Chicago and Northwestern Passenger Terminal

Chicago and Northwestern Passenger Terminal
Life Span: 1911-1984 (Richard B. Ogilvie Transportation Center)
Location: Madison Street, Between Canal and Clinton
Architect: Frost & Granger

Inter Ocean, October 25, 1908

A New Contract Let.
Announcement was made yesterday that the contract for the construction of the new Chicago & Northwestern passenger terminal has been let to the George A. Fuller Construction company of Chicago. The exact terms of the contract were not made known, but it is understood that the sum involved is in the neighborhood of $5,000,000.

Work will be started at once, and it is expected that the new station will be ready for occupancy by Jan. 1, 1910. The station, which will face West Madison street and will have a side entrance on Canal street, will be one of the finest architectural features of the city. It will occupy practically four entire city blocks, bounded by Madison street on the south, Kinzie street on the north, Clinton street on the west, and Canal street on the east.

With the exception of the South station at Boston, the new terminal will be the largest in the United States and will involve a total expenditure of $20,000,000.

Chicago Tribune, June 2, 1911

The latest step in the perfection of travel comfort is to be revealed to the Chicago traveling public on Sunday with the opening to regular traffic of the new $23,750,000 passenger terminal of the Chicago and Northwestern railway.

After five and one-half years of work since the first studies of the general plan were undertaken in December, 1905, and after many unforeseen delays, the monumental structure is complete. After 6 a. m. Sunday, all Chicago trains of the Northwestern, both through and suburban, will enter and depart from a terminal station which is believed to be equal to the requirements of the city and a 9,000 mile railroad for the next half century.

Station Finest; Next to Largest.
With one exception the largest passenger terminal in the United States, and declared without question to be the most magnificent and complete in its provision for every comfort and convenience for the traveler, the opening of the new station marks the beginning of a new era in railroad terminal development.

With a capacity of over a quarter of a million passengers a day, or five times that of the old Wells Street Station which it replaces, the new terminal will accommodate without crowding or delay 246 daily trains in the present Northwestern schedule. In addition, it offers facilities for 1,500 trains, which it is estimated the growth of the road and of the community will require in the future.

A private inspection of the station by newspapermen and Northwestern officials, under the leadership of Passenger Traffic Manager A. C. Johnson and General Passenger Agent C. A. Cairns, yesterday afforded the first opportunity of examining the marvels of the new undertaking to persons outside of railroad circles.

While utility has necessarily been the main consideration, the architect and builder have wrought a monumental structure of classic design and great architectural beauty after studies of the world’s principal railway terminals at London, Liverpool, Paris, Vienna, and Edinburgh. No expense has been spared, nor no detail overlooked to provide facilities for the traveler’s convenience.

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Terminal Occupies 13 Acres.
Located just three blocks from the loop district, the station occupies about thirteen acres between Kinzie, Madison, Clinton, and Canal streets, of which practically ten acres of floor space are devoted to public use. Of the total cost, $6,380,000 was for the building and train shed.

The station proper is 320 feet by 218 feet and is four stories high. It is built in the early Italian renaissance style of architecture, with a lofty Doric portico towering to a height of 120 feet at the Madison street entrance. There are six other public entrances to the building, with stairways so ample that if placed side by side they would for steps 100 feet broad.

On the street level, the essential feature is the great lobby or concourse, 100 x 250 feet, where all the business of preparing for travel is conducted.Surrounding it are ticket, cab, and telegraph offices, and a lunch room.

A suburban concourse on the street level floor extends through from Canal to Clinton streets, through which suburban passengers inbound and outbound can conveniently reach the northern part of town. Adjoining are both public and private carriage entrances and a private entrance with a special elevator for funeral parties.

Private Rooms for Invalids.
Among the novel features of the terminal are rooms where invalids or others seeking privacy may go directly by private elevator. Others are provided for children and there are tearooms, baths, retiring rooms, and emergency rooms where hospital service is rendered free of charge.

The terminal is provided with its own lighting, heating and ventilating plant, operated from a power house whose building and equipment cost $810,000. Public drinking fountains with bubbling cups are provided throughout and the air is changed by the ventilating system every twenty minutes.

Between the sixteen tracks in the train-shed are automatic mail conveyors which deliver mail pouches to the floor level below into Station U, a fully complete postoffice of itself, where all mail to or from points on the Northwestern line is sorted direct without passing through the main postoffice.

A plan to bring together the surviving members of the party which made the first trip over the first Northwestern line out of Chicago in 1849 was launched by C. Gilbert Wheeler, 1623 Masonic Temple Building, and George H. Fergus, 22 Lake Street, officers of the Pioneers society, yesterday. It is intended to have the party ride the first train out of the new station.

Chicago Tribune, June 4 & 5, 1911

PATRONS RACE TO NEW DEPOT
First Go to Old Northwestern Station in Forgetful Mood.
Many record runs were made yesterday by the traveling public from the old station of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway company at Kinzie and Wells streets to the new passenger terminal at Canal and Madison.

For early in the morning the new passenger station opened and the old one closed. Hundreds of misguided and misinformed persons missed their trains. They went to the old depot expectant of boarding a train for their destinations and found uniformed men patrolling the sidewalk and directing patrons to the new station.

Buses Too Slow; use “Taxis.”
Two buses were busy all day giving free sides to the forgetful few (comparatively) from the old to the new station. Others thought the bus route too slow, and in taxicabs would race madly for the new terminal in an effort to catch their trains.

160 Trains Enter and Depart.
The first train to enter the new station was the early morning train from Omaha. It arrived at 6:45 o’clock. Twenty-five minutes me later a train departed for Clinton, Ia. During the day 160 trains entered and departed from the terminal.

It was conservatively estimated, at that more 50,000 persons visited the night’ station during the day. Ushers were everywhere, but nowhere without a guide book. They were constantly answering questions..

Chicago Tribune, June 11, 1911

Motography, July, 1911

FILM SERVES AS HISTORICAL DOCUMENT.
Canned drama, having survived the jeers of the envious theatrical manager and the skepticism of the scientific doubter, has long since taken its place as an established factor in amusement and education; it has remained for Chicago, in this year of grace 1911, to declare official allegiance to “canned history” as a means of handing down her records to future generations.

A moving picture film of the new Chicago & Northwestern station was sealed in a glass jar and placed in the archives of the Chicago Historical Society, in the society’s building at Dearborn avenue and Walton place (sic). With it there will be filed away a typewritten statement of the exact time and place of the making of the film, a description of the instrument with which the picture was taken and an accurate set of directions as to the kind of mechanis and materials to be used for its projection.

Seventeen years’ experience with the celluloid films used in moving picture machines has shown that if a film is kept from contact with the outside air, in even temperature and in a slightly moist atmosphere such as that of a dry cellar, it may be preserved in perfect condition for a practically indefinite time. It is planned that the film to be sealed up this week shall not be opened until 1936. Its pictures may not be reproduced for a century—they may never be reproduced. But in any case the little glass jar will contain a vivid, representative record of the Chicago of 1911 such as no amount of written records or ordinary photographs could supply.

Except for certain films in the possession of the United States government this is probably the first official record of its kind in America. The idea originated in the fertile brain of a representative of Lyman H. Howe, a pioneer exhibitor of moving pictures ; it was submitted to the executive officials of the Chicago Historical Society and approved by them enthusiastically.

The Northwestern station, just completed, was selected as the most representative available type of Chicago architecture. One morning, through the courtesy of the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company—none of the Howe operators being in Chicago—a camera was set up just beyond the Madison street bridge and a film some twenty-five feet in length was taken in the course of a few minutes.

In making the record an effort was made to include as much as possible of the “action” going on in the streets about the building—the moving crowds on the sidewalks, showing how men and women dressed in 1911, the street cars, automobiles, wagons, and other vehicles of various kinds; the overhead trolley and telephone wires (which the conduit system will probably supersede in a few years), the street-lighting appliances, and the like.

Thus, in one of ,the films shown, four methods of locomotion— electricity, gasoline, horse power and “shanks’ mare”—are shown side by side. While the film was being reeled off a curious youngster planted himself in front of the camera and provided an excellent record of his somewhat baffled emotions. These and many other lights and shades of the characteristic Chicago of the early twentieth century are now at the disposal of the Chicago Historical Society for all time. By the magic of science the people of 2011 will be able almost literally to turn back the hand of time and view Chicago and Chicagoans as they lived and moved in 1911. Only the colors are lacking, and it is possible that they will be supplied.

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Railway Age, June 14, 1912.

The Chicago & North Western has compiled figures showing that the total number of arrivals and departures at its new Chicago passenger terminal during the first year since the station was opened on June 4, 1911, was 18,797,500, an average of 51,500 per day. During May, 1912, 47,215 persons were served in the lunch room and dining room, while the total for the year was 585,200. The volume of United States mail moving in and out of the terminal has averaged 150 tons a day.

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