Reid, Murdoch & Co.

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Reid, Murdoch & Co., MacVeagh & Co.
Life Span: 1899-about 1960
Location: 1-17 Market and 243-253 Lake Street (333 W Lake), SE corner Lake and Market
Architect: D. H. Burnham & Co.

Lakeside Business Directory of the City of Chicago, 1899

Reid, Murdoch & Co (Incorporated)

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1903
Reid, Murdoch & Co (Incorporated) Thomas Murdoch pres; J. J. Dau v pres; F. H. Armstrong sec; E. J. Learned treas; whol grocers se cor Lake and Market

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1906
Reid, Murdoch & Co (Incorporated) Thomas Murdoch pres; J. J. Dau v pres; F. H. Armstrong sec; E. J. Learned treas; whol grocers se cor Lake and Market

Lakeside Business Directory of the City of Chicago, 1907
Reid, Murdoch & Co (Incorporated) Thomas Murdoch pres; J. J. Dau v pres; F. H. Armstrong sec; E. J. Learned treas; whol grocers se cor Lake and Market tel Main-213

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1910
Reid, Murdoch & Co (Incorporated) Thomas Murdoch pres; J J Dau v pres; F H Armstrong sec; E J Learned treas; whol grocers se cor Lake and Market

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1911
Reid, Murdoch & Co (Incorporated) J J Dau pres; F H Armstrong v pres; W F Bode sec; E J Learnedtreas; whol grocers se cor Lake and Market

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1914
MacVeagh Franklin & Co Rollin A Keyes pres; Walter T Chandler v pres; Eames MacVeagh sec and treas; grocers whol Lake and Market

Inter Ocean, February 26, 1898

Murdoch & Co.
D. H. Burnham & Co. are at work on plans for a line structure, which will cost $300.000, for the Garrett Biblical Institute, to be erected at the southeast corner of Market and Lake streets, for the occupancy of Reid, Murdoch & Co.. wholesale grocers, now at Nos. 3 to 13 State street. The bullding will be eight stories high, with basement, 140×180 feet. It will be of steel frame, with pressed brick fronts, and composition roof. Steam heat. electric lighting, passenger and freight elevators will be provided. A five-story bullding now occupies the site. Work on the removal of this will commence May 1.

Reid, Murdoch & Co.

Chicago Tribune, February 27, 1898

REMOVAL OF REID. MURDOCH & CO.
New Location for the Firm, Lake and Market Streets.
One of the interesting developments in realty circles last week was the completion of the negotiations for a new location Reid, Murdoch & Co. The firm will, on Jan. 1, 1899, remove from its present location at the corner of and South Water streets to property at the southeast corner of Lake and Market streets, owned by the Garrett Biblical Institute.

The premises have been leased by the grocery concern for a period of ten years at a rental of $281,000. They will occupy a new building to be ready for occupancy by Jan. 1 which will cost $200,000. This structure will be a modern warehouse with steel skeleton and fireproof material in general. D. H. Burnham & Co. have made the preliminary sketches for the building. It will cover an area 120×180 feet and will be opposite the point where South Water street merges into Market street.

The present improvement on the property consists of a four-story building devoted to light manufacturing purposes. This will be removed as soon as the leases of the present tenants expire to give place to the new warehouse.

The removal of Reid, Murdoch & Co. from their present location is in line with a movement of the wholesale grocers to secure lower rentals than are offered in the old wholesale district in the northeast part of the down-town business district. The Tribune has on several occasions called attention to this move on the part of grocery firms for new locations. Various plans were started last year for a concentration of this class of business at some the West Side, but the difficulty of securing concerted action defeated the plans of the promoters. It is probable that one of these schemes will now be revived and an effort made to induce several of the wholesale houses to remove from the old wholesale district to a new site. The reconstruction of the Burton Building at Lake and State streets and the possible remodeling of the present building occupied by Reid, Murdoch & Co. will materially alter the appearance of upper State street within the year.

As a result of this removal of Reid, Murdoch & Co. and the consolidation of the retail and wholesale business a large amount of upper Michigan avenue property will be on the market next spring. The present storage room of the firm occupies a frontage of 160 feet in Michigan avenue, between Randolph and Lake streets. It is leased from three or four separate owners. The removal of the present tenants will throw all this property on to the market.

Inter Ocean, February 28, 1898

Reid, Murdoch & Co. to Occupy “Sauganash” Hotel Site.
The lease of the property on the corner of Lake and Market streets by Reid, Murdoch & Co. for a site for a new building in which to conduct their wholesale business calls to mind the fact that this is a spot of great historical import to the early residents of Chicago. Here it was that the first hotel established in the prairie swamp which has subsequently become the cosmopolitan city of Chicago was planted. It was known as the Sauganash hotel, named after Billy Caldwell, the Indian chief, whose name and fame was potent among the aborigines who hunted this vicinity in the early days. This hotel was established by Mark Beaubien, whose name is indissolubly connected with the early days of Chicago.

Reid Murdoch factory in 1903.

Sunday Times-Herald, 1899

By Frank H. Spearman.
The Wigman itself has long ago gone the way of all flesh . . . But today the spot can boast one of the most completely modern ten-story fireproof structures to be found anywhere in this country. It is the new home of Reid, Murdoch & Co.

The word ‘plant’ comes nearer defining a great modern wholesale grocery house than any other expression. Such an establishment is not merely a store; it is a warehouse; and not alone a warehouse, but a factory. Under this one capacious roof, besides all the features of a jobbing business of more than ordinary proportions, there will be a coffee and spice mill plant, a mammoth cold storage plant, a big syrup refinery, a canning and preserving factory—and each of proportions which dwarfs the average institution professing to make a specialty of any one of those branches.

The output of a business so enormous as that of Reid, Murdoch & Co. staggers belief. . . . In addition to all their own manufacturing they draw constantly on the manufacturers and producers of the world for their supplies. They contract for the fruit of the olive groves of Spain, and for the leaf of the tea gardens of India. They compete with the Russians for the fine Oolongs of China, and their buyers scour France for the delicacies which are made to tempt the palates of the aristocrat of Europe. Their competition harries the London spice merchant in Singapore, and in Java and Sumatra they forestall the thrifty Dutchman of Amsterdam by contracting the crops of the choicest coffee plantations even before the berry is formed under the blossom.

In a word, the methods are Chicago methods, their ideals Chicago ideals, and only Chicago could have made possible so marvelous a growth from so modest a beginning.

Chicago Tribune, February 2, 1906

Reid, Murdoch & Co. Products.
In an advertisement printed in yesterday morning’s Tribune, Reid, Murdoch & Co. refer to a news story of a previous day in which The Tribune gave a partial list of foods declared illegal by the North Dakota commission. Among many others, the names of brands manufactured by Reid, Murdoch & Co. were mentioned. The firm calls attention to the fact that the analysis of its products was made in 1904. For the purpose of securing the last analysis of the Held, Murdoch & Co. products records, of the Illinois food commission were inspected. It showed that within a few months adulterations were found in goods manufactured by that firm. The analysis as obtained from the Illinois commission follows, all of the goods having been manufactured by Reid, Murdoch & Co.:

June 29, 1905

April 24, 1906

April 6, 1905

April 28, 1905

April 6. 1905

June 28, 1905

April 28, 1905

Reid, Murdoch & Co. say they have now abandoned the use of all adulterants.

Inter Ocean, February 7, 1909

CENTENARY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
A tablet, costing $300, is to be erected by the Daughters of the American Revolution at the Reid Murdoch corner, where the Wigwam stood in which Lincoln received his nomination. The tablet was selected by a committee consisting of Mrs. F. B. Orr, Mrs. John Francis, Mrs. L. G. Fisher and Miss Florence Deneen, a sister of Governor Deneen.

Chicago Tribune, November 7, 1923

A transaction involving the removal of another big wholesale grocery concern from the loop district is the lease by Franklin MacVeagh & Co. from the trustees of Garrett Biblical institute of the nine story and basement building at the southeast corner of Lake and Market streets, now occupied by Reid, Murdoch & Co.. wholesale grocers. The lease is for twenty years from Jan. 1, 1914, at a reported annual rent of $44,000, or $880,000 for the term.

Chicago Tribune, December 9, 1931

MACVEAGH & CO., PIONEER HOUSE, TO CLOSE DOORS
In Wholesale Grocery Business 66 Years.
(Picture on back page.)
Franklin Mac Veagh & Co., one of the oldest wholesale grocery houses in the city, will discontinue operation as soon as its stock and equipment are disposed of, about the first of the year. This was announced yesterday by Franklin MacVeagh, one of the founders of the sixty-six year old business and secretary of the treasurer under President Taft. Present business conditions were given as the reason for going out of business. Mr. Mac Veagh is 91 years old.

“My son, Eames, wanted to close the business some time ago,” he said, “but I did not to do so until a week ago. We could go on, but it does does not seem advisable. We a have gone through several panics and one great disaster, the Chicago fire. The present depression will end, but it is the most incorrectible situation I have ever experienced. Never before one been so difficult to control or so mixed up with foreign finances.”

Mr. Mac Veagh indulged in reminiscences of his early experience in the grocery business and declared he would miss his business associates and the 400 employes of his company.

He declared that he and the founders of Chicago’s other pioneer wholesale groceries, Albert Sprague & Co. (now Sprague, Warner & Co.) and Reid, Murdoch & Co., had always been friendly competitors. Mr. MacVeagh met the late Albert Sprague at Yale university and later when they both entered the grocery business in Chicago.

Franklin Mac Veagh & Co. originally had four partners, James A. Whitaker, Isaac N. Harmon, Col. John Messer, and Mr. MacVeagh, and was known as Whitaker, Harmon & Co. until Mr. Mac Veagh bought the others out. Its present location is 333 West Lake street.

Mr. Mac Veagh said that he might devote his time to writing after he disposes of his business. His interests have always been varied and he has headed many civic and charitable associations in Chicago.

Reid, Murdoch & Co

MacVeagh & Co

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