Bygone Days in Chicago

"A Bird's-Eye View"

In 1862, the year of my arrival, Chicago had an estimated population of 120,000, distributed among its three divisions, both as to character and numbers, in about the same proportion as are to-day its approximately 2,500,000 inhabitants. The south division remains what it was then, the business centre; but where now are several distinct foci in the general maelstrom, each comparable to the original nucleus, and sufficiently specialized to admit of geographical demarcation, the Court House in those days brooked no rivals. With its aspiring cupola, it so dominated the town that none could help looking up to it as something superior and apart--being, in fact, the only really tall object in sight, except when "Long John" [John Wentworth, businessman and two-term mayor in the late 1850s and early 1860s] happened to take an airing. If you wanted a hack you went to the Court House Square for it; and it was nearly the same if you were looking for a policeman, for several could generally be found hanging about there to prevent rival hackmen from murdering each other, or a combination of the pestiferous crew from doing a stranger to death, both being not infrequent happenings. Anywhere else a policeman was seldom seen--outside of saloons. But, frankly, what better could one expect of men content to wear leather shields as insignia of authority?...

In a way, also, the Court House was everybody's monitor and guide. It told you when to rise, when to eat your dinner, when to knock off work, when to jubilate, when to mourn, and, above all, it helped you to locate fires; for the clang of its great bell could be heard in almost every part of the town. Aye, how it rang paeans of victory for Donelson, for Vicksburg, and Gettysburg, and finally for Richmond, when that stronghold fell! And how its slow, solemn monotone voiced the anguish of all hearts, when the body of the slain Lincoln was borne through the shrouded streets of the mourning city, to rest for a day and a night beneath the dome of the city's capitol, that a stricken people might once more look upon the transfigured face of their beloved dead! And, finally, how it clanged, and clanged, and clanged again, on that fearful night of fire, each stroke heightening the terror that possessed the fleeing multitude, while the "fiend" that lashed the elements to such boundless fury, compelled it to sound its own death-knell.

The Immediate Surroundings of the Square

In 1862 the Court House Square was surrounded by an oddly assorted architectural hodgepodge, strikingly typical of the various stages of the city's development, from the primitive "frame" of the thirties, to the new, six-storied marble Sherman House, at this time the finest building in the city, as well as one of the best appointed hotels in the country. Because of the panic of 1857, and the subsequent war, the Chicago of this period represents a status quo of nearly a full decade. Thereafter, from 1860, down to the time of the fire, the city was in an exceptional state of flux, and so much of the dilapidation of former days disappeared, that it was in quite a large way a comparatively new downtown Chicago that was destroyed on October 9, 1871.

Where Washington Street bounds the Court House Square (then enclosed by a high iron fence), there remained down to 1864 nearly a block of original prairie, a dozen feet below the plank sidewalk; and when, in 1863, the plot was tenanted by a winter circus, its patrons descended to their seats as into a cellar. When, in the middle sixties, the building boom set in, Smith & Nixon erected on the site now occupied by the Chicago Opera House a fine Music Hall, which was opened, if I am not mistaken, with a concert by Gottschalk. Among other events I recall as taking place therein was a state billiard tournament, wherein Tom Foley, the veritable stand-by of to-day, won the State championship,--a circumstance which throws a calcium light on the status of the game at that period; a concert by "Blind Tom"; and a lecture by William Lloyd Garrison, on "Reconstruction."

In marked contrast to the vacant plot, and neighboring it on the corner of La Salle Street, stood one of the tallest-steepled churches in the city, the First Baptist. This, in 1864, was taken down bit by bit and reconstructed on its present site, Morgan and Monroe Streets, there becoming the Second Baptist. In its place rose Chicago's first fine Chamber of Commerce, to be followed after the fire by a second trade-temple of similar dimensions, only the outer walls of which now remain, as the substructure to a skyscraper.

The southwest corner, across La Salle Street from the Baptist church, calls for special mention. It was at this time occupied by a brick building of two stories and basement, among the first dwellings of that material erected in Chicago. It was originally the home of P. F. W. Peck; and before it was demolished, about 1867, after a somewhat checkered existence, it had been some years the headquarters of the police department, with a calaboose in the basement.

The old landmark was succeeded by one of the finest buildings in the city, with the Union National Bank for its chief tenant. After the fire the bank was temporarily domiciled at the northwest corner of Market and Madison Streets, which one-sided locality--with Field, Leiter & Co.'s establishment, both wholesale and retail, on the northeast corner, and the Board of Trade opposite--became for a time the business focus of the city. Within a year or so, the old Peck residence site was rehabilitated with an even more substantial building than the one destroyed; and so this intersection, when the Chamber of Commerce had been rebuilt, became once again the city's chief business centre. In addition to the Union National Bank, then the leading financial institution in the West, the new building accommodated the Western Union Telegraph Company, the Associated Press, the Western Army Headquarters (in charge of General Phil. Sheridan), another bank, and many important interests besides. Nevertheless, though of goodly size, this structure was in 1893 ruthlessly razed to give place to the present Stock Exchange building. Thus, in its various stages, this corner has been preeminently typical of the city's vicissitudes and progress; while the frequent changes in its physical aspect emphasize the difficulties of the chronicler in undertaking to reproduce with certitude any particular epoch in the city's physical history.

Besides the Sherman House and the Baptist church, almost the only other salient feature on the four fronts facing the Square was the Larmon block of four stories, on the northeast corner of Washington and Clark Streets, having for its tenant on the upper floor Bryant and Stratton's Business College, a fact that was announced to the wayfarer by a sign so conspicuous as almost to belittle the Court House dome as an object of attention. The ground floor was occupied by J. T. & E. M. Edwards, jewelers; Julius Bauer, pianos; J. M. Loomis, hatter; Root & Cady's music store, and Buck & Raynor's drug store. Others on Clark Street facing the Square, and running north in the order noted, were: Ambrose & Jackson (colored), caterers; Bryan Hall entrance; George Tolle, surgical instruments; E. J. Hopson, millinery; "Anderson's" (a restaurant presided over by John Wright, who a few years later opened in Crosby's Opera House the first really "swell" resort in the city); "Campbell's," hair jewelry; J. Gray, wigs; E. A. Jessell, auctioneer (a "Peter Funk," if ever there was one); while on the corner of Randolph there lingered a senile frame construction, in color a dirty yellow, on the second floor of which [attorney and future five-term mayor] Carter H. Harrison, Sr., along with other luminaries, devoted himself to the acquisition and exudation of lore more or less legal....

In general it may be said that only the Clark Street frontage of the four sides of the Square was in touch with business--all the rest being as much out of it as the unsettled prairie. The La Salle Street side was made up largely of forsaken residences; and it was not until several years later, when the Chamber of Commerce was established at Washington and La Salle, that the region thereabout came into demand for business purposes--though when it did, it jumped at one bound into the front rank.

The Metropolitan block, on the northwest corner of La Salle and Randolph Streets, was a somewhat notable landmark. Metropolitan Hall, on its third or upper floor, was prior to the building of Bryan Hall (about 1860) for many years the most capacious place of assembly in the city, and many notabilities, not only of national but international fame, had attracted crowds within its walls. Often it was decked and garlanded for fairs and balls; and it was here (not so very long before the great fire in which he lost his life) that John McDevitt, he of the velvet touch, played the famous game of billiards, 1,500 points up, against Joseph Dion, which he finished while his opponent had hardly a button to his credit, with a run of 1,457--a feat that forced the "sharps" to put their heads together, led to the barring of the push shot and other helps to big records, and so put the game, for championship honors, on an entirely new basis. And in the basement of the block there was then, and had been for many years, as there is still, a [fire engine] "Quincy No. 9," a relic of the days when the boys "ran wid de masheen," and which, during its more than half a century of existence, has scored an unexampled record of continuous performance.

The View from the Court House Dome

Let us now ascend the dome of the Court House. The climb is not so wearisome in fancy as in the olden days it was in fact, when it was a favorite youthful diversion. Near the top we shall find a circular balcony, specially designed for sight-seeing, and let that be our place of observation. In an atmosphere as yet undefiled by the soot of ten thousand factories, a pleasing panorama unfolds itself. Naturally you are amazed to note how clearly the sand hills of Michigan, beyond the shimmering waters of the lake, thirty miles away, glint in the sunlight. Truly it would take a miracle to catch a glimpse of them now, even from the top of the Auditorium Tower, except perchance for a moment, after some phenomenally clearing storm from the east.

Why Chicago Was Known as the Garden City

As you gaze about, you may realize why Chicago was once generally known as the "Garden City." First, note those broad stretches of lovely green, due to tree-lined Wabash and Michigan Avenues,--and observe how richly the neighborhood of Cottage Grove Avenue is wooded, and the area of verdure widens as you follow it southward to Hyde Park. The building in the midst of a forest of uncommonly large oaks, at about Thirty-fifth Street (then outside of the city limits), is the old Chicago University, founded by Stephen A. Douglas, who at the time of his death (1861) owned much of the land in its vicinage.

Although the foreground, westward, is fairly inviting (for not only are most of the streets tree-bordered, but here and there large, unoccupied spaces refresh the eye with their rich green), it is really not until you turn fully to the north, and a bit to the east, that a climax of verdure is revealed. What we now behold is a magnificent natural forest in the midst of a city,-- or is it not better to say that the city here plays hide and seek in the forest? Either way, it is a dream. The noble, lake-bordered expanse is divided into lordly domains, embellished with lovely gardens. From this height the north division, east of Clark Street, and to the farthest limits, presents an unbroken stretch of woodland, as if the Lincoln Park of to-day (then in part a cemetery, and for the rest primeval forest) came down to North Water Street. Not only is every street shaded, but entire wooded squares contain each only a single habitation, usually near its centre, thus enabling their fortunate owners to live in park-like surroundings.

These spacious domains exhibit a native growth remarkable for its variety. The Hon. Isaac N. Arnold is at this period the proud owner of one of these preserves, acquired in the thirties when this region was first platted, and when entire squares, at opportune times, were bought for less than the present value of a single lot, with fifty or more to the square. Mr. Arnold's plot retained much of its original aspect up to the fire, and he could point out among other varieties of timber (as he loved to do) fine specimens of oak, ash, maple, cherry, elm, birch, hickory, and cottonwood. And to think that in a single night all this wealth of nature disappeared as if it had never been!

Others who occupied entire squares in proximity to Mr. Arnold, with say Rush and Ontario Streets as an approximate centre, were such well-known old-timers as ex-Mayor Wm. B. Ogden, Walter L. Newberry, Mark Skinner, H. H. Magie, and a little farther north, E. B. McCagg and Mahlon D. Ogden; while the detached mansion of many another stood in grounds of approximate dimensions.

The View Southward

Once again let us sweep the horizon and make a note of salient features. South of Twenty-second Street (then known as Ringgold Place) scattered buildings mark the course of Cottage Grove Avenue. Between Thirty-second and Thirty-fifth Streets, and running about an equal distance westward from the avenue, is a high-boarded enclosure, filled with temporary barracks. In the early days of the war this served as a recruiting camp, but now it holds in durance ten thousand or more "Johnny Rebs," corralled at Forts Henry and Donelson, and Island No. 10.

Half a mile or more west of the camp is a clearing, for the most part owned by "Long John." In a few years a part will become the Chicago Driving Park, with an incidental baseball field. And later still a larger part will be occupied by the Union Stock Yards, with the Dexter Trotting Park just south of them. When this happens, in the later sixties, much of the territory between the Stock Yards and Twenty-second Street is still unoccupied prairie, but shortly the great "Long John tract" is opened to settlement, and Wentworth Avenue is extended through to the west of it.

From its beginning for nearly a mile, the Archer Road is thinly settled. Then come clusters of large, low constructions. These are either slaughter or packing houses, with a glue factory and some rendering establishments thrown in to heighten the malodorous effect. You are now gazing on Bridgeport, a settlement beyond the corporate limits. It is a place with a reputation. Both morally and physically it is a cesspool, a stench in everybody's nostrils, especially when there is a breeze from the southwest.

Except for a fringe of structures along the South Branch, the entire section that lies between Archer and Blue Island Avenues is largely unsettled marshland, in part known to old settlers as "Hardscrabble." The present great lumber district, with its teeming factories, is little better than a bog. At this time the lumber yards are strung along the South Branch, north of Eighteenth Street, with a bunch at the mouth of the river, while grain elevators (though by no means the leviathans of to-day) break the skyline at different points along both the South and North Branches. Our sweep has taken in the source of Chicago's early greatness--its "Big Three"; for already it is able to announce to an amazed world that it is the foremost grain mart, lumber market, and packing centre in the world. And the pride that thereat swelled the collective Chicago bosom crops out occasionally in individual exhibitions of "chestiness" even to-day.

The Old Plank Roads

West of Aberdeen, and south of Adams Street, land is still in the market by the acre. Peter Schuttler has just domiciled himself on the outskirts in what is the most pretentious residence in the city--and, following the example of the North Side gentry, has placed his mansion in the centre of extensive grounds. The region between Adams and Lake Streets, to Union Park, is fairly built up; but beyond that point (best known as Bull's Head) the habitations are few and far between; yet the horse cars are pushing to Western Avenue, in the hope that population will follow, for at this period their revenue is largely derived from Sunday pleasure-seekers, bound for various outlying groves. The northwestern part of the town is still practically unsettled, and from about Centre Avenue and Lake Street one can cut across to Milwaukee Avenue (better known as the Milwaukee or Northwestern Plank Road) without other obstruction than the old Galena Railroad track. On the North Branch are some tanneries, and a tall chimney marks the site of Ward's Rolling Mill, later to become the nucleus of the huge collection to be known as the North Chicago Rolling Mills. O. W. Potter is at this time Captain Ward's superintendent. In the north division the building line halts at North Avenue. The site of Lincoln Park is to remain for some time a most forbidding locality, for ghosts walk there. Beyond lies thickly wooded Lake View. And it is an off summer's day when some German society does not hold a picnic there.

Before closing with the general view, let us note the fact that expansion from the main nucleus proceeds in narrow lines (somewhat like the spokes of a wheel), showing large areas of unsettled prairie between. These settled lines mark the whereabouts of plank roads, known as Archer, Blue Island, South Western (now Ogden Avenue), Northwestern (now Milwaukee Avenue), Clybourne, etc. Fortunately, these exits from the early settlement were retained in the subsequent platting, and now constitute most convenient avenues to facilitate rapid transit. The first settlers in the outlying lowlands were wise in sticking close to what then most resembled solid ground, for away from planked roads danger lurked in every rood of ground, and during rainy seasons wading was a frequent alternative for walking.

"The Business Centre"

Having made acquaintance with the "lay of the land" in general, let us now take advantage of our eyrie to scan the business section. There is little occasion to glance either westward or southward, or even directly eastward, for in none of these directions, beyond the Clark Street front on the Square, is there as yet any merchandising worth mentioning. Practically the business area is still bounded by South Water and Randolph Streets, with only Lake Street between--and what there is on Randolph is mostly confined to the single block between Clark and Dearborn Streets.

In the beginning most of the business was on the North Side. Between the thirties and forties it crossed the river and hummed loudest about the intersection of Lake and La Salle Streets. In the decade following, the business centre shifted eastward a block to the intersection of Lake and Clark Streets. In 1862 the spell of Lake Street is still all-potent. Not only is it the city's shopping district, but also its banking and wholesale centre, and much besides. Therefore, merely to moot the possibility that business may sometime break away from it is at this period to most people of that locality equivalent to an attack on vested rights, and a menace to universal stability.

The Board of Trade Begins the Southward Movement

Accordingly, when a few years later the Board of Trade resolved to desert its grimy quarters on South Water Street, skip Lake Street, and break ground at Washington and La Salle Streets, there was much wagging of heads over the flight so far away from the immemorial business centre; and, as if this were not enough to warrant predictions of failure, there was the further reason that members could no longer watch the movement of shipping on the river, a hitherto unfailing source of interest and diversion between deals.

The causes that for nearly a decade prior to 1865 brought building operations in Chicago to a comparative standstill, have already received mention. In outlying parts, and especially in the packing district (where the war had stimulated its peculiar enterprises to an extraordinary activity), construction had gone forward at a lively pace. But in the centre of the city so few changes had taken place, and the existing order had come to be so taken for granted, that, when the business community finally awoke to its shortcomings, it moved so suddenly and so swiftly as completely to upset every calculation based on the status quo so long maintained.

It is Quickly Followed by Business Houses

When it was seen that the Board of Trade had not only come to no harm by moving so far afield, but was rapidly becoming an important centre, with office buildings going up all about it, there was a movement to break bounds and enlarge the business area southward from Lake Street all along the line from Market Street to Michigan Avenue. And while State Street was laying ruthless hands on the dry goods, jewelry, book, china, and kindred trades, and Wabash and Michigan Avenues were diverting into new and commodious quarters a goodly part of the wholesale and jobbing trade, other sections south of Randolph, under the impetus of the national banking law, set up as financial centres. Notable instances were the group of banks, headed by the Union National, about the Board of Trade, and the First National, in the new State Street retail district. Thus was Lake Street deprived of still another old-time monopoly. And while State Street and the avenues to the east were absorbing the shopping and jobbing business, and La Salle Street was paying special court to banking and insurance interests, Dearborn Street came into favor as a newspaper centre....

At the time when Lake Street still attracted the shopper, Dearborn and Randolph Streets, at their intersection, lured the wayfarer, the gambler, and the idle pleasure-seeker of every sort. For one reason, Dearborn Street was a direct approach for many West and most North Siders to the Post Office, then on the present site of the First National Bank; for until 1866, when the carrier system was introduced, "going for your mail" was an everyday necessity or pastime. And then all through the fifties Rice's theatre, the only permanent place of amusement during most of this period in the city, made Dearborn Street a general rendezvous at night; while other resorts with their more or less questionable attractions did the rest. It was Ike Cook's "Young America," on the southeast corner of Randolph, that caught much of the political and sporting drift. It was the headquarters of Senator Douglas for a number of years, and consequently a rendezvous for such convivial spirits among his admirers as Dr. Wm. B. Egan, Patrick Ballingall, General U. F. Linder, Dan O'Hara, and their followers. But when, about 1860, the McCormick block replaced the old caravansary, the sports and the bloods transferred their patronage to the northwest corner, and made Billy Bolshaw's Matteson House Cafe their headquarters; while Randolph Street, for a block east and west, formed a "banking centre" quite a bit different from the approved financial interests clustered about Lake and La Salle Streets.

Marshall Field's Influence in Determining the Business Centre

The gift of prevision is far from common; and in still rarer instances is it coupled with the means to control the environing forces to desired ends. It is one thing to see what might, could, or should be done to meet the demands or possibilities of the future, and it is quite another thing to actualize the vision. The seer is seldom a doer--the inventor rarely controls the product of his genius. It can be said with truth, however, that Chicago is able to show at least one example, and that in a superlative degree, where a single mind again and again determined the lines of the city's material development, at least in so far as its business centre is concerned. This distinction belongs to Marshall Field; and in noting the changes the business section has from time to time undergone, it may be of interest to mark his influence where it crops conspicuously to the surface. It is probably not going too far to say that as an incarnation of business methods, coupled with foresight along distinctly marked lines, the world has seen few the equal of this mercantile field marshal. Though a force in many directions, he was first and last a merchant-- all other things being subordinate, or at most, tributary to the controlling interest.

So long as the house of Field, Leiter & Co. (successors to Potter Palmer, and later to Palmer, Field, Leiter & Co.) held to Lake Street, that thoroughfare's supremacy was assured; and it was the removal of this firm to State and Washington Streets, in the late sixties, that gave the proud old street its coup de grace. From then on till the fire, State Street was the city's shopping centre almost as dominantly as it is to-day; though a few of the long established houses, like Giles Brothers (the Tiffany's of the West), clung tenaciously to their old moorings until ousted by the fire. When, after the fire, it became a question of rebuilding the business centre, one locality may be said to have had as good a chance as another; and therefore intending builders for retail trade accommodations waited to see what Field, Leiter & Co. would do.

Most people took for granted that the city's leading firm would preferably return to its old site, owned by the Singer Company, but instead it established itself in a hastily constructed building of its own, northeast corner of Market and Madison Streets, after a temporary makeshift in an old car-barn on State at Eighteenth Street. The change to Market Street sent a shiver through the whole business community. It was, however, a shrewd venture, a multitude of disappointed croakers to the contrary. The North Side being wiped out, as well as a goodly part of the South Side, it was good business to cater particularly to the West Side (then containing considerably more than half of the city's population), by locating at its very threshold. Furthermore, as compared with State Street prices, lots thereabouts could be had for a song, though, when other dry-goods houses, as well as leaders in other lines, lost no time in settling about the leader per se, real-estate figures in their vicinage rose by leaps and bounds. The area south of Madison Street, along Market and Franklin (or rather where those streets were opened after the fire) had been an unplatted and disreputable locality, dominated by a gas house. The land was chiefly occupied, and in some fashion owned, by Hibernian shantymen, several of whom became Croesuses over night.

This move on the part of Field, Leiter & Co. put State Street in the doldrums, and for several years its fate hung in the balance. In the meantime, the Singer Company concluded to rebuild on the old site, but it did so very reluctantly, for there was no tenant in sight for so pretentious a structure. While the building was going up, Field, Leiter & Co. made no sign; but its heads quietly possessed themselves of various parcels of real estate in its vicinage. Meantime rumor had it leased first to one rival, and then to another, including A. T. Stewart & Co., of New York, but nothing came of it all. Finally, it pleased Field, Leiter & Co. to reoccupy their old site, but for retail trade exclusively. They returned very much on their own terms. So the retail trade of the city was once again securely anchored on State Street. Thus we see that on three different occasions it was Field, Leiter & Co. that determined the retail focus of the city; and that Marshall Field was, and had been, the dominating mind, was made clear the moment a personal difference sent the heads apart.