Hiram Sibley Warehouse

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Hiram Sibley Warehouse, Central Cold Storage
Life Span: 1883-1971
Location: 315-31 N. Clark Street
Architect: George H. Edbrooke

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1885

Sibley Hiram & Co.

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1911
Sibley Warehouse and Storage Company G. W. Sheldon pres; S. H. Verall vice pres nd treas; H. W. Ackhoff sec; free and bonded fireproof warehouses 315 to 331 N. Clarej; 55-75 W. North Water tels Central-790, Central 791

Chicago Tribune, December 15, 1883

ANOTHER NINE-STORY BUILDING.
The Hiram Sibley Fire-Proof Warehouse.
This splendid building, now in course of construction, ou the corner of North Clark street and the river, in the City of Chicago, is being built by Mr. Hiram Sibley, of Rochester, N. Y., the well-known owner of the Burr Oaks Farm in Sibley, Ford County, this State, and the head of the celebrated firm of seedsmen doing business at Rochester and Chicago. Mr. Sibley is a strong believer in the City of Chicago, both as a centre for business operations and as a promising field for permanent investment. He had learned, in his own business experience, of the great lack in Chicago of first-class storage facilities; and having become the owner, by purchase, of an advantageously-situated plot of ground on North Clark street, bounded on the south by the river and on the north by the Chicago Northwestern Railroad, he determined upon improving his purchase by the erection upon the same of a fireproof warehouse, complete in every particular, and capable of furnishing ample storage for the surplus stock of the large Chicago merchants, grocers, and business firms. The building will be the finest of its kind, and the largest in Chicago if not in the United States. It has a frontage of nearly 200 feet on North Clark street, and a depth of 240 feet on the river and the same on the railroad. Tho Clark street front will be seven stories high, of Anderson pressed brick and iron, with terra ootta details. The main floor is planned for stores of tho most modern design, with large plate glass windows, light iron divisions for the doors, and iron girders spanning each store front.

The entrance to the warehouse for teams will be through an arched driveway in this front from Clark street, and besides several well-lighted stores for rent there will be handsome stores and lofts set apart and conveniently arranged to accommodate the seed business and general affairs of the Chicago house of the seed firm of Hiram Sibley & Co. In the next floor above the stores not occupied by Hiram Sibley & Co., a few fine offices will be fitted up with all modern conveniences for the use of brokers and agents of out-of-town business concerns and transportation companies. The upper stories will be reserved for storage in connection with the great warehouse immediately back of the Clark street front. This portion of the building will be nine stories in height, and fully equipped with machinery and elevators to handle the storage offered with safety and dispatch. The south half of the centre section, 80×100 feet, and nine stories in height, will all be reserved for a United States bonded warehouse.

Hiram Sibley & Co. have long felt the need of larger accommodations to suit their rapidly increasing business; and. with the space of the new warehouse in Chicago added to that of their nine story building in Rochester. N. Y-, they will have the most extensive facilities of any seed firm in this country. Some idea of the extent of this building may be formed when it is stated that the total area of floors will be nearly eleven acres.

Mr. George T. Edbrooke, the architect of the warehouse, has had to bring to bear the whole of his professional skill and extensive experience as a constructor of large buildings to carefully estimate the great weight which the footings or foundations of the nine stories of fire-proof building, with their contents, will be called upon to sustain. Each floor is calculated to carry a weight of 500 pounds to the square foot. On the river-front piles are driven; all the other walls rest upon a fine natural blue-clay subsoil. In looking at the work in the excavation on Clark street, now progressing rapidly, it would seem that the stone foundations for walls, and piers for the iron columns, nearly cover the whole area. The design of the river-front, 240 feet long, is somewhat plainer in style than the Clark street front; but it has a grandeur and solid repose about it that is not surpassed by any building in Chicago. The long broad pilasters, starting from tho basement story and terminating in arches at the top, seem to increase the apparent bight. The architect has taken advantage of this, and made the principal lines in the design perpendicular, which is highly-satisfactory and far more effective than to have used horizontal string-courses to diminish the height. The openings generally are arched. The cornice is all to be of brick, with terra-cotta cappings.

The building of this warehouse is beyond question a marked illustration of the enterprise of individual capitalists, and of the requirements of the business done by some of the large mercantile firms of our country; and, besides being a lasting monument to its projector and owner, it will be a giant among the many large business buildings of Chicago, as well as a magnificent architectural production. Its cost, when completed, will be $500,000. It is expected to have it ready for occupancy by May 1, 1884.

By Alvin Nagelberg
The Central Cold Storage Co. buildings, those huge red brick structures that hunch along the Chicago River between Clark and Dearborn Streets and reach north to Kinzie Street, will start coming down in the next two weeks.

It will require from 4 to 7 months to tear down the mammoth refrigerator buildings.
National Wrecking Co. may start the work rolling with the demolition of the 88-year old structure along the river at Clark Street.

Sheldon Mandell, president, said his men will use huge cranes, tractors and trucks.

“The building will have to be thawed out carefully,” he said. “If the temperature rises too fast the brick may expand and the walls will bulge out and collapse.

Another headache is that construction material kept below zero for so long goes thru a molecular change that makes it crack easily, he said.

The wreckers will destroy the structure down to the basement—20 feet below Clark Street. Some of the debris will be piled 6 feet high along the river side to prevent water from coming into the excavation.

The river side of the building is supported by 30-foot long wood piles, the first known use of this construction method.

Three Oaks Wrecking Co., which also is taking down the five buildings at Randolph Street and Michigan Avenue, has the contract for razing the Central Cold Storage building at Kinzie and Dearborn Streets.

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