Chicago Stove Works
Life Span: 1873-TBD
Location: 22nd street and Blue Island
Architect: l
The Land Owner, February, 1873.
IF you are in the heart of the city, at any of the hotels, being stranger, or if you are a denizen of busy Chicago, THE LAND OWNER would introduce you this month to one of the great and growing enterprises of the West, by taking you down Blue Island avenue into the great Southwest Manufacturing District, where Sam Walker has set the mark of his genius in so short a time, and showing you through the large manufactory of the Chicago Stove Works, illustrated in this number. Long before the works are reached you see the tall stack ahead, down the avenue, like a guide-post set directly in your path. Next the large buildings loom up, and the busy throng of drays, loading and unloading, cars going through the same operation, and if your visit be made during navigation, you will also see vessels in the slip belonging to the works, taking on and discharging their cargoes. The scene is a lively one, and gives an idea of the prominence the West is rapidly attaining in manufacturing- one of the intrinsic sources of national wealth and national power.
The Chicago Stove Works. Located near the Junction of Blue Island Avenue and 22nd Street, and the Process of Stove-making in the West.
LOCATION.
The location of these works, in the new southwest manufacturing district, is in every way a most eligible one, as thither are tending many of the largest establishments. like the McCormick Reaper factory, which we illustrated in October last, the large establishment of Messrs. Swan, Clark & Platt, several car works of magnitude, etc. In every citv it is desirable that the manufacturing interests should gather around a common center. for the facilitation of labor. On every hand in this new district grown up almost entirely since the great fire. are the comfortable cottages of workmen. together with their churches and schools. The water and railroad facilities are unsurpassed, every road entering the city having branches running thither. and the South Branch of the Chicago river being intersected by slips large enough to accommodate the largest vessels, leading to the very doors of the different establishments. In these particulars the Chicago Stove Works have reason to be proud of its receiving and shipping facilities, which are equalled by few manufacturing establishments in the country, and excelled by none. The works stand near the junction of Blue Island avenue and Twenty-second street, easy of access by the Blue Island avenue street cars, which will soon pass by the works. The city will soon erect, on an adjoining lot, the new pumping works of the West Division, rendering this point an objective one for sight-seers, and also an important one in our municipal economy.
THE BUILDINGS.
Our artist has made his sketch of these works with great care, and entirely without exaggeration in any particular. The principal building is a handsome and commodious brick structure, 150×42 feet in dimensions, four stories high, with basement, erected at a cost of $55,000, including machinery. The capacity of the works at the present time is from fifty to sixty complete stoves per day, employing seventy-five to one hundred men. Large wings extend from the main structure towards the river, as seen in the illustration, forming a court in the rear which is used for storage of fuel, and the manifold needs oi such an establishment. Externally the view is bold and impressive, and well repays the visitor for his journey
THE COMPANY.
This company was chartered in 1871, and has a capital of $200,000. Its officers C. A. McLeod President, and Rufus Lape, Vice-President, both members of the wen known firm of Bussey, McLeod, & Co. of Troy, New York, one of the largest and most enterprising of all the stove firms of the East, employing some 200 men, and manufacturing 25,000 stoves per annum, for which they now find a ready sale in the East, referring their old patrons in the West to the Chicago Stove Works for their home supply.
The Secretary, Treasurer and General Manager is Charles T. Boal, a gentleman too well known in Chicago to need any introduction to our readers, as he has for many years held a prominent position in our business cucles, first as a member of the firm of Hall, Kimbark & Co., again as a junior member of the firm of Austin & Boal, and more recently, up to the time of the fire as the senior member of the firm of Boal, Andrews & Cook. Mr. Boal’s large experience in this city as a merchant, and as a member of the heaviest firms in heavy hardware, stoves, etc., peculiarly fits him for this new and more important position as the managing head of a great manufacturing interest.
The manufacturing department is under the charge of Simon F. Mann, for several years President and Superintendent of the Troy Cooperative Foundry Co., who is a gentleman thoroughly competent to its responsibilities.
MAKING STOVES IN THE WEST.
In his sketch of this establishment, our artist, Mr. Beale, has shown the Moulding Room, Mounting Room and the Sales Room. There are other departments scarcely less important. As you enter the main department, you find yourself in the office of the Company, tastefully finished, and complete in all its appointments. On the same floor with the office is the sales room. where splendid specimens of their various stoves are to be found. Adjoining is the shipping room; and here may be witnessed at all times a scene of marked activity; for so great is the demand for the stoves manufactured by this company, that there is. at no time any overstock—the goods being shipped as fast as manufactured to all parts of the Western States and even to the most remote Territories. The demand at present is so great that the capacity of the works will in a short time requite enlargement. There are three floor~ of this building devoted to storage.
The mounting room of the establishment (seen in the pict~re) occupies the entire ground floor of the main building, and is full of workmen putting together the various parts of the stoves as they are received from the “scratching room.” The molders and other skilled workmen were all obtained from Troy, N. Y., where they had been engaged for many years in the stove foundries.
A building known as No. 2, and communicating with the main building (No. 1), is the molding room, 74×150 feet in size, shown by our artist in a very faithful sketch. This building is of brick, one story high, with an elastic stone roof.
A building known as the cupola house adjoins, in which the Lake Superior iron used in the manufacture of the stoves, and found to be admirably adapted to the purposes designed, is melted and then conveyed to the molding room. The sand used is brought from the East, the casting requiring a quality of sand of peculiar fineness, as the company are determined to turn out work equal, if not superior, to any stoves of Eastern manufacture, both as regards to smoothness and fineness of finish, while the strength and tenacity of the stoves, owing to the quality of the iron used, are much superior to those manufactured East.
A building connected to the others which we have described, is used as a pattern shop, engine room, scratch room, and tin shop. This structure is three stories high, and 60×40 feet in size. The addition to this of a small one-story building, used for a boiler room, completes the list of departments.
Chicago Stove Works
22nd and Stoney Island
Robinson Fire Map
1886
Volume 2, Plate 23
THE PATTERNS, BRANDS OF STOVES, ETC.
The company early secured from Bussey, McLeod & Co., of Troy, N. Y., all their favorite stove patterns, and also many new and handsome designs, they being convinced that Chicago is the proper place to manufacture stoves for the West and the above firm have thus sold to “The Chicago Stove Works” the exclusive right to sell and make thetr stoves in the West, believing it to be to the interest of Western buyers to patronize home manufactures.
Among the many stoves now manufactured by “The Chicago Stove Works,” we enumerate the following:
Cook Stoves—New Cosmopolitan, Washington, President, Competition, Exchange, and Governor—all with or without the celebrated Bussey new iron-clad low copper reservoir.
The Parlor and Office Stoves manufactured by them are the Shining Light, for hard coal, New Viola (for both hard. and soft coal), Emerald, Garnet, Diamond, King, Queen, Alexis and Box. These stoves, with several other patterns now m process of manufacture, will make an assortment equal for variety and excellence to any made East or West.
The “Shining Light,” one of the parlor stoves, has become a great favorite in this city as well as elsewhere. There are five sizes of this stove Nos. 11, 12, 13, 14 and 16. It is unequalled in beauty of design and excellence of operation. It is a self-feeding base burner, and base heater, having revertible flues, carrying the heat under the whole bottom of the stove, and bailed ash pan. It is all cast iron, including back pipe, outside shaking and dumping grate, and cast iron feeder With gas-rlng attached. The mica frames are mounted with concealed hinges, and drop down on all sIdes of the fire, so that Spoor Parlor Stove Furniture can be used all around the stove without removing the mica frames. It has also a cast iron fire-pot. It is constructed upon the most approved scientific principles, and is now generally allowed to be the very best stove made.
GETTING REPAIRS.
And here we would remark that the difficulty experienced by parties who ‘have used stoves made in the East, in getting repairs when worn out or broken, will cause them to appreciate the advantage of having a first-class stove that is made in Chicago, where they can always get the castings for repairs promptly, and without the usual delay and uncertainty in getting them brought from the East.
CONCLUSION.
After you have been through the works, and seen verified all our artist’s sketches and our own letter press, you will be convinced that a most important branch of manufacture has been successfully developed in our midst. The facilities offered. by the position of Chicago for obtaining splendid iron from Lake Superior and other materIals also within easy reach of this city together witb tbe fact that this is the great distributing point for the sale of manufactured goodds, has thus early insured a splendid success
in this great enterprise.
The Chicago Stove works are selling their goods to the most prominent dealers in every town and city in the West who all express themselves very much pleased with the stoves, and desire to continue the sale of the same.
Chicago Stove Works
22nd and Stoney Island
Chicago Land Use Survey
1943
Map 6-H
The Metal Worker, January 26, 1901
The Chicago Stove & Range Company,
237 to 245 East Twenty-sixth street, Chicago, have just issued a neat 106-page catalogue which illustrates and describes the very comprehensive assortment of stoves and ranges which they are offering to the trade. The opening pages are devoted to the Sterling line of cast ranges for coal and wood. Next comes the Gem line of coal and wood ranges and cooking stoves, comprising the Brilliant, Choice, Excelsior and Perfect, for coal, and the Maplewood, Oakwood, Linwood and Wood bine, for wood. These are followed by the Gem and Marquart steel ranges and the American steel cooks.
Other cast ranges and cook stoves shown are the Dispatch, Elm Leaf, New Ionic, Idol and America. The company offer a very extensive assortment of heating stoves, comprising the Sterling, Radiant, Rococo, Modern, Startling, Ruby, Ornate and Home Coral base burners, the American, Gem, Oakdale, Sterling and New Sterling oaks, the Alaska and Dandy cannons, the Advance and Oak Leaf cottages, the Regal, Excelsior and Prize air tights, and the Air Blast smokeless hot blast. The laundry stoves shown are America and Model. Other goods consist of oil heaters, gasoline stoves and ranges and gas stoves. The same company are also distributing catalogues of the Buckwalter Stove Company, Royersford, Pa., and the Gurney Refrigerator Company, Fond du Lac, Wis., for whose goods they are sales agents.
Chicago Stove Works
Four Page Brochure
1902
The Metal Worker, March 16, 1901
New Gold Coin Steel Goods.
The Chicago Stove Works, Blue Island avenue and Twenty-second street, Chicago, have just brought out a new steel cook stove and two new steel ranges. The cook stove is made of polished steel and is named the National Gold Coin. This type of stove is made in five sizes, with square ovens, 16, 18 and 20 inches, by 13 inches in hight and 21 inches in depth. The body is of extra heavy polished steel, closely riveted and braced and lined with asbestos The oven doors are evenly spring balanced, and form a convenient shelf when lowered. The stove has a duplex grate, reversible for wood, and the tops consist of No. 8 or 9 heavy interchangeable key plates, with Boston ring covers. It has a pouch feed door, and the reservoirs are gray enameled, in rust proof casing. The stove also has a spacious hearth, full nickeled trimmings, and is mounted on an independent cast iron base.
The steel ranges are named the Standard and Domestic Gold Coin. These ranges are made in four sizes. The bodies are made of extra heavy steel plates, securely riveted and braced, and all parts coming in direct contact with the fire are protected with asbestos. The fire pots are oval, and have duplex grates adapted for any kind of fuel. The ovens are high and roomy, and the reservoirs are made of cast iron and are rust proof. The Domestic Gold Coin ranges have a large pouch feed, and the nickel trimmings are somewhat more elaborate than those of the Standard ranges. The ovens of both styles are ventilated.
The manufacturers have shown excellent taste in the design of these new goods, all of them being exceedingly attractive in appearance.