Rand, McNally & Co. III

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Rand, McNally Building III
Life Span: 1890-1912
Location: Southwest corner of Adams and La Salle streets
Architect: Burnham & Root

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1899

Rand McNally Building

Chicago Tribune, January 16, 1889

ANOTHER MAMMOTH BUSINESS BLOCK.
Rand, McNally & Co. Preparing to Erect a New Building.
Rand, McNally & Co. have just obtained a lease which will enable them to erect a building that will be inferior, at least in point of size, to no other printing establishment in the United States. As is known, they leased some weeks ago Marshall Field’s lot, 100×165 feet, just west of the Home Insurance Building, having frontage on both Adams and Quincy streets. They have now secured a lease on a fifty-foot strip adjoining the Field property on the west and extending in like manner from Adams to Quincy street. The land belongs to Calvin DeWolf, who gives a ninety-nine years at $5,000 per annum for the first five years and at $9,000 per annum thereafter. Figuring on a basis of 5 per cent, the terms of the lease give the land a present valuation of $2,000 per front foot on a prospective valuation in 1894 of nearly $4,000 per foot.

Burnham & Root, architects, are preparing plans for a nine=story steel building to cover the land, which Rand McNally & Co. have leased. The first three stories will be of brown stone and the upper stories of pressed brick and terra cotta. Rand, McNally & Co.’s printing plant will occupy the space above the third floor, while the lower floors will be rented as offices or stores. Light is secured in the interior by a court 60×66 feet, with a skylight at the second story covering the space to be used by Rand McNally & Co. for a counting-room. The building it is estimated will cost about $500,000.

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Harper’s Weekly, April 16, 1892

CHICAGO DESIGNERS.
It was no simple affair to draw, edraw, design, and put into blue prints and first lines the various maps and architects’ plans of the Columbian Exposition. From half a dozen large cities in the country were sent the first plans of the structures to the office of the chief architect in Chicago. A full set of facades and elevations, interior divisions, ground plans, and what not was supplied by the designer. Having made one set, the designers of the originals considered their work comfortably at end. But where their work ended, that of the architecture-in-chief began. A large force of draughtsmen were put to work under a director, and hundreds of copies were made. Now that the buildings are almost finished—finished, that is, so far as the plans are concerned—the draughtsmen of the architect’s office have little to do.

This is not true, however, of the department engineering, which may be said to have only begun its labors in earnest. In a low two-story frame house erected within the enclosed grounds at Jackson Park, are two rooms given over to the working force of the engineer. Generally, they resemble the draughting room of a prosperous architect, the main difference between that and them being in size—for there is much to be done—the tables are extensive and force large.

Rand, McNally & Co.’s Bird’s-Eye Views and Guide to Chicago, 1893

④ The Rand McNally Building is a complete steel 10-story structure occupying Nos. 160-174 Adams street and Nos. 105-119 Quincy street, to which it extends. It was erected in 1889, has 10 stories, 16 stores, and 300 offices, but is principally occupied by Rand, McNall & Co., printers and publishers, with 900 employes. The headquarters of the World’s Columbian Exposition have been here, and here are the general offices of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway. Here the Long Distance Telephone Company (Quincy side) enables you to call up New York City. Cost, $1,000,000.

④ Rand, McNally Co.’s Building acquired special prominence among cosmopolitans because of the World’s Fair Commission, which here carried on the operations of administration and advertisement. The Director-General’s office was at Room 410; Major Handy was at 414. All the fourth and fifth floors were occupied by Fair officials, and here the $18,000,000 were disbursed. But the reader may also be curious to see where this guide was published, and whence the Rialto Series, the Globe Library, Marah Ellis Ryan’s tales, the well-known Rand-McNally globes and atlases, the railway guidis and pocket maps are issued. Here in this steel building, the first that ever stood free oJ brick walls, is one of the largest printing plants in the world, and the greatest of railway-ticket and time-table manufactories. The building is ten stories high and incloses a large court. In the press-room this court is entirely sur rounded with machines, a distance of 630 feet; the map floor is as large, and the compositors, many of whom are stockholders in the company, occupy ample and roomy quarters, among the very best in the city.

This building stands near the southwest corner of Adams and La Salle streets, at 160 to 174 Adams, with a frontage of 150 feet on the latter and a like frontage on Quincy Street, the depth being 166 feet. The reader should visit the counting-room, where he will behold the simple and democratic manner in which the enormous business of a large and noted house is carried on. The skylight under which the heads of departments work is at the bottom of and the court, gives remarkably pleasant effects of light. This guide covers most of the particulars in connection with Chicago’s many notable structures. In proceeding by easy stages with such a task, it will not be out of place here to describe, with some care, the precise means which are taken to make a first-class edifice safe against fire and decay. The Rand-McNally Building may be considered an exemplary product of modern architecture, and the plan of erection will be faithfully followed.

The steel cage, which is really the building, is protected against other buildings on the east and on the west by a wall of sewer brick, 44 inches thick in the lower stories; in the west there is no opening whatever; in the east there is an opening, but into the court of an adjoining building. The foundations for these walls, 23 feet wide, are made of I-beams and T-rail crossed and imbedded in Portland cement. The steel columns that support the floors are square and hollow, painted, and incased in hard-burned hollow tile, afterward plastered, the air circulating inside. These columns support girders of steel, covered with hard-burned hollow tile, and supporting beams of steel. The latter are well stayed with tie-rods, and columns, girders, and beams are hot-riveted together in one complete and integral framework, ten stories and basement. The front and rear columns, those that bound Adams and Quincy streets, are covered with hollow lerra cotla. The insides of these exterior columns are covered with hollow hard tile, and all lintels are backed up with hollow brick. Between all the beams of the floors are concave arches of hollow tile, covering the tie-rods between the beams, and resting on hollow skew-backs or supports; and these skew-backs not only shield the beams, but leave an air-passage. On the tile arch thus formed between the beams is laid two inches of cement, and on this cement is placed a hardwood floor not an inch thick. Across the arches which thus appear in the ceiling, by means of T-irons s. t in the skew-backs, rough slabs of tile are hung across, making a flat ceiling, and leaving large air-spaces in each arch and between each pair of beams. There is no wooden lathing in any portion of the building.

All interior partitions are of fire-proof tile. The windows of the upper five stories have no inside wood-trim, the plaster extending to the window-frames. All stairways are iron. The basement floor is laid with thick squares of vitrified tile. All water-closet floors are marble, with stone wall-slabs; there is no wood’here except for seats and doors. All type-stands and racks, ” furniture,” and imposing-stone frames are of iron, with tin for boxes. All presses stand on zinc. Four staudpipes with iron ladders are attached to each street-front. There are electric signals to be turned in from sixteen stations, with reports from each every half-hour all night to the District Telegraph office; and there are two fire-pumps which connect with the street-main. Heat is by steam, with light by gas and electricity. A large water-tank on the roof is inclosed in a pent-house of vitrified tile, and signal-boxes for fire-alarm are placed on every floor. The sidewalk is stone, and the boilers are under Quincy Street, separated from the basement by tile partitions. Rolling steel shutters protect exposed windows in the east wall. The interior court is faced with white enameled brick. The building has four entrances and several elevators.

With such facilities for cleanliness and security and the reduced chances of wear or destruction, the standard steel building of the World’s Fair era begins its history.

1897 Edition of the Rand McNally Business Atlas, showing the locating system first presented in 1879.

Chicago Tribune, February 2, 1897

A NEW BUSINESS ATLAS.
Messrs. Rand, McNally & Co., of Chicago, have just published a business atlas which in many respects is superior to any hereto presented to the public. The maps of the United States and the Canadas are particularly full, and each one is indexed, according to a new system, so that it isn possible, on a short examination, to find the location of any railway, town, city, county, river, or mountain. The idea is is comparatively of such recent origin that it is worthy of description. The maps are divided into squares by imaginary lines drawn from top to bottom and from one side to the other. Each terminus of of a line has placed opposite it a figure or a number. The States are indexed separately, and the towns, river, etc., referred as nearly as possible to the junction of the two lines. A similar treatment has been pursued with reference to railroads and express-routes, the termini in either case being exactly indicated. The usefulness of such a map for all business men will be at once perceived. It is not an uncommon thing, particularly in our new and growing country, for merchants to receive letters from places they never heard of before, and the situation of which they desire to know. Persons who are much upon the railroads will find the atlas almost invaluable. It shows where every railroad is, and every station upon it. Commercial travelers can lay out routes with the new atlas more accurately and more expeditiously than by any railroad guide. There is much in an appeal to the eye when questions involving considerations of time and space are concerned. The publishers of the atlas also lay claim to credit for a large share of original work. They have been at that pains to rectify many obvious errors in previous maps, and to seek for other errors not so obvious. In the Southern States especially their labors have been of considerable magnitude, extending to every county, and involving the alteration of county-line in cases almost innumerable. Inquiries were addressed to official sources in every case, and the results of various new surveys since the War have been embodied in the atlas. Each State is represented in a separate plate. The engraving, press-work, paper, and binding are of excellent quality, and the whole work is a credit both to the establishment and to the City of Chicago. The price of the atlas in its completed form is $20.

Chicago Tribune, June 30, 1912

An interesting feature of the building operations in the central district during the last few years bee been the tearing down of several high class steel construction buildings to make room for larger structures in connection with some big, building project.

The most recent and notable one is the razing of the old Rand-McNally building. on Adams street, between La Salle street and Fifth avenue, to make room for a part of the new Continental and Commercial National bank building. It is a ten story building of a high class fireproof type. occupying 100×1436 feet of ground and is said to have cost over $900,000. In its recent valuation the board of review placed a value of $771,187 on it showing how well the building has retained its original integrity.

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