McCormickville

McCormickville,
Life Span: 1873-1949
Location:

Halpin’s Chicago City Directory for 1864

McCormick Leander J.

Bailey’s Chicago City Directory for 1867
McCormick Leander J. (C. H. McCormick & Brothers), h 78 Rush

Edwards’ Annual Directory in the City of Chicago, for 1870
McCormick Leander J. (C. H. McCormick & Bro.), r. 78 Rush

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1875
McCormick Leander J. (C. H. & L. J. McCormick), Blue Island av. cor. S. Western av. h. 126 Rush
McCormick Robert H. (C. H. & L. J. McCormick), Blue Island av. cor. S. Western av. house 124 Rush
McCormick William G. (McCormick Bros & Findlay) 155 Lasalle, house 157 Rush

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1880
McCormick Cyrus H. (McCormick, Adams & Co.) pres. McCormick harvesting machine co, 14, 120 Lasalle and 67 Dearborn, house 135 Rush
McCormick Cyrus H. jr. reapers 67 Dearborn, house 135 Rush
McCormick Leander J. (C. H. & L. J. McCormick) Blue Island av. se. cor. S. Western av. house 126 Rush
McCormick R. Hall (McCormick & Beebe) 5, 168 Washington, house 124 Rush

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1885
McCormick Cyrus H. jr. pres. McCormick harvesting machine co. 212 Market, house 135 Rush
McCormick Cyrus H. Mrs. house 135 Rush
McCormick Leander J. v, pres. McCormick harvesting machine co. 212 Market, h. 126 Rush
McCormick R. Hall (McCormick & Beebe) 71, 180 Lasalle, house 124 Rush
McCormick William G. (McCormick, Kennett & Co.) 237 Lasalle, home 157 Rush
Blair Edward T. (William Blair & Co.) 172 Lake, house 157 Cass¹

Chicago Telephone Directory, 1892
McCormick Cyrus Hall Residence 321 Huron Main-200
McCormick L. H. Residence 379 Ontario North-812
McCormick R. Hall Residence 124 Rush Main-4884
Blaine Emmons Residence 135 Rush North-703
Virginia Hotel Hotel Rush and Ohio North-92

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1904
McCormick Cyrus H President International Harvester Company, 6th floor, 7 Monroe St h 321 Huron St
McCormick Nettie F wid Cyrus H h 135 Rush
McCormick R Hall capitalist 411 Lasalle h Virginia hotel

Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1911
McCormick Cyrus H pres International Harvester co, 14th fl, 606 S Michigan av h 50 E Huron St
McCormick Nettie F wid Cyrus H h 675 Rush
McCormick R Hall trustee Leander McCormick estate 332, S Michigan av h 660 Rush

Polk’s Chicago Numerical and Avenue Directory, 1928
Virginia Hotel, 600 Rush
McCormick Alister (Joan) 631 Rush
McCormick H F (Ganna) 675 Rush
McCormick C H (Alice) 50 E Huron

Chicago Tribune, August 22, 1915

The Chauncey McCormick are moving in this autumn to the house in Rush street that the Higginsons occupled for three years, the old William McCormick home where Chauncey McCormick was born. He has much sentiment for and many associations with the house, which is in a neighborhood which might properly be called McCormickville, as Mrs. Cyrus McCormick, the R. Hall McCormicks, the Cyrus H. McCormicks, the Robert H. McCormicks, the Hamilton McCormicks, and Mrs. Emmons Blaine (nee McCormick) all live within a stone’s throw. It is “the return of the native.”

Chicago Tribune, September 14, 1958

This location was regarded as desirabie as a number of members of the McCormick family chose to live here, between Ontario and Superior streets, which gave the name “McCormickville ” to this section.

78 Rush—Leander J. McCormick (1870), Virginia Hotel (1891)
124 Rush—R. Hall McCormick, capitalist
126 Rush—L. J. McCormack
135 Rush—Mrs. Nettie McCormick, widow of C. H. McCormick and her son Stanley McCormick, comptroller of the International Harvesting Machine Company;
157 Rush—W. G. McCormick of Schwartz, Dupee and McCormick, Board of Trade and
commission merchants
321 Huron—Cyrus H. McCormick, President of McCormick Harvesting Machine
Company.

Leander McCormick Mansion, 78 Rush (Pre-1871)
Virginia Hotel, 78 Rush Street
Cyrus McCormick Mansion, Rush and Erie Streets
Leander J. and Robert H. McCormick—Double House, NW corner Rush and Erie Streets
L. Hamilton McCormick Mansion, NE Corner of Ontario and Rush Streets, 631 N Rush
Harold McCormick Mansion, No. 88 Bellevue Place, 1000 N. Lake Shore Drive

McCormickville, 1893
① 85 Rush

① 85 Rush

② 124 Rush

② 126 Rush

③ 321 Huron

④ 135 Rush

⑤ 151 Huron

⑥ 157 Cass

McCormickville, 1906
① 85 Rush

① 85 Rush

② 101 Rush

③ 124 Rush

③ 126 Rush

④ 135 Rush

⑤ 321 Huron

⑥ 151 Huron

Chicago Tribune, January 17, 1954

Rush st. is one in the list of Chicago streets which has come down after an era of grandeur.

Like Astor and Halsted sts., it was named after a person who had no direct connection with Chicago—Dr. Benjamin Rush, the eminent Philadelphia physician of revolutionary and post-revolutionary days. Rush Medical college was also named for him. Its first quarters were not on Rush st. but Clark st. south of the river. It was later moved to the corner of Dearborn and Indiana sts., the latter now called Grand av.

Long a Busy Highway.
The easternmost swing bridge over the main branch of the river was at the foot of Rush st. until 1920 when the Michigan av. bridge was built , one block east, at what had been Pine st. The latter then lost its name and became an extension of North Michigan av.

Rush st. consequently was for a long time a busy highway, which made the connection between the south bank of the river and, by a diagonal, North Clark st., and, eventually, the Green Bay trail.

Rush st. soon began the brilliant career which was to continue for about 85 years. On it was built Chicago’s first “grand hotel,” the Lake House, in 1835.

A three story brick building, it occupied the entire block between Kinzie and Michigan (now Hubbard) sts. It was described as “elegantly furnished thruout.” Reputedly it cost $100,000 to build, a sum which staggered the citizens of the time.

Pride of North Side.
Four blocks farther north stood Chicago’s first great mansion, the first private house in the city designed by an architect. The architect was John M. Van Osdel, of New York, whom Chicago’s first mayor, William B. Ogden, brought to the city especially to design his house.

With its gardens, stables, out houses, and greenhouses, the Ogden residence occupied the entire block from Rush st. back to Cass st. (now Wabash), and between Ontario and Erie sts. Joseph T. Ryerson, an early settler, described it as a “large double (meaning that it had a hall in its center) two storied conspicuous house with portico and columns and broad steps.”

This house, the pride of the north side, was burned in the fire of 1871, and photographs of it are rare. Among the famous guests entertained there by Mayor Ogden were Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Era Begins in 1879.
The great epoch of Rush st. may be dated from 1879, when the house of Cyrus McCormick, which had been four years in building, was completed on the east side of the block between Erie and Huron sts.

It was the first grandiose specimen of the so-called “French” style of domestic architecture, which was to become the rage along Rush st. and among all wealthy residence builders of Chicago.

Its inspiration, authorities are fairly well agreed, was in part the additions to the palace-museum of the Louvre, built during the second empire (1852-1870), but more Charles Garnier’s “new opera” of the same period, still standing in Paris, France.

Today the house may seem a social and esthetic document in stone. Its high mansard roof and mansard cupola, its elaborate cresting, its bull’s eye windows, its tortuous exterior ornamentation, its high-ceilinged interior with elaborate fittings in marble and gilt, were perfectly in accord with the age of trailing skirts, uncreased trousers, and high starched collars.

Other members of the Harvester McCormick family built houses around the original one until this area of Rush st. adjoining streets was named “McCormickville.” Most of the residences of the great days of Rush st. have had the same fate as similar houses elsewhere. They have been demolished or occupied by businesses or institutions. A certain number, north of Superior st., are now restaurants or night clubs.

The visitor to Rush st. today may find it interesting to examine the three houses still standing in a row on the east side from Huron st. south. The first is the Cyrus McCormick house, now a gutted and empty shell, waiting for the wrecker, but still giving some faint evidence of its one time splendor.

Still Occupies Home.
The second is the house of Mrs. Emmons Blaine, also of the McCormick family, still occupied and, to judge from the outside, in excellent condition. This house really fronts on Erie st., with its west side and garden wall on Rush st.

The third is the present Kungsholm restaurant, the former Leander Hamilton McCormick residence . A few years ago a fire necessitated putting a new and inharmonious facade along its Ontario st. front, and made it an architectural hybrid, in keeping with the general nondescript air of the neighborhood. By standing on Rush st., however, one can get a good idea of the original.

Qualified opinion had been that this house is the finest structure ever built on Rush st., that its graceful strength, exquisite proportions, and rich simplicity are worthy of its designer, the late Stanford White.

As a scene of social elegance, Rush st. began a slow decay even before the shift in customs and social values which set in about 1910. The Eastland disaster, in which more than 800 lives were lost when an excursion boat docked near the Rush st. bridge capsized in 1915, was a presage of the end.

Becomes Dead End.
when the bridge at its foot was moved away in 1920, Rush st. lost its importance for thru traffic, and became a dead end, a vermiform appendix of a street.

In the decade thereafter, the street shone with a certain dubious glitter as it became the center of Chicago’s higher-priced speakeasies. That was the prohibition and gangster era, and Rush st. is said to have enjoyed considerable favor among the more conspicuous hoodlums of the time.

As it is today, Rush st. rimes with nothing. Amid some tatters of vanished elegance, it is a miscellaneous row of buildings which look as if they got there because no one could think of anywhere else to put them. From the Superior st. corner north, it now is primarily a night entertainment street. Towards its southern end one finds hotels, lodging houses, parking lots, some good restaurants and some lunch counters, some excellent bars, and some which contrive to look sinister.

Center of “Bohemia.”
Two points are noteworthy along this stretch. One os the set of spectacular murals behind one of the bars. It is on the strength of these, probably, that some guide books assert that Rush st. is the center of “Chicago’s Bohemia.” Also noteworthy, just outside of this same bar of the murals, is a puzzling inscription over a sidewalk-level doghouse:

What’s good for a dog is good for me.

NOTES:

¹ On May 29, 1882, Edward Blair married Miss Ruby McCullough, the daughter of the late William G. McCullough and moved into 157 Cass av.

NOTES:

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