'- 
 
 977 
 
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 LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 AT URBANA-CHAMPAICN 
 
 977.31 
 
 dfsic 
 
 cop. 2 
 
 I.H.S.
 
 377. 3 1 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 PICTORIAL 
 
 HISTORICAL
 
 
 V 
 
 RAND, MCNALLY & Co. 
 PHOTOGRAPHERS, ENGRAVERS AND I 
 CHICAGO
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 HISTORICAL 
 PICTORIAL
 
 HISTORY OF CHICAGO. CONDENSED. 
 
 the site of Chicago was visited 
 -!< ur Joliet as far back as 1674, by 
 I. a Salle eight years later, and by Father 
 ;ette at about the same time, the 
 history <>f Chicago properly begins with the treaty 
 made with twelve tribes of Indians in 1795 at Green- 
 ville. ( >hio, when Gen. Anthony Wayne, as agent for 
 tlie Crovernment of the United States, purchased the 
 original site of Chicago. In the treaty negotiated at 
 that time, it was provided that the United States should 
 have certain pieces of ground for trading posts, and 
 - thus described: " One piece of land six 
 miles square, at the mouth of Chicago River, empty- 
 Ipchigan, where a fort formerly stood." 
 Thus was established the site of Fort Dearborn, 
 built by Major Whistler in 1803, and around which 
 il he-red a little settlement which has grown 
 to lie the seroml city of the western world. 
 
 By 1 820 a dozen or more families had established 
 themselves in the village, but it was not until the 
 Indians ceded'their lands, after the Black Hawk War, 
 
 and finally left the territory, that Chicago began to 
 grow. That was in 1833. The first census, in 1835, 
 showed a population of 3,225. The original town of 
 Chicago, from Chicago Avenue to Madison Street 
 and from State Street to Halsted Street, had been 
 laid out five years previously, but it was not until 
 March 4, 1837, that a charter for the city of Chicago 
 was granted by the State Legislature. Up to that 
 time not much enterprise, as it is known to-day, had 
 been shown, nor had many public works been insti- 
 tuted. But the next decade saw great progress. The 
 first waterworks were built in 1841. The next year the 
 first propeller was launched, and in that year for the 
 first time the exports exceeded the imports. In 1843 
 the first book was published, and the following year 
 saw the beginning of what is now Chicago's greatest 
 single industry when the first meat was packed for 
 the English market. The first permanent public 
 school was built in 1845; 1847 saw the first theater 
 erected, and the next year the first telegram was re- 
 ceived and the first locomotive arrived by schooner. 
 
 590 15 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 ILLINOIS LIBRARY 
 
 AT URBANA CHAMPAIGN
 
 By that time Chicago had become a city, great for 
 its day, and with abundant promise of progress, which 
 has been more than fulfilled. The population had 
 increased to more than 25,000, and from that time 
 there was no check to the onward march (if Chicago 
 to the position it now occupies. In 1860 the popula- 
 tion had increased to 109,206, and the city was looked 
 upon as a metropolis. Ten years later the population 
 had trebled, the United States census giving Chicago 
 298,977 inhabitants in 1870. The next year came the 
 great fire which destroyed practically the entire city, 
 except the portions south of Harrison Street and 
 west of Halsted Street, burning over 2,124 acres of 
 buildings, leaving 100,000 people homeless, and caus- 
 ing a loss of $290,000,000. But the city arose from 
 this unprecedented disaster, stronger, more virile, 
 and more attractive than ever. Within two years 
 practically all of the burned portion had been rebuilt, 
 and the energy and public spirit displayed by the 
 people of Chicago attracted to it hundreds of thou- 
 sands of people from all sections of the world. Its 
 growth after the fire was phenomenal, the population 
 practically doubling in each decade, until now it is 
 close to the two-million mark. 
 
 The World's Columbian Exposition .i 
 
 brought Chicago into the forefront of tin 
 the world, not only by the rapidity with which 
 marvelously beautiful White City was built, but by 
 the completeness of the exhibition itself. The i 
 attendance for the six months of the exposition was 
 2 7'539>5 21 - The cost of the exposition, exclusive ol' 
 the vast sums spent by exhibitors from all parts of 
 the world, was $28,151,168.75, and a handsome divi- 
 dend was recently returned to the stockholdi 
 
 The most noteworthy feature at Chicago, during 
 the years succeeding the great exposition, lias i 
 the decided improvement in the architecture and 
 general character of the buildings erected to carry on 
 the vast business interests of the city. Scores of the 
 old buildings, which were built immediately alter the 
 great fire, have given way to magnificent modern 
 structures, architecturally beautiful, and finished and 
 furnished throughout in keeping with the exterior. 
 The Chicago National Hank building is a type of this 
 new order of architecture in public buildings which 
 ornament the business streets of the city, and it 
 stands without a peer among butldim 1 t<> 
 
 banking purposes.
 
 PAINTINGS BY MR. LAWRENCE C. EARLE. 
 
 > HE mural paintings in the Chicago National 
 Bank building are the work of Lawrence 
 C. Earle of Montclair, N. J.,an artist who 
 ranks among the leaders in his chosen field 
 in the United States. The work on the sixteen paint- 
 ings was actually begun in the fall of 1900, when Mr 
 Earle came to Chicago to discuss with the officials 
 of the bank the commission which had been offered 
 him. After accepting it he set about his gigantic 
 task by settling down in the rooms of the Chicago 
 Historical Society for study and research among the 
 books, manuscripts, wood cuts, and other memori- 
 als of early Chicago. For several weeks the artist 
 carried on his investigations, leaving no source of 
 possible information unexplored. He experienced 
 considerable difficulty in finding material for several 
 of the paintings, as many of the subjects selected had 
 not previously been pictorially reproduced even in 
 crude form, and Mr. Earle found it necessary to rely 
 largely upon published descriptions of the scenes and 
 incidents he intended to place upon canvas. 
 
 At length the preliminary work was done and the 
 artist finished his scale drawings, which gave a hint 
 in miniature of the glories that were to grow upon the 
 canvas beneath the touch of his brushes. Returning 
 to his home in the East, he discovered that his studio 
 was not large enough to permit him to set up several 
 of the large canvases at one time, as was his inten- 
 tion, and therefore he begged the privilege of using 
 the large studio in the residence of Mr. Wm. Evans, 
 an art connoisseur of Montclair. The accommoda- 
 tion was readily granted, and when Mr. Earle had 
 secured the services of Edward Potthast, an eminent 
 painter of New York, as his assistant, the real work 
 was begun. For weary months the two artists and 
 several assistants labored on the immense canvases, 
 three and four often being under way at one time, 
 until at length the last one was finished and the last 
 touch of beauty was added to the Chicago National 
 Bank building. From the time the paintings were 
 unveiled they have been viewed and admired daily 
 by hundreds of visitors to the building.
 
 THE WINTER QUARTERS OF FATHER MARQUETTE, 1674. 
 
 HE first white man to set foot in Chicago 
 was Father Jacques Marquette, the Catho- 
 lic missionary, who has left the impress 
 of his personality upon all of the north- 
 west lake region. His visit to the Indians camped at 
 the mouth of the Chicago River, in the winter of 1674, 
 was the last mission he undertook, as he died in the 
 following spring while attempting to return to Macki- 
 nac. The illness which resulted in the death of the 
 famous missionary overtook him not far from the 
 present boundaries of Chicago, near what is known 
 as "The Sag," on the Desplaines River. Here he 
 camped for the entire winter with the Indians, who 
 revered the "black-robed chieftain" for his good 
 works among them. Born in France in 1637, he early 
 entered the church, and at the age of twenty-nine 
 years determined to come to the new world to spread 
 the gospel among the savage aborigines. Naturally, 
 he selected as his starting point the French settle- 
 ments in Canada, and established missions for the 
 Indians at Three Rivers, Sault Ste. Marie, and Macki- 
 
 nac. In 1673, with five companions, he started to 
 explore the Mississippi River, of which the Indians 
 had told him. The party floated down the great river 
 in canoes to the mouth of the Arkansas River, and 
 from there returned to Green Bay. Father Mar- 
 quette encountered a number of Kaskaskia Indians 
 on the trip, members of a tribe which inhabited 
 Illinois, and he promised to return to them the next 
 year to establish a mission. In the fall of 1674 he 
 left Green Bay and sailed down Lake Michigan to 
 Chicago, stopping at Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, 
 and other points. He found an Indian village at the 
 mouth of the Chicago River, and after some time sailed 
 up the south branch as far as he could. Attempting 
 to continue his journey on the Desplaines, he fell ill 
 and camped there for the winter. The next spring 
 he started on the return journey to Mackinac, but 
 died near St. Joseph, Michigan, May 18, 1675. The 
 details of these journeys are known to history through 
 the journal which Father Marquette carefully kept 
 during his missionary labors.
 
 WINTER QUARTERS OF MARQUETTE
 
 THE KINZIE HOUSE, NEAR FORT DEARBORN, 1804. 
 
 N 1779 Baptists Point De Saible, a French 
 trader among the Indians, built for himself a 
 log cabin on the bank of the stream which 
 afterward came to be known as the Chicago 
 River, and that log cabin, enlarged and improved as 
 the years went by, was destined to be the first home 
 in Chicago and the birthplace of the first white child 
 the house of John Kinzie. This Kinzie house, around 
 which clusters so much of the very earliest history of 
 Chicago, stood within seventy-five feet of the water's 
 edge, on the north bank of the river, and within a short 
 distance of the present Rush Street bridge. When 
 Baptiste Point De Saible built it he had but himself 
 to accommodate, and during the seventeen years he 
 lived in the log cabin it was not much changed. He 
 sold it to another French trader, Le Mai, who im- 
 proved the place to some extent, and in 1804 it be- 
 came the property of John Kinzie, " the Father of 
 Chicago," Indian trader and original white settler. 
 He enlarged the house to accommodate his family and 
 made of it a long one-story building with a gambrel- 
 
 roofed attic. It had a southern exposure, a door in 
 the center of that side, and three windows on either 
 side of the door. In that old log house in December, 
 1804, the year John Kinzie bought it, the first white 
 child born in Chicago, his daughter Ellen Marion, 
 first saw the light. She was his second child, and ft 
 is to his son, John H. Kinzie, and the latter's wif 
 who wrote " Waubun," that later generations OWB 
 most of their information about those formative days 
 in Chicago's history. John Kinzie was sutler to thv 
 garrison at Fort Dearborn, and when the soldien 
 started on the fatal march to Detroit, which ended i^ 
 the massacre at Eighteenth Street, he went with theni 
 as an enlisted man, having left his family in care i>K 
 friendly Indians. He was captured by hostile Indian* 
 and separated from his family for four years. Aftelf 
 his return the old Kinzie house was the center of the 
 social life of the little settlement, until his death inr 
 1831. After that it was occupied by J. N. Bailey, firsfj 
 postmaster of Chicago, and the first post office was inl 
 the building. Not long after that it was destroyed.
 
 THE KINZIE HOUSE
 
 THE FIRST FORT DEARBORN, 1803. 
 
 DEARBORN was erected in the sum- 
 mer of 1803, the third year of Thomas Jef- 
 ferson's first presidential term, by order of 
 his Secretary of War, Gen. Henry Dearborn. 
 In July of that year work was begun by a construc- 
 tion force under command of Capt. John Whistler, 
 and on the last day of the year the army officers 
 formally took possession. The little garrison at that 
 time consisted of a captain, a second lieutenant, an 
 ensign, four sergeants, three corporals, four musi- 
 cians, a surgeon's mate, and fifty-four privates. The 
 fort was situated on the south bank of the river, at a 
 bend where the stream at that time turned to enter the 
 lake. The site is now occupied by a commercial house 
 on which is a commemorative tablet. It consisted 
 of two block houses, one at the southeast and the 
 other at the southwest corner of the enclosure, which 
 was surrounded by a stout palisade of timber. There 
 was a subterranean passage to the river, which might 
 have been used as a means of escape in an emer- 
 gency, or to supply water to the garrison in case of a 
 
 siege. At the west end of the enclosure was a log 
 house occupied by the United States Indian Agency. 
 At the outbreak of the war of 1812, Captain Heald, 
 commanding Fort Dearborn, received orders from 
 General Hull, at Detroit, to evacuate the fort and 
 march his men to Detroit overland, to join the garri- 
 son there. Captain Heald at once prepared to move, 
 and, as a final act, distributed all the provisions on 
 hand among the Indians. On the morning of August 
 15, 1812, the little company set out from the fort, 
 accompanied by a number of settlers with their wives 
 and children, who were too fearful of the Indians to 
 remain in the absence of the soldiers. The party 
 moved along the lake shore, and at a point where now 
 is Eighteenth Street the Indians attacked them, kill- 
 ing loo men, 10 women, and 20 children practically 
 the entire party. Then the Indians burned the fort. 
 It was rebuilt in 1816, but was not permanently garri- 
 soned, and in 1836 it was abandoned as an army post. 
 The scene of the massacre is now marked by a monu- 
 ment, ornamented with Indian figures in bronze. 
 
 10
 
 FORT DEARBORN
 
 THE CHICAGO RIVER NEAR WOLF POINT, 1833. 
 
 1830 Mr. Elijah Wentworth opened at " The 
 Forks," on the north branch of the river, what 
 was probably the first hotel in Chicago. It was 
 called the Wolf Point Hotel, and on its creak- 
 ing signboard a wolf was displayed, but whether the 
 point itself derived its name from that circumstance 
 or from another will ever be a disputed question. 
 Some authorities declared that the point on the river 
 bank was famous among very early settlers as a place 
 of resort for wolves, and others insisted that an 
 Indian chief named Wolf had resided on the point or 
 was buried there. Whatever the origin of the name, 
 certain it is that three of the earliest hotels in Chicago 
 were located at or near Wolf Point. About the time 
 Elijah Wentworth flung his sign, with its effigy of a 
 wolf, to the breeze, Samuel Miller opened a tavern in 
 a small log cabin on the opposite side of the north 
 branch. This was known as Miller's Hotel, and 
 some historians insist that it preceded the Wolf Point 
 Hotel in the field. The other hotel in the neighbor- 
 hood was the Sauganash, afterward famed as a 
 
 meeting place of politicians, its builder and owner, 
 Mark Beaubien, continuing the business after Miller 
 retired from the field in 1834, and the name of the 
 Wolf Point had been changed successively to the 
 Travelers' Home and the Western Stage House. By 
 a strange coincidence this, the first hotel in Chicago, 
 ended its public career the same year that its princi- 
 pal rival, Miller's Hotel, was closed, and when Mark 
 Beaubien retired he turned over the business of the 
 Sauganash to Mrs. Murphy, who at once dropped the 
 picturesque Indian name of the place and called it 
 the Exchange Coffee House. Here John Wentworth, 
 afterward a famous mayor of Chicago, and many 
 other public characters identified with the earl}' 
 history of Chicago, lived. Their presence attracted 
 to the coffee house the best known public men of that 
 day, and around its tables were discussed the various 
 questions of the hour, both local and national. The 
 old building was destroyed by fire in 1851, after hav- 
 ing held its own for twenty years as the center of 
 the hotel life of the city. 
 
 12
 
 >1 
 
 HOTEL, WOLF POINT
 
 FRINK & WALKER'S STAGE COACH OFFICE, 1850. 
 
 1 HAT the railroad station is to the 
 country town to-day, Frink & Walker's 
 stage coach office was to early Chi- 
 cago the center of public interest 
 several times a day, the place where strangers arrived 
 in town, where residents set out upon long and often 
 hazardous journeys, where the mail was received and 
 dispatched in short, the transportation center of 
 the growing city. From 1832 until the coming of the . 
 first railroad in 1848, the stage coaches of Frink & 
 Walker were the only link connecting Chicago with 
 the outside world, and for several years after the 
 primitive locomotives had come puffing in and out of 
 town, the stages continued to run regularly, carry- 
 ing passengers and mail to and from many places not 
 reached by the first railroads. Even before Chicago 
 was incorporated as a village, the firm established its 
 first stage line, in 1832, to Galena. Oddly enough, 
 that town was also the terminus of the first railroad. 
 As settlements increased in number, Frink & Walker 
 met the growing demands by establishing new lines 
 
 of coaches to all parts of the Northwest, as far as 
 Milwaukee and Prairie du Chien, and on the south 
 a line extended to St. Louis. The stage coach office, 
 from which all the coaches departed, and which 
 was usually surrounded by an interested group of 
 idlers, was on the southwest corner of Dearborn and 
 Lake streets. Many of the stages, especially those 
 obliged to traverse muddy roads, were equipped with 
 six horses, and, in addition to the skillful driver, car- 
 ried a postillion , who blew a horn gaily when the stage 
 was pulling out, and played a fanfare on its arrival, to 
 notify the idlers that the stage was in with the mail 
 and passengers. Now and again the passengers and 
 drivers on these coaches had a brush with the Indi- 
 ans on lonely stretches of the road, but more often 
 their experiences were confined to struggles with the 
 deep mud of the roads through the woods and across 
 the prairies. The extension of the railroad lines to 
 all parts of the territory reached by the stages led to 
 the abandonment of a picturesque feature of life in 
 early Chicago.
 
 STAGE COACH OFFICE
 
 THE LAST COUNCIL OF THE POTT AW ATOMIES, 1833. 
 
 N HISTORIC gathering, which meant much, 
 not only for Chicago but for the whole 
 country, was the Last Council of the Pot- 
 tawatomie Indians with Commissioners of 
 the United States Government, held in Chicago, Sep- 
 tember 26, 1833. By the terms of the treaty signed 
 that day in the little Indian village at the mouth of 
 the Chicago River, the Pottawatomies and several 
 other tribes of Indians ceded to the Government all 
 of their lands east of the Mississippi River, with the 
 exception of a few unimportant reservations. The 
 matter had been under discussion at Washington for 
 some time, and during the summer of 1833 word was 
 sent to the Indian tribes interested that Commis- 
 sioners of the United States Government would meet 
 them in Chicago in September of that year to nego- 
 tiate a treaty. Fully 5,000 Indians flocked into the 
 village in the last days of August, and tepees by the 
 thousand were erected along the banks of the river. 
 The three Commissioners, G. B. Porter, T. J. V. Owen, 
 and William Weatherford, had been supplied with 
 
 rations by the Government to serve out to the Indi- 
 ans during the negotiations, and a supply house for 
 their storage and distribution was built on the north 
 side of the river, opposite Fort Dearborn, near the 
 present site of the Rush Street bridge. In the pre- 
 liminary council the Indians were not disposed to 
 accept the Government proposals, and for several 
 days things were at a standstill. The distribution of 
 rations, however, had a marked effect, and a promise 
 of annuities from the Government influenced the old 
 chiefs favorably. On September 26th, in the tempo- 
 rary structure, the treaty was signed, by the terms of 
 which the Indians ceded their lands east of the Mis- 
 sissippi River to the Government and promised to 
 move west of that river. By the Government they 
 were given a reservation equal in extent to the lands 
 ceded, some 5,000,000 acres, on the western line of 
 Missouri, besides $530,000 in cash as indemnity and 
 in annuities. Within two years the Indians had 
 moved out of the ceded territory into the new hunt- 
 ing grounds. 
 
 16
 
 COUNCIL OF THE POTTAW ATOMIES
 
 THE FIRST BRIDGE ACROSS THE CHICAGO RIVER, 1834. 
 
 HE first bridge in Chicago was constructed 
 in 1834, at Dearborn Street, to furnish easy 
 and rapid communication between the 
 settlements on either bank of the river, 
 which afterward came to be known as the north and 
 south divisions of the city. Prior to the construction 
 of the bridge there was a ferry at Dearborn Street, a 
 wide, flat-bottomed boat attached to a stout cable 
 and drawn across the stream by hand, carrying 
 freight, passengers, and domestic animals from one 
 section of the village to the other. In 1834 it was 
 determined to supplant this primitive service by a 
 wooden bridge, and the ferry was removed to Rush 
 Street, where it did service until 1856. The bridge 
 at Dearborn Street was 200 feet long, with a draw 
 of sixty feet at one end. Considerable opposition to 
 the bridge was manifested by some of the citizens for 
 various reasons. It was said that it obstructed 
 navigation, and timorous pedestrians were sometimes 
 startled by its " gallows " arrangement at either end, 
 when it was encountered suddenly at night. The 
 
 machinery by which the draw was operated became 
 deranged upon one occasion, and for two days and 
 nights the draw remained open. Then a movement 
 was begun looking to the removal or destruction of 
 the bridge, and, as the city had been incorporated by 
 that time, the City Council was called upon to act. 
 Yielding to the popular clamor, the council ordered 
 the bridge removed, and in 1839 it was destroyed. 
 The result was not as satisfactory as had been 
 anticipated. Merchants and shopkeepers on Dear- 
 born Street found their trade seriously affected by 
 the diversion of commerce and pedestrians from that 
 street to the ferry, and when in 1840 it was proposed 
 to erect a bridge at Clark Street, an effort was made 
 to have the new structure placed at Dearborn Street 
 on the original bridge site. This proposition met 
 with defeat in the council, Clark Street got the new 
 bridge, and Dearborn Street remained without one 
 until 1889, when the present iron bridge was placed 
 in position. Monroe, Franklin, and La Salle streets 
 are the only down-town streets without bridges. 
 
 18
 
 DEARBORN STREET BRIDGE
 
 THE FIRST GRAIN ELEVATOR IN CHICAGO, 1838. 
 
 HE first shipment of wheat from Chicago 
 was made in 1838 and consisted of seventy- 
 eight bushels. Prior to that time the resi- 
 dents of the city had consumed all of the 
 grain sent in from the surrounding country, but after 
 Newberry & Dole made that first shipment from the 
 city that was destined to be the grain market of the 
 world, they found their trade increasing and decided 
 to build an elevator in. which to store the grain until 
 it was shipped. It was not a large or pretentious 
 structure, that first grain elevator, but it was the 
 forerunner of the elevators of Chicago, which last year 
 held more than 91,000,000 bushels of grain. When 
 Newberry & Dole had built their elevator in 1838, the 
 wheat was hoisted to an upper story by hand-power, 
 and when they received orders from the East for 3,678 
 bushels a very gratifying increase in the business 
 from seventy - eight bushels of the previous year 
 the wheat was run down a spout to the deck of the 
 schooner " Osceola," and Chicago's grain business 
 was then reallv begun. In 1841 the shipments had 
 
 increased to 40,000 bushels, and in that year a new 
 elevator, operated by horse-power, was built. The 
 animal operated the machinery through the agency 
 of a treadle, and when the treadle was removed to 
 an upper story it was necessary to haul the horse up 
 also with ropes and pulleys. The first steam-power 
 elevator was built in 1854 by the firm composed of 
 George Dole and George Armour. They built on the 
 south branch of the river a structure 312 feet long, 
 80 feet wide, and 130 feet high much more like 
 the monster elevators of to-day than was the humble 
 building of Newberry & Dole in 1838. When this 
 steam-power elevator was constructed in 1854, the 
 shipments of grain from Chicago had reached a total 
 of 13,132,501 bushels quite an advance from the 
 seventy-eight bushels of sixteen years before. All of 
 this grain was carried to the East by a large fleet of 
 lake schooners, and the tariffs for freight were so high 
 that in some cases the vessel owner drew one-half the 
 sum for which the grain sold in Buffalo. As is well 
 known, Chicago is now the grain market of the world. 
 
 20
 
 FIRST GRAIN ELEVATOR 

 
 THE FIRST RAILWAY STATION IN CHICAGO, 1849. 
 
 HE "Old Galena Depot" was the first rail- 
 road station in Chicago. It was built in the 
 winter of 1848-49 and situated on the corner 
 of West Kinzie and Canal streets. The 
 Galena & Chicago Union Railroad Company was 
 incorporated January 18, 1836, eleven years before the 
 construction of the road was begun, and twelve years 
 before the first train was run, November 21, 1848, 
 between this city and the Desplaines River, a dis- 
 tance of only ten miles. The enterprise did not actually 
 start until after the original charter was amended 
 in 1847, when the stock books of the company were 
 opened for subscriptions. Not Eastern capitalists, 
 but Illinois farmers and Chicago merchants, were 
 asked to subscribe. When their subscriptions, or 
 pledges, had amounted to $350,000 the work at the 
 east end of the road was commenced, but not inside 
 the city limits, which were at Halsted Street. The 
 Common Council refused the company the right of 
 way into the city. But when the first locomotive, 
 the " Pioneer," arrived in the harbor, the company 
 
 was permitted to lay down a single strap-iron track 
 on which to run out the engine and material. Then 
 the Common Council reconsidered the question and 
 freely granted the right of way. There was no depot 
 until after the trains were running to the Fox River. 
 Passengers entered the cars and left them on the 
 open prairie. There was a doorless cabin for the 
 single engine, which barely sufficed to shield it from 
 the storms when at rest. The building of the depot 
 was delayed because of a rivalry between the west 
 and the north sides for the location, but in the winter 
 of 1848-49 a wooden depot was built. The main 
 part was of two stories, mounted with an observa- 
 tory for the train starter. There was a waiting- 
 room and a ticket office on the ground floor. An 
 outside stairway led to the upper story, where the 
 offices of the company and the telegraph operator 
 were located. The first depot at Wells Street was 
 likewise of wood and was built in 1851. The present 
 station, known as the North- Western, was erected 
 in 1873. 
 
 22
 
 FIRST RAILWAY STATION
 
 THE GREAT FLOOD IN THE CHICAGO RIVER, 1849. 
 
 NTIL Chicago was devastated by the great 
 fire of 1871, the most momentous public 
 calamity in the annals of the young city 
 was the great flood which swept down the 
 river on March 12, 1849, carrying away bridges, 
 tearing vessels by the score from their moorings, 
 destroying ships and wharves, and spreading terror 
 throughout the city. The winter of 1848-49 had been 
 long and very cold, with frequent heavy falls of snow. 
 The great prairies west of the city, drained by the 
 Dcsplaines River, were covered with snow to a depth 
 of several feet, when, in the early days of March, a 
 sudden thaw set in, accompanied by a heavy and 
 continued rainfall. The mighty volume of water pro" 
 duced by the melting snow and the rain was too 
 great to be accommodated by the bed of the Des- 
 plaines River, and the overflow poured across the 
 low-lying country between the Desplaines and the 
 South Branch of the Chicago River. The floating ice 
 on the south branch, hurried forward by the flood 
 waters toward Lake Michigan, formed a jam which 
 
 caused the flood to back up and spread over the 
 surrounding country. But, gathering strength from 
 the continuous rainfall and the melting snows, the 
 waters finally burst the ice-jam and carried it, 
 whirling and grinding, down the south branch to the 
 city. Canal boats and lake schooners, moored to 
 the wharves for the winter, were torn from their 
 fastenings and carried onward by the rushing waters. 
 The bridge at Bridgeport was swept away in a 
 moment, and added its weight to the destroying 
 force which went crashing forward to the Randolph 
 Street bridge. That, too, gave way before the flood, 
 which had been gathering strength as it traveled 
 toward the lake, and the whole mass was hurled 
 against the State Street bridge, where a bend in the 
 river served to stay its onward rush. The ice, boats, 
 and shattered bridges piled up against the State 
 Street structure and the waters whirled onward to 
 the lake. Forty vessels were destroyed, twelve drifted 
 free on the lake, and not a bridge was left intact 
 when the flood subsided. The loss was $1 50,000. 
 
 24
 
 FLOODED RIVER
 
 THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD STATION, 1856. 
 
 LT WAS after twenty years of agitation, followed 
 by legislation in Congress and in the State 
 Legislature, that the first train entered the 
 Illinois Central Railroad Station in 1855. As 
 early as 1830 the idea of a railroad running length- 
 wise through the center of the State had been put 
 forward by many prominent people, and in 1835 Judge 
 Sidney Breese, then on the circuit bench, issued a 
 letter to the public, pointing out the advantages which 
 would accrue to the State from such a railroad. 
 Later, as United States Senator, he urged the pas- 
 sage of a bill granting 2,595,000 acres of public lands 
 to the Illinois Central Railroad Company. Stephen 
 A. Douglas, as Representative and as Senator, also 
 championed the proposition, and the outcome of the 
 agitation was the incorporation of the Illinois Central 
 Railroad Company, under a special act of the Legis- 
 lature, in 1852. The company agreed to build 700 
 miles of railroad in Illinois, the main line from Cairo 
 to La Salle, and from that point branches to Chicago 
 and Galena. In 1855 the line was finished and the 
 
 first train entered Chicago. Right of way along the 
 lake shore, as far as the south pier of the inner harbor, 
 had been granted by the City Council and the Legis- 
 lature, the strip included in the right of way being 
 approximately 300 feet wide; but provision was 
 made that the railroad should be built at least 400 
 feet from Michigan Avenue, and for that reason the 
 track was constructed on piles part of the way. The 
 station was built at the foot of Randolph Street, and 
 was an imposing structure for those days, being 500 
 feet long and 180 feet wide. It was also used as a 
 terminal station by the Michigan Central and the 
 Chicago & St. Louis railroads. The building was 
 destroyed in the great fire of 1871 and was not rebuilt, 
 inferior structures being occupied until 1893 when the 
 present splendid station was erected at Park Row. 
 The site of the original station, which was not wholly 
 cleared of the ruins of the great fire for nearly twenty 
 years, is now used as a terminal of the railroad's 
 immense suburban traffic. Many famous people first 
 viewed Chicago at the old station. 
 
 26
 
 jxi 
 
 FIRST TRAIN ON ILLINOIS CENTRAL R. R.
 
 CLARK STREET, BETWEEN LAKE AND RANDOLPH STREETS, 1857. 
 
 HE business center of Chicago from 1840 
 until about 1860 was on Clark Street, in 
 the first two or three blocks south of the 
 river. This was brought about largely by 
 the construction of the Clark Street bridge in 1840. 
 Merchants and small shopkeepers sought locations 
 in the neighborhood of the bridge, where the traffic 
 was greatest, and when both sides of Clark Street 
 were occupied by commercial houses, South Water 
 Street and Lake Street, for three or four blocks east 
 and west of Clark Street, were filled up with business 
 houses, hotels, and offices of professional men. On 
 the east side of Clark Street, in that neighborhood, 
 the post office was located, and here, too, were the 
 newspaper offices of the principal journals, the print- 
 ing house of Rand, McNally & Company, and sixteen 
 banks, including the bank of George Smith, a wealthy 
 Scotch banker, lately deceased in London. Notwith- 
 standing the fact that the greater portion of the city's 
 business was done in those two blocks on Clark Street, 
 and that the leading hotels of the city were in the 
 
 neighborhood, the street was not paved until 1856, 
 and then it was the first street in the city to be so 
 improved. It was planked in 1849, but the drainage 
 was on the surface, in gutters running to the river, 
 and when sewers were constructed in 1855, preliminary 
 to the paving, the surface of the street was raised 
 to eleven feet above datum. In 1857 it was raised 
 four feet more, and in 1871, after the great fire, an 
 additional two-foot raise made a total raise of fourteen 
 feet above its original level. When this grading was 
 begun in 1855, and for many years thereafter, several 
 of the sidewalks remained at the old grade, while 
 adjoining walks were raised to conform to the new 
 conditions, and the result was a succession of steep 
 steps, which gave the principal street of the city a 
 most unattractive and unfinished appearance. This 
 defect was gradually wiped out, as one property 
 owner after another brought his lot line up to grade, 
 and the destruction of the old buildings by the great 
 fire hastened the improvement. When the city was 
 rebuilt the buildings were all at grade. 
 
 28
 
 CLARK STREET
 
 THE OGDEN RESIDENCE AFTER THE FIRE OF 1871. 
 
 'HERE the imposing front of the New- 
 berry Library building is now to be 
 seen, just north of Washington Square 
 on North Clark Street, stood for many 
 years the residence of Mahlon D. Ogden, notable 
 among hundreds of similar comfortable family man- 
 . sions for the fact that it was the only building left 
 standing on the north side after the great fire of 1871 
 had swept over the city. It was a two-story frame 
 building, with a mansard roof, built according to a 
 style of architecture very popular among builders of 
 residences in the days before the conflagration which 
 leveled Chicago. Built in 1856 by Mr. Ogden, as a 
 family residence, its hospitable walls had sheltered 
 all that was best in Chicago society many times, for 
 Mr. Ogden was not only a prosperous lawyer, who 
 attracted to his home the brilliant minds of the city, 
 but he was a brother of William B. Ogden, one of the 
 pioneers of Chicago, who has been recognized, not 
 only by his own but by later generations, as one of 
 Chicago's greatest citizens. All around this home 
 
 the fire raged for twenty-five hours, from its inception 
 on the west side, on the night of October gth, until it 
 died out at Clark Street and Fullerton Avenue the 
 next night. From Congress Street north to the city 
 limits not a building was left standing, except the 
 Ogden residence, and by some strange providence 
 it was not even scorched. The great elm trees in 
 Washington Square, and in the grounds around the 
 house itself, may have served to check the flames in 
 a measure, but all the other trees in the path of the 
 conflagration were but bare and blackened stumps 
 after the fire had passed over them. The rapidity 
 with which the great fire spread is shown by the fact 
 that, originating near Halsted and Twelfth streets at 
 nine o'clock at night, it had destroyed much of the 
 west side, wiped out the business district of the city 
 and the south side as far as Congress Street, and 
 spread to Maple Street on the north side by seven 
 o'clock the next morning. Thus it had passed the 
 Ogden residence in the early hours of the morning, 
 leaving it unscathed. 
 
 30
 
 OGDEN HOUSE AFTER THE FIRE
 
 THE ROCK CUT IN THE DRAINAGE CANAL, 1899. 
 
 kARTH was first broken in the construction 
 of the Drainage Canal in the rock cut below 
 Lemont, September 3, 1892. Between that 
 time and January 17, 1900, the date on which 
 the water was admitted to the channel, 12,265,000 cubic 
 yards of solid rock were removed. This mass of rock 
 extended from Willow Springs to Lockport and was 
 15 miles long, 160 feet wide, and 26 feet thick. 
 Its removal engaged the energies of thousands of 
 men nearly seven years, and required the employ- 
 ment of the most highly improved cutting, blasting, 
 and hoisting machinery. It was a tremendous task, 
 more momentous in its way than the building of 
 the pyramids of Egypt, for its results are to have a 
 direct effect upon the health of millions of people, 
 and possibly upon the commerce of a nation. From 
 Robey Street, where the Drainage Canal practically 
 begins, to Willow Springs, the work of excavation 
 was done in earth and glacial drift, loose rock, and 
 sand. The lower fifteen miles of the channel, how- 
 ever, from Willow Springs to Lockport, was in solid 
 
 rock, and the contractors who undertook the hercu- 
 lean task of removing it found much to contend with. 
 The sides of the channel were cut down vertically by 
 channeling machines, driven by compressed air, and 
 the rock was drilled for dynamite charges by air 
 drills. The average daily output of rock for the 
 month of June, 1895, reached 21,365 cubic yards, 
 requiring the use of eight tons of dynamite. The 
 largest amount of rock removed in any one month 
 was in August, 1894, when 413,164 cubic yards of rock 
 were taken out of the cut by all the contractors, a 
 record which has probably never been equaled in any 
 similar work. In certain places where the natural 
 stone walls of the channel crumbled or were missing, 
 smooth walls of cut stone were built, so that the 
 entire course of the canal from Willow Springs to 
 Lockport is lined with stone walls as smooth and per- 
 fect as those of a monster building. At Lockport, 
 where the channel ends, the rock cut widens to a 
 windage basin of sufficient width to allow the turning 
 of the largest ships the canal will carry. 
 
 32
 
 DRAINAGE CANAL
 
 THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION OF 1893. 
 
 HE most splendid spectacular feature of 
 the World's Columbian Exposition, held in 
 Chicago in 1893, and the one which doubt- 
 less will remain longest in the memory of 
 every visitor, was the magnificent Court of Honor. 
 Artists, sculptors, architects, and landscape gardeners 
 vied with one another to make it the most beautiful 
 and memorable picture of the great World's Fair, and 
 they succeeded beyond their expectations. The cen- 
 tral feature of the Court was the Grand Basin, a 
 shimmering lake over whose surface gondolas and 
 electric launches moved constantly, by night under 
 the shifting beams of mammoth electric searchlights 
 playing on the basin from the roofs of the surround- 
 ing buildings. These were the most imposing archi- 
 tectural triumphs of the Exposition the Administra- 
 tion, Manufactures, Mining, Electricity, Agricultural, 
 and Machinery buildings. At the eastern end of the 
 Grand Basin stood the famed statue of the Republic, 
 an heroic female figure more than fifty feet in height, 
 covered with gold leaf, which shone under the sum- 
 
 mer sun in marked contrast with the white buildings 
 around the basin and the Peristyle immediately be- 
 hind the statue. At the opposite end of the Grand 
 Basin, and facing the splendid statue of the Repub- 
 lic, was M'Monnies' Fountain, a magnificent sculp- 
 tured group, representing a dashing quartette of 
 horses drawing Progress forward in her car. Below 
 it a fountain leaped and tumbled into the still waters 
 of the basin, and when at night the great search- 
 lights played upon the fountain, it seemed in truth as 
 though the fiery chargers were about to leap from 
 the pedestal into the flood beneath. The basin was 
 surrounded by a broad promenade and railing, and 
 this proved one of the most popular walks in the 
 great Exposition grounds. At every hour of the day 
 and night it was crowded with sightseers, drinking 
 in the beauties of the spectacle. Every evening, at 
 sunset, the Angelus sounded softly from the chimes 
 in the tower of Machinery Hall, and then the setting 
 of the picture was complete for the happy thousands 
 who lingered to look and listen once again. 
 
 34
 
 COURT OF HOMOS, WORLD'S FAIR
 
 THE CHICAGO RIVER AT LAKE STREET BRIDGE, 1900. 
 
 the bridge across the Chicago River at 
 Lake Street probably the best view of the 
 river, and of the commerce which it carries 
 on its bosom, may be obtained. Immedi- 
 ately north of the bridge the river is wider than it 
 is at any other point, for it is there that the north 
 and south branches of the stream unite to form the 
 main river. Originally the currents of the north and 
 south branches, flowing together at that point, swept 
 out into the lake, and the main river flowed therefore 
 almost due east; but the sanitary needs of the city, 
 and the engineering feats they brought about, have 
 worked mighty changes in these latter days, and 
 now the waters of the lake pour into the main chan- 
 nel of the river through what was once its mouth, 
 flow to the west until the old merging point off Lake 
 Street bridge is reached, and then turn sharply south 
 and flow down through the Drainage Canal to the 
 Mississippi River. The waters of the north branch, 
 deprived thus of their natural outlet, do not flow with 
 their old-time force, but mingle slowly with the pure 
 
 lake water which rushes to the south under Lake 
 Street bridge. At this point, too, the commerce of 
 the river divides, to a certain extent. Until Lake 
 Street bridge is reached, the main channel of the 
 stream bears craft of every nature in-bound from the 
 lake mighty steel steamers laden with millions of 
 bushels of grain, huge freighters bearing immense 
 stocks of coal, and old-fashioned schooners loaded 
 to the water-line with cargoes of lumber. 'At Lake 
 Street bridge the lanes of commerce separate, in 
 many instances. Most of the grain elevators and 
 lumber yards are located on the south branch, and 
 the great coal yards are on the north branch. Hence 
 the endless procession of freight carriers separates 
 into two columns at Lake Street bridge, and each 
 pursues its own course. To the east, around the bend 
 in the main channel of the river, some of the splendid 
 passenger steamers which ply between the lake ports, 
 or venture out with gay excursion parties, can be seen 
 at their docks, and the whole panorama is one of 
 industry and intense energy. 
 
 36
 
 CHICAGO RIVER AT LAKE STREET BRIDGE
 
 CHICAGO 
 - NATIONAL- 
 BAN K 
 
 EQUITABLE 
 
 TRUST 
 COMPANY 
 
 ../*& 
 
 
 HOME 
 SAVINGS- 
 BANK 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 SAFE DEPOSIT 
 
 COMPANY 
 
 I 

 
 THE CHICAGO NATIONAL BANK BUILDING. 
 
 HEN the new build- 
 ing of the Chicago 
 National Bank was 
 ^projected it was 
 aimed to produce a 
 structure which would 
 immediately suggest to 
 the observer that it was 
 a bank. How well that 
 idea has been carried 
 out by Jenney & Mun- 
 die, the architects, it 
 needs but a glance at 
 the bank building to 
 show Of the Corin- 
 thian order of architec- 
 ture, with ninety feet 
 front on Monroe Street, 
 
 and four immense columns fifty feet in height orna- 
 menting its facade, the building is a symbol of solid- 
 ity and strength. The entrance pavilion, flanked by 
 
 the Corinthian columns, is brought into greater promi- 
 nence by being constructed to the building line, while 
 trie east and west bays, on either side of it, recede 
 six feet to the line on which the front wall of the 
 building is constructed 
 
 To a depth of fifty feet the bank building is four 
 stories in height. The remainder of the lot, 138 feet 
 deep, is covered by the banking-room, one story in 
 height and roofed entirely with glass. The four-story 
 portion of the building is occupied on the first floor 
 by the directors' room and the office of the president 
 of the bank on one side of the marble entrance hall, 
 and by the Home Savings Bank on the other side ; 
 on the second and third floors are the offices of the 
 Equitable Trust Company, and on the fourth floor 
 is a cafe designed exclusively for the officers and 
 employes of the Chicago National Bank, the Home 
 Savings Bank, the Equitable Trust Company, and the 
 Chicago Safe Deposit Company These institutions 
 occupy the entire building. The basement is fitted 
 with the largest, most complete, and most luxurious 
 
 30
 
 safe deposit vaults in the world. Such, in brief is the arrange- 
 ment of this model banking building which has. in the short 
 time it has been occupied, become one of the sights of the city 
 Passing between the two great columns of Bedford 
 stone which flank the entrance, the visitor 
 finds on his left the entrance to the 
 Home Savings Bank. No more 
 complete and compact room 
 could be designed for a savings 
 institution Marble, mahogany, 
 and bronze have been used to 
 build this savings bank. The 
 floor is of marble, the walls 
 of veined statuary marble from 
 a famed Italian quarry, and 
 the counters and wainscots of 
 green Vermont marble. All 
 of the railings are of gleam- 
 ing bronze, and wherever wood 
 is used, in finish or furniture, it is 
 mahogany. The electric light comes 
 softened from the ceiling through deep-green glass 
 globes, and an artist's taste has been exercised 
 in the colorings and decorations. In front and 
 
 Interior Home Savingt Bank 
 
 40
 
 near the east wall is the private office of the Presi- 
 dent, with a directors' room opening from it, all finished 
 in the prevailing marble and mahogany. The marble 
 counter at which the business of the savings bank is 
 conducted extends along two sides of the room, leav- 
 ing ample space for depositors to transact their bank- 
 ing affairs, and at the same time not requiring them 
 to cover a great extent of floor space in going from 
 one window to another. The bank, as arranged, is 
 a model of compactness, convenience, and comfort 
 for depositors, coupled with beauty and taste in its 
 equipment and decoration. 
 
 Beyond the rooms of the savings bank, after pass- 
 ing through a doorway framed in the whitest of 
 Carrara marble and ornamented with a magnificent 
 bronze grille, the visitor steps into the great spacious 
 bank-room. It is a delight to the eye of even the 
 veriest tyro in things artistic. Standing there in 
 that magnificent doorway and viewing the splendid 
 spectacle gleaming in the flood of light, which pours 
 through the glass-paneled ceiling, the observer finds 
 it difficult to realize that this is a bank, a place of 
 commercialism. Rather would he imagine it was 
 an art gallery, hung round with masterpieces for an 
 
 exhibition, and expressing the artistic in every line 
 and tint of its own construction and coloring. The 
 great open space before the counters, which par- 
 tially inclose three sides of the room, is floored with 
 Vermont marble. The counters, behind which the 
 scores of tellers and clerks are busy with their 
 duties, are of green marble, as are the bases. But 
 the walls of the great room to a point a few feet 
 below the line of the ceiling are covered with inlaid 
 panels of Pavanazzo marble, paneled in veined stat- 
 uary marble from Carrara. The effect is as beauti- 
 ful as it is striking and artistic. Nothing in the 
 marble quarries of the western continent was of a 
 high enough quality for the walls of the Chicago 
 National Bank building. Across the seas, to the 
 quarries centuries old, from which the marble for 
 the world's masterpieces in sculpture was taken, 
 went the order for the precious stuff which now 
 gleams upon the walls of the bank room. With it 
 came masters in handicraft, Italians made cunning 
 in their art by centuries of inheritance and with infi- 
 nite care and patience the marble slabs were fitted 
 together and cemented into place. The Palace of 
 the Doges has no finer walls or more artistically 
 
 41
 
 Main Banking Room, Chicago National Bank
 
 constructed than those of this banking room, nor could 
 there be such, for these walls are made of the rarest 
 and most beautiful marble that man has yet wrested 
 from the bosom of the earth. 
 
 In the space between the marble panels and the 
 glass ceiling are sixteen semicircular oil paintings by 
 Lawrence C. Earle. Each painting represents a strik- 
 ing scene or incident in the history of Chicago, from 
 the time of the first treaty with the Indians to the 
 present time. The paintings are bold, striking, and 
 convincing in idea and execution, and they excite 
 a vast amount of interest and commendation among 
 the bank's patrons and visitors. On the right, near 
 the entrance, are the desks of the vice-president, the 
 cashier, and assistant cashier of the bank, behind the 
 green marble counter which extends to the outer 
 reception room of the president's private office. On 
 the opposite side is a writing-room for women, ex- 
 quisitely furnished in mahogany and with costly rugs 
 upon the marble floors. In the center of the banking 
 floor are the desks for depositors and others having 
 business with the bank, at which various commercial 
 papers are prepared for presentation at the windows, 
 and immediately opposite the entrance are three stock 
 
 tickers, giving the quotations of the markets of the 
 world. 
 
 At the rear of the banking floor are ten immense 
 vaults in which the money, valuables, and books of 
 the bank are placed at the close of each day's business. 
 If ever anything built by human hands was made 
 impregnable to assault from without, this business 
 vault of the Chicago National Bank certainly was. 
 It stands three stories in height and is clear of the 
 walls on every side, in order that the watchmen may 
 completely encircle it in their rounds at night. Attack 
 from the outside by way of the floor or ceiling is 
 equally out of the question, the surrounding brick 
 walls being four feet thick in the basement, three feet 
 thick on the banking floor, and two feet thick above 
 that. Nor were ordinary brick and mortar used in 
 the construction of this fire-proof, burglar-proof, and 
 mob-proof vault. Vitrified brick laid in Portland 
 cement compose the walls, and the foundations are 
 made up of a series of steel beams crossing one 
 another and imbedded in concrete. The floors and 
 partitions are of Bessemer steel. In the basement of 
 this business vault is a large room where the old bank 
 records are kept on steel shelves. On the main bank 
 
 43
 
 money floor is the vault for the bank's securities and papers, 
 and valuables. 
 
 If ever criminals should conceive a scheme for attempt- 
 ing to reach the interior of these vaults, they would find their 
 keenest ingenuity baffled. All the experience of all the 
 safe-blowers in the criminal world would 
 count for naught in an attack on these 
 vaults. They would resist for months 
 the onslaughts of the most desperate 
 men, however well they might be 
 equipped with tools and explosives. 
 In these vaults there are none of 
 the old-fashioned screw fastenings. 
 The corners show no joints, nor 
 are there edges anywhere 
 where an opening might 
 be found for a wedge to 
 make way for explosives. 
 They are constructed of 
 chrome-steel plates welded 
 together, and every plate, 
 before being placed in 
 position, was tested and 
 proved to be drill-proof. 
 
 Inside the Counters, Chicago National Bank 
 
 44
 
 The Brooklyn Chrome Steel Company furnished these plates, and 
 they are as safe from the invasion of the burglar as the rocky wall 
 of Gibraltar. 
 
 The business vault is divided into four compartments which 
 have five entrances, each of which is protected by a double set of 
 massive doors of chrome steel. Each set of doors opens with a 
 time lock, and when they are closed the vault is not only burglar 
 and fire proof, but water and air proof. Should the 
 time-lock apparatus, which governs one set of the doors, 
 become disarranged through accident, there is no pos- 
 sibility of the tedious and vexing delays 
 that have embarrassed banking insti- 
 tutions which had but one entrance 
 to the business vaults. Either of the 
 other entrances will admit employes 
 to the vaults in this steel fortress 
 when the eight-ton doors swing open 
 by clockwork. Notwithstanding the 
 immense weight of these vault doors 
 which in some cases reaches the 
 enormous total of ten tons the hinges 
 are so arranged that the doors can be 
 swung to and fro by the strength of 
 one man with as much ease as though 
 
 Part of the Clerical Force 
 
 45
 
 they were the doors of an ordinary room, the weight 
 being balanced on a line passing through the center 
 of the door. 
 
 Bronze elevators, operated by electricity and mov- 
 ing in a shaft inclosed in beautifully designed bronze 
 scrollwork, noiselessly carry the visitor to the upper 
 floors in the front portion of the building. Here are 
 the offices of the Equitable Trust Company, a corpo- 
 ration which acts as executor of estates and performs 
 all the other functions of a trust company designated 
 by law. These rooms are furnished and finished in 
 style and materials in keeping with the other parts 
 of the splendid building. Soft Smyrna rugs cover 
 the floors, the office furniture is of mahogany, the 
 counters of marble and bronze. There is an air of 
 elegance and wealth, coupled with perfect taste, 
 about the whole establishment, which is usually quite 
 foreign to commercial institutions. The general 
 effect of the trust company's office is akin to that of 
 the lobby of a modern and perfectly appointed hotel 
 of the highest class. Rooms for the officers and 
 directors of the trust company, fitted and equipped 
 on the same scheme of beauty and completeness as 
 the outer offices, are provided. 
 
 On the fourth floor of the building has been estab- 
 lished a perfectly equipped cafe, for the exclusive 
 service of the small army of clerks employed in the 
 four institutions housed under the roof of the Chicago 
 National Bank building. The room for the bank clerks 
 is large and comm.odious, equipped with many tables 
 and all the usual furnishings of a higher-class cafe. 
 Opening from it are lavatories on one side and a san- 
 itary kitchen on the other On this kitchen, in which 
 all of the food is prepared, much time and thought 
 was expended, and the result is a place which would 
 delight the most enthusiastic exponent of pure food 
 and of sanitary arrangements for preparing it. The 
 walls are tiled in gleaming white, and everything in 
 the place is as clean and shining as constant work 
 can make it. The cooking is done by gas, and, in 
 addition to the principal gas range, the kitchen is 
 supplied with all the latest appliances the inventive 
 genius of man and woman has produced. Here 
 luncheon is prepared daily and served to the. bank 
 employes far more rapidly, economically, and satis- 
 factorily than can be done at public restaurants. 
 Upon the health of the employes of a bank very 
 much depends, and as their health is so closely allied 
 
 46
 
 to their diet, the management of the bank serves a 
 double purpose in thus equipping a cafe for their , 
 especial use. Not only are the employes benefited 
 by the conserving of their health, but the bank 
 and its patrons have those benefits reflected in 
 the excellent and effi- 
 cient service they 
 
 Priuate Room of the President 
 
 receive from healthy and contented employes. 
 A large room, apart from the main cafe, is 
 the luncheon room of the officers and directors 
 of the various institutions included in the 
 
 Credit Department and Secretary's Office 
 
 47
 
 building. The room is paneled in mahogany and 
 the walls are ornamented by framed reproductions of 
 old-time scenes in Chicago. In the center 
 of the room is a great round table at 
 which six persons may be seated, and 
 there the bank officials take their 
 luncheon daily in peace, 
 seclusion, and com- 
 fort, discussing busi- 
 ness affairs if they 
 will, or chatting at 
 
 Women 's Roorr, 
 48 
 
 their leisure, safe from 
 the noises and interruptions 
 of a public cafe and without 
 the necessity of a journey to 
 and from a club. The existence 
 of the cafe for the employes and 
 of the luncheon room for the bank 
 officials, within the walls of the insti- 
 tution, brings about what may be termed 
 a family gathering daily, at the luncheon
 
 hour, and obviates the annoyances and distractions incident 
 to .leaving the building, seeking out a public restaurant, 
 waiting for a meal to be served, and risking health and 
 digestion by eating it. 
 
 As the bank building is much lower than any of 
 its neighbors, the problem of furnishing an 
 adequate air supply, which 
 should be free from 
 soot, dirt, and im- 
 purities of every 
 nature, con- 
 fronted the 
 architects. 
 The roof of 
 the bank is 
 in a well, as 
 it were, and 
 currents of 
 air laden with 
 dirt of all kinds 
 continually circulate 
 through it. For a period 
 of forty-five days experi- 
 ments were conducted with a view to determining the 
 
 Directors' Room 
 
 49
 
 proper height 
 above the build- 
 ing from which 
 the air might be 
 drawn free from 
 these impurities, and 
 when that point was 
 determined a complete 
 and interesting system of 
 conducting, washing, 
 and drying the air was 
 installed. 
 
 In the basement 
 there is an immense 
 blower wheel, 102 
 inches in diameter, 
 which, driven by an electric 
 motor at a speed of 150 revolutions 
 per minute, draws in the air from the point 
 determined upon above the roof. The initial 
 velocity of the air thus entering the building is about 
 2,000 feet per minute, which approximates the speed 
 of a twenty-miles-an-hour wind. This is, of course, 
 sensibly reduced by the various processes through 
 
 which the air is afterward passed. During the winter 
 months the air is drawn immediately over a great 
 number of steam coils, which raise it to a high temper- 
 ature; and from there it passes into another chamber 
 in the attic, known as the " mixing chamber," where 
 it is mixed with cold air until the proper temperature 
 is obtained. This, by the way, is determined auto- 
 matically by temperature regulators which are in 
 position in various parts of the bank, so that the air 
 in any particular room may be supplied as warm or as 
 cool as is desired by the occupants of that room, irre- 
 spective of the temperature of the other rooms in the 
 building. After being brought to an equable temper- 
 ature, according to the season of the year, the air is 
 forced through a curtain of water which effectually 
 washes it free of any impurities it may contain, and 
 the dampness resulting from this process is removed 
 by the passage of the cleansed air current through a 
 number of copper baffle plates. Thus washed, dried, 
 and warmed or cooled, as the season demands, the 
 air is ready for the lungs of the hundreds of em- 
 ployes and patrons of the banking institution; and it 
 is allowed to flow into the rooms through handsome 
 bronze register openings, situated in the side walls of 
 
 60
 
 Bank Vault* on Main Floor
 
 Equitable Trust Company's Offices 
 
 the various apartments, at heights varying from eight 
 to twelve feet from the floor, according to the height 
 of the rooms. Another blower in the basement 
 exhausts the foul air from the rooms, drawing it 
 away through ducts in the walls near the floor, or 
 in the floor ; and so delicately is this system 
 of ventilation arranged that there is never 
 the slightest perception of a draft in any of 
 the rooms, notwithstanding all the air in the 
 building can be changed in fifteen minutes. 
 In the distribution of direct heat throughout 
 the building by means of steam coils, the 
 automatic system of regulation is in use, ther- 
 mostats controlling the valves in such a man- 
 ner that they open when the thermometer 
 indicates a certain degree, set upon a dial, 
 and close when enough steam has been 
 supplied to raise the temperature to the 
 desired mark. By the use of this perfect 
 system of heating and ventilation the 
 temperature is always equably main- 
 tained, and the employes and patrons of 
 the institutions occupying the building 
 escape the danger and discomfort of a 
 
 62
 
 Entrance to Equitable Trutt Company'* Office*
 
 Another feature in the construction of this model building, 
 which is worthy of more than passing notice, since it 
 was here used for the first time for the sup- 
 port of an entire building, is the method 
 in which the foundations were sunk. 
 When the site for the bank building was 
 cleared of the old structures, it was 
 apparent that 
 the or- 
 dinary 
 
 varying 
 temperature, and" 
 
 there is no neces- fmp/ojes' Luncheon /loom 
 
 sity for opening windows in summer, 
 or tampering with steam coils at any 
 season. The plant from which the heat is sup- 
 plied, and where the motors are operated for the 
 ventilation system, is in an adjoining building, 
 thus obviating the possibility of noise, or the jarring 
 of machinery in the basement, so common in large buildings. 
 
 64
 
 method of foundation building, followed in narrow quarters, 
 was impracticable. Usually the side walls of the buildings 
 on either side of the new site are entered for the 
 foundation of steel grillage upon which the side 
 columns of the new structure are constructed. 
 But the buildings adjoining the site of the new 
 bank building were not constructed to stand 
 anything of that sort, being old structures, with 
 walls of ordinary thickness, built in the days 
 before steel construction was introduced. 
 The driving of piles to a sufficient depth to 
 reach hard-pan was also consii 
 difficult, on account of the limited space, 
 but dangerous to the adjoining buildings. 
 Therefore it was decided to use what is 
 known as the "mission foundation," con- 
 sisting of concrete piers extending down to 
 hard-pan. In this method of foundation mak- 
 ing, wells are sunk at the points where columns are 
 to be erected for the building construction, the walls 
 protected by sheet piling and heavy hoops until the 
 interior of the well is filled with concrete. The wells are bell- 
 shaped, widening at the bottom to 6 feet 6 inches and 7 feet 
 4 inches, according to the weight superimposed. These wells 
 
 65 
 
 Officers' Luncheon Roorr,
 
 were driven to a depth of seventy-three feet below 
 the street line, where hard-pan was reached, and 
 when the concrete was poured into them the shields 
 of piling were left intact. Upon this foundation the 
 trusses for the support of the building were placed, 
 and engineering experts are unanimous in declaring 
 there will be absolutely no settlement of the struc- 
 ture. From a point twenty-five feet below the surface 
 the concrete filling was rammed hard. The building 
 was constructed on the metal skeleton plan, which 
 was first introduced by W. L. B. Jenney in the con- 
 struction of the Home Insurance building in this city. 
 In this method of construction there are no interior 
 columns. The roof of the main banking room, which 
 is but one story in height, is carried on steel trusses 
 spanning the room and resting on columns imbedded 
 in the side walls. To a height of forty-five feet above 
 the glass roof of the banking room these steel col- 
 umns are extended against the party walls, and, as a 
 precautionary measure against fires in the old build- 
 ings adjoining the bank, the columns are braced back 
 to the trusses and do not depend for support upon 
 
 the party walls. Thus, should a serious fire wreck 
 one of the buildings adjoining the bank, the side 
 walls of the bank's vtpper stories would stand intact. 
 The steel in all parts of the building is of the quality 
 known as" fire-proofed"; in fact, in every detail of the 
 bank's construction the utmost care has been taken 
 to insure against decay or depreciation. Neither fire, 
 time, nor any of the elements which ordinarily tend 
 to hasten the passing of structures reared by the 
 hand of man will leave the slightest imprint on this 
 splendid building for many years to come. There is 
 every reason to believe that, should such a condition 
 of affairs be deemed advisable in the future, it will 
 be standing 100 years from now, practically unim- 
 paired, like many of the old world's triumphs of 
 architecture which have defied the passing centuries. 
 In this connection it should be noted, as a commen- 
 tary upon modern methods in building construction, 
 that while succeeding generations labored on many 
 of the architectural gems of Europe, the Chicago 
 National Bank building was erected complete in 
 twelve months 
 
 66
 
 SAFE DEPOSIT VAULTS. 
 
 the basement 
 JN are the quar- 
 ters of the 
 Chicago Safe 
 Deposit Com- 
 p a n y , the 
 largest, most 
 Complete, and most 
 splendidly furnished 
 and equipped in the 
 world. A marble stair- 
 case from the main 
 entrance to the bank- 
 ing floor leads to the 
 vault rooms, and the 
 bronze elevators also 
 carry patrons to the 
 doors. Immediately 
 before the visitor is 
 an immense marble 
 counter, topped with a 
 
 heavy bronze railing, behind which an official is on 
 duty. To the left is a public writing room, finished 
 in marble, with a mahogany desk and chairs to be 
 used alike by visitors and patrons. The desk is fur- 
 nished with stationery, and the room is softly lighted 
 by electricity. The entresol of the vaults is cut off 
 from the outside world by two huge and heavy gates 
 of bronze, ornamented in scrollwork and set in marble 
 pilasters. A guard at the gates passes those having 
 proper credentials, and the visitor steps into a mag- 
 nificent marble chamber upon which the electric light 
 falls softly from above. At the left is a reception 
 room for women, furnished quite in the style of a 
 similar apartment in a luxurious residence. A uni- 
 formed maid is in attendance, the huge mahogany 
 table in the center of a splendid rug contains a score 
 of late magazines, and the chairs invite the visitor to 
 rest and read. At one side of the room is an open 
 fireplace topped with a marble mantel, and at the 
 lower end of the room is a lavatory for women. 
 
 At the opposite end of the reception room are 
 
 Entrai 
 
 ce to Safe Deposit Vaulti 
 and Banking Room 
 
 67
 
 Safe Deposit Vault. Manager's Department 
 
 arranged a number of coupon 
 rooms and committee rooms, 
 private apartments in which box renters 
 may examine their securities or make 
 up their accounts secure from interrup- 
 tion. The doors are equipped with spring 
 locks which make entrance from the outside 
 impossible, except through the use of a key 
 carried by the attendant, while the door 
 may be readily opened by the patron from 
 the inside. After a box holder has left a 
 room the door can not again be opened 
 until the attendant has unlocked the room, 
 
 entered it, and made certain the patron has left 
 
 no valuables behind a frequent occurrence in 
 
 safe deposit vault rooms. Then the door is 
 
 once more opened for the next comer. 
 
 Lobby of Safe Deposit Vaults 
 
 68
 
 Women'* Room in Safe Deposit Vault*
 
 The 
 
 rooms are amply 
 
 commodious to accommodate four, six, or even more 
 persons at a time, and offer every convenience 
 for business meetings of committees, trustees, or 
 others who desire privacy in the discussion of their 
 business affairs. No charge is made for any of 
 these accommodations. At the opposite side of the 
 vaults are similar accommodations for men, writ- 
 ing room, coupon and committee rooms, lavatories, 
 etc., as completely furnished and equipped as are 
 
 Committee and Coupon Rooms 
 Safe Deposit Vaults 
 
 committee the women's 
 rooms, but 
 quite dis- 
 tinct and apart 
 from them. 
 Between these 
 sets of apartments 
 is the great treas- 
 ure room of the 
 
 safe deposit vaults the immense room which is 
 lined with 6,000 private safe deposit boxes of various 
 
 60
 
 sizes. The floor of this apartment is made of chrome- 
 steel plates, three one-inch plates being riveted to- 
 gether, making a drill-proof and bomb-proof floor. 
 The ceiling and side walls are constructed in the same 
 manner, but the steel has been treated to such deli- 
 cate tinting on the ceiling, and so thoroughly covered 
 on the floor that it is difficult to believe it is there. 
 
 Upon the floor is a rug 25x35 feet, one of the larg- 
 est rugs in the world, woven in a single warp and 
 woof, and the product of a famous rug maker in the 
 old world. The electric light comes from the ceiling, 
 as is the case in all parts of the vaults, and glitters 
 upon the frosted bronze faces of the 6,000 boxes, each 
 with its two shining keyhole plates, which completely 
 line the four sides of the room. The portal of this 
 treasure house is guarded by a double set of eight- 
 ton doors similar to those in position in the business 
 vaults of the bank on the floor above. A sentinel 
 stands always at either door, although during business 
 hours the eight-ton door is of course swung open and 
 a heavy bronze and steel-grated door bars the entrance 
 on the inner side of the vestibule. These vaults and 
 doors were designed by E. A. Strauss, engineer for 
 Jenney & Mundie, the architects of the perfect and 
 
 magnificent building. The mechanism whereby the 
 huge doors are so easily swung by one person is a 
 device invented by Mr. Strauss. When the doors are 
 shut and the wheel has thrown the bolts into place, 
 they are as impregnable as the solid chrome-steel 
 
 walls of the vaults. 
 
 Entrance to Vault 
 
 61
 
 Safe Depatit Vaults
 
 The room adjoining the main box room, and 
 guarded by a similar set of doors, is set apart for 
 trunks, strong boxes, and other bulky packages of 
 valuables too large to be cared for in the safe deposit 
 boxes. The walls of the room are lined with steel 
 racks in three tiers, on which are placed the trunks 
 and boxes. Many people leaving the city for the 
 summer, or starting on European trips, have 
 taken advantage of this safe and rational 
 method of storing their silverware, furs, 
 jewels, and other valuables, secure from 
 fire and burglars. It need scarcely be said 
 that the entire bank building is abso- 
 lutely fire-proof, being constructed 
 of Bedford stone, marble, brick, 
 steel, and Portland cement. 
 
 As might be expected in 
 the construction of this model 
 building, the system for 
 receiving the electric current 
 which controls all the machin- 
 ery, and for transmitting it to the 
 various parts of the building, is as 
 near perfection as modern methods of 
 
 Caih Vault of Bank 
 
 electrical construction 
 can make it. Not only is 
 the building lighted by the 
 invisible current, but power 
 is furnished for the motors 
 operating the fan blowers in 
 the ventilation system, for the 
 elevators, for the air compressor of 
 the sewerage ejector, and other mechanical 
 
 63
 
 devices throughout the building. This current is 
 furnished by a supply company, thus 
 
 avoiding the 
 
 necessity for the operation of an immense dynamo 
 and electric plant, with its attendant noise and agita- 
 tion, in or about the bank building. 
 
 In the electrician's room in the basement is a pol- 
 ished marble switchboard upon which are mounted 
 the two meters one indicating power and the other 
 light. To this board the power and light feeders are 
 attached, and on it are switches regu- 
 lating the currents. That is all that 
 can be seen on the surface, but the 
 hidden system of conduits, cut-out 
 centers, and distributing circuits by 
 which the wonder-working current is 
 absolutely controlled is perfect and 
 beautiful, from a technical standpoint. 
 There are many other novel and 
 noteworthy features about the Chi- 
 cago National Bank building, but 
 within the limitations of this brochure 
 only the more striking ones may be 
 touched upon. Suffice it to say that 
 no building in Chicago ranks with it 
 in perfection of construction and in 
 beauty of finish. 
 
 Electrician'* Room 
 
 64
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS URBANA 
 
 97731C431C C002 
 
 CHICAGO, HISTORICAL. PICTORAL CHGO