Girard Building

Girard Building
Life Span: 1888- ~1920
Location: 298-306 Dearborn St. (Old). 412-420 S. Dearborn St.
Architect: Thomas Hawkes

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1887

Union Type Foundry.

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1904
Girard Bldg.—300 to 306 Dearborn.

Inter Ocean, August 12, 1885

A permit was yesterday granted to J. S. Hale to erect a seven-story shirt factory at 298 Dearborn street. It will cost $20,000.

Inter Ocean, August 15, 1885

Architects J. M. Van Osdel & Co., for J. T. Hale, a $20,000 factory at 298 Dearborn street, A. Languist, builder.

Chicago Tribune, January 8, 1888

FIGHTING A FIERCE FIRE. A BIG DEARBORN-STREET BUILDING DESTROYED.
The Dale Block, Nos. 300-306 Dearborn Street, Food for the Flames—A Little Blaze in a Pile of Rags Leads to a Loss of About S175,000
At 4 o’clock yesterday evening the employés in the printing department of the Emmert Proprietary Company and the McIntosh Battery Company, at Nos. 300 to 306 Dearborn street, quit work. The two companies occupied the first, second, sixth, and top floors of the seven-story brick, and the printing department was on the sixth floor of what is known as the Dale Building. A few of the printers remained to straighten matters out for Sunday, and they were engrossed in their work till shortly after 5 o’clock, when an odor of stoke permeated the room. Several men started to investigate the cause of the smoke, but after a careful search on the sixth floor no fire could be discovered. By this time the floor upon which the men were was filling with stoke, and a hasty exit was made to the floor below. A search for the origin of the fire was made on this floor, and a blaze was discovered in a pile of rags in the steam shaft-the opening through which belting for the machines is run. The blaze was very small, but the smoke from the greasy rags drove back the printers, and they sounded an alarm through the building. Only about a dozen persons were in the offices at the time, and these made their way as quickly as possible out of the building. The small blaze, surrounded by material of the most inflammable sort, made rapid progress, and but a few minutes after its discovery it had spread throughout the floor and was eating its way upward.

The smoke commenced pouring from the fifth-story windows, windows, and was seen by Officer Fitzgerald, who was crossing Dearborn street at Van Buren. He rushed to a patrol box and notified the armory, but before engine company No. 10 could be called some one else had seen the fire and pulled box No. 57. This was at 5:11 o’clock, and before the nearest engine companies had arrived the smoke was displaced by flames, a broad red sheet having burst from all the windows of this floor. The crowds which are always downtown at this time of evening and especially Saturdays were startled by the rattle of the fire engines, and simultaneously the rapidly-spreading flames became a bright signal-light to attract thousands to the spot. The successive alarms brought constant reinforcements of fire apparatus for at least half an hour, and great difficulty was experienced in getting through the throngs of people. Assistant Fire Marshal Musham gave a second alarm at 5:16 o’clock, and at 5:23½ o’clock Chief Swenie turned in a third alarm. The fire became very threatening at about this time. Schniedewend & Lee’s big printing house on the opposite side of Dearborn street was scorched and smoldering, and the blocks adjoining the Dale Building were blazing on the roofs. Chief Swenie sent in a special call for ten engines at 5:31 o’clock, and with this large force set to work to confine the fire and save the lower floors if possible. The crowd continued to grow, and in a short time almost equaled that which witnessed the Phelps, Dodge & Palmer fire a short time ago. The force of
police on hand was the largest which has been used at a down-town fire for years. Capt. Hubbard, with Lieuts. Beadell and Fitzpatrick, formed a line with about seventy men around the north Fourth avenue approaches on and Dearborn street, extending along Van Buren street, and at the south approaches Capt. Bartram was stationed with his two Lieutenants and his entire day force, including the reserve men.

The three upper floors were soon a solid furnace of fire, and a whirlwind of sparks
careened upward and drifted eastward. Embers and pieces of blazing wood a foot long fell in showers into the street and upon neighboring buildings. A steady falling of class on the stone pavement was succeeded by a heavier shower of broken stone from the coping above the top story. The heat became intense and the Schniede wend-Lee biock directly opposit was scorched fron bottom to top. The steaming front poured forth a fresh hail-storm of shivered window-panes, and between the two fusillades the middle of the street was the only safe place to stand. Bartell Bros’. oil store house, No. 307 Dearborn street, was smoking from its liberal baptism of embers. A chemical company brought a stream to play upon it. Other chemical companies were disposed in convenient places and nipped several incipient fires.

The narrowness of Fourth avenue did not offer a good opportunity to reach the blaze, and while one company entered the lower part of the building with a stream from this side, the stand-pipe was brought up and set to playing on the upper floors. The line of low buildings on the opposite side were convenient vantage points, from the roofs of which three streams did effective work. The eight-story block of Clark & Longley, on the south, was also occupied by several companies, while the hose festooned the front of the building along the fire-escapes. The edge of the roof of this building was frequently blazing, and a stream from the street Wws at one time turned upon the upper stories, they having caught fire along the front.

The apparatus in front of the Dearborn street wall was cleared away at 5:45 o’clock, when the wall threatened to come over, and a moment later it crumbled and fell into the street. It broke off just above the fourth story and left a jagged remnant clinging to the division fire wall on each side. Engine Companies Nos. 1 and 21 were then siamesed, and north of them were placed Engine Company No. 33 with a single stream and also No. 13 on Truck 6’s ladder. After this the fire rapidly burned itself out under the tremendous load of water which was being thrown upon it. It was well under control before 6 o’clock, and half an hour later was practically out. The three lower floors were saved from the flames, though drowned in water. The building above the fourth floor is completely destroyed, and all firms above the third floor suffer an entire loss of their stock.

The Losses and the Losers.
The total loss on building and contents will reach nearly $175,000. The burned building, a seven-story brick, Nos. 300 to 296 Dearborn street, is owned jointly by John T. Dale, the lawyer. and S. E. Hart, printer. It was erected in 1885 at a cost of $70,000, and was insured for $40,000. The four upper floors having fallen in the street walls are greatly injured, and the loss will about equal the insurance. The first floor was occupied by
two companies—the Emmert Proprietary and the McIntosh Battery. The Emmert Company handles patent medicines and the other batteries and microscopical instruments. The President of both companies is John S. Emmert. A good deal of machinery is used in connection with the business, which was all placed on the top floor. The companies also occupied the first and second floors as storerooms and salesrooms, and on the sixth floor had a printing-office. These two companies are the heaviest losers, and their loss will probably foot up $75,000 on machinery and stock, the McIntosh company being the heaviest loser, the firm estimating the value of its stock and machinery at $50,000. This is fully insured. The Emmert company’s policies will also cover the losses.

The Campbell Printing Press Company had in the neighborhood of $25,000 worth of stock, besides the machinery, tools, and office fixtures and furniture. Their total loss is about $30,000, upon which there was insurance to the amount of $19.000, divided as follows:
$15,000 on stock, $2,000 on office furniture and fixtures, and $2,000 on the machinery and tools.

The third floor was occupied by John J. Hanlon, blank book manufacturer, who employed some twenty-five men. His loss will be about $8,000, covered by insurance. On the fifth floor, where the fire started, were Eugene Baker and Fred Hart, printers, whose loss is complete, about $5,000 each. The other occupants, all of whom sustain losses of about $1,000 each, are McGill Bros. C. H. Cushing, Manning & Thatcher, L. L. Giffand, W. F.
Kellert, and Phelps, Dodge & Palmer, who had a small printing-office in the building. Among the companies interested in the loss on the building are: Hamburg-Bremen, $1,000; Transatlantic, $2,000; People’s of New Hampshire, $1,000; Washington & Boston, $1,000; Granit State, $1,000; Spring Garden, $2,000; Fire Association of Philadelphia, $2,000; Merchants’ of Cleveland, $1,000; Queen of England, $2,000.

The Dale Building, Nos. 296 and 293 Dearborn street, just north of the Dale-Hart Block, was scorched and badly wet down with water. About $2,500 will repair the damage. The occupants all suffer small losses, aggregating perhaps $3,500 or $5,000. They are the Union Type-Foundry Company, C. Gentile, Weston Printing Company, National Harness Review Company, C. Biele Electric-Apparatus Company, Northwestern Lumberman, Eye and Ear Journal, Copelin (photographer), Western Rural, Merchants’ Publishing Company, National Harness Journal. and a large number of smaller weekly publications.

Schniedewend & Lee’s building was damaged to the extent of about $1,000, and Clark & Longley and Poole Bros., printers, in the block south of the one burned, will each lose about the same amount.

Chicago Tribune, February 19, 1888

John T. Dale has had plans prepared by Thomas Hawkes for the rebuilding of Nos. 298 to 306 Dearborn street, which was partly destroyed by fire recently. It is intended to make the new building, when reconstructed, an improvement on the former one. The cost will be about $40,000.¹

Rand McNally Birdseye Views, 1893

② The Girard Building
At 298-306 Dearborn Street, has 100 feet frontages on Dearborn Street and Custom House Place. It is 60 feet deep and 80 feet high, with 7 stories and basement; 1 passen- ger elevator, 1 freight elevator, 15 offices, and 4 stores; brick, stone, and iron exterior. Occupied by printers, publishers, engravers, andphotographers. Erected in 1888.

Printing-house Row, from Van Buren Street.
Print (above) portrays faithfully the extraordinary double row of high buildings which lines Dearborn Street between Van Buren and Harrison streets. This is Printing-house Row so called from the large number of printing-offices included within its limits. Among the high structures of this group, described elsewhere, are the ① Old Colony, the ② Girard, the ③ Manhattan, the ④ Monon, the ⑤ Como, the ⑥ Caxton, the ⑦ Pontiac,, and the ⑧ Ellsworth.

NOTES:

There were two fires that occurred in 1888. The first on January 7, 1888 at 300-306 Dearborn street, and the second at 298 Dearborn on January 16, 1888. Both buildings were built in 1884.Both buildings were occupied with several printing companies.

Among the printers at Nos. 300 to 306 were:
Campbell Printing Press Co.; the John J.Harlan Printing and Binding Co.; A. B. Judson,book and job printer; McGill Bros. printing-machine works; B. Cottrell, printing-machine works; the Cushing Printing Co.; Eugene Baker, book and job printer; the office of the National Harness Review; Murray & Thatcher, book and job printer.

NOTES:

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