Illinois Trust and Savings Bank
Life Span: 1897-1923
Location: NE corner of S. LaSalle and W. Jackson streets
Architect: D. H. Burnham & Co.
Chicago Tribune May 28, 1896
Architectural drawings for the new bank building of the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank are on view in President Mitchell’s office. Some time ago the leading architects of the country were asked to submit plans for the new structure. Responses to the number of fourteen came from New York, Boston, and Chicago. These will be passed upon by the directors of the bank tomorrow or Monday.
The new building is to be one and one-half stories high and is to occupy the west half of the property now occupied by the Grand Pacific Hotel. As soon as the plans are decided upon work will be hurried along and the building be made ready for occupancy next spring. The new building is to be 166 feet square, with light on all sides, an agreement having been entered into by L. Z. Leiter, owner of the adjoining property, and the Northwestern University trustees to leave a passage twenty feet wide on the east side. The bank is to have a large dome over the center to admit light to the center circular counters, where the public business will be conducted. In the basement will be the safety deposit vaults, and on the second floor will be the offices.
Mr. Mitchell said yesterday he was not prepared to talk about the plans until after the selection had been made.
Some of the sketches bear a resemblance to the Bank of England Building, and all are in marked contrast to the style of architecture in vogue in Chicago.
Illinois Trust and Savings Bank
Competitive Design
Henry Ives Cobb
Illinois Trust and Savings Bank
Competitive Design
Hill & Woltersdorf
Illinois Trust and Savings Bank
Competitive Design
Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge
Illinois Trust and Savings Bank
Competitive Design
Charles Sumner Frost
Illinois Trust and Savings Bank
11 September 1900
Chicago Tribune, May 2, 1897
THE Illinois Trust and Savings Bank is moving today into its own building on La Salle street. It will have the finest bank building, not only in Chicago, but in the United States, and in many respects the finest building ever erected for banking purposes. The building will be solely owned by the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank.
The bank building marks a departure in the character of the architecture of Chicago. It is built of granite, is two stories high, and, though it is overtopped by surrounding skyscrapers, its classic lines prevent it from being dwarfed in comparison. It is the first building in Chicago’s down-town district in recent years which has been less than five stories in height. This makes it notable in itself. The location is one of the m,ost valuable and important in the city. It was expected a modern office building would be erected on the site when the old building was torn down, as the location made it particularly desirable for such a purpose. The building occupies the entire west half of the block bounded by Jackson, Quincy, La Salle, and Clark, which was formerly the site of the old Grand Pacific Hotel, one-half of which, that facing Clark street, still stands.
The ground is owned by the Northwestern University, and after the lease on the Grand Pacific expired negotiations with several syndicates were carried on with a view to the leasing of the property. The Illinois Trust and Savings Bank desired new quarters, and it began negotiations looking to the securing of this site for a bank building. The negotiations were successful, and the present building, designed exclusively for banking purposes v=by D. H. Burnham & Co., was erected by the Northwestern University under a ninety-nine year lease to the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank. On the site if the present building has stood two Grand Pacific Hotels, and upon this ground was once the home of the Peck family. It was there Ferdinand W. Peck was born.
Details of the Building.
The front of the new building has a magnificent colonnade of eight monolithic Corinthian columns, thirty-six feet in height, surmounted by a noble cornice and attic. This colonnade, which forms the entrance portico to the bank, is over 100 feet in length. It is closed at the ends by massive pavilions, decorated with Corinthian pilasters. These pavilions are repeated on the sides, which are treated in a simple and dignified manner, with broad wall surfaces and well-proportioned windows.
The entrance is on the La Salle street front. Three broad steps lead to the level of the colonnade, in the center of which is the doorway. This entrance is protected by heavy bronze doors thirteen feet in height and richly paneled and decorated. Above these is a transom, filled by a Roman grille, resembling in design the grille above the main entrance to the Pantheon. These entrance doors form a protection for the light and graceful vestibule of bronze and marble which leads to the main banking room.
The banking room occupies the whole of the first floor, a space 160×170 feet square. The public space is a broad corridor on three sides of the room, paved in rich marbles and decorated with an elaborately paneled ceiling supported by marble columns and pilasters. This space is separated from the private part of the bank by rich screens of bronze and marble. In the central portion of the bank and over the main banking room is a lofty rotunda, supported on a double row of Doric columns. The rotunda runs through the second story and finishes with a heavy coved ceiling and skylight sixty feet above the floor. It is surrounded at the second story with a loggia of Corinthian columns, which forms an open corridor.
Illinois Trust and Savings Bank
Under Construction
1897
Main Banking-Room.
The main banking room is divided into two parts. The part to the left of the entrance will be the savings department, and that on the right the foreign and banking department. The great banking vault is back of the rotunda, on the center axis of the building, and is built up from the basement on heavy masonry walls. It consists of four stories, with two separate steel vaults on the first and second floors.
Upon the center axis of the building, and directly opposite of the main entrance, is the grand staircase, a magnificent structure of bronze and marble. It commences in a wide single flight extending towards the rotunda, and returns in a double run to the loggia or second story corridor, which opens directly upon the rotunda, and is separated from it by a rich marble balustrade. At the head of the grand staircase is the large public waiting room of President John J. Mitchell. His suite occupies the corner of La Salle and Jackson streets, and consists of a large reception room. This reception room is finished with a high wainscot of mahogany with wall panels above of imitation Gobelin tapestry. Connecting with the large reception room is the private office of the President. Upon the same side of the building are rooms for the Vice-President and directors and a large assembly room with a seating capacity of seventy-five.
The trust department is situated upon the Quincy street side of the second story, and opens directly upon the main corridor by screens of bronze and marble. The room of the Secretary of the trust department is on the corner of La Salle and Quincy streets. It is finished in mahogany, with tapestry walls and paneled ceiling.
Illinois Trust and Savings Bank
General View, Interior
Safety Deposit Vault in Basement.
The basement has been entirely utilized for the safety deposit vault. The entrance to this is by a broad marble staircase, placed to the right of the main entrance. This staircase leads to a large lobby, divided into three aisles by massive piers, which support a heavy vaulted ceiling. In the center of this lobby are the offices of the safety deposit department, and behind this, guarded by heavy gates of ornamental iron, are the entrances to the outer vault. The vault contains small coupon rooms and forms a corridor around the the heavy steel central vault. The inner vault is 30×50 feet in size and is protested by massive steel doors and linings. On the Jackson street side of the basement and opening from the main lobby are six large committee-rooms and a waiting-room for women. In the rear there is an elaborately arranged gymnasium, with toilet-rooms and baths for the employes of the bank. Connecting with the central lobby in the Quincy street side is a reading-room for men; also three large storage vaults. The remaining floor area in the rear is devoted to the exclusive plant for the heating and ventilation of the building.
All the power used for ventilating, elevators, and lighting will be furnished by electricity. The basement will be heated by an indirect system of coils and fans and ventilated by fans separate from the system used for the main floor. The main floor will be supplied by fresh air warmed by indirect coils and ventilated by electric fans placed in the attic and basement.
Everything which art and experience could suggest has been done to make this the most beautiful as well as the most imposing building of its kind and to fully adapt it to the uses for which it is intended.
Illinois Trust and Savings Bank
Bronze Stairway Leading to Second Floor.
Vestibule and Elevator Enclosure.
Vaults for Funds and Papers.
One of the main features of the bank is the system of vaults built for the protection of the bank’s funds and papers. The main vault on the first floor is formed of four layers of one-inch plates, forming an entire thickness of four inches. Two of the plates are of chrome steel, which are said to be absolutely impenetrable by tools, the other two being of homogeneous steel, which are designed to offer proper resistance to explosives. They are said to be the best vaults ever built, combining all the latest improvements for safety and convenience. When the New York Clearing House Association put up its new building there were built in it vaults which were said to be the most perfect ever constructed. The new vaults of the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank are so much stronger than those of the New York Clearing House Association that it is estimated ten times the force would be required to make a forcible entry. The doors are massive affairs, built up of alternate layers of hard and soft steel, and the four-inch plates in the walls are filled in between with a composition of oil and cement, the bolts being then drawn together so the cement fills every pore and crevice.
Each of the vaults will have two entrances, an arrangement made for the double purpose of furnishing perfect vent and to prevent a lockout. Entrance to the vaults can be had from either door, which are of equal strength and solidity. Each door is protected by time locks and the advantage of having two doors lies in the fact that if any accident should happen to the mechanism of one lock entrance could be had through the other door without waiting for experts to drill the vaults and ruin the doors. A lockout to a bank is a serious thing, for the reason that the accounts of customers, as well as the bank’s supply of cash, may be inside. While a bank might succeed in obtaining all the funds necessary from another institution it could not secure from any other source the information which is contained only in its own books. Each entrance is protected by a double set of doors, the outer door having a thickness of fifteen inches and the inner door a thickness of seven inches, making a combined thickness of twenty-two inches of solid steel before access could be gained to the interior of the vaults.
Illinois Trust and Savings Bank
The Great Bronze Entrance Doors and the Second Floor Corridor
Doors Weigh Ten Tons.
Some idea of the solidity of the vaults may be gained from the amount of steel which enters into the construction of a single door. The outside door of each vault alone weighs ten tons, which, with its frame, makes a combined weight of twenty-five tons. The great weight of the steel makes it necessary to open and close the doors by means of crane hinges. These hinges are of special design, forged in one solid piece of bessemer steel, and weigh 2,000 pounds each. The doors are all on ball bearings, and they work so easily that a child could operate them. The door is moved and forced into its seat by an ingeniously constructed compound pressure mechanism operated by a hand wheel which causes the door to enter squarely. There is a motor provided for the purpose of moving the bolt backward and forward, which is entirely automatic and is not connected with the outside of the vault. There are four separate time mechanisms on each lock, any one of which is sufficient to throw the bolts and allow the motor to move the unlocking mechanism. If one, two, or three of these mechanisms should fail to do the work the fourth would still be able to unlock the door with the aid of the combination on the outside.
Special provision has been made to prevent the possible forcing of the vaults by the means of high explosives and the vaults are built in such a way as to prevent the possibility of their being tampered with without immediate warning being given by the electrical devices which guard the entire vault system. They are built upon heavy steel girders which are laid in cement and to drill through these would require at least a week of steady work. Even the access would be had to the lower vaults only and to get into the vaults where the funds of the bank are kept would mean as great an effort as to force a way from the first floor. There is no system of protection which cannot be forced if sufficient time and opportunity are given, but the strong boxes of the Illinois Trust and Savings will require as much if not more time for a forcible entry than any vaults in the world.
Chicago Tribune, June 10, 1897
Illinois Trust and Savings Bank
Floor Plans
Wingfoot Express Disaster
On July 21, 1919, the blimp, Wingfoot Express, crashed through the skylight, killing and injuring a number of people
The complete story can be found on the Wingfoot Air page.
Chicago Tribune, April 9, 1923
Announcement of the merger of Merchants Loan & Trust Company, Illinois Trust & Savings Bank and the Corn Exchange National Bank. The Illinois Trust & Savings Bank building was replaced with a new building.
[…] He broke both legs. Landing and dying in the hospital. The airship crashed into the roof of the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank, at the corner of Jackson Blvd. and La Salle Street. Built in 1897, the bank had a beautiful open […]