Commercial Insurance Company,
Life Span: 1868-1871
Location: 160-162 Washington Street, Washington, between La Salle and Fifth avenue
Architect: Augustus Bauer
Chicago Evening Post, December 18, 1867
COMMERCIAL INSURANCE BUILDING,
erected under the superintempence of the same architect, A. Bauer, Esq., of No. 47 La Salle street, built for the Commercial Insurance Co., and leased for offices only, stands on Washington street between LaSalle and Wells street, and is of the rich Venetian style, the front of white Athens marble from the quarry some forty miles from here, at the place of that name, and richly decorated with firemen’s and other appropriate emblems, the whole surmounted by a carved stone cornice. It has a front of forty feet six inches, is four stories high, omitting basement, with well constructed offices in the basement, seventeen by seventy feet
each, with private offices fourteen by twenty. The first and second stories are the same, and the third and fourth are divided into five large apartments, thirteen by thirty-four feet square. It is heated throughout by an approved system of compressed steam, and furnished with fire-proof vaults in the basement and in the first and second stories. It has wide and well lighted halls, rendering the higher stories as accessible as the lower. The interior is finished with different kinds of hard woods, black walnut and ash predominating. It will cost $40,000.
Chicago Handbook, A Complete Guide for Strangers and Tourists, 1869
COMMERCIAL INSURANCE COMPANY.
We have become so accustomed to look eastward for successful and reliable insurance companies, that we often overlook those at our own doors, which, in all the essentials of solvency, are the peers of any in the land. Among these the Commercial Insurance Company, of this city, occupies an eminent position, alike for the care with which it is managed, and the security which it affords to its insured. This company was organized in 1865 by some of our most responsible business men, and entered upon its work at a time when there was little in the immediate past or future of fire insurance to attract capital to the venture, or promise even ordinary return for the money invested. But the men who organized and controlled the “Commercial” were not of ordinary mould. They did not embark in the enterprise without careful study of the charts which experience had provided, and the requisite judgment and firmness to avoid the dangers which had proved fatal to other voyagers. As the result of their energy and skill we have a company possessed of assets to the amount of $334,175.59, of which all, save $135,000 of stock notes, amply guaranteed, is in cash or its equivalent. Of this amount, there is held real estate to the value, at a moderate valuation, of $140,000, which pays an annual rental of $17,000, Upon this is erected the magnificent building of the company, at Nos. 160 and 162 Washington street, the solid marble walls of which are emblematical of its strength, and the beauty of whose presence, contrasted with the unsightliness of the location a few years ago, fitly typifies the wonderful progress which the “Commercial” has made within that time.
Counting the value of this real estate alone, and excluding from the calculation all its other assets, the “Commercial ” is possessed of a much larger percentage of assets to risk in force than the average of Fire Insurance Companies reporting to the New York Insurance Department
During the four years of its existence the losses of the “Commercial” (fire and marine) have been but 46 per cent, of its premium receipts, a ratio which is less than the average of American companies for the same time, and is in itself the best possible proof of careful and successful management. During the same period it has paid 35 per cent, of dividends upon its capital stock, thus demonstrating that Western brain and energy can make even the unpromising venture of fire and marine insurance lucrative and safe.
Of the men into whose hands its fortunes have been from the first committed, the above facts speak more approvingly than words. Mr. J. C. Dore, the President, is well and widely known as a gentleman of culture, ability, and integrity. Mr. Jefferson Farmer, the Secretary, is an efficient, skillful, and successful underwriter, of fifteen years experience in the business, whose merit is acknowledged wherever in the West the science of underwriting is known, and to whose of the Commercial.” The Board of Directors comprises some of our best known and most reliable citizens, whose reputations have been honestly earned by long years of fair dealing and successful business enterprise, and whose names are a tower of strength to any fidelity, ability, and devotion is mainly due the success “institution fortunate enough to obtain them.”
Hitherto the Commercial has done no agency business. They are now about organizing an extended agency system, and we are proud to commend the company and its officers to every community throughout the West, as eminently worthy of confidence, and fully able and willing to make good all their obligations.
Commercial Insurance Building
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map
1869
Leave a Reply