Lakeside Building
Life Span: 1872-1926
Location: Southwest Corner Clark and Adams Streets
Architect: Cass Chapman
- Edwards’ Annual Directory in the City of Chicago, for 1873
Lakeside Bldg., Clark sw. cor. Adams
Lakeside Monthly, F. F. Brown & Co. props. Clark sw. cor. Adams
Cox, Henderson & Co. (A. J. Cox, Isaac W. Henderson and —–). book mnfrs. Clark, sw. cor. Adams
Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1874
Lakeside Bldg.—Clark sw. cor. Adams
Lakeside City Directory of Chicago, Willims, Donnelley & Co. Publishers, 1, Lakeside Bldg.
Andreas Alfred T. atlas publisher, 21 Lakeside Building. r. 337 Michigan av.
Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1880
Lakeside Building, Clark sw. cor. Adams
Lakeside City Directory, 1 Lakeside bldg. Clark cor. Adams
Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago, 1904
Lakeside Bldg.—218 Clark sw. cor. Adams
Chicago Tribune, December 10, 1871
The first annual meeting of the Lakeside Publishing Company was held yesterday, at No. 13 Harmon court, and was very fully attended. The stockholders proceeded to elect a Board of Directors for the ensuing year, as Follows: Van H. Higgins, Robert Harris, John Marder, R. R. Donnelley, Leroy Church, Edward Goodman, and A. F. Morse. The determination of the company is to re-erect their former beautiful publishing house immediately, upon its old site, corner of Adams and Clark streets, and make it fire-proof.
Chicago Weekly Post, October 10, 1872
THE LAKESIDE BUILDING.
On the corner of Clark and Adams Streets, directly opposite the new government buildings, is being re-erected the fine Lakeside building, by the same company who built the first. It is very conveniently located. Its dimensions are 100 feet on Clark and 125 feet on Adams street. It is to be six-stories and basement high, adorned with statues ot Guttenburg and Franklin and built from elaborate and handsome designs. The material will be Cleveland sandstone and the cost will reach $100.000
The Land Owner, August, 1872 and The Inter Ocean, July 20, 1872
THE LAKESIDE BUILDING.
The Lakeside building is the outgrowth of a company, formed by a few of our leading citizens for the purpose of carrying on the publishing and printing business on a more extended scale than had hitherto been done in the West. The old and favorably known house of Church, Goodman & Donnelley was the nucleus. Through the enterprise, energy and tact of the active partner, Mr. R. R. Donnelley, this beautiful structure had risen to about the fifth story, when the fatal fire of October struck our city. Not discouraged, however, at having over $100,000 of their capital swept away, Mr. Donnelley immediately after the fire commenced active canvass among stockholders. Their response was prompt and favorable, and to-day the Lakeside building is again hurrying fast toward completion. It is situated on one of the most centrally located corners in Chicago—Adams and Clark streets, directly opposite the new Government buildings, next to the Pacific hotel, within a block of Honorè’s, and between the two grand depots.
The Lakeside will be of the same dimensions as the old, viz., 100 feet on Clark street, by 125 feet on Adams street, and will be superior to it in architectural elegance and adaptation to the purposes for which it is designed. The style of architecture is mixed, with the gothic predominating. The main entrance will be imposing in height, in mass of cornice, and in elaborateness of ornamentation. On either side of the doorway, at a suitable height, will be placed marble statues of Guttenberg and Franklin, colossal in size. The building is to be six stories (beside the basement) in height, the last being in the Mansard roof, which is relieved by three domes. It will be furnished with the Ruttan ventilating apparatus, steam elevators, fire-proof vaults, etc., and will be heated by steam. It is expected to be completed ready for occupancy, sometime in November. The architect is Mr. Cass Chapman.
The two exposed fronts are of well finished Cleveland sandstone, of uniform color and texture, and supplied from the quarries of Messrs. J. McDermott & Co., of Cleveland, Ohio, who are considered to be the largest quarrymen in the United States, controlling Berea, Block, River Lake, Abram and Independence grits, all in Ohio. From their St. Genevieve quarry, in Missouri, they have furnished the principal stone for the great bridge connecting St. Louis and East St. Louis, the masonry of which is considered superior to all other similar constructions on the Ohio and Mississippi. The only buildings in this city that can say that they have received their stone prompt and uniform ic color and texture, are those furnished by Messrs. J. McDermott & Co. The magnitude of their resources can best be measured by the fact that they employ 800 men in their quarries. On their dock frontage at Cleveland, are erected immense derricks to facilitate the shipment of stone on the lake, from which they are supplying Boston, and even Montreal. The Cleveland Board of Trade embodied in their last report a full statement of the tonnage shipped last year. It made a showing second to no other in that city. The exact figures we shall give in a future issue.
Chicago Evening Post, October 8, 1872
The Lakeside Building.
On the corner of Clark and Adams streets, directly opposite the new government buildings, is being re-erected the fine Lakeside building, by the same company who built the first. It is very conveniently located. Its dimensions are 100 feet on Clark and 125 feet on Adams street. It is to be six stories and basement high, adorned with statues of Guttenburg and Franklin, and built from elaborate and handsome designs. The material will be Cleveland sandstone and the cost will reach $100,000.
Chicago Tribune, July 24, 1875
It is the universal verdict the Chicago possesses the finest business blocks of any city in the world, and it is such magnificent structures as the building whose name heads this article that make our inland city of the West an architectural marvel. The structure was originally built by the Lakeside Publishing and Printing Company, and was designed to be the great publishing emporium of the West, and this original idea has been so carefully carried out that it is the most elegant and extensive building in the United States, devoted to publishing in all its branches and processes, from the rough manuscript to the elegantly-bound volume. The Lakeside Building was subsequently purchased by the heirs of the estate of P. F. W. Peck, who already owned the ground, under whose management it has become a busy hive of labor representing every department of that noble industry which disseminates useful intelligence throughout the land.
The Architect
of this magnificent structure was Mr. Cass Chapman, to whose experience and architectural skill Chicago is indebted for many other beautiful and substantial edifices, among which is Trinity Methodist Church, corner of Indiana avenue and Twenty-second street.
A. T. Andreas. It is in the Lakeside Building that A. T. Andreas, the most extensive atlas publisher on the continent, is located. Last year he published the atlas of Minnesota, having previously made county atlases in most of the Northern States. He is now at work on the atlas of Iowa, which will be by far the moist complete, accurate, and extensive work of its kind ever published.An idea of it may be formed when we consider that it will require over 90 tons of fine calendered paper, 32 tons of cardboard for cases, and the labor of several hundred men and women in its preparation. Over 22,000 have been sold by subscription, and to carry them from Chicago to Iowa will require a good-sized freight-train. Surveyors have visited every township in the State for the purpose of locating timber, streams, roads, etc. Views of many of the finest buildings, and of towns and cities, will appear in the work, as will also portraits and biographies of many of the prominent med; a complete history of each county, with a synopsis of the last census by townships, and a great quantity of other matter,—making altogether a complete encyclopedia of Iowa.
Every one upon examining it must express surprise at the variety and fullness of its information, the remarkable skill and taste exhibited in its production, as well as the excellence of its mechanical execution. It will prove an invaluable treasure to every citizen of Iowa, from whom Mr. Andreas certainly merits hearty thanks for the admirable and faithful manner in which he has discharged his trust.
Baskin, Forster & Co., are another heavy map-publishing firm, whose excellent works are well known East and West, as they have published a large number of maps in this region of country, and have become deservedly popular from the accurate and painstaking manner in which every one of their enterprises has been wrought out. People generally have very imperfect conceptions of the enormous expense of making the careful surveys necessary for correct maps. It should be remembered that they are the results of a skilled labor which always commands its own price. And when it is known that Baskin, Forster & Co., very often have a hundred of these canvassers, surveyors and artists in the field at one time, the daily outlay becomes something serious to contemplate. Yet the firm enter into these undertakings with perfect confidence that public appreciation will, as in the past, follow their conscientious efforts to prepare full and reliable maps. They are now hard at work with a full force upon the State of Indiana, preparing an atlas similar to that of Minnesota, which has been received with so much favor by the people of that State, and the skillful corps of workmen, together with the customary care of the firm, promise maps of unusual accuracy and completeness. The atlas will also contain useful statistics and statements regarding agriculture, manufactures, taxes, property, population, etc., besides a history of the State and biographical sketches, together with all other useful information which can be utilized by inhabitants of the Commonwealth. The work will not be ready for delivery under several months, but canvassers are already busily engaged taking orders throughout the State, and about 3,000 copies have been sold, showing the interest and confidence which the people have in the interest and confidence which the people have in the prospective publication.
Warner & Beers, general publishers of State and county atlases, are a well-established and reliable firm, and are doing an extensive business. They are pioneers in their peculiar line, and their long, experience has not been devoid of useful results, since they have a most excellent system of bringing their works to public notice. We refer to their practice of taking careful surveys, and drafting their maps before soliciting orders. Their plats are brought under the very eye of every land-owner in the different counties before the atlases are printed, and the greatest accuracy is thereby secured. The firm also do their own engraving and coloring, hence, as they employ only the most skillful men in both departments, and also have the whole work under their immediate supervision, every part is wrought out with the greatest care and completeness. Warner & Beers are the only atlas firm in the West who do their own engraving, yet this, together with their peculiar system of publication, is but the outgrowth of a ripe experience in map-making.
The entire upper floor of this spacious building is occupied by the
Lakeside Publishing and Printing Company, the largest establishment of its kind in the West, and an institution of which our city justly boasts, since the best efforts of modern printing are seen in the various works turned out from its huge presses. In fact it is the only establishment west of New York where the heaviest publishing enterprises can be carried on with the ease and rapidity which should characterize the work. The corporation, under its present style and designation, is the outgrowth of the old firm of Church, Goodman & Donnelley, and its present operations are under the management of Mr. R. R. Donnelley, a gentleman who has long been closely identified with the printing and publishing interests at large, and who is particularly well known in connection with this building, inasmuch as he superintended its construction with a fixed purpose of making it the great publishing emporium of the West. To this end the equipments of the establishment age perfect, since every piece of machinery and font of type is comparatively new. Fifteen large steam presses, sufficient in their ponderous movement to shake the foundations of an ordinary building, are kept at work filling the contracts of the Company, whose publishing capacity can be adequately judged from the fact that the entire entire edition of the Lakeside Directory was printed in about two weeks. To successfully carry out projects like the above, about 150 men are employed. Such specimens of fine printing as Pinkerton’s books for W. B. Keen, Cooks & Co., and the State atlases for the Andreas Atlas Company, are among ther productions.
Here is also the office of
Donnelley, Lloyd & Co., publishers of the Lakeside City Directory, the Lakeside Library, etc. Their directories are conceded to be a pronounced advance upon former ones in completeness, correctness, and beauty of mechanical execution. Their Lakeside Library has already become exceedingly popular, and is the only Western publication that ever attained an Eastern circulation. Its point is the production of the novels of Jules Verne, Wilkie Collins, Charles Reade, and like authors, each complete in one volume. The enterprise is remarkable in producing unabridged editions of these authors at 10 cents each.
A. J. Cox & Co. occupy with their extensive establishment one entire floor of the building, containing over 12,500 square feet of space, where the art of book-binding is carried to a perfection unequaled in the West, and not surprised by anything in the country, so that as Chicago acknowledge no superior in many branches of manufacture, in this line also she is not behind, either in extent of business or execution of work. Everything within these large and spacious rooms is arranged to facilitate the work and to promote the interests of their large and increasing business. The printed sheets are sent from the various printing houses, placed on the tables at one and of the room, passed through the various processes in order, till at the opposite end they come out perfect books. By this admirable arrangement they are enabled to handle the books with rapidity and uniformity, thus insuring the best work in the shortest time. The rooms have also been arranged with special reference to light, an abundance of which is so necessary to the delicate operations of book-binding. Messrs. Cox & Co. have provided themselves with every aid in the line of new and improved machines to an extent double that of any other establishment in the West, as well as an efficient force of skillful workmen, and keep constantly on hand a large assortment of the best materials, of which by their arrangements with Eastern houses they are enabled to secure the latest styles. Through the extensive facilities which they now enjoy, they are prepared to undertake and execute with dispatch and neatness the largest orders.
In the Edition Book Department, they seem to possess every advantage which can be secured for rapidly turning out work in a style to suit the most fastidious author, publisher, or reader, while the department for Pamphlet Work includes every facility for executing orders, regular or transient, large or small, with that commendable dispatch so satisfactory to patrons.
In their Job Department Messrs. Cox & Co. take just pride, as they surely exhibit some of the finest specimens of binding, with every trick of gilding and impress known to modern times, and the amount of periodical work turned out by them clearly demonstrates that people generally acknowledge the fact that books that are worth keeping are worth binding, and we would advise our friends, who propose renewing their libraries, to pay a visit to this establishment.
The fourth floor is occupied by
Charles Shober & Co., proprietors of the Chicago Lithographing Company. Their lithographing establishment is the largest but one in the country, and they are turning out at least twice as much work as all other lithographic houses in the city combined. They excel in all the different branches of their art—photo-lithographing included. The proprietors, Charles Shober and Edward Carqueville, are both practical lithographers, pay close attention to their business, and superintend personally their extensive establishment. They are prepared to execute all orders in the way of lithography in the best styles, and, at the lowest possible prices, will always guarantee first-class work, and their facilities are such that even the largest orders can be promptly filled. The working force of the establishment numbers about 120 men, artists, printers, etc., and the machinery department includes eight steam presses of the best patterns, some twenty hand-presses, besides various miscellaneous machines. In illustration of of their superior working capacity it may be well to state that they turned out, besides an immense amount of commercial work, labels, and show-cards, city views, wall maps, and a number of county atlases, Capt. A. T. Andreas’ illustrated atlas of Minnesota, comprising several hundreds of pages of fine farm and city views, maps, plats, etc., all beautifully lithographed, and part finely printed State atlas of Iowa, in an edition upwards of 20,000 copies, a book containing several hundred pages of fine fine line-engravings, crayon views, portraits, amps, etc., making a contract three times as large as that of the Minnesota atlas, inside of six months from date of receipt of order. The office of Charles Shober & Co. is the very home of map and atlas publishers, who find the Lakeside Building so very convenient, containing, as it does, under one roof the largest lithographic and coloring establishments, bookbindery, and printing office in the West.
George Sherwood & Co., whose school-books are so widely and favorably known, published thye first series of readers and copy-books ever issued in the West, and by genuine Western enterprise their books have received the large and increasing patronage which they so richly deserve. Fully alive to their own interests, they have determined to meet every want of the public. A step in this direction is the publication of a series of “Model Readers” by J. Russell Webb, author of the word method, which are based upon experience, sound principles, and common sense. They embrace the true philosophy of teaching, and present a method in accordance with sound judgement and good taste. They are indeed models. Not only is the subject matter selected with great care, but the entire plan and arrangement are of such a character as to commend them at once to every intelligent instructor. The many beautiful chromos which adorn their pages are not only artistic and attractive, but a valuable aid to the pupil. These readers have received the highest commendations from educators, and, the First Reader alone, which contains twice as many pages as first readers heretofore published, 74,500 copies have been manufactured since last September, one edition of which the Government has ordered translated into Dakota English. The firm also publishes Analytical Readers, which have already been too well received to need farther commendation; also Babbittonian Writing-Books, Sherwood’s Writing-Soellers, and other popular books, besides having now in course of publication Kirk & Belfield’s Model Arithmetics, and Belfield’s Graded Examples.
The elegant chromos and wood cuts with which the pages of Messrs. Sherwood & Co.’s “Model Readers” are embellished were designed, and executed by
A.Maas & Co. whose rooms are Nos. 17 and 18, where they are prepared to do in the most workmanlike manner all kinds of wood, photo, and colored engravings. These engravings serve a similar purpose to molded types used for printing, but the art of preparing the plates is of much higher order than the manufacture of types. The latter is merely mechanical, while the designer and engraver must enter into the spirit of the artist in order to catch the expression of the work. Mr. Maas himself is not only an artist but is a skillful mechanic, having designed and manufactured a delicate machine for cutting fine wave and circular lines. For the more delicate part of his work he employs only efficient and experienced workmen, while every detail is constantly under his own personal supervision. This accounts for the universal satisfaction his engravings have given, and for the generous public patronage.
On the main floor Dr. Robert Hunter, the eminent specialist in throat and lung diseases, has his office—a suite of four elegant rooms. He is a graduate of the University of New York, Class of 1856-‘6, and has been in the active practice of his profession for nearly thirty years. His former residence in New Your, where he attained a high reputation and advocacy of the practice of Inhalation. Satisfied from his researches and experience in general practice that diseases of the lungs and air passages were imperfectly understood by the profession, and very ineffectually treated, and yet constituted the most prevalent and important class of maladies known to the medical art, he early decided to withdraw from general practice and devote himself entirely to their elucidation.
After several years of laborious study and investigation into the causes, nature, and treatment of these diseases, he, in 1871, in a treatise on this subject, promulgated the “Carbon Theory of Consumption,” and the successful treatment of this and other chronic diseases of the air passages and lungs by the direct application of medicines, in a state of vapor, to the parts affected, verified his faith in this method, and proved to the world that consumption was no longer an incurable disease.
He has since enjoyed a wide fame as authority on all lung complaints. His practice is enormous, embracing more than 1,000 patients a year. Every case is carefully recorded with name and age of patient, history and stages of disease, symptoms and complications, and the prescriptions by which they are treated. When it is considered that this has been going on for nearly a quarter of a century, some estimate can be made of the extent of the Doctor’s experience in the important branch of medicine to which he has devoted his life.
A novel feature of Dr. Hunter’s establishment is his dispensary department. It occupies one large room, and embraces a complete assortment of the valuable drugs and chemicals of the materia medica. The purity of the medicines used is a matter of constant scrutiny, while every prescription he makes is compounded under his own eye.
As a writer, Dr. Hunter is widely known both in this country and in Europe. He has published many valuable works on the lungs, one of which was republished in England, passing through several editions, and translated into French and German. For several years he edited a medical journal, which was extensively taken by the profession, and his popular medical essays, published in the leading journals of New York and other cities, have been read with interest by millions of people. He has long been regarded as one of the ablest and most uncompromising advocates of that reform in medicine which aims at increasing and raising the standard of medical education, and dividing medical practice into specialties.
A little over a year ago, Dr. Hunter removed to Chicago, and he intends to make it his future residence. He has several sons entering life in the professions of law, medicine, and other callings, and believes it to their interest to establish them in the West with all its enterprise, rather than in the East. His practice has already become very extensive among the best classes of our citizens, embracing the families of physicians, clergymen, and prominent members of the Bar, among whom he has performed some very remarkable cures during the past year. In an interview with Mr. Judd, of the well-known law firm of Judd & Whitehouse, in Ashland Block, that gentleman said that Dr. Hunter had saved his life. For years he had been affected with bronchitis in a severe form, and was obliged to spend his winters in the South, until he met the Doctor some years ago, who restored his health, and enabled him to endure the severe winters of Chicago.
Eighteen months ago he was taken with a still more severe form of lung diseases, resulting in ulceration of lungs, and attended by spitting of blood, and ending in an abscess or cavity. All ordinary means had failed to even check the disease. But coming again under Dr. Hunter’s care, he has been completely restored to health, the cavity in the lungs having healed, showing an indentation from the outside of his chest. Several of Mr. Judd’s friends have received untold benefit from Dr. Hunter’s treatment, and he considers his coming to this city a blessing to humanity.
From all the States of the Northwest patients come to Chicago to consult him, while his correspondence with those unable to visit him personally is very extensive. In a word, the Doctor’s theory is well illustrated by his practice. He not only asserts that consumption and its cognates are curable maladies, but is proving it daily by living and grateful witnesses of his skill.
Mount Vernon Military Academy at Morgan Park, Washington Heights, who is under the charge of Prof. S. S. Norton, who has enjoyed a highly enviable reputation in the East as Principal of a similar institution in New York, and of which this is a duplicate. Such schools abound in the East, where their superior advantages for physical and mental training are rewarded by a large and increasing patronage, but this is the only one of the kind established on this side of the Alleghenies. It is Prof., Norton’s intention, while the physical development of the young man is not neglected, to build up an institution devoted to the thorough preparation of boys and young men for business or college, and for the attainment of this and he has secured a corps of able and experienced instructors.
In connection with the institution, mention should be made of the
Chicago Female College, located at the same place, which has an able and experienced corps of teachers, who have been chosen with reference to their departments as specialties, and who aim to make the course extensive and thorough, embracing all the branches of a solid and ornamental education. Full information can be had by addressing the President, Gilbert Thayer, or the Principal, Mrs. Mary Fields, Room A Lakeside Building, Chicago.
Edwards & Browne occupy the spacious corner store of this building, which is filled with a choice and elegant assortment of every style of men’s, youths’, boys’, and children’s clothing, and a complete line of furnishing goods. They keep constantly on hand a superior class of goods manufactured expressly for themselves by artists in the East, so that a gentleman can be fitted nearly if not quite equal to custom work at very much less expense. Their goods are retailed at wholesale prices. This they are enabled to do by superior advantages in dealing with the jobbing trade, and by less rents and lighter expenses than other firms are prepared to give their customers the advantage of their experience and frugality.
Randall, Hall & Co., importers and dealers in cutlery, entrance first floor 218 Clark street, is one of the oldest-established firms in the city. They carry an extensive assortment of the finest materials, and do exclusively a wholesale and jobbing trade.
The Perkins Patent Fire-Proof Shutter, which produces the costly contents of so many trade-palaces and business blocks in Chicago, also incloses the Lakeside Building from all possibility of an outside conflagration. The builders followed the example of Field, Leiter & Co., whose precaution was also adopted by J. V. Farwell and Potter Palmer, all of whom have selected the Perkins shutter, since it is the only one which has successfully resisted the great heat of such fires as that of July 14, 1874.
Atlas of the State of Illinois to which are added various general maps, history, statistics and illustrations. Union Atlas Co., Warner & Beers, Proprietors, 1876
THE LAKESIDE BUILDING.
We present on this page an engraving of The Lakeside Building, an elegant stone structure .located on Clark and Adams streets, Chicago, opposite the new Custom House. Its imposing appearance and chaste style of architecture have attracted no little attention, being notable even among the many wonderful business palaces of beautiful NEW CHICAGO. But this building is distinctive in the purpose to which it is devoted, as well as in outward appearance. From top to bottom it is almost exclusively occupied by the various departments of publishing. It did not require a prophet to foresee that Chicago was destined to be the great western center of literature as well as of commerce, and The Lakeside Company determined to provide the amplest facilities for the pUblication of atlases, maps, gazetteers, books, magazines, newspapers, etc., etc., to supply the ever increasing demands of the people. The result was the erection of a massive six-story and basement stone building 125 x 100 feet, filled with every appliance required in printing, binding, lithographing, map-making and coloring, engraving, etc., etc.
The first floor is occupied for stores and by Geo. Sherwood & Co., school book publishers. The second floor is set apart for offices, among which are those of Donnelley, Loyd & Co., book and directory publishers, also of Baskin, Forster & Co. and H. Belden & Co., map and atlas publishers. The third floor (reached by steam elevator) contains the principal office of Warner & Beers, proprietors of The Union Atlas Company; also their engraving, lithographing and map-coloring rooms.
Here, also, are the offices of Higgind Bros. & Co., atlas publishers; A. C. Fisher & Co., directory publishers A. Maas & Co., wood engravers; and The National Live Stock Journa!. The fourth floor is occupied by Chas. Shober & Co., proprietors of The Chicago Lithograph Company. The fifth floor contains A. J. Cox & Co.’s book binding establishment. The sixth floor is occupied by the manufacturing department of The Lakeside Publishing and Printing Company, book and job printers’. In the basement can be found A. H. Reeve’s gold-beating works.
The advantages of such concentration of all branches of publishing under one roof are obvious, and whatever is undertaken by anyone of the firms in.this building has the hearty co-operation of all the others in their several departments, and their publications, in consequence, are executed with an economy, promptness and beauty otherwise unattainable.
Rand McNally & Co.’s Bird’s-Eye Views of Chicago, 1893
① The Lakeside Building
Stands at the southwest corner of Clark and Adams streets. It is a populous and busy corner. Here is the home of the Lakeside or Chicago City Directory, a work which grows more ponderous each year. This directory can always be consulted at any drug-store or counting-room. In this building the Lakeside Library began, which was sold to New York publishers and became the Seaside Library, because it was translated from lake to sea. The Lakeside Building is of the days when Chicago imitated Paris, with pavilions, Mansards, gables, and dormers. Its exterior is of stone and iron, and it has 6 stories, is 110 feet high and 125 feet square. It has 65 offices, 3 stores, 2 elevators, carrying 1,600 passengers daily, and its 300 occupants are publishers, printers, and manufacturers’ agents. It has always been a publishing center, and here the earliest literary magazines were edited, particularly the Lakeside Monthly It cost $200,000 in 1873.
American Printer and Lithographer, June, 1899
CHICAGO TYPOTHETAE’S RESOLUTIONS ON THE DEATH OF R. R. DONNELLEY
At the regular meeting of the Chicago Typothetae, held on the evening of May 4th, 1899, the following report and minute prepared by a special committee was received and adopted:
Since our last meeting one of our oldest and most honored members, Mr. Richard Robert Donnelley, has passed into the Higher Life. In the records alike of the Chicago Typothetae and the United Typothetae of America, no name occurs more frequently than his nor in connections more significant and important. No one had a wider acquaintance and friendship with the representative men of our craft in America, and perhaps no one in our local organization was personally and intimately known to so many of its members, as also to the printing fraternity at large, employees as well as employers.
We desire to put on record a brief synopsis of his life, our estimate of his career and character, an expression of our sympathy with those who loved him best and mourn him most, and the sense of bereavement which comes afresh to us, his brethren, as this hour of formal memorial stirs anew the memories of our long companionship and of his useful happy life.
Mr. Donnelley was born at Hamilton. Canada, November 15, 1836, of an English and Irish ancestry which has record of honorable distinction and eminent public service as far back as the times of Charles I. and Oliver Cromwell. At the early age of thirteen years the lad’s restless and adventurous spirit took him from school into a printing office, where he began to study and practice the rudiments of the business of which, in all its branches, he was to become in so few years so conspicuous a master. At sixteen, he was receiving journeyman’s wages for night and morning work while he pursued a two years’ course in the High School. Upon the completion of this course, while only eighteen, he was tendered and accepted the foremanship of the office in which he had served his time. Shortly thereafter he became partner in a job office. In 1857, when only twenty-one years of age, he accepted an advantageous offer, and removed to New Orleans. The outbreak of the war sent him North, and in 1861, after a short visit to Chicago, he returned to his native city, and again became partner in a printing office. In 1863 occurred his marriage. In 1864, Church & Goodman, seeking- a practical partner, heard of Mr. Donnelley. Says Mr. Goodman. “Careful inquiry showed that he was a man of excellent character and skilled in printing.” Hence followed the removal to Chicago, the partnership of Church, Goodman & Donnelley, to be followed, in 1870, by the Lakeside Printing and Publishing Company, with Mr. Donnelley as its manager. The great fire of 1871 destroyed the nearly completed building of this company, and practically annihilated its business, as also the home of its manager. With nothing left but his credit, Mr. Donnelley at once secured a plant and started a business on his own account. Soon thereafter, the Lakeside Printing and Publishing Company was revived and reorganized, with Mr. Donnelley again its manager. Subsequently this company was merged into Donnelley, Lloyd & Co.; for a time, Donnelley, Gazette & Lloyd, and finally the well-known R. R. Donnelley and Sons Company.
In 1876 Mr. Donnelley undertook the publication of the Chicago Directory, with which for the remainder of his life he was so successfully identified.
This, in briefest outline, is a sketch of our brother’s business career. It covers a full half century of manly, vigorous, heroic endeavor and advance, from the apprenticeship in the crude establishment of the provincial town to the control of a prominent metropolitan industry, wherein, in the completeness and excellence of its equipment, in the dignity and appropriateness of the noble edifice in which it was installed, and, more than all. in the crowning blessing of sons so informed and inspired with the spirit, and so trained in the methods of such a master and such a father, as worthily to succeed him, were at last realized to the full the dreams and hopes, the aspirations and rewards of a brave and noble life. He had his full share of reverses and discouragements, but these only emphasize the final triumph, so close upon the achievement of which were spoken those last words of his, so appropriate, so memorable, so significant, so characteristic. “This is the end. Do not worry.”
Mr. Donnelley was distinguished for executive power, technical knowledge, high and imperative standards, a progressive spirit, tireless energy, unfailing devotion to duty, and high ideals of business honor. He had a keen appreciation of the dignity of his profession. He recognized the importance of its relation, not only to all commercial enterprise, but to literature and education. Probably no other calling had for him any allurements. He was proud to be, what in its broadest sense he was, a master printer. There was an element of the true artist spirit in his devotion. His business was to him not merely a means to a livelihood and a competence, but an art which inspired enthusiasm and devotion. The endeavor was not merely to satisfy the customer, but to satisfy himself. “Art for art’s sake” had large place in his thought and effort. His was ambition not merely for financial success, but for professional reputation, and the latter not alone for the sake of the former. To establish standards of artistic merit and ever to advance them; to hold close to the inexorable canons of good taste in typographic expression, regardless of popular fallacies and fads and meretricious effects; to secure in his productions not simply mechanical exactness, but esthetic satisfaction; to these ends did he give tireless devotion and how gladly do his brethren of the craft award him generous meed of praise.
It is fitting, in recording our estimate of one departed, that we thus make mention of the material and professional successes achieved; and yet, when we mourn a friend and brother and would express our love for him and our appreciation of his life, it is not to these successes that the heart instinctively turns. What soul was in the man; what he was in the sacred precincts of the home: what he was in the sacred bonds of friendship and in all citizen and social relations; if a man has so lived that those who knew him are his friends, these memories are what such friends dwell upon, and these are the memories of Richard Robert Donnelley which evoke our admiration and our tears.
In personal character he was above reproach. Faithful in friendships, of unswerving integrity, pure in heart and life, a pleasant companion, a wise and generous counselor, a gentleman in heart, instinct and manner; tenderly susceptible to friendly interest, generous, warm-hearted, manly, sympathetic, unassuming, yet always ready to meet any responsibility which might seem to devolve upon him; keenly alive to all proper enjoyments of life, a most tender and loving husband and father—was he not all of these in a measure that would make this world a better and happier world if there were more like him? It has been most appropriately and truthfully said of Mr. Donnelley: “No one ever heard him speak an ill word of any one; no one ever heard any one speak an ill word of him.” Those who knew him best loved him best, and perhaps no tribute more fragrant or significant than this can be laid upon the bier of a friend.
To the widow, sitting alone in her grief, to the daughter and the sons, whose loving comrade he was, we, his close friends, we, his comrades in the craft which was his pride, would send this testi mony of our love, to tell of our sympathy with their sorrow, and of our appreciation of the qualities that endeared him to them and to us
Lakeside Building
Clark and Adams Streets
Robinson Fire Map 1886
Volume 1, Plate 1
Chicago Tribune, April 11, 1926
Announcement was made yesterday that the estate of the late Levi A. Leiter had disposed of loop property amounting to $4,250,000 in the vicinity of Clark, Adams and Quincy streets, on which site a thirty-six story office building1 will be erected. P. W. Chapman & Co., a bond house, and Ernest Jackson, a broker, were the purchasers.
The transfer, said to be the largest in loop realty in months, affects the Lakeside building at Clark and Adams streets and the Arena building at Clark and Quincy streets, with one building in between these two owned by the Caruthers estate. Tenants have been notified to vacate June 1.
Plans for the new building, drawn by Architects Holabird & Roche, call for a thirty-six office structure rising to a height of 483 feet, making it second to the new Morrison hotel, the tallest building in Chicago.
Lakeside Building
Greeley-Carlson Company’s Atlas of Chicago
1891
Lakeside Building
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map
1906
NOTES:
1 The new building was the Banker’s Building (1927) at 105 W. Adams.
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