U.S. Appraiser’s Building
Life Span: 1891-1950
Location: NW corner Sherman and Harrison Streets
Architect: Mr. Freret
- Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1904
United States Appraisers and Custodian Offices 157 Harrison sw cor Sherman
Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1911
United States Appraisers and Custodian Offices 158 Harrison sw cor Sherman
Chicago Tribune, April 5, 1891
UNCLE SAM TO MOVE IN JULY 1.
The New Appraiser’s Building to Be Oceu-pied on That Date.
July 1 the new building for the Appraiser’s offices, stores, and warehouse at Harrison and Sherman streets will be occupied. May 27, 1886, was the date when an act permitting the sale of the south half of block 87, known as “the Bridewell lot,” in Chicago for $205,000, made possible the erection of the new building. additional $200,000 was apportioned and appropriated and the original designs for the building completed.
The first plans, drawn by Freret, found little favor with the local Appraiser’s office. Freret was a Southerner and had designed for the Treasury Department many of the public buildings in the Southern States. His plans called for one
story of brown stone and the structure was to be completed with fanciful colored brick. There were red, white, blue,
yellow, green, and terra cotta colored brick all to used in lines and layers with an effect supposed to be highly artistic.
Only the foundations and first story were built on Freret’s plans, and not a variegated brick found its way into Chicago. The late Secretary Windomton assuming the Treasury portfolio tore up the plans for the startling brick building and ordered Architect Kirch to draw new plans
making the entire exterior of brown stone. These plans with the detail by Supervising Architect N. E. Bell are followed in the present structure.
The building stands eight stories in height and covers an area of 70×90 feet. On both street facings there is a vacant space of forty feet on each side of the building. The building material used throughout is Connecticut brownstone, from the Middlesex quarries. This is the highest grade of
brownstone. L. L. Leach & Son of the Builders’ Exchange have the entire contract for the building.
The inside copings are of cut Bedford stone and the building approaches, with the interior drive-ways, are constructed of granolite. Every window is equipped with rolling steel shutters. The heating plant is the new double system of low pressure, return circulation, steam heating and ventilating.
The one passenger and two freight elevators are of the newest and most improved pattern and are run by a separate steam plant. A third room in the basement is set apart for the dynamos and engine of the incandescent light plant. The three boilers and three pumps with the hydraulic machinery for the elevators occupy rooms opening into one areaway through iron brick arches.
Throughout the building there are no studwalls and all interior partitionment and flooring is on a basis of hollow fireproof tiling. Everything that goes to make up the composite parts of the structure is fireproof. Between the floors are broad iron staircases with ornamentations in hammered brass. The wainscotings are in polished quarter-sawn oak. Imported tilings laid in Portland cement will be the flooring for the halls and areaways in the office stories of the building.
The arrangement for receiving goods is in every way perfect. Teams will drive in through a handsome brick archway on Harrison street; the goods will be received at the Sherman street wareroom and the teams drive out at Sherman street. The roadway along which the teams will be driven is made of granolite, with high curbing running the entire distance of rounding, cut granite. At twelve-foot intervals along the roadway electric lights will be hung.
The first, second, third, and fourth floors will be fitted up for the Appraiser, with his assistants, storekeepers, inspectors, clerks, etc. The four general appraisers will have separate offices in the second floor. The fifth is the examining floor, and the remainder of the building bas not yet been apportioned among tenants. It is not improbable that some of the Federal officers will occupy the vacant space in the building.
The last contract—for steam heating—was let April 2, and the removal of the offices from their present quarters
Rand McNally’s Bird’s Eye Views of Chicago, 1893
⑧ The United States Appraiser’s Building
Is a steel building which fronts 60 feet on Harrison Street and 80 feet on Sherman Street, at the northwest corner; 100 feet high, with 7 stories and basement. The fronts are of Connecticut brownstone. Excepting the World’s Fair exhibits, all foreign goods consigned to the port of Chicago are received, examined, and delivered here. Erected in 1891. The building had one passenger and two freight elevators.
- U. S. Appraiser Building
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map
1906
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