Chicago Tribune, January 4, 1860
New Buildings The City Superintendents Figures, &c., &c.
The year 1859 was throughout characterized by a depression in financial and business matters. Less was done than in preceding years to demonstrate rapid growth in Chicago, and yet the exhibit from these very causes will even more redound to the credit of our city, as indicating a solid and substantial advance, steady and not to be checked even by the heavy hand of monetary pressure. As in the year immediately preceding, those who have engaged in these improvements have from the low ruling rates of labor and material made most advantageous in-vestments. From careful compilation, the number of new buildings erected in this city during 1859 were nearly two thousand.
These were, with few exceptions, of the medium class, for business and residence purposes. Three story brick stores, with basements, have been very numerously erected, and that throughout a very wide tract, indicating by their location, in several instances in sections of the city somewhat remote from the best business centre, the confidence of capitalists that we need very many good buildings yet, which will yield a fair rental. The improvements of this class extending southward on State and parallel streets in the South Division are of this class.
In residence buildings a large addition has been made in a most desirable direction, increasing the number of our homes for good tenants, comfortable householders in dwellings ranging in cost from twelve hundred to two thousand dollars. The marble palaces for stores and mansions have been less numerous, yet in both of these there have been some notable accessions, in various parts of the city.
A noble new Public School House has been built on Aberdeen street, in the West Division. The splendid Custom House and Post Office building has been finished externally, and will be completed throughout early the coming season. A very large amount of expenditure has been made in the repair of buildings, chiefly business blocks that hare been raised to grade, in some cases amounting to rebuilding, as is true of numerous Lake street improvements west of Lasalle.
From returns made to Capt. Kennedy, of the Police Department, the following are the actual and estimated figures of building improvements in 1859:
Chicago Tribune, March 22, 1859
CITY IMPROVEMENTS—As the season advances we notice on every side an increased bustle and stir, in favorable weather, as of several days of last week, amounting to anything we have ever seen in Chicago. The season improvements in the line of first class business improvements either in the way of raising buildings to grade, or replacing old structures with new, will, from present appearances, take rank in amount and value with any of several preceding seasons for years pass. The season has opened earlier by two weeks than for the past two or three years, and already the low rates of labor and material are being successful inducements to capitalists and moneyed men here and owning real estate here to improve the same in a permanent and substantial manner. Every day we hear and are called on to chronicle some new enterprise projected or already under contract, and many of these in the very heart of our city.
Take the block, probably the most valuable in the city, bounded by Randolph, Clark, Lake and Dearborn streets; let us review the improvements which will be the results of the present season.
Commencing at the Matteson House, on the corner of Randolph and Dearborn streets, that structure is being raised to grade five feet or more, to the great enhancement of the value of its stores on both streets.
Next adjoining, the old Donnelly & Ring stable has been finely rebuilt, and is now near completion, giving two handsome stores with offices above.
Farther on, the four story brick block of stores and offices commencing on Randolph street and running round to the alley on Clark street, owned by Dr. Evans, has been raised, and is now being finished off beneath for airy basements.
Persons doing business with the Press and Tribune offices in these days have no need of the information that a most chaotic state of affairs prevails in the approaches thereto. Clark street, between Lake and Randolph streets is, in fact, “closed for the season.”
On the north side of the alley on the east side of Clark street, Snow’s five story marble front block is to be raised to grade about six feet high. Next adjoining, the four story brick building of Dr. Brainard is to follow it to an equal altitude. The bank building of Geo. Smith & Co., next north, is to be entirely demolished, and replaced by a first-class business structure.
The marble front building next north, the old Merchants’ and Mechanics’ Bank, is also to be raised, or the project is under contemplation.
Next come the old ” Saloon Buildings” of our fellow citizen, J. Y. Scammon, now in Europe, eighty feet front on both Clark and Lake streets. This is to be entirely rebuilt, as we learn, this season, the tenants having received notice to quit. This will be one of the finest improve. ments in the city, as occupied by, and we learn and could not doubt, with buildings entirely worthy of the valuable site.
Next east of these come the first-class stores to be erected, the first adjoining the Saloon Buildings, by Samuel Hoard, Esq.; the next by Tuthill King, Esq., both of the best class pressed brick, with iron store fronts. We thus have reached the improvements midway the block on Lake street completed last season.
Passing on, adjoining these rebuilt stores on the east, we learn that it is in contemplation with a degree of promised certainty, that thence onward on Lake street to the corner of Dearborn, and thence south to the Journal office block, the old wooden rat-traps, some twelve or fourteen in number, are to be entirely swept away, to give place to a first-class five story business block, for stores and offices, having a front on both streets of two hundred and fifty feet. As to this latter improvement, we do not learn that the plans have assumed sufficient definiteness for more specific details.
On the north-west corner of Lake and Dearborn streets, the old Couch buildings, fifty feet on Lake by sixty on Dearborn, are to be rebuilt into first-class stores early this spring, carrying the improvement on that side of Lake street, through continuously from Clark to Dearborn street.
We have thus passed around a single block in the heart of our business centre, and noted the improvements the close of another season wilt undoubtedly see finished, in magnitude and extent altogether remarkable even here for operations presenting a front so nearly continuous.
At the foot of South Dearborn street, the corner of Dearborn and South Water, being rebuilt as already noticed, the new structure, as was the old, is to be occupied by Messrs. C. G. Wicker & Co., wholesale grocers. It is to be a four story block, fronting sixty on Dearborn by forty on South Water, with pressed brick fronts and stone trimmings.
On the north-west corner of Monroe and State streets, C. P. Albee, Esq., has just let the contracts for a four story brick building, twentyfour feet on the latter by one hundred and forty on the former street, to be of the best class, in style and material, and among the pioneers of its class on that street, soon to be made central by the Custom House and Post Office.
On State street we notice, at the Randolph street corners, on the east side, both business blocks on the opposite corners have been raised to grade and are being finished beneath into basements. These we have before referred to.
The Milwaukee brick front block of George Smith, between Randolph and Lake streets, and extending north from one of the blocks last referred to, to the alley, one hundred feet front, is also in the charge of Messrs. Brown & Hollingsworth, the enterprising contractors, and upward bound” a distance of six feet.
We might thus go on and fill a column or two with references to what is going on here. We have only noticed what lie within a few blocks from our own office, nor have we fully explored prospects as to even these.
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