Wells Building, Poole Bros. Printing Co. Building
Life Span: 1898/1911-1953
Location: 118 Harrison/361-363 Clark (Old), 85 West Harrison
Architect: Holabird & Roche
Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1904
Wells Bldg.—118 Harrison.
Inter Ocean. July 18, 1897
PLANS FOR WELLS BUILDING
For the Printing Trade.
For W. A. and A. E. Wells will be erected a building, 100×100 feet, ten stories high, on the southeast corner of Clark and Harrison streets. The architects, Holabird & Roche, have plans well under way, and work will be begun at an early date. The building will cost approximately $200,000. The structural portion of the building is designed for twelve stories, and two additional stories may be added before the building is completed.
It will be of skeleton construction, includIng front, alley, and party walls, and will be strictly freproof throughout. It has been especially designed for heavy printing. The first four floors will be occupied by Poole Bros. (formerly 117 and 119 Lake). The exterior will be of Italian renaissance design, of dark red brick, with terra cotta to match. The structure will be equipped with two freight and two passenger elevators, tollet-rooms, electric light, steam heat, and a power plant for the use of printers.
The first and second stories will be faced with ornamental iron, Including ornamented till course under third-story windows. The fronts will be of plate glass, with double-thick glass from third story up. The cornice will be of copper, highly ornamented. It is intended to make this building the most complete for printing purposes in the country.
Chicago Tribune, May 11, 1910
Clark Street Property Sold.
An interesting transaction in Clark street property comprises the purchase by Poole Bros., railway printers, from Richard S. Thompson of the premises 361-363 South Clark street, 50×100 feet, west front, 100 feet south of Harrison street. for $75,000, subject to incumbrance of $35,000, assumed, as part of the consideration. Old frame improvements of no value are on the property, making the sale at the rate of $1.500 a front foot. The board of review valuation is $57,670.
Poole Bros. hold the 100 feet running to the corner from the Baker estate under a ninety-nine year lease from 1806, at an annual rent of $10,000, the lease running to the Printers’ Equipment company. It is improved with a six story fireproof building, erected by the Pooles, who plan within a few months to improve the adjoining section with a building similar to the one on the corner, the cost of which, will approximate $100,000. It will be occupied by the Pooles with their business. The property formerly belonged to Joseph B. Earl and was acquired by Mr. Thompson last year.
- Wells Building
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map
1906
Poole Brothers were known for typesetting skills in the days of lead type and in 1949 Taylor Poole authored a book (which the firm published) called ‘San Serif ABC.’ The New York Times, in a brief description, says that it covers the “problems of type design and composition.”
According to Graphic Arts Monthly, September, 1989, in an article on Chicago’s continued dominance of the printing industry titled “The New Chicago Loop,” Poole Brothers was merged with Newman/Rudolph. During American Can Company’s acquisition binge of the early 1960s, it purchased the merged print concern. By the mid-1960s, American Can liquidated the printers, according to Graphic Arts Monthly.
Poole Brothers had printed railway maps, as you noted, as well as
menus for the railroads and a host of other items. They were involved in production of tickets (for amusement parks, railroads, coupons books, etc.) and were one of 33 manufacturers cited in a September, 1948 price-fixing case by the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC cited Poole Brothers, Rand-McNally and four other Chicago companies, according to the Sept. 18, 1948 New York Times.
Poole also set the type for Playboy Magazine and all of the Crain Communications magazines, like Advertising Age and Business Insurance.
- Poole Building Expansion
Ross & Browne Real Estate Map
1928
Chicago Tribune, September 17, 1951
EARLY CHICAGO TIES LINK THREE BIG PUBLISHERS
Tribune, Prairie Farmer, Rand Roots Twine
Histories of two other thriving Chicago . publishing enterprises merge far in the past with that of The Chicago Tribune. They are the Prairie Farmer, the nation’s oldest farm paper, and Rand, McNally & Co., printers, publishers, and long one of America’s leading mapmakers.
The farm journal has existed continuously since it first appeared in January, 1841, as the Union Agriculturist ana Western Prairie Farmer, printed by a small job shop whose name has been forgotten. It was the organ of the Union Agricultural society, chartered in 1839, and was edited by the group’s co-founder and corresponding secretary, John S. Wright.
Nearly 6½ years later, on June 10, 1847, the first edition of The Tribune, 400 copies, was put out in a third floor loft at Lake and La Salle sts., under joint editorship of Joseph ‘R. C. Forrest, James J. Kelly, and John E. Wheeler.
Rand Set Up In 1856
In 1836, the year after Joseph Medill bought into The Tribune and began his architecture of its high eminence, a young printer, William H. Rand, newly arrived from his native Massachusetts, opened a small print shop at 148 Lake st. which was the forerunner of today’s huge business that bears his name. The Tribune’s original shop was destroyed by fire in May, 1849, and for a time the newspaper was published in an office over J. H. Gray’s grocery at Clark and Lake sts. Old records indicate that in May, 1850, and briefly thereafter The Tribune was printed in the office of the Prairie Herald at 173 Lake st. The Herald, organ of the Western Presbyterians and Congrega-tionalists, was being edited then by Wright’s associate, J. Ambrose Wight, from his desk in the Prairie Farmer office. Thus it appears that The Tribune and the Prairie Farmer issued from the same presses for a time.
McNally a Competitor By 1852
The Tribune was in a three story brick building at 51 Clark st., where it also conducted a job shop. One of its compositors was Andrew McNally, fresh from Ireland, who had made a brief try at starting a new Chicago newspaper, the Evening Star.
Rand, a printer’s apprentice in Boston, had joined the California gold rush in 1849. After a year as a prospector and another year as a-journeyman printer in San Francisco, he and two companions founded the Los Angeles Star, southern California’s first newspaper. But by 1853 Rand was running his own shop in Boston, and three years later he started his Chicago shop.
Apparently it prospered, for by 1860 Rand was able to buy a one-eighth interest in The Tribune. At the same time he became manager of The Tribune’s mechanical department, where young McNally, meanwhile, had risen to job foreman. Bought Tribune Job Shop When The Tribune was preparing in 1868 to move into its new our story brick building at Madison and Dearborn sts., McNally and Rand, together with Rand’s nephew, George Amos Poole, bought out the old Tribune job shop and started the partnership known as Rand, McNally & Co. Rand sold his Tribune interest about 1870.
For another 30 years he continued in his own company, then sold out to McNally to join the syndicate that successfully promoted the irst machine to cast type from matrices, forerunner of the modern Linotype. Poole broke away in 1879 and with his brother, William 11., established the Poole Brothers printing company. The McNallys continued the business, however, and Andrew McNally III, great-grand son of the Irish immigrant, is now president of Rand, McNally & Co. Farm Monthly Made Weekly Wright had been publishing his Prairie Farmer as a monthly. He turned it into a weekly with the January, 1856, issue, which was printed in the Chicago Tribune Steam Printing Job office at 51 Clark st., then operated by Wright, Meom, Ray & Co. The Wright in that partnership was John’s brother, Timothy. The Medill was Joseph Medill and the Ray was Dr. Charles H. Ray. former Galena newspaper publisher.
John Wright. who as a young land speculator was bankrupted by the 1837 panic, became overextended 20 years later and lost another fortune in the panic of 1857. The Sept. 24 issue of the Prairie Farmer of that ‘year carried only one column of advertising.
Wright, trying to save his larger interests, threw up the publishing sponge at this point, and turned his paper over to two of his printers, James C. and William H. Medill, brothers of Joseph Medill.
The Medill partnership in the Prairie Farmer was dissolved late in 1858. The farm paper passed thru other ownerships before it was bought in 1882 by Rand, Mc Nally & Co. They ran it until April 8, 1908, then sold out to the present ownership.
Thence forward the three publishing organizations, which played important roles in the maturing of young Chicago, went their separate ways.
- Broadsheet produced by the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad promoting that all Elevated Trains in Chicago stop at the Michigan Southern Railroad and Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Depot (1873-1903) located at the SW corner of LaSalle and Van Buren Streets. Printed by the Poole Brothers Co., Chicago.
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