Portland’s Block

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Portland’s Block
Life Span: 1857-1871
Location: 103, 105, 107 Dearborn, SE corner of Dearborn and Washington Streets
Architect: Burling & Smith

D. B. Cooke & Co.’s City Directory for the Year 1859-60

Portland blk

Sloan’s Central Commercial College

Halpin & Bailey’s City Directory for the Year 1863
Portland Block, Dearborn, s.e. cor Washington street

Edwards’ Annual Directory in the City of Chicago, for 1870-71
Portland Block—Dearborn street, southeast corner Washington.

Chicago Tribune, May 7, 1857

ANOTHER FINE BUILDING.—Our attention has been called to a beautiful design for a building, to be erected at the corner of Washington and Dearborn streets. This building will, undoubtedly, be one of the most elegant structures yet built, and will afford most liberal and complete accommodations for the purpose it is intended for. The size will be ninety-three feet on Dearborn street, and one hundred and twenty on Washington street, and it will be five stories high above the basement. The basement will be 9 feet in the clear, and is intended for a restaurant, having all suitable arrangements therefor,

The first story will be used for Banks and stores, and will be 15½ feet high. The upper stories are designed for offices, and will contain a clab room. and many other conveniences not found in other buildings. The whole of both parts of this fine structure will be of white Athens Stone, in the best manner. The style is after the later Norman, and the whole cost will be $90,000. Burling & Smith are the architects, and E. I. Tinkham, Esq., the owner.

Weekly Chicago Times, December 31, 1857

The splendid building on the corner of Dearborn street, known as the Portland Block. It is five stories high, built of brick and faced with white Athens marble, and presents a front on Washington street of 120 feet, and on Dearborn street of 93 feet. It is designed for stores and offices, for which it is arranged in the most perfect manner. It presents a splendid appearance, and is one of the most beautiful buildings in the city. It is owued by E I Tinkham, and cost $98,000. Burling & Smith are the architects.

Dearborn Theater

Chicago Tribune, December 25, 1857

BELL’s COMMERCIAL COLLEGE.—The annual circular and catalogue of this institution, which is the oldest in the Northwest, has just been laid upon our table, by Messrs. Bell & Sloan. The College was incorporated by an act of the Legislature of this State in 1853, and has since achieved a prominent and enviable position among similar educational institutions, and a value to our business pub-lic, proportionate to the importance of securing a sound and practical culture and training as indispensable to commercial success. Thousands of our successful merchants and bankers look back with high appreciation, to the hours they passed in training in Commercial Colleges. Of these, the institution of Bell & Sloan justly claims a large and honorable share. Their new rooms in the Portland Block will, as far as splendid apartments can, conduce to the further and continued prosperity of the sehool, but we apprehend its surest earnest of suc-cesa is to be read in the fact that its excellent system of practical business education will still be maintained as heretofore. We cannot but call attention to the beautiful style of this catalogue, challenging comparison with any similar piece of work ever issued in this city, or in the United States; a commendation all will pass upon this catalogue, which will please all lovers of excellence in the “art preservative of all arts.” It is a pamphlet in blue and gold, of eighty pages, giving in clear outline the course of instruction pursued, and the plan of the free lectures, which latter have been a feature for which our general public have a large indebtedness to Messrs. Bell & Sican for value received, together with much well arranged matter of interest to the student and the general reader, with a large list of students for the year.

We advise all our readers, who wish to get an idea of what a Commercial College is, to send for this Catalogue.

Chicago Tribune, September 27, 1858

D. B. Cooke & Co., 111 Lake Street.—The many of our public who have already found our friends, D. B. Cooke & Co., “at home” in their beautiful new store, No. 111 Lake street, will not need other reminder than the reminiscence of their visit, of the claims of this leading book-selling and publishing house. Though not old in years as in older cities men speak of age, this firm have a history in Chicago which runs through the most marked period of the growth of our trade in general and the book trade in particular.

From their old store, where we first remember them, just west of Clark street, half a block from their present stand, they won a name and fame, and a success which not only was to their credit and honor individually, but deserved to be cited as to the credit of our city.

From thence they transferred their stock to the superb establishment nearly opposite where they now are located, and there they got new fame, and their magnificent salesroom in the five-story marbie block was one of the lions of our city, which every streager must visit. There the house extended their business, and added to the list of law books in particular, volumes entirely worthy of the excellent style of their issue, and received with immediate welcome.

It has become history, and over the page Memory weeps, how one morning’s sun arose on the blackness of ashes and desolation, on ruined walls and smoldering embers and rich merchandise, and rare art gems, and the works of the greatest of human minds and pens, all wasted and ravaged by the destroyer.

Our friends, undaunted by misfortune, well nigh reproduced the attractions of their former store, in the Portland Block on Dearborn street, and carried on their publishing business, and in the book trade paid especial attention to classic and library editions of standard works. During the year they have added the splendid achievement of the “Revised Statutes of Illinois,” one any veteran publishing house might envy.

They now return to Lake-street to re-embark entirely as before in the general book trade, and our reading public who remember the indefatigable enterprise of the firm in securing the freshest and latest of all book issues, will welcome them to their place as popular and ever ready caterers.

Their new store is the remodelled “No. 111,” known of yore and long associated with books and book-hunters. We wish them success, and the wish is a prophecy, a safe prophecy, where the end is known from the beginning, the future from the past.

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