of the New Orleans Times-Democrat. The company 
estimates that 20,000 more machines will be needed 
before every office in the United States is supplied. 
Matrices are manufactured for twenty-seven different 
languages. 

The Chicago branch was first located in small rooms 
on Dearborn street, but so rapid was its growth that 
it was soon moved to its present quarters in Steinway 
Hall, 17 Van Buren street. From twenty-five to forty 
new machines are shipped from this branch monthly. 
More than 6,000,000 matrices of type sorts are kept 
constantly in stock, besides the complete alphabets. The 
office handles all of the territory between Pennsylvania 
and Utah. 

Mr. Lincoln is married, but has no children. He is 
a member of the Chicago Athletic Association and the 
Chicago Commercial Club and various fraternal organi- 
zations. 

Jacob Levi Kesner, in less than twenty years rose 
from the position of cash boy to be general manager of 
The Fair, one of the largest department stores in the 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



273 



world. Starting in October, 1887, as cash boy at $2.50 
a week, he was advanced from time to time to bundle 
wrapper, cashier, salesman, floorwalker, buyer, assistant 
manager and then to head control of the entire business, 
which position he has held since January i, 1895. 

He was born in London, England, December 30, 
1865, the son of L. J. and Sarah (Staal) Kesner. He 
came to Chicago with his parents in boyhood and 
received a common school education at the Scammon 
and Haven schools. For a time he also attended busi- 
ness college. Devoting himself conscientiously to 
whatever task his employers set him to do, he soon won 
their confidence and was rewarded by a consistent 
advancement of position. In addition to his holdings 
in The Fair, Mr. Kesner has other large interests. He 
is president of the Strowger Automatic Telephone 
exchange and other business organizations. 

He was married in Chicago, August 30, 1887, to 
Miss Bettie Frohman. They have one daughter, Lucile. 
He is a member of Sinai congregation. Mr. Kesner 
is a Republican in politics and belongs to the Hamilton 
and Standard clubs. He has a beautiful residence at 
4756 Grand boulevard. 




Oscar f. Mayer, of the firm of O. F. Mayer & 
Brother, came to Chicago from Detroit in 1876, and 
began his successful career as an independent packer, 
with his brother as business associate, on the present site 
of the firm's plant at Sedgwick street and Beethoven 
place. Its packing houses, refrigerating plant, smoke 
houses and auxiliary premises, such as sausage houses, 
pickling vats and shipping rooms, are said to be the best 
18 



equipped in Chicago. The products of Mayer & 
Brother are well known throughout Illinois, Iowa and 
Wisconsin, and have proven formidable in competition 
with other provisions and "delikatessen." 

The plant consists of two modern four-story build- 
ings, with an aggregate floor space of 123,000 square 
feet. The salesrooms on the main floor are the largest 
on the North Side, and in direct communication with 
the capacious freezing vaults and refrigerators. The 
slaughter house, where all hogs for local sales as well 
as shipment are slaughtered, is one of the most sani- 
tary and best equipped in Chicago. 

Oscar F. Mayer's brother, Godfried Mayer, is known 
as one of the ablest buyers and connoisseurs of hogs, 
sheep and cattle. Both members of the firm were prac- 
tical butchers until the growth of their business com- 
pelled them to take the parts of supervisors and 
managers of their extensive trade and responsibilities. 
A short time ago a complete set of the most up-to-date 
machinery known to the provision trade was installed, 
and the working force was increased 80 to 100 men on 
the various killing floors, freezing vaults, cutting rooms 
and other departments. Mr. Oscar F. Mayer is one of 
the best known German-Americans in Chicago. He is 
a prominent mason, a member of the Germania Club, 
the Illinois Athletic Association, the Chicago Turn- 
gemeinde, Chicago Schuetzenverein, an ardent hunter, 
and a general sportsman. 

Charles Enoch /Worrill, son of Amos and Sarah 
(Eastman) Morrill, was born on a farm in East Kings- 
ton, New Hampshire, January n, 1832. He was edu- 
cated in the public schools of that district and at the 
age of sixteen took up the trade of a shoemaker, 
working two years at it. In 1850 he found better oppor- 
tunities for his efforts in a country store at East 
Kingston, and entered the place as a clerk, which store 
he later on bought out. 

In 1858 he was employed by the firm of Stimson, 
Valentine & Company, manufacturers of varnishes and 
paints, as a shipping clerk, which position he held for 
four years. At the end of that time he was made a 
traveling salesman, and in 1882 became manager of the 
Chicago branch of the company. During the same year 
he organized the Lawson Varnish Company, and was 
made president of the concern. He maintained his con- 
nection with Valentine & Company, however, and in 
1898, when the two companies consolidated under the 
name of Valentine & Company, he was made vice-pres- 
ident of the consolidated company and two years later 
was made president, which office he holds at the present 
time. The concern is one of the largest varnish and 
color Companies in the world, and has offices in New 
York, Chicago, Boston, Paris, London and Amsterdam. 

Mr. Morrill is a Democrat in politics and is a mem- 



JTI 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



her of the Union League and Washington Park clubs. 
In 1857 he was married to Miss Adeline Susan Carter, 
and has three children, Mr. Allan A. Morrill, Mrs. Susie 
A. Cole and Mrs. Annie S. Hays. His residence is at 




CHARLES ENOCH MORRILL. 

275 East Fifty-third street, but much of his time is 
spent at his summer home in New Hampshire. 

Professor Theophilus Noel, founder and president of 
the Theo. Noel Company, is a personality of remarkable 
characteristics. From his boyhood days until the pres- 
ent time the story of his experiences and adventures 
reads like the pages of a popular and thrilling romance. 
In commerce, politics and even in the literary history of 
the nation he has taken a conspicuous and successful 
place. 

Professor Noel was born at Niles, Berrien County, 
Michigan, in July, 1840. His father was the village 
physician and a man of influence in the neighborhood. 
Theophilus Noel was the youngest boy of the family, 
and upon him devolved the duty of chief aid to his 
father, first as messenger and eventually as assistant in 
the medical practice. In these years of early training 
under this stern and exacting parent were acquired the 
habits of self-reliance and uprightness which form 
a strong part of Professor Noel's character. 

In September, 1853, the elder Noel sold his Michi- 
gan farm and started with his family for Texas. Though 
at the time Professor Noel was only twelve years of age, 
every detail of that transaction and the incidents of the 
long trip down the Mississippi to New Orleans and 
across the country to Seguin, Texas, is still vivid in his 
memory. 



That part of the country was then a wild and only 
sparsely settled section of the frontier. Here Theophilus 
Noel educated himself. His text books were Cobb's 
Speller, Pike's Arithmetic and Webster's Elementary 
Spelling Book. The first book he ever read was the 
Life of Washington, and from it was acquired much of 
his hatred of monarchs and despots and his love for the 
free born, independent and sterling American citizen. 

When the Civil War broke out, young Noel was 
naturally found on the side of the Confederacy. His 
frontier experience stood him in good stead and, as a 
Texas Ranger, he took a prominent part in the field, 
while in the affairs of state of the "lost cause" his shrewd 
business judgment was often of value. After the war 
Mr. Noel was one of the foremost ones in helping to 
heal its scars and bring about a better feeling of har- 
mony between the North and South. He helped to 
organize the Confederate veterans of Chicago, and was 
a warm personal friend of Generals Grant and Logan. 

Professor Noel has been interested in many note- 
worthy commercial ventures. His first was the placing 
of a superior grade of cotton seed on the market. Next 
came the introduction to the fruit world of the famous 
Alberta peach. But the greatest was the discovery of 
Vitae-ore. Professor Noel recognized the medicinal 
properties of the mineral, and organized the corporation 




PROFESSOR THEOPHILUS NOEL. 

which bears his name, for the purpose of putting these 
properties in such form as to be valuable to mankind. 
In his spare moments during travel or rest he has 
found time to prepare a comprehensive autobiography 
covering every detail of his life from babyhood to the 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



275 



present time. It is one of the most novel and interest- 
ing books one would care to read. Full of the strong 
philosophy and hard common sense of the author, it is 
highly appreciated by his friends who have been so 
fortunate as to receive a copy. 

Charles A. Plamondon is one of Chicago's leading 
business men and public-spirited citizens. He has twice 
held public office, but in each case the office called for 
great sacrifice on his part and for the qualities of public 
spirit that he possesses. As a member of the Chicago 
Public Library Board for four years, he gave the devo- 
tion to his work which is often most required in posi- 
tions that are the farthest removed from the limelight. 
For a year he was president of the board. While Mr. 




CHARLES A. PLAMONDON. 

Plamondon was a member of the library board many 
of the important innovations and improvements in its 
management were inaugurated and it was through his 
energy that many of them were put into use. 

Mr. Plamondon has for four years been a member 
of the Board of Education. For one year he was vice- 
president of the board and at another time was a promi- 
nent candidate for president. In this capacity, too, his 
work has been tireless. In many respects the work of 
the board of education is the most important in the life 
of the city. In all the perplexing problems of educa- 
tion and finance that have come before the body, Mr. 
Plamondon has shown an enthusiasm and a grasp of 
general educational and business conditions that have 
made him one of the leading factors. 

As a business man, Mr. Plamondon has been known 
mostly through his connection with the A. Plamondon 



Manufacturing Company, founded by his father during 
the early days of the city. He entered the employ of 
his father in 1872, then a boy of 16. When his father 
died, February 19, 1896, he was made head of the com- 
pany and has held that position since. He is also vice- 
president of the Saladin Pneumatic Malting Construc- 
tion Company and a director of the Fort Dearborn 
National Bank. He has also been a director of the Illi- 
nois Manufacturers' Association and was president of 
that organization for a year. 

In May, 1900, following the sinking of the Spanish 
fleet in Manila Bay, Mr. Plamondon was made chair- 
man of the reception committee during the Dewey 
celebration. In 1903 he was chairman of the Chicago 
Centennial Committee, which conducted the celebra- 
tion of Chicago's looth anniversary, or the settling of 
the first 'white man in the city. 

Mr. Plamondon was born at Ottawa, Illinois, Sep- 
tember 14, 1856. Shortly after his birth his family moved 
to Chicago-. He was sent to the Chicago public schools 
where he received the major portion of his education. 
In social circles Mr. Plamondon has taken a leading 
part and is one of the best known men in the city. He 
is a member of the Chicago Athletic Association, the 
German Mannerchor and the Washington Park Club. 

Charles L. Bartlett is a comparatively recent addi- 
tion to the coterie of progressive western business men 
who have made the name of Chicago synonymous with 
enterprise and success. The earlier years of Mr. Bart- 
lett's business career were passed in the East and he 
came to Chicago as local manager of the Procter & 
Gamble Distributing Company only ten years ago. 
At present Mr. Bartlett is Chicago manager for this 
great soap company, and also president and controlling 
factor in the organization of the Orangeine Chemical 
Company. 

Mr. Bartlett was born at Fishkill-on-the-Hudson, 
November 13, 1853. Shortly afterwards his family 
moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where he received his 
earlier education. After being graduated from the high 
school of that city he entered Yale University. He 
received his college degree as a member of the famous 
Yale class of 1876. The first business experience of 
Mr. Bartlett, after his college days, was in the actuarial 
department of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance 
Company of Hartford. He left this position in 1880 to 
start in the brokerage business at Utica, New York. 
In this he was financially successful, but after ten years' 
experience became disgusted with the fundamental 
principles of the business and decided to withdraw from 
all speculative ventures. In 1890 he sold his interests 
in order to associate himself with the business of the 
Procter & Gamble Company. 

He was at once made manager of the New York 
State interests of the concern. So marked was his sue- 



L'76 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



cess in this position that when the firm cast about for a 
progressive manager of the Chicago office of the 
Procter & Gamble Distributing Company, Mr. Bart- 
lett was sent west in 1895. 

In 1899 Mr. Bartlett started the business of the 
Orangeine Chemical Company, which has now grown to 
world-wide proportions. He has been the president of 




CHARLES L. BARTLETT. 

the corporation since its inception. One day when 
physically depressed, Mr. Bartlett happened to meet 
his friend, William Gillette, the playright and actor. 
Gillette gave him a powder which he always carried 
for such occasions, and Mr. Bartlett tried it with unex- 
pected relief. After further test of the remedy for 
fatigue, colds, headaches and minor ailments, the 
Orangeine powder became a factor for both his house- 
hold and staff of employees. So accurate and invariable 
were the results in the saving of time and strength from 
pain and sickness, that Mr. Bartlett decided to extend 
the Orangeine prescription for public usefulness, and 
from tTiis decision has resulted its present wide sale and 
appreciation. 

The Hamilton National Bank, 80 La Salle street, 
was founded in 1903, with Mr. Bartlett's cooperation. 
He has been one of the directors of the financial institu- 
tion since its organization. Mr. Bartlett is an entertain- 
ing conversationalist, of a sociable nature and a member 
of many clubs. In Chicago he is a member of the 
University Club, the Chicago Club, the Saddle and 
Cycle Club, the Omventsia Club and the Merchants' 
Club. 



Robert M. Simon, former recorder of deeds for 
Cook County and now a member of the State Board of 
Equalization from the Tenth Congressional district, 
was born on the North Side, February 17. 1866. He is 
the son of Simon Simon, one of Chicago's most 
respected citizens. After attending the public schools 
and graduating from the Lake View High School in 
the class of 1883, he went to work. He took an inter- 
est in politics from the start and soon became an able 
worker in the Republican party. 

Mr. Simon in 1894 was elected collector of Lake 
View by the largest plurality ever received by a Repub- 
lican candidate for that office. He was chosen recorder 
of deeds in 1896 and was re-elected in 1900. Between 
1896 and 1900 Mr. Simon was secretary of the Cook 
County Republican Central Committee, an office to 
which he was duly elected in 1898. He has repeatedly 
headed the delegations from his district in Republican 
conventions. Few men in politics enjoy the confidence 
of his fellow party leaders as does Mr. Simon, his most 
distinguished characteristic being his stanch loyalty 
to his friends. Honesty and economy have been the 
predominating factors of Mr. Simon's regime as an 




ROBERT M. SIMON. 

office holder and he has filled the positions of trust to 
which he has been repeatedly elected to the satisfaction 
of the public. He inaugurated many reforms and intro- 
duced systems by which the work of his departments 
was greatly facilitated. The Torrens law became oper- 
ative during his incumbency. 

Mr. Simon married Miss Nellie Frances Ceperly and 
resides at 2561 North Ashland avenue, Ravenswood. He 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



277 



is a leading spirit in social as well as political affairs in 
the district and was a founder of the Ravenswood His- 
torical Society and Public Library. He is a contributor 
to many other public enterprises. In addition to being a 
Royal Arch Mason, Mr. Simon is a prominent member 
of many fraternal organizations, including the Royal 
League, National Union, Chicago Athletic Club, Ham- 
ilton Club, Ravenswood Club and Ravenswood Whist 
Club. 

Charles J. Happel, Under the administration -of 
Warden Charles J. Happel the two most important 
additions to the county hospital have been built and 
the daily average of patients has increased 150 
owing to the growing confidence of the people in the 




CHARLES J. HAPPEL. 

institution. The new additions consist of an annex for 
children and a separate building for contagious diseases. 
The children's hospital is the only institution of the 
kind in Chicago and it owes its existence largely to the 
efforts of Warden Happel. 

Mr. Happel first became connected with the county 
hospital in 1895, when he was appointed warden. 
Owing to the defeat of Mayor Swift's faction in the 
Republican party the following year Mr. Happel was 
superseded in the position, and was given the position 
of assistant superintendent of water-pipe extension by 
the mayor. In 1897 and 1898 he was superintendent 
of Douglas Park and in 1899 and 1900 was elected 
county commissioner. 

When Daniel D. Healy was made warden of the 
county hospital in 1901 Mr. Happel was appointed 
assistant warden, and when Mr. Healy resigned the 



position to accept the Republican nomination for sheriff 
in 1902 Mr. Happel succeeded him, taking the position 
in August of that year. Mr. Happel soon after began 
to advocate the construction of a separate building for 
contagious diseases. Last year his plans were realized 
in the construction of a building costing $120,000, with 
beds for one hundred and fifty patients, completely 
isolated from the other hospital buildings. Mr. Happel 
also urged the building of a hospital where the children 
of the poor could have expert medical attention and 
nursing. In 1904 a building was erected which was 
opened in 1905, which provides one hundred and thirty 
beds for the little folk, who may be suffering from dis- 
ease. The building cost $80,000, and contains all the 
modern appliances for the treatment, care and amuse- 
ment of the small patients. These new buildings added 
300 beds to the capacity of the hospital, increasing the 
number from 950 to 1,250. 

Under Mr. Happel's administration the county 
hospital has become a popular sanitarium for the sick 
in moderate circumstances. In prior years the hospital 
was regarded with something akin to dread by the 
unfortunates who were compelled to go there. This 
feeling has worn away, and the institution is now 
eagerly sought as offering the best medical attention 
under the best sanitary conditions. 

Mr. Happel was born in Chicago January 27, 1857- 
He obtained his education in the public schools and 
started in business in 1875 as a cig ar manufacturer. He 
continued in the business until 1892. He had taken 
an interest in politics and his first political reward was 
the appointment as county agent in 1894. He served 
a year in this position, at the end of which he was 
appointed warden the first time. 

Mr. Happel is married and has two children, Fred 
and Etta. He is a member of Herder Lodge A. F. & 
A. M., and other societies. 

Thomas E. Barrett, sheriff of Cook County, was 
born in Chicago, on the north side of the river, obtained 
his education at the old Kinzie school at Ohio street 
and La Salle avenue, and, except the eight months he 
worked in a coal mine in Pennsylvania, has lived con- 
tinuously in the north division of the city. More than 
sixty years ago Anthony and Rose Barrett, parents of 
Sheriff Barrett, came to Chicago, and took up their 
residence at the corner of Market and Erie streets, 
where the subject of this sketch was born April 
30, 1863. 

When Young Barrett was in his ninth year the fire 
of 1871 destroyed the Barrett home, and the future 
sheriff started out to help repair the family fortunes by 
going to work in a coal mine at Tnkerman, Pennsylva- 
nia. He found the task of picking slate out of coal 
uncongenial, and at the end of eight months returned 



278 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



to Chicago, where he got a job as errand boy with 
Field, Leiter & Co., but soon after entered the messen- 
ger service of the American District Telegraph Com- 
pany. His real business career began, however, when 
he became a messenger boy for Brown, Fleming & Co., 
a board of trade firm, with which he remained for 
twenty-eight years. 

In 1887 Mr. Barrett entered the brokerage firm of 
Boyden & Co., with which he remained until the death 
of Mr. Boyden, in 1894 or 1895, when the firm name 
was changed to J. F. Barrett & Co., which consisted of 
John, Tom and Tony Barrett. A few years afterward 
the firm name was changed to Barrett, Farnum & Co., 
which did business two and one-half years. On the dis- 




THOMAS E. BARRETT. 

solution of the firm, Mr. Barrett went into the grain 
brokerage business for himself, and was engaged in it 
when elected sheriff. 

Sheriff Barrett has always been interested in sports, 
especially baseball and boxing, though handball, horse 
racing and other outdoor amusements have received a 
great deal of his attention. In 1880 he organized the old 
Whiting Baseball Club, which achieved a high reputa- 
tion in amateur baseball circles. Mr. Barrett was one of 
the organizers, and was at the head of the city baseball 
league for fourteen years. He is still a liberal patron 
of the amateur as well as professional exhibitions of 
the national game. 

As an amateur boxer, Mr. Barrett was for many 
years the idol of the Board of Trade and other local 
patrons of the pugilistic art. He met al! the leading 
amateurs of his class in the West, and at a tournament 



in the old Athenaeum gymnasium in March, 1887, won 
the middle-weight amateur championship of Illinois, in 
a contest with Frank Rheims. This victory satisfied 
his pugilistic ambition, and the following August he 
married and retired from the ring. 

In later years Mr. Barrett owned and managed an 
extensive racing stable of runners and trotters, but a 
few years before his election as sheriff he disposed of 
his horses and gave up the turf. He has never ceased, 
however, to take an interest in racing as a sport. 

Sheriff Barrett has always been a Democrat, and 
taken an active interest in politics. He was never a 
candidate for office until he was nominated for sheriff 
by the Democrats in 1902, when he was the only man 
on the Democratic County ticket elected. Except the 
candidate for sheriff all the Republicans on the county 
ticket were elected by pluralities ranging from 5,000 
to 15,000, while Mr. Barrett defeated Daniel D. Healy, 
the Republican candidate, by nearly 7,000 plurality. 

In August, 1887, Mr. Barrett married Miss Ellen 
McCoy. They have one child, a daughter, Josephine, 
now sixteen years old. Mr. Barrett lives in Ravens- 
wood, in the twenty-sixth ward. 

Francis O'Neill, chief of police of Chicago, is a type 
of officer of the old school. He rose from the ranks as 
a result of his strict attention to duty, his bravery and 
ability as a thief-catcher. Fearless and energetic his 
name stands without stain or reproach. 

Born of Irish parentage in Tralibane, three miles 
from Bantry, County Cork, Ireland, on August 28, 
1849, Francis O'Neill secured in the national school 
of Bantry a thoroughly sound education on all general 
subjects, including the classics. His father was an edu- ' 
cated and well-to-do farmer, while his mother was one 
of the O'Mahoney's, an influential and historic name in 
the province of Munster. 

Francis O'Neill was a bright boy, an omnivorous 
reader, an ardent student, and so distinguished himself 
in mathematics as to be named by his teacher, "Philoso- 
pher O'Neill." He was senior member of his class at 
fourteen years of age. 

When barely sixteen and with the limited capital of 
five dollars he left home and started out in the world 
to seek his own fortune. He was advised to become a 
Christian Brother or a teacher in one of the Catholic 
schools. To having missed an appointment with Bishop 
Delaney of the City of Cork he attributes his failure to 
become a monk. He worked his way to Sunderland 
in the north of England in March, 1865, and after vari- 
ous vicissitudes shipped there as a cabin boy, sailing up 
the Mediterranean and via the Dardanelles, the Bos- 
phorus and the Black Sea to Odessa, the great southern 
port of Russia. An accident in which he fractured his 
skull occurred during his return trip to Sunderland. He 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



279 



next shipped to Alexandria, Egypt, where he remained 
nine weeks. During the course of the voyage he 
saved the boatswain from drowning, but received 
ill treatment instead of reward during the balance of 
the trip. He had some very interesting experiences in 
subsequent voyages, and finally shipped for New York 
at Liverpool in July, 1866, from which point he sailed 
to Santa Cruz, the West Indies, and many places in 
South America, returning to New York. He left for 
Japan on the "Minnehaha" of Boston a few months 
later and reached his destination after seven months of 
interesting and exciting experiences. 

Ten weeks later the journey was resumed to Hono- 
lulu, Sandwich Islands, from where he went to Baker's 
Island in the Southern Pacific, where the vessel was 
wrecked entailing great loss and suffering. 

After eleven days on this coral island the crew was 
picked up by a passing ship. The sailors were fed on one 
and one-half biscuits daily with a pint of unsweetened 
black tea for thirty-four days and landed at Honolulu. 
All, with the exception of three, Mr. O'Neill being one, 
were sent to the hospital. Mr. O'Neill's skill as a 
musician proved a valuable accomplishment on the 
voyage. Among the Kanaka crew of the rescuing 
vessel was a man who had evidently met the missionaries, 
for he could play one hymn fairly well on a concert 
flute. Mr. O'Neill being an expert on the instrument 
found a warm friend, and he was favored with a share 
of the Kanaka sailor's rations. For this reason Mr. 
O'Neill says he did not go to the hospital. 

Arriving at San Francisco some months later, Mr. 
O'Neill decided on a change of occupation, hiring 
out as a care-taker of sheep. He was engaged for 
five months in the Sierra Nevada mountains in this 
capacity and then returned to New York, via Cape 
Horn, after a few weeks' stay at Culiacan on the west 
coast of Mexico. 

After circumnavigating the globe before his twenty- 
first birthday, he decided to settle down and came 
westward, having saved a few hundred dollars, to estab- 
lish a home. He settled at Eclina, Knox County, Mis- 
souri, where he passed the examination necessary to 
obtain employment as a teacher in the district school 
during the winter of 1869. 

He came to Chicago the spring of the following 
year and found employment on the lakes until the 
close of navigation that year. He married Miss Anna 
Rogers at Bloomington, Illinois, in 1870. 

Chief O'Neill returned to Chicago in 1871 and 
found employment with the Chicago & Alton Railroad 
as laborer in the freight house. Promotion followed 
promotion, but the work being arduous and the remu- 
neration small, he decided to try for a position on the 
police force. Having received his appointment under 
Elmer Washburne, he was sworn in on July 12, 1873, 



and assigned to the Harrison Street Station under Cap- 
tain Buckley. He was shot the following month in an 
encounter with a burglar and still carries a memento 
of the episode in a bullet which penetrated his left 
breast and became encysted near the spine. By the 
unanimous vote of the police board he was advanced 
on the following day to regular patrolman on account 
of his bravery. In August, 1878, he was made police 
sergeant and transferred to the Deering Street Station. 
He was moved to the general superintendent's office 
by Chief of Police Doyle in 1884 and was advanced to 
patrol sergeant on January i, 1887. 

Three years later he was advanced to lieutenant, and, 
at his own request, Chief of Police Maj. R. W. 




FRANCIS O'NEILL. 

McClaughry transferred him to the Tenth Precinct at 
Hyde Park, where he remained until recalled to Harri- 
son Street Station by Chief of Police Brennan in July, 
1893. The latter made him his private secretary the 
following month and he was promoted to captain and 
assigned in charge of the Eighth District, the Union 
Stock Yards, on April 17, 1894. Labor troubles and 
the memorable railroad strike of 1894 gave Captain 
O'Neill opportunity for new laurels and he personally 
directed his men against the disturbers, notwithstanding 
the attack of five thousand strikers thoroughly enraged 
by the state militia's action. 

Chief of Police Brennan made public acknowledge- 
ment that in his opinion Captain O'Neill's command 
was deserving of the greatest credit in the strike trouble. 
Since that time Mr. O'Neill has risen rapidly in the 



280 



THE CITY OF CHICAGO. 



police department until he finally headed that institu- 
tion, realizing his ambition. Chief O'Neill was a 
stickler on discipline, and after his elevation to the 
head of the department did more toward establishing a 
clean, wholesome and thoroughly reliable force than 
any of his predecessors had ever accomplished. 

Chief O'Neill is the father of ten children, five 
daughters and five sons. Four daughters and four 
sons are now living. His youngest son, Rogers F., a 
collegian of much promise, died in 1904. Chief O'Neill 
is the only member in Chicago of the Cork Historical 
and Archaeological Society. He belongs to no secret 
organizations, but is a member of the Police Benevo- 
lent Association. He is a keen business man and during 
his adventurous days in the police department he man- 
aged to invest his savings in real estate at much profit 



and a good income. His student mind and delight in 
reading have found an outcome in a well-stocked library, 
in which are quite seven hundred volumes devoted to 
Ireland and Irish subjects, many of them being 
extremely rare and valuable editions. One of the tangi- 
ble results of his studies and research is the publica- 
tion of a large quarto volume of the melodies of his 
native land entitled, The Music of Ireland. Nothing 
at all comparable to it has ever appeared in print and 
the demand for it in Ireland and Australia is as great as 
in America. 

Chief O'Neill has served the city of Chicago in its 
police department longer than any man who ever 
became chief of police and has served in the office 
longer than any of his predecessors, excepting the late 
Joseph Kipley. 



X 



4 



/. 



V 



- 



" 




ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

The Inter Ocean Building 2 

Survey of Chicago, 1830 12 

View of Chicago, 1820 14 

Fort Dearborn, 1853 16 

City Hall 17 

U. S. Government Building 19 

Columbus Memorial Building 20 

Great Northern Building 21 

Floral Display 23 

Stock Exchange Building 26 

Auditorium Building 36 

Chicago Savings Bank 37 

Masonic Temple 46 

Water Works 48 

Western Union Building 52 

International Harvester Company 58 

Armour Institute 59 

Public Library 62 

Newberry Library : 63 

Art Institute 66 

Bedford Building 69 

Marquette Building 80 

Reaper Block 83 

Monadnock Block 87 

Chicago & Northwestern Depot 94 

Map Northwestern Railway 95 

Map Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway 96 

Illinois Central Depot 97 

Illinois Central Map 98 

Grand Central Passenger Station 100 

Map Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad 103 

La Salle Street Depot 104 

Polk Street Depot 106 

Pullman Building 107 

Map Chicago & Milwaukee Electric Railroad 115 

First National Bank 122 

Continental National Bank 124 

Chicago National Bank 125 

Commercial National Bank 126 

Illinois Trust and Savings Bank 128 

Merchants' Loan and Trust Company 129 



I'AGE 

American Trust and Savings Bank 130 

Northern Trust Company 131 

National Life Building 138 

Board of Trade 142 

Armour & Co.'s Plant 151 

Armour & Co.'s Grain Elevators 153 

Swift & Co.'s Plant 154 

Old Myrick Stock Yards : . . . 155 

Libby, McNeill & Libby's Plant 156 

Miller & Hart Plant 159 

Iroquois Iron Company's Plant 164 

Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridge 165, 166 

Hicks Locomotive and Car Works 169 

Cummings Car Company's Plant 171 

Chicago Bridge and Iron W'orks 172 

Automatic Electric Company 174 

Corn Products Plant 1 79 

Marshall Field & Co.'s Wholesale Store 182 

Marshall Field & Co.'s Retail Store 184 

Gage Bros. & Co 186 

Spaulding & Co 187 

E. L. Mansur Company 188 

George M. Clark Company 189 

Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company 190 

Peter Reinberg's Plant 193 

Chicago Edison Company 195 

Commonwealth Electric Company 197 

People's Gas Light & Coke Company 198 

Chicago Telephone Company 200 

Illinois Tunnel Company 202 

Northwestern Terra Cotta Company 224 

Palmer House 229 

Auditorium Hotel 230 

Great Northern Hotel 231 

Hotel Majestic 232 

Bush Temple 244 

Douglas Park 30, 39, 60, 84, 92, 160 

Garfield Park 10, 34, 45, 54, 56, 73, 74. 91. 117, 149, 180 

Humboldt Park 25, 29, 44, 64 

Union Park 70, 76 

West Chicago Parks 6, 75 



281 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

PREFATORY 5 

CHAPTER I CHICAGO'S FIRST CENTURY 7 

CHAPTER II THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 9 

CHAPTER III EARLY CHICAGO 11 

CHAPTER IV THE GROWTH AND MAYORS OF CHICAGO 24 

THE MAYORS OF CHICAGO 28 

CHAPTER V CHICAGO IN WAR 35 

CHAPTER VI CHICAGO'S GREAT FIRE DISASTERS 38 

CHAPTER VII THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION 41 

CHAPTER VIII THE ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN CANAL 43 

CHAPTER IX CHICAGO'S WATER SYSTEM 47 

CHAPTER X THE DRAINAGE CANAL 51 

CHAPTER XI CHICAGO'S PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM 55 

CHAPTER XII CHICAGO'S LIBRARIES 61 

CHAPTER XIII CHICAGO AS AN ART CENTER 65 

CHAPTER XIV CHURCHES OF CHICAGO 68 

CHAPTER XV CHICAGO PARKS 71 

CHAPTER XVI NEWSPAPERS 78 

CHAPTER XVII CHICAGO'S CHARITIES 86 

CHAPTER XVIII CHICAGO'S RAILROAD SYSTEMS 89 

CHAPTER XIX BANKS OF CHICAGO 116 

CHAPTER XX BOARD OF TRADE 141 

CHAPTER XXI CHICAGO CATTLE MARKET OF THE WORLD... 150 

CHAPTER XXII MANUFACTURING INTERESTS 161 

CHAPTER XXIII CHICAGO'S BUSINESS INTERESTS 181 

CHAPTER XXIV PROMINENT MEN, PAST AND PRESENT 233 

Aldrich, Charles H 253 

Allerton, Samuel W 266 

American Trust and Savings Bank i.? 

Armour Institute 59 

Armour, M. C 163, 164 

Armour, Philip D 237 

Armour & Co 152 

Arnold, Bion J 214 

Auditorium Hotel 230 

Automatic Electric Company 174, 175 

Bailey, Edward W 148 

Ballon, A. P 134 

Banks, Alexander F 109 

Banning, Ephraim 250 

Barrett, Thomas E 277 

Bartlett, Charles L 275 

Belt Railway Company of Chicago 105 

Bensinger, Moses 189, 190 

Bird, A. C 108 

Blakely, C. F 192 

Blakely Printing Company 192 

Blome, Rudolph S 228 

Bogle, W. S 204 

Borders, M. W 261 

Boyles, Charles D 146 

Brown, Paul 258 

Browning, Granville W 257 

Brundage, Edward J 259 



PAGE 

Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company 190 

Bush, William H 243 

Bushnell, Henry D 178 

Brock, A. J 194 

Brock & Rankin 194 

Byllesby, Henry M 217 

Cable, The Company 175, 176 

Cameron, Dwight F 114 

Chicago Bridge & Iron Works 172 

Chicago Edison Company 194-196 

Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company 96 

Chicago National Bank 124-126 

Chicago Telephone Company 200 

Chicago Terminal Transfer Railroad Company 99-101 

Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railroad 102-104 

Chicago & Milwaukee Electric Railroad, The 114 

Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company 9.3-95 

Chicago & Western Indiana Railway 105 

Clark, George M 189 

Clark, George M., Company 189 

Commercial National Bank 126 

Commonwealth Electric Company 196-198 

Cooley, Lyman E 216 

Continental National Bank 123, 124 

Corn Products Company 179 

Cudahy, John 147 

Cummings, John J 171 

Crilly, Daniel F 267, 268 

Davis, Reginald J., Company 226 

Delihant, W. T 208 

Dickinson, Albert 144 

Dickinson, Charles 145 

Dickinson, Dr. Frances 264 

Dickinson, Nathan 145 

Dickinson, The Albert, Company 144 

Dunne, Hon. Edward F 33 

Emmerich, Charles 243 

Ewen, John M 211 

Faithorn, John N 101 

Farwell, John V., Sr 246, 247 

Federal Life Insurance Company 137 

Ferguson, Dr. Alexander H 263 

Fetzer, John C 109, no 

Field, Marshall, & Co 181-185 

Fiero, Albert W 213 

First National Bank 122 

Fitzgerald, Richard no 

Forrest, W. S 256 

Forsyth, Jacob 246 

Fraser, David R 240 

Greenebaum, Elias 133 

Greenebaum, Henry E 133 

Greenebaum, James E 133 

Greenebaum, Moses E 133 



282 



INDEX. 



Us:! 



Greenebaum Sons 133 

Gage Bros. & Co 186 

Galian, Thomas 242 

Goodrich, Adams A 254 

Gray, James J 261 

Great Northern Hotel 231 

Gurley, W. W 252 

Hamilton, Isaac M 137 

Hammond, R. R 206 

Happel, Charles J 277 

Harris, N. W., & Co 132 

Head, Franklin H 266 

Heyworth, James 218 

Hicks, F. M., Company 169, 170 

Hogan, Thomas S 258 

Hopkins, Albert J 255 

Hotel Majestic ; 232 

Hoyt, Howard H 136 

Hudson, T. J., Jr 208 

Hughitt, Marvin 95 

Hunt, Robert W 213 

Hunt, Robert W., & Co 212 

Illinois Brick Company 221 

Illinois Central Railroad 97 

Illinois Trust and Savings Bank 127, 128 

Illinois Tunnel Company 201 

Inter Ocean, The 82 

Iroquois Iron Company 163, 164 

Irwin, Charles D 147 

Irwin, Green & Co 146 

Jackson, George W 203 

Jackson, W. J 105 

Jennings, J. Elliott 140 

Jones, John S 268 

Kesner, Jacob L 272 

Kohler Bros 218 

Lake, William H 149 

La Salle County Carbon Coal Company 207 

Lemmon, T. A 267 

Lenehan, Joseph H 139, 140 

Libby, McNeill & Libby 156 

Lincoln, George E 272 

Loose, Jacob L 267 

Madden, Martin B 221 

Mansur, E, L., Company 188 

Mather, Alonzo L 110-112 

Mayer, Oscar F 273 

MacArthur Bros. Company 209, 210, 21 1 

MacArthur, Archibald 210 

MacArthur, Arthur F 211 

McClean, S. A., Jr 257 

McCord, Alvin C i/o 

McCormick, Cyrus H 233 

McDonald, James 205 

McEwen, Willard M 248 

McGavin, Charles 262 

McMunn, Samuel W 168, 169 

McMynn, John C 214 

Meacham, Florus D 222 

Meacham & Wright Company 222 

Merchants' Loan and Trust Company 129, 130 

Miller, Harry 1 104, 105 

Miller, John S -. , 252 

Miller, Walter H 159 

Mitchell, John J 127, 128 

Mitten, Thomas E 112 

Monarch Book Company 19 

Merrill, Charles E 273 

Morris, Nelson & Co ISS 

National Life Insurance Company of the U. S. of America. 138, 139 
National Packing Company '57 



PAGE 

Netcher, Charles 24$ 

Noel, Prof. Theophilus 274 

Nollau, Arthur 226 

Northern Trust Company 131 

Northwestern Terra Cotta Company 223, 224 

O'Donnell, M. C .'208 

O'Gara, Thomas J 204 

Ogden Gas Company 199 

O'Neill, Francis 278 

Otis, Joseph E 241 

Palmer House 22 p 

Palmer, Potter 235 

Pam, Hugo 260 

Peck, Philip F. W 239 

People's Gas Light and Coke Company 198 

Peters, Homer H 269 

Plamondon, Charles A 275 

Porter, Washington 270 

Pratt, Dr. Edwin H 262 

Pullman Palace Car Company 106-108 

Rankin, Charles W I94 

Reinberg, Peter JQ^ 

Republic Iron and Steel Company if, 2 

Rider, William H jp 2 

Roche, John A 31 

Roebling Construction Company 219 

Russell, John B 134 

Sapp, Gordon G 191 

Scherzer, Albert H jgg 

Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridge Company 164-167 

Scherzer, William 167 

Schlueter, Henry W 212 

Schneider, E., & Co 175 

Schwarzschild & Sulzberger 157 

Selz, Morris 185 

Shankland, E. C. & R. M 219 

Shope, Simeon P 250 

Shortall, John G 271 

Simon, Robert M 276 

Smith, Abner 249 

Smith, Frederick A 247 

Smulski, John F 259, 260 

Spaulding & Co 187 

Spry, Samuel A 225 

Spry, The John, Lumber Company 225 

Standard Washed Coal Company 208 

Starnes, P. M . 139 

Starring, Mason B 113 

Steger, John V 178 

Steger, The Piano Company 176-178 

Stromberg, Albert 172-174 

Stubbs, John C 108 

Sturgeon, Robert C 135 

Sulzberger, Ferdinand 158 

Swift, George B 32 

Swift, Gustavus F 238 

Swift & Co 153 

Sweet, Col. A. L 220 

Thomas, E. A 220 

Thomas Elevator Company 220 

.Thornton, Charles S 254 

United States Peat Fuel Company 178 

Vehmeyer, Henry F 146 

Walker, Lincoln W 191 

Weber, B. F 227 

Wells, Addison E 209 

Wells, Fred A 209 

Wells Bros. Company 209 

Wickes, Thomas H 242 

Willey, Cameron L 224 

Wright, Frank S . 223