Volk’s Marble Works
Life Span: 1867-1871
Location: State and Washington streets, Nos. 195-197 Washington (1867)
Architect:
- John C. W. Bailey’s Chicago City Directory for 1867
Volk, Moore & Co., (L. W. Volk, Joseph Moore and John Feeny,) mnfrs. and dealers in marble monuments n e cor State and Washington
Edwards’ Annual Directory in the City of Chicago, for 1870
Chicago Marble and Granite Manufacturing Co., Leonard W. Volk, John Feeny, Edward Burkhardt and Lucien H. Fuller, proprs. 197 Washington
Chicago Tribune, December 8, 1867
ART REMOVAL.
Messrs. Volk & Feeney, in Volk’s New Building
Mr. L. W. Volk, the eminent sculptor, has just effected the removal of his works to his new marble front building, on East Washington street. near the entrance to the tunnel. The building has been erected expressly for the use of Volk & Feeney; it has an extension of forty feet in front; the rooms are well ventilated and lighted, and a few of them will be rented for offices or other purposes.
The firm have on band an extensive stock of mantel pieces in Italian and other marbles, in great variety, of exquisite designs and beautiful material. Among the prominent features of the establishment are the monuments in Aberdeen granite, which are the most beautiful as well as enduring of any that are made. The firm have the exclusive agency in this city for the Aberdeen granite. It is of unparalleled hardness, capable of the most exquisite polish, and will last as long as the pyramids.
Mr. Volk received on Friday his first order for a monument since his removal to the new building. It was appropriately an order tor a monument to be erected to the memory of a West Point cadet, bones bones rest in Illinois.
The new building has been constructed with a special view to the wants of Messrs. Volk &
Feeney, and has accommodations for a hundred workmen in the basement and the rear. The exhibition rooms are in the front, and parties will be pleased to look in and see the finest specimens of statuary and marble works to be found in the country. Next year Mr. Volk will put in operation the most perfect sawing and polishing macinery which have been introduced.
It may be may be noted as a decided advance a popular taste that there is no cemetery in front of the building. Visitors to the studio sud passengers in the street are not called with a ghostly array of tombstones, which seem to hold out a perpetual inducement for mortals to die and be made immortal in white marble. The gravestones are not exhibited in a public yard. but are kept appropriately in the interior of the building. Our advertising columns contain a notice of auction sale of mantels on Tuesday next, to which we invite attention.
Chicago Evening Post, December 20, 1867
Volk & Feeney’s Marble Works.
Mr. Leonard W. Volk, by his ability as a sculptor, has given Chicago a name abroad as an artist. A natural consequence of this has been a very large trade in the marble business for the firm of Volk & Feeny, of which he is the senior partner. They have recently removed from their old quarters on the corner of State and Washington sts., to a splendid new marble building at Nos. 195 and 197 Washington street. They are now properly prepared to execute the extensive orders which come from all parts of the country. Mr. Volk pays personal attention to all designs, and the assurance that the artist who designed the Douglas monument and executed the bust of immortal Lincoln and statue of Douglas, is to superintend all work, has given the establishment a national reputation. They import directly from Scotland the celebrated Red Scotch Granite, and are always stocked with the best of materials from all parts of the world. Their orders are from the Atlantic seaboard to Nebraska, and the artistic taste in which everything is executed , its beauty and substantiality, promise a continuous growth for the establishment in the future.
The new building is the finest for the purpose in Chicago, and is in every respect in keeping with the status of the business.
Chicago Illustrated, April, 1866
Corner of State and Washington Streets.
At the right of the illustration is the marble yard of Volk, Moore & Co.
Chicago Evening Post, December 24, 1867
Volk.
Chicago has one of the finest sculptors in America, who has made our city his permanent home, and given us a name abroad for art. To praise the various works of Mr. Leonard Volk is almost a superfluity. The people of the West know all about him, and knowing all about him, are enthusiastic in his praise. For some time past he has been the senior partner in a marble firm, and has paid personal attention to all designs. This fact has made the firm of Volk & Feeny exceedingly popular in their line of business. To accommodate their trade they have been obliged to leave the old shop at the corner of State and Washington street, and occupy the splendid new building erected for the purpose, at Nos. 195 and 197 Washington street. Mr. Volk’s connection with the firm has given it a national reputation, and their orders are from the Atlantic seaboard to the extremes of Nebraska. To be fully prepared for such a business, they have arrangements in full operation for importing marble and stone from all parts of the world, and spare no expense to keep every needed thing constantly on hand. It is scarcely necessary to commend any one who wants a handsome mantel, or an appropriate mark for the resting place of the departed, to go or send to them. They have the finest place of the kind in the city, and their work needs no praise.
Chicago Tribune, December 11, 1870
Mr. Leonard W. Volk, the eminent sculptor, will leave Chicago early this week, for Rome, where he intends to take up his abode for the next two years, in order to complete a number of important works. Mr. Volk, besides having attained a wide and high reputation as a sculptor, has been associated, during his long residence here, with so many public enterprises, and has labored so earnestly to promote the interests of art in Chicago, that citizens will be sorry to part with him, even for a time. Among the commissions with which he has been entrusted, are the following:
For Mrs. Henry Keep, of New York, two statues and several busts, including one of the late Henry Keep; for Mrs. H. O. Stone, of htis city, an ideal statue, and a portrait bust; for Mr. S. B. Cobb, of this city, a bust of his late son, Walter Cobb; for Mr. S. S. Sample, of Keokuk, Iowa, a bust of his father, with other orders, in all, amounting to about $25,000.
Many of the models of these have already been finished in this city, and have been forwarded to Mr. Volk’s studio in Rome, where he will execute them in the finest statuary marble.
- Volk’s Marble Works
Nos. 195-197 Washington
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map
1869
Leave a Reply