Royal Insurance Building

Royal Insurance Building
Life Span: 1885-1920
Location: 160 W. LaSalle street
Architect:: W. W. Boyington

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1884

Royal Insurance Bldg.

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1904
Royal Insurance Bldg.,—165 to 173 Jackson and 108 to 116 Quincy

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1911
Royal Insurance Bldg.,—165 W Jackson

Inter Ocean, April 19, 1885

Opulent Offices. Royal Insurance Building. Advance Notes and Glimpses.If the new Board of Trade Building towers unchallenged the loftiest and greatest structure in this city and the West, equally without competition in the surrounding group or brand new office buildings that have sprung up to keep it company is the fittingly named Royal Insurance Building that rises, 100 feet wide, in ten-story granite grandeur immediately across Jackson street. That the improvement has cost nearly a million dollars is financial confirmation of pre-eminence. It is as beautiful as it is costly, and in the opinion of competent judges the building stands the best type of Corinthian architecture, as applied to commercial use, that there is on this continent. Of course, in the planing of such a structure the chief regard has been paid to utility to the lightness, largeness, and location of offices, and yet, conspicuous as has been the success achieved in these respects, the external effects might impress the beholder as having been matter or primary consideration so broadly generous and enriched has been the treatment of the two fronts, on Jackson and Quincy streets. Especially in that solid granite facade looking south the Board of Trade Building, just over the way, sees as it were its own reflection not only in massive material but in architectural dignity. Looking on this grand frontage one feels devoutly thankful that owners ot land as well as lessees thereof are contributing to Chicago’s improvements, and therefore are building for a future of advantage to themselves and this fair metropolis, as well as for the fleeting present.

In dimensions the Royal Insurance Building is exactly 99.8 by 165.9 feet, the former being the frontage on both Jackson and Quincy streets, and the latter the depth between, running through the entire block. Besides sub-basement, basement, and ground floor, there are nine other stories, the total height of the building being 150 feet. The south front, as indicated, consists entirely of granite, smoothly dressed but not polished, and the grand entrance, midway in the rose-tinted front, is of the same material, only in darker color, the shafts, arch, and other ornamental features polished to a glow. The walls above present most impressive colonade, effects, the first few stories being thus grouped, as also the highest ones, while the square and arched window caps, the window bases in equally low relief, and the whole variety in unity of the richly simple superstructure reach up to a climax in the cornice, which is crowned in turn by the Royal Insurance Company’s coat of arms, done, like everything else, in granite, itself the fitting symbol of the emblazoned legend, “We hold thee safe.” The Quincy street front consists of red sandstone for the first two stories, and the color and treatment, as also of the pressed brick and terra cotta decorations above, reproduce the effectiveness of the south front.

Within the entrances the furnishings are marble and terra cotta in variegated finish and color, and soon the wide central hall-ways, running north and south from Jackson and Quincy streets, respectively, unite in a noble court 30×56 feet in the midst of the building. Above this is the principal skylight, one of some eight or ten such windows toward heaven that help flood the whole interior with light, and to stand in the court and look upward, past the brightly bronzed railing at each floor is to have a new sensation, equaled only by the glance from above downward.

The stairways, the elevators?

By natural sequence one’s thoughts and steps next turn to these, and they are found immediately at hand, wide stairs of iron starting midway at the right or east of the court, and two groups of elevators near either entrance rendering swift and elegant service, besides a little night elevator which runs all night, and with such unique accommodation as to stop of its own accord at any floor one may indicate by simply “dropping a button.” A tour of the offices and appointments discovers an equipment in all respects the very best. Hard wood is seen throughout, of mahogany and minilla on the first floor; a vault is in every suite; ditto, the newest appointed wash-stand; in every office a mantel and grate, as also a radiator, controlled with novel and marvelous ease: toilet on each floor; all corridors and courts marble tile. The offices, including those or the ground door (entered by descending four steps from the street), are splendidly lighted, whether from the two streets direct, the several sky-lights, or the large open court on each side.

It is not strange that with such recommendations and credentials these offices have been widely, sought after, and are rapidly filling up. The agents, Messrs. Mead & Coe, Major Block, are daily called upon for new leases.

The Royal Insurance Building was started two years ago, and has been carried steadily and uninterruptedly toward completion, and yet with the deliberation desirable in so great a structure. Mr. W. W. Boyington was the architect, and the work has prospered constantly under the eye of Mr. C. H. Case, the manager of the great Royal Insurance Company of England, which is about to occupy for its Northwestern headquarters a spiendid suite of offices on the main floor of the new building, Jackson street front.

The Bank of British North America will be at home about May 1 in spacious and handsome quarters on the main floor, a location of mutual convenience for this well-known financial institution and its many patrons.

Captain John Prindiville, on May 1, will remove his well-known vessel and insurance agency from No. 92 LaSalle street to convenient quarters in the Royal Insurance Building, Jackson street front.

Haines & Co. and the Central Telegraph News Agency, the latter such a promising, and appreciated factor in posting up the commercial public, occupy a first floor suite of rooms, Quincy street front.

Robert Warren & Co., exporters and packers, will occupy rooms 300, 301, and 318. This firm has been engaged in the commission business over twenty-five years, and enjoys the reputation of being one of the most conservative houses in its particular line in Chicago.

The well-known commission and shipping firm of A. Geddes & Co. will occupy rooms 402, 403, and 404. The specialty of this house is its foreign and Eastern business, which is very large and steadily increasing.

Wm. Kirkwood & Co., an old and reliable firm doing a general commission business in grain and provisions, will occupy rooms 400 and 401.

Hately Brothers, packers and lard refiners and commission merchants, will occupy rooms Nos. 501 and 502. This firm has an agency at No. 15 Stanley street, Liverpool, and does a very extensive snipping business, particularly in hog production.

L. Everingham & Co., one of the largest firms on ‘Change, doing an exclusively commission business, will occupy rooms Nos. 200, 201, and 218. This firm was established in 1865, and has in its twenty years’ business earned the reputation of being soli, conservative, and reliable. It Is too widely favorably known to make any extended notice necessary.

A suite of four rooms will be occupied by the North American Mutual Benefit Association and the American Protective Association.

To speak of the former first, it was organized four years ago, its object being to arrange separate and distinct classes of life insurance on the mutual benefit plan, and all under the charter of the parent association. Its success has been marked. Three Chicago Board of Trade clubs have been in prosperous operation since its operation; these is a physicians’ club, also a farmers’ club, and last but not least in popularity and rapidly growing patronage a general department. Deposits are made tor each class in a separate bank, and only by individual order of the respective allied Boards of Directors can the funds be drawn upon. Besides, there are other special safe-guards and advantages, guaranteeing to the association a yet wider scope and influence in the future. Mr. W. G, Farrar is Secretary.

In the American Protective Association are provided safeguards against “financial death” that are proving equally beneficial to to the country merchants, for whose advantage the organization was gotten up, and to the wholesale men. The aim and effect of a policy ($5,000 the upward limit) are to strengthen credit, and in case of financial disaster to pay creditors. George Ryall & Co. are general agents for the United States, and State agencies are being rapidly called for and located.

Davidson & Sons, marble and granite dealers, foot of North Market street, were contractors for the granite.

In the Quincy street front is seen to great advantage the Vert Island, or McArthur sand-stone, of which the first two stories are composed. In color it is as uniformly warm and rich as the rose granite front on Jackson street, and there is no substance in it that deteriorates. In serviceableness the McArthur stone is equal to its handsome appearance, its compactness of grain and solidity being unequaled among sand-stones, and its “crushing strength” considerably greater than that of granite. It is a happy augury for the enduring character of Chicago buildings that latterly so many of them, both business blocks and residences, are being constructed of this deservedly popular material. General John McArthur, No. 71 Washington street, is manager of the company, and their increased facilities this season for quarrying the stone at Vert Island, Lake Superior, will promptly fill the demand.

The Chicago Anderson Pressed Brick Company manufactured the principal surface of the Quincy street front, and the exhibit is a new illustration of the unequaled effects produced by their product, whether we consider the homogeneous and brilliant color or the smoothness and often richest ornamentation of finish. This brick is built into monuments to itself throughout the Board of Trade district and generally all over the city.

Messrs, C. & A. Price, No. 101 Washington street, executed the mason contract, and the work has been done in a manner in keeping with the long and sterling record of these gentlemen as Chicago’s pioneer builders, whose skill has been utilized in the erection of very many of her chief buildings.

On its fire-proof character nothing need be said to carry assurance to all except the fact that the Pioneer Fire-proof Construction Company, office Sixteenth and Clark streets; Mr. E. V. Johnson, manager, have filled the contract. In a sense unique and not true of surrounding competitors, the Royal Insurance Building is utterly incapable of combustion. No one feature has been devised and conscientiously elaborated and perfected, regardless of cost.

The manufacturer of the immense sky-light, 40×60 feet, and of the various others that supply the building was J. C. McFarland, 219 and 221 West Lake street, an establishment that has won a high reputation for this and other glazed work, also for galvanized iron cornices, slate, tin, and corrugated iron roofing.

D. & L. Bain, No. 633 West Madison street, filed the plumbing and gas-fitting contract in he most thorough manner. The Washburn-Moore Manufacturing Company’s basin waste is used; also the Meyer & Sniffen Brighton closet, and hammered glass in the withdrawing spaces.

The F. E. Frost Manufacturing Company, Twelfth and Canal streets, furnished the hardwood, and throughout the building it is of the finest description, embracing mahogany and manila for the first floor. Two other varieties are used.

In the plastering, Daniel Connell, 101 Washington street, room 1, has given evidence of his long experience and fine work.

Hodge & Homer, 47 West Randolph street, have filled the hardware contract in a manner the most commendatory of their facilities for handling large contracts. The finest material—including Yale locks—and genuine workmanship characterize ail the equipment supplied to the building by this well-known firm.

The painting was done by E. H. Humphrey, Washington and Franklin streets. and especially on the iron railing overlooking the court much artistic work was done, corresponding with the frequently appearing bronzed coat of arms of the owners of the building.

The Butman Furnace Company of Cleveland and Chicago (Canal street, just north of Van Buren) supplied the furnace and boiler equipment.

The very large safe depository, entered from Jackson street, has been furnished, like all the vaults of this and the other great surrounding buildings, by the Hall Safe and Lock Company. It has a capacity of 9,000 boxes, being the most extensive equipment in this country, excepting only two depositories, one in New York and the other in San Francisco, and both furnished by the Hall Company. The main vault has a three-inch burglar-proof lining of solid steel, the lining itself weighing 360 tons, and is entered by three doors, each of which weighs six tons. The plates are held together by conical bolts, and the work throughout embraces all of Hall’s famous safeguards.

The ventilation of this building has been thoroughly accomplished by the Exhaust Ventilator Company of this city, whose new system of moving air mechanically is being generally adopted public buildings throughout the country. By this system fresh air is continually passing through every room in the building, heated or cooled as required, and the supply regulated as certainly as the supply of water. The new Board of Trade building, among many others, is also ventilated by this company’s system.

But for elevators the modern high buildings were impossible, and but tor the Hale elevators the Royal Insurance Building would be without one of its handsomest and most ingenious as well as useful adjuncts. There are some six passenger elevators, disposed for greatest convenience at either entrance, and there is also a baby elevator for night locomotion, and equipped, as already indicated, with button-stops ot phenomenal faculties and such ease of manipulation that a child could operate the car.

The scagliola work exemplifies a beautiful art, one that the Wight Fire-proofing Company have introduced very extensively in Chicago architecture, and always in a manner to surprise and please.

In Architect W. W. Boyington’s brain the bullding was born.

Rand, McNally & Co.’s Bird’s-Eye Views of Chicago, 1893

⑤ The Royal Insurance Building
Fronting on Jackson Street (Nos. 165-173), reaches through to Quincy. The frontages on both Jackson and Quincy streets are 100 feet, with 9 stories and basement. Here 163 offices surround an impressive quadrangular, balustraded interior court, and 5 elevators serve 800 occupants. The building is of steel, stone, and red brick, and was built in 1884 to serve Board of Trade operators, insurance men, railroad agents, and cognate interests. The cost was $600,000. The interior is one of the sights of the city.

It was removed in 1920 along with the Gaff, Mallers, Counselman,and Royal Insurance buildings for the Federal Reserve Bank.

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