Lind Block, Z. M. Hall’s Grocery, Sargent Building, Deleuw-Cather Building
Life Span: 1851 – 1963
Location: NW corner of Randolph and Market Streets
150 N. Wacker
Architect: John M. Van Osdel, Arthur Woltersdorf (1920’s south portion rebuild)
The Chicago Tribune, October 11, 1871
The only houses or buildings in the South Division north of Harrison street are the Avenue House on Michigan avenue, and Lind’s Block, corner of Market and Randolph streets, four dwellings on Harrison street, and two or three houses adjoining Avenue House. All else is in ruins. Considering the greta number of large buildings, it is remarkable how few of them preserve and share of their original proportions. The rule is that the walls have fallen.
The Land Owner, May, 1873
A NOTABLE BUILDING.—THE ONLY BLOCK LEFT UNTOUCHED IN THE GREAT FIRE.—MESSRS. FULLER & FULLER, ITS OCCUPANTS
Our citizens and strangers who were in Chicago at the time of the great fire, remember how miraculously the building on Market street, corner of Randolph and the river, was spared by the flames. We herewith present a graphic illustration of it, and take occasion to say something about its occupants, Messrs. Fuller & Fuller1, wholesale druggists, as a matter of history, and a heretofore unwritten chapter of the great conflagration.
This house occupies a large portion of this block, their warerooms rising one above the other five stories and basement in height. There are so many different departments and so vast amount of detail in this business, that one unacquainted with its world-wide ramifications can hardly comprehend their extent. Believing that a brief notice of an establishment so miraculously preserved from destruction at the time of the great fire would be interesting to our readers, we called upon Messrs. Fuller & Fuller, and obtained permission to examine the various departments of their business. Although aware that this was the oldest and largest drug establishment in the North-West—in fact one of the representative establishments of America—we were wholly unprepared for the extent and variety of the stock shown to us. Passing through their warerooms, we notice not only remedies for disease, but many crude articles required by various manufacturing interests, gathered from every country of the globe—gums from Arabia, spices from India, fragrant oils from Ceylon, rose leaves from Damascus, opium from Turkey, gambia from Singapore, shellac from Calcutta, madder from Amsterdam, cantharides from Russia, fine chemicals from China, olive oil and pumice stone from Italy, cochineal and sarsaparilla from Honduras, dyconde from Cuba, palm oil from Africa, indigo from Manila, and all medicinal productions indigenous to North America—stored ready for the constant requirements of numerous customers. Strict regard to quality in the selection of goods has always distinguished this house. Order, accuracy and dispatch are stamped on every department of their vast business, and every person seem animated by unity of object, effort and feeling. The reputation of this house for mercantile integrity and scientific knowledge is second to none in the land.
Our readers are generally not aware of the great importance of the drug trade to the industries of the country. The confectioner procures from Fuller & Fuller his essential oils, the soap-maker his potash, the apothecary his drugs and compounds. It is one of the vital elements of our civilization.
Lind Block
About 1865
Lind Block
Market Street Elevation
Chicago Tribune, October 9, 1875
FULLER & FULLER.
The one store that is invariably and always picturesque is a drug-store. The dullest country village has its one muddy street relieved, at night, by the flash of the many-colored jars in the apothecary’s windows. The store itself is the central point around which the health of the community revolves. Everybody has to take more or less medicine, and the homely home-brewed concoctions of our grandmothers have given place to the scientific preparations that crowd the apothecary’s shelves. His store in the Mecca to which anxious parents turn when their children lie on a bed of sickness, in which the husband turns for relief for his wife, the wife for her husband,—somebody for everybody. The powders, and pills, and potions, compounded and sold there are the weapons with which
We fight death step by step, and often drive him away. These weapons are prepared for us the world over. Nature is forced to yield up her secrets that Tom may live. Christendom and heathendom are both ransacked for specifics which will keep some Mary alive. The countless array of drugs thus procured are shipped from far and wide to the great cities, and thence distributed to tens of thousands of drug-stores, and so to millions of homes. Chicago is the natural distributing center of the Northwest. She is as far advanced in the control of the drug-trde as in that of other all-importaqnt industries. The house which THE TRIBUNE has selected as the representative of this business here is that of
Fuller & Fuller at Nos. 22, 24, and 26 Market street, between Randolph and Lake. The selection has been made because this is the largest and best institution of the sort, not only in this city, but anywhere west of New York. Its equal is scarcely to be found, in fact, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Like most very good things, it is a growth. When the senior partner, O. F. Fuller, was a lad of 15, he began to learn the business. In February, 1852, he brought his ripe experience and trained skill to bear in starting a first-class drug-house in this city. He has seen his adapted home and his chosen business grow, and grow at a gigantic rate, together. He did an exceptionally large business the first year, but now has yearly transactions are twenty-five times as great as they were then. The success of Fuller & Fuller, Messrs. O. F. and H. H. W., has been won, not by good luck, but by hard work. In the first twelve-month of the former’s career here, his place on Lake street was scorched by fire, and this was only a premonition of the disaster seven years afterwards, when the flames found the firm’s store on Franklin street, and left only ashes to tell where it had been. In compensation for these disaster, the
Mammoth quarters now occupied on Market, were spared in 1871. This block and one other were the sole remains of the business quarter when the sun rose after that red October night. The preservation of their whole stock was an immense advantage to the firm. They did not lose a day by the disaster that cost some of their would-be competitors months. As a result, their already great clientage was enormously increased. They now sell goods from Ohio to California. It is not often that a house here does much east of Indianapolis, but Fuller & Fuller do a large business in Ohio alone. From the rolling prairies of the Buckeye State to the slopes of the Pacific Coast, the brand “Fuller & Fuller” lurks in nearly every drug-store on box, and bale, and package. That brand means several things. It means, first,
Perfectly Pure Drugs..
Adulteration is so easy and so profitable that it is unblushingly practiced. Only a highly-trained taste, often only a scientific analysis, can tell whether a particular preparation is pure or not. But if it is not, the difference between the thing prescribed and the thing taken may be the difference between life and death. A dishonest wholesale druggist runs the risk of killing by wholesale for the sake of his dishonest gains. When you buy goods of him, you do not get goods at all; you get bads. No such reproach can be brought against the great firm. Its success is a striking proof that honesty is the best policy. The stamp “Fuller & Fuller” is a guarantee of honest drugs. It is a synonym for full weight, too. The average man’s ideas of a scruple, drachm, etc. are of the most hazy character, and he can therefore be cheated with impunity. Two years ago, every druggist in a certain quarter of London was convicted for using false weights, and fined. It was an era of general investigation. Some thousands of other dealers were convicted at the same time. It made a great sensation, and Tom Hughes, the famous English author and politician, who then represented the district in Parliament, lost his seat because he denounced the nefarious practice. The evil may not be as wide-spreasd here, but it is nevertheless great. It finds no place, however, in the establishment of Fuller & Fuller. Here, then, we have two great resources of success,—pure goods and full measure. There are few persons who have been in business for themselves for nearly a quarter of a century who can point to so good a record as the members of this house. The firm has a large capital at its disposal, and uses it with admirable tact. The firm, too, has a large staff of skilled employes and a great amount of skill.
Inside Its Own Two Heads.
The Messrs. Fuller have the business at their fingers’ ends. A lifetime’s devotion to it has taught them everything the druggist needs to know. The site of their building is no mean advantage in itself. They occupy three large stores, Nos. 22, 24, 26 Market street, which run back from that broad avenue to the river. Then, as a matter of fact, their prices are
Singularly low—lower, in many cases, than they were before the (Civil) War. By importing part of their stock directly from Europe, they save dealers’ and jobbers’ profits, and can afford to supply first-class goods at very low rates.
Their three stores are filled from turret to foundation-stone—which is the Walter Scott way of saying from basement to garret—with desks, clerks, and drugs. Besides the eighteen floors thus occupied, they have to hire storage-room outside. One floor is give up to the office. That is, it was so given up, but growing business has compelled the firm to line it with cupboards, and to fill even the space beneath the many desks with drawers and shelves. The desks themselves encroach upon the floor-room to such an extent that the visitor has to tread his way along narrow aisles. The office is decorated with rich stained glass, in which beauty and advertising are happily combined.
The representative of The Tribune left the office in company with Mr. O. F. Fuller to make the tour of rooms which contain the
Largest stock of drugs in the Northwest. The large packing and shipping departments are like those of any immense business, but the floors above are unique. Strangely-packed bales exhale aromatic odors. The products of every quarter of the globe be side by side. Here is a ponderous package of sarsaparilla, bound up in the hides of cattle that once roamed Central America plains. Great bales of arnica and chamomile flowers, which waft a strange fragrance through the air. History tells us of the
Hanging Gardens of Babylon built to suit a despot’s whim, and rich in every flower. In these lofts we find a sort of hanging garden,—a long stretch of plants suspended from the ceiling and covered with the flowers of every clime.—dried, but none the less medicinal, and scarcely less fragment. Going through the great establishment is like taking a course in geography, Every part of the world is represented.
The drug business overlays several others. It includes paints and oils, etc., etc. Fuller & Fuller are prepared, in fact, to equip a drug store with dispensing counters, cases, glasses, show-jars, signs, and every possible variety of drugs. They furnish a surgeon with his tools. They offer you your choice of 105 kinds of oil with which to dress a salad or grease a locomotive-axle. You can select your favorite bitters from a hundred varieties. Two dozen hair-dyes will enable you to disguise your age. You can get enough chloroform here to lull the world to sleep, enough rubber rings for the world’s babies to cut their practice teeth upon. You can buy
PROPRIETARY MEDICINES
in endless variety. You can fine pure wines and liquors. If you are anxious to discover the sport of remedy Othello had i,n mind when he said his tears dropped.
- ——as fast as the Arabian trees
Their Their medicinable gum
a line addressed to “Fuller & Fuller, Chicago,” will bring you samples forthwith. Carlyle could get enough mortars and pasties here to bray his “forty millions—mostly fools of Englishmen. The crowded floors have armies of barrels, unnumbered thousands of corks, tons of soaps, a myriad of boxes and bales from every zone, a bewildering variety of wares. The customers of O. F. Fuller and H. W. Fuller are courteously and fairly treated. They therefore come and come again. The firm’s drugs are never a drug on the market, and they themselves are the representative drug-house of the West. As such, The Tribune introduces them to its hundred thousand readers.
Chicago Tribune, Februar 9, 1892
Funeral of Sylvester Lind.
The funeral of Sylvester Land, Land, a Chicago pioneer, who died Saturday, will take place today at 1:30 p. m. Services will be held in Lake Forest Presbyterian Church, at which Chaplain MeClure of Lake Forest University will officiate.
Mr. Lind was born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Nov. 22, 1807. He began life as a carpenter for Lord Aberdeen, for whom he worked five years. He came to this city in June, 1837, where he pursued his trade for several years. He went into the lumber business also, and later on erected the Lind Block on the ground that had been occupied by his lumber-yard at Randolph and Market streets. He owned his own mills at Green Bay, Wis, and had two vessels to carry his lumber to Chicago. Until his business began to grow large he acted as bank messenger for the veteran banker, George Smith.
Mr. Lind married Miss Eliza O. Thomas of New York in 1846,, four children being born to them. The dark days of the war brought financial disasters to Mr. Lind. By the year 1871 he had acquired another fortune, but the big fire again ruined him. He next interested himself in the real-estate business and continued in it till his death.
When Mr. Lind first came to Chicago ha became connected with the only Presbyterian church in the city and was a member of the First Presbyterian Church on Indiana avenue until he died. He was at one time Water Commissioner and was for, mine years the Mayor of Lake Forest. He resigned in 1881,
Chicago Tribune, December 4, 1896
THE LIND BLOCK, A LANDMARK IN RANDOLPH STREET.
The Lind Block, at the northwest corner of Randolph and Market streets, was partly destroyed by fire at 1 o’clock yesterday morning. The flames were confined, to the top story and the next lower story, but the damage from water ran the loss up to $25,000.
The Lind Block is a Chicago landmark. it was one of the few buildings that the fire of 1871 mysteriously skipped. In this it is like the Ogden mansion on the North Side and the office building that used to stand at the northeast corner of La Salle and Monroe streets. It was erected by Sylvester Lind, a Scotchman, and one of the oldest Chicago settlers, who kept a lumberyard on the site before he erected the building and who lost this and all the rest of his property during the war through the wildcat banks of that day.
The name of the Lind Block is now confined to the south half of the original building, which has had two stories added to it within the last six years. This part of the building now belongs to Edwin B. Wright and the site to Jonatnan Abel. The north half of the building and ground belongs to the McCormicks.
The Lind Block is said to have been the headquarters of the Fenlans at the time of the raid on Canada. It is now one of the two or three structures on which the city authorities have caused marks to be chiseled from which to determine city data.
Lind Block
Circa 1950
Chicago Tribune, February 24, 1899
The Lind Building, 28 to 32 Market street, one of the landmarks that withstood the fire of 1871, succumbed, to the flames early yesterday morning. With it was destroyed a monument which for half a century had been the authentic basis of calculations from city data. The monument was imbedded in the wall of the building in 1847 at a level established by the Illinois and Michigan Canal Commission and was used as the official level for the old canal and later for the drainage channel. The federal government adopted it as the basis of its harbor and river survey, in 1867 It was adopted by the city as the basis of its surveys of the sewer and water systems.
Owing to the fire in the Stock-Yards few engines were available. The fire tugs Illinois and Fire Queen, however, were brought into service on the 4-11 alarm, and, to good advantage. Joseph Ehert, a pipeman of engine company No. 34, was on the third floor when it fell. He crawled out of the ruins and was taken to the North Side Hospital. It is not believed his injurles are serious.
The fire was discovered by a night watchman and was soon blazing on two floors. The fireproof walls protected the adjoining buildings, but for three hours streams of water were poured into the burning structure, all the contents being destroyed. The loss on the building will be $40,000, covered by insurance. The total loss of tenants was estimated at from $80,000 to $110,000.
A curious coincidence in Judge Kohisaat’a court resulted from the fire. On Tuesday afternoon Frank O. Nelson, the conservator of the estate of Carl O. Maimghen. insane, who had a machine shop in the building, received an offer of $1,850 for the business and machinery in the shop, and the matter was brought to the attention of the courts yesterday for the approval necessary for the consummation of the contract for sale. Attorney W. F. A. Bernamer. who represents the estate, was advising the court of the facts in the case when news of the destruction of the building and its contents was brought Into court, and Judge Kohlsaat decided that there evidently was nothing to sell.
Lind Block
1951
Chicago Tribune, December 25, 1955
OUR MENTION of the old Lind block at Randolph st. and Wacker dr. has brought a number of reminiscences from historical minded readers. This is the only remaining downtown building, you a may recall, which escaped the Chicago fire. It also escaped another fire last it week.
It seems the building has been able to withstand crises a good deal better than Sylvester Lind, who built it. Mr. Lind, who had been a carpenter in Scotland, came to Chicago in 1837 and got into the lumber business. In 1842 he built his own lumber yard on the river bank at that corner. He got rich, and in 1852 put up the building which still stands.
Its seven stories made it one of the city’s highest buildings. In 1859 Mr. Lind offered its top floors (now occupied by Architect Andrew Rebori) to a group of physicians who were dissatisfied with Rush Medical college and wanted to start their own. They accepted, and established themselves as the medical branch of Lind university, which Mr. Lind had already helped to found in Lake Forest. The first h lecture was given by Dr. Nathan S. Davis on Oct. 9, 1859.
- Then came the Civil war, and the collapse of wildcat money left Mr. Lind flatter than a burst appendix. He lost the building. The medical school moved down to 22d st., where it sputtered along for a while until it was adopted by Northwestern university in 1870. It is now the Northwestern medical school.
Lind university, meanwhile, was defunded of students by the Civil war. With no students and no more Lind money, it changed its name to Lake Forest university and blossomed out during the 1870s in its present estimable form.
By 1871 the buoyant Mr. Lind had made himself another fortune in the lucrative field of fire insurance. And such was the situation when Mrs. O’Leary’s cow got rambunctious and left her mark on Chicago -not to mention the mark she. left on Mr. Lind, who ended up flatter than the O’Leary barn.
True to his race, the noble Scotsman brushed himself off, retrieved his dignity if not his fortune, and became mayor of Lake Forest in 1880.
Chicago Tribune, January 19, 1963
Sylvester Lind, who owned a lumber yard at the northwest corner of Randolph and Market streets, built an office building on the property. The year was 1852, Chicago was as big (38,734 inhabitants) as Elmhurst is today, downtown streets were mudholes, the river alongside the Lind Block was a forest of masts towering above sailing vessels. Runaway slaves were sneaked into Lind’s lumber boats at night and delivered to safe locations in timber country near the Canadian border, for Sylvester Lind was a secret agent for the “underground railroad.” The boys in blue marched by on their way to fight Johnny Reb in Dixie. Tenants came and went. Lind lost his fortune, and the Lind Block with it.
When the rest if Chicago burned in the fire that started in Mrs. O’Leary’s barn, the Lind Block was one of the few structures that survived. Market street became Wacker drive and the Lind Block changed its own name several times. The snow of 111 winters melted on its roof, the sunshine of 110 summers warmed its walls. A few years ago an officer of an engineering firm that owned the oldest building in downtown Chicago said proudly:
- It’ll be here another hundred years.
Today they are tearing it down.
Lind Block
Robinson Fire Map
1886
Lind Block
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map
1869
NOTES
1The Fuller & Fuller Company was established in this city by O. F. Fuller in 1851, at which time Mr. Fuller was connected with M.P. Roberts under the firm name of Fuller & Roberts. In 1855, the firm was composed of Mr. Fuller, E. B. Finch and Charles Perkins, and, in 185S, was known as Fuller & Finch. The style of the firm was Fuller, Finch & Fuller in 1862, and since 1871 has been Fuller & Fuller. The present company was incorporated on June 15, 1885, of which O. F. Fuller is president, Joseph G. Peters and W. H. Rockwood, vice-presidents; J. Walker Scofield, secretary; and Jacob M. Shipley is treasurer. They occupy a six-story business block, at the comer of Randolph and Franklin streets. Their establishment is the largest wholesale drug-house west of New York. It is well and favorably known throughout the Middle and Western States.
—History of Chicago by Andreas (1884)