Inter Ocean Building I, Hotel Grant
Life Span: 1890-1941
Location: NW Corner Madison and Dearborn Streets
Architect: Adler & Sullivan
Inter Ocean, July 21, 1889
THE INTER OCEAN BUILDING.
In publishing the above cut of The Inter Ocean Building, now in process of erection, Frank Leslie’s Newspaper for July 20 said:
The Inter Ocean of Chicago, long recognized, as the stalwart Republican newspaper of the Northwest, is about to have a new home, which is fairly represented in the accompanying illustration. Four months ago Chicago real estate circles experienced considerable of a flurry in the “Kohlsaat deal,” in the announcement that the northwest corner of Dearborn and Madison streets, twenty by forty feet, had been purchased at the rate of $7,500 per front foot, the highest price ever paid fo property in the city. Subsequently the building surrounding the corner in the form of an L was purchased, and with the corner, transferred to The Inter Ocean Building Company (of which Wm. Penn Nixon is President and Clarence L. Peck Secretary and Treasurer), furnishing a frontage of seventy feet on Dearborn, one hundred on Madison, with extension to the alley in the rear, giving a total area of over 9,000 square feet. The building now in course of erection, is a substantial one of stone, the corner extension being fire-proof and seven stories high, surmounted by a tower. The upper (seventh) story of the building, not shown in the illustration, has an arched roof of glass and iron, and will serve for the composing-room. The Inter Ocean Building will be a prominent one, and, considering its central location, a veritable landmark.
Inter Ocean Building
The Inter-Ocean building entrance as depicted by D. Dalziel
Circa 1890
Inter Ocean Building
Early 1890s
Inter Ocean Advertisement from 1893
Inter Ocean Building
1940
Inter Ocean Trade Card
1888
Grant Hotel
1905 Sanborn Fire Map
Chicago Tribune, April 7, 1940
This two story building will replace the old Grant hotel at the northwest corner of Madison and Dearborn streets. Ot will contain a theater, stores, and a rathskeller in the basement. Lowenberg & Loewenberg is the architect.
The Inter Ocean was published in three locations during its career. From 1873 to 1880, it stood at 119 Lake Street (under the old Chicago street numbering), and from 1880 to 1890 it stood at 85 West Madison. The Inter-Ocean Building sat on the northwest corner of Madison and Dearborn in Chicago’s Loop.
In 1889 Adler & Sullivan designed the steel-framed building to be constructed on a very small corner lot and united it with the legs of the 5-storey L-shaped, stone-front Dearborn Building (1872-73) that sat behind. The then-famous clock-spire — with its steep hip roof (almost a steeple) and its strings of colored lights — singled out this building from its fellows in the block. The clock-tower was removed sometime before the building’s demolition. The Inter-Ocean Building was converted into the Hotel Grant sometime around 1895, when the Inter-Ocean newspaper fell on hard times. It was considered a second-class Chicago hotel.
Demolished 1941, the seven-story structure with clock tower at the corner of Madison and Dearborn was annexed to the already existing and remodeled six-story Dearborn Building. Its replacement sat there until 1981 when a new skyscraper was built on the site — Three First National Plaza.
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