Hello !

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted here. I haven’t forgotten about Living Landmarks of Chicago. In fact, I’ve been working on something that’s directly connected, although probably not in the way you’d expect.

I wrote most of the book while I was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. I’d started the book before I was diagnosed. It was supposed to launch in March 2020 at the Blackstone Hotel, but then the world shut down. I kept writing through that spring and summer, and then, on August 18, 2020, I found out I had breast cancer.

And I kept writing.

Living Landmarks became one of the things I held onto throughout treatment. On days when my brain worked, I researched architects and buildings and Chicago history. After my final Red Devil treatment, when I started feeling like myself again, I researched and wrote seven chapters in a week and a half. Even my chemo nurses knew I had a book deadline and would ask me each week how it was going.

There’s something about that I understand better now than I did then. Writing Living Landmarks wasn’t simply work I was determined to finish in spite of cancer. I loved writing that book. I loved disappearing into Chicago history and finding the human stories behind these places I’d walked past for years. When so much of my life revolved around appointments and blood counts and treatments and what my body would or wouldn’t let me do that day, I could still tell stories.

Tomorrow, August 18, is the sixth anniversary of the day I was diagnosed. It’s also the day I’m launching the Kickstarter for Diary of a Cockeyed Optimist, the memoir I’ve been working toward ever since.

The memoir grew out of the journals I kept and the essays I wrote while all of this was happening. It includes cancer, obviously, but cancer is the backdrop for a much bigger story about choices, creativity, fear, joy, and the realization that I didn’t want to keep waiting to do the things I wanted to do with my life.

And Living Landmarks of Chicago is woven through that story because I was writing one book while living the other.

I’m also doing something special during the 28-day Kickstarter campaign. From August 18 through September 15, I’m hosting 28 Days of Joy. Every day, I’ll send one short email built around a simple prompt to help you notice, create, remember, or share a little more joy. Nothing complicated or time-consuming. Just a small invitation to pay attention to the good stuff, even when life is messy.

And you do not have to pledge to the Kickstarter to participate. I’m sending 28 Days of Joy to anyone who follows the campaign and signs up. Following is free, and if the memoir isn’t something you want or need to back, that’s completely fine. I’d still love for you to join me for the joy part.

That, too, comes directly out of the experience behind the memoir. Joy didn’t mean I wasn’t scared or angry or exhausted. Sometimes all of those things existed at once. But noticing what was good—Jim making me laugh, a walk in the woods, a story I couldn’t wait to write—gave me something else to hold onto.

If you’d like to come along for this next chapter, you can follow Diary of a Cockeyed Optimist on Kickstarter now. The campaign goes live tomorrow, and I’d love to have you there.

Follow Diary of a Cockeyed Optimist on Kickstarter

Thank you!

Theresa L. Goodrich
The Cockeyed Optimist

When Chicago was founded, using the river as a dumpster sounded like a good idea. At first its growth could keep up with it, but the population kept growing. In 1842 there were 4,500 residents. In 1851, 35,000.

And by 1860, more than 100,000 people lived in Chicago. All of them needed to drink water, and all of them put things, dirty things, back into the water.

City officials realized early on the need for water works, and in 1842 they hired a private firm to build a pumping station to pull fresh water in from Lake Michigan. This firm installed the station at Michigan Avenue and Lake Street with a pipe that extended 150 feet into the lake.

That wasn’t nearly far enough. Not only did trains soon begin bringing people by the carload, they also brought livestock. Industries, flour mills, grain elevators, and packing houses set up shop along the river. It was a free-for-all of expansion, and all of the residential and industrial waste stagnated in the streets until it went right into the drinking supply.

Sounds lovely, doesn’t it?

In 1851, the city built its own water works, moving the pumping house to Chicago Avenue and Pine Street and installing a 600-foot pipe. They thought their new system would sustain them for another 15 years, which is when they projected the population would reach 100,000.

They hit that number in nine, and even a second pumping station in 1857 couldn’t stem the tide of typhoid fever, diarrhea, cholera, and other water-borne diseases.

Ellis Chesbrough, to the rescue.

He’d already convinced Chicagoans to raise their city by ten feet, which would be no easy task now, let alone in the 1850s. His plan was to build the brick sewers above ground level, cover them, and raise the existing buildings to the new street level. Gravity would then work its magic. His system worked to get the sewage out of the street, for the most part, but it still dumped all that excrement and filth into the river, which went into the lake, which was pumped into the city so people could drink it.

They needed a new pumping station, and this time, they were serious. Ellis proposed a two-mile tunnel leading to a water intake crib.

Remember, this was in the 1860s, and his proposal meant digging a tunnel sixty-four feet below the surface of the lake that would connect the crib, itself a massive undertaking, to a brand new pumping station. But hey, if Chicagoans could raise a city by ten feet, they could do this. It took a little less than three years to complete the tunnel and crib.

On March 25, 1867, the city celebrated the formal inauguration of the Great Lake Tunnel with a parade and a cornerstone ceremony. In 1869, the water works opened by the shores of Lake Michigan.

Read more about the beginnings of Chicago Water Tower:

Love this and want more? Get your autographed copy of Living Landmarks of Chicago! Available in paperback and hardcover. Order yours here.

If you enjoy nonfiction, check out these books by independent covering everything from the Lewis & Clark Expedition to a guide to moving to Europe.

Before Chicago’s Lincoln Park became manicured gardens and jogging paths, it was still figuring itself out. And, occasionally, things did not go according to plan.

The zoo began humbly, with a gift of a pair of swans in 1868 from New York’s Central Park. By the late 1870s, they’d acquired several bears. Park officials thought the wooden bear cage wasn’t secure enough, so the following spring they moved them into a new habitat.

From which the bears promptly escaped.

According to the Report of the Commissioners, April 1, 1898—March 31, 1899:

“Bears became expert at climbing up the rough, rocky sides of their dens, and in time it was their almost nightly practice to escape and roam around the Park. They were sometimes found in the trees about the Park, and sometimes in winter out on the ice of the lake, headed for the Michigan shore, and they had to be corralled, coaxed, and cajoled by the entire force of Park employés {sic} to return to their official quarters.

“One of them struck out for the business center, and was getting along nicely until, in clambering over a ridge at the south end of the Mall, it fell through the top of an old cemetery vault, and was kept a prisoner there until its recapture. Another, a grizzly, wandered down the Pine Street Drive, and took refuge from pursuers in a tall elm tree near Oak Street. A Park policeman, who had brought up the rear of the chase, was stationed at the foot of the tree to keep the bear from coming down until the next morning, and there is a tradition, though it cannot be verified, that he resigned his position on the spot.”

Lincoln Park Commissioners had declared in 1878 that the Zoo would always be free. Guess the bears thought that applied to them, too.

Read more about the “wild” beginnings of Lincoln Park:

Love this and want more? Get your autographed copy of Living Landmarks of Chicago! Available in paperback and hardcover. Order yours here.

And me!

I’ll be speaking about Planning Your Perfect Road Trip from Chicago Saturday morning at 11:15am. If you’ve seen my presentation before, I’ve got a bunch of new tips and fun destinations. I’m also exhibiting and will have my books at a discount, including the bestselling Living Landmarks of Chicago.

The show’s February 21 & 22 at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center and I’ve got the details on The Local Tourist. Click here to read all about it.

I’m at Booth 1870 right next to the Destination Theater. I’ll have oodles of candy and all sorts of books - and you can enter to win a collection of them!

Hope to see you soon,

Theresa

In the early twentieth century, the FBI labeled Jane Addams one of the “most dangerous women in America.”

What did she do that was so alarming? Among other things, she was a pacifist, a labor advocate, and an outspoken critic of war and inequality.

Sooooo dangerous.

What they probably didn’t know about the Nobel Peace Prize winner was that she was a romantic.

Mary Rozet Smith invested in Hull-House, helping Jane and her partner, Ellen Gates Starr, build things like an art gallery, a music school, a gymnasium, and the first playground in the city, all in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Chicago - a neighborhood of immigrants.

But Mary became much more than an investor. She became Jane Addams’ lifelong companion.

The connection was so strong that when Jane traveled without Mary she took a portrait of her.

This was no small snapshot that fit in a satchel. This was a painting, fit to hang over a mantel, and Jane would pack it along with her gowns and her speeches.

Mary died in 1934 and when Jane was near death the following year, she asked her nephew to burn their letters. He complied.

Read more about the Jane Addams, Hull-House, and other dangerous women.

Do you enjoy mysteries where the bad guys get it and the good guys win? You’ll love Alex Paige! Back my Kickstarter by next Tuesday (Feb 10) to get the six cozy mysteries, and you can even pre-order the seventh! AND, if we reach our next stretch goal, everyone gets a bonus short story.

How fun is that?

Check it out here.

It’s well known that Chicago’s lakefront was supposed to be “forever open, free, and clear.” However, as the city grew, pressure to capitalize on that prime real estate increased. The harbor filled with debris, rail traffic expanded, and open land along Lake Michigan drew attention from railroad interests.

In 1869, the Illinois General Assembly approved a deal allowing the Illinois Central Railroad to purchase the portion of Lake Park north of Monroe Street for $800,000. The plan called for the railroad to fill the shallow harbor and construct a passenger depot. Supporters argued that the money could be used to improve the park south of Monroe.

Chicago did not agree.

Public opposition was swift, and the proposal quickly became known as the Lake Front Steal. The city refused to accept the first installment of payment, pushing back against the idea that the lakefront could be sold, even with legislative approval.

Illinois Central might have continued the fight, but events outside Chicago intervened. A scheme to manipulate the price of gold triggered a financial collapse, draining the railroad’s resources and undercutting its ability to sustain a legal battle. In 1873, the Illinois General Assembly repealed the act.

There was an unexpected connection.

The gold scheme relied on access to federal power. One of the men involved was Abel Corbin, chosen in part because he was married to President Ulysses S. Grant’s daughter. His proximity to the President was intended to halt federal gold sales. Instead, the scheme unraveled.

Through an unintended chain of events, the Lake Front Steal collapsed, and the land remained public.

Read more about the fight to save Chicago’s Front Yard here:

On a different note…check out this fun campaign by my author friend, Zachary Jeffries! If you like urban fantasy with humor, heart, and low-stakes magic, you’ll love this book. And to up the stakes for my Chicago friends, it’s set in a mythical Chicago pizzeria! Check out Evil Eye & Pizza Pie here!

FREE Tickets to the Chicago Travel & Adventure Show

Are you in the Chicago area? You’re invited to the Chicago Travel and Adventure Show - for free! If you’ve never been to the show or have never heard about it, it’s a fantastic way to plan your next adventure. Plus, there are amazing speakers, including Samantha Brown, Peter Greenberg, and Pauline Frommer.

And me!

I’ll be speaking about Planning Your Perfect Road Trip from Chicago. If you’ve seen my presentation before, I’ve got all new tips and fun destinations. I’m also exhibiting and will have LOTS of my books at a discount, including the bestselling Living Landmarks of Chicago.

The show’s February 21 & 22 and I’ve got the details on The Local Tourist. Click here to read all about it and sign up to get your free ticket.

Hope to see you there,

Theresa Goodrich

Do you love stories and believe joy is vital? Then, you’re invited to join The Pollinators! This fun community will focus on seeding joy through story. Find out more here.

Built in 1836, the Clarke House predates the incorporation of Chicago by a year. When Henry and Caroline Clarke constructed their home, the majority of people lived near the Y of the Chicago River.

The house’s location would later prove to be its saving grace. Situated a mile south of the city’s early core, it stood well outside the path of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. While much of the city burned, the Clarke House survived intact.

Survival alone, however, did not guarantee stability.

After another family purchased the house in 1872, concerns about pollution and their son’s health prompted the Chrimes to move it away from increasingly industrialized areas. In the 1870s, they relocated the entire structure several blocks south, an extraordinary undertaking.

Decades later, the city recognized the Clarke House as an irreplaceable artifact of early Chicago life. Returning it closer to its original site required yet another move. During that relocation, the house was lifted over active elevated train tracks. Winter temperatures froze the hydraulic equipment, leaving Chicago’s oldest house suspended in midair.

Today, the Clarke House rests once again near its original footprint, restored as a museum. You can read more about its wild history, and the formidable woman responsible for its longevity, here:

FREE Tickets to the Chicago Travel & Adventure Show

Are you in the Chicago area? You’re invited to the Chicago Travel and Adventure Show - for free! If you’ve never been to the show or have never heard about it, it’s a fantastic way to plan your next adventure. Plus, there are amazing speakers, including Samantha Brown, Peter Greenberg, and Pauline Frommer.

And me!

I’ll be speaking about Planning Your Perfect Road Trip from Chicago. If you’ve seen my presentation before, I’ve got all new tips and fun destinations. I’m also exhibiting and will have LOTS of my books at a discount, including the bestselling Living Landmarks of Chicago.

The show’s February 21 & 22 and I’ve got the details on The Local Tourist. Click here to read all about it and sign up to get your free ticket.

Hope to see you there,

Theresa Goodrich

Before we get started, you’re invited to join The Pollinators! This fun community will focus on seeding joy through story. Find out more here.

When the French arrived in the 1600s in what would become Illinois, they followed routes long traversed by Indigenous peoples, including the Ojibwe (Chippewa), Odawa (Ottawa), and Potawatomi. Among them were Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet, guided by members of the Kaskaskia. Together, they crossed a short portage that connected rivers flowing east to Lake Michigan and west to the Mississippi River.

This narrow stretch of land made it possible to move efficiently between two vast water systems. Long before European explorers arrived, it functioned as a natural transportation corridor.

As Jolliet traveled through the area, he recognized the significance of this geographic divide. He suggested that cutting a canal through the land could create a continuous water route linking the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. It was a practical observation, but it would take 175 years to become reality.

In the early nineteenth century, that suggestion became actionable with the establishment and intense growth of Chicago. After the success of the Erie Canal in New York, plans moved forward to transform the portage into a navigable waterway.

When the Illinois and Michigan Canal opened in 1848, it created a direct water link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River system. This connection reshaped movement, trade, and settlement patterns across the region.

Read more about Chicago’s beginnings:

Over the past year, I’ve shared the full book here on Substack in weekly excerpts for paid subscribers. In 2026, I’m continuing that journey in a new way.

Each week, I’ll publish a short, free post focused on one landmark from the book, starting with Chicago: The Origin Story and continuing through all fifty landmarks, in order, across the calendar year.

These posts will be concise by design. One building at a time. A single story, detail, or moment that reveals something larger about Chicago and the people who shaped it. Think of them as architectural postcards. Brief, intentional, and rooted in the city’s long memory.

Each post will link to the corresponding full chapter and the audiobook for readers who want to spend more time with that landmark.

Living Landmarks of Chicago rests on decades of scholarship, archival work, and preservation efforts by historians, librarians, architects, and cultural institutions across the city. Understanding where these stories come from matters to me. Transparency matters. So does acknowledging the foundation beneath the narrative.

To that end, I’m including the full chapter “How Living Landmarks of Chicago Was Made” at the end of this post. It outlines the research process, the archives and institutions I relied on, and the philosophy behind telling Chicago’s history through its buildings.

If you’d like to explore the complete collection of landmarks and read the full excerpts, you can find them all gathered in one place here:
https://chicagolandmarks.substack.com/p/the-landmarks

If you’ve already read the book, these posts will be reminders and rediscoveries. If you’re new here, you can jump in at any point and begin tracing the city’s story through the places that shaped it.

I’m looking forward to spending the year walking through the city’s past with you, one landmark at a time.

Happy reading!

Theresa L. Goodrich

How Living Landmarks was Made: Select Sources

Research is one of my favorite, favorite things to do, which means writing this book kept me in my happy place for extended periods of time. I’ve visited every one of these landmarks, taken several tours, and stayed in every hotel except for The Drake. The on-the-ground research was vital and I’m glad I was able to do so much of it before we went into lockdown.

I’m also grateful for the nearly exhaustive amount of material that’s available online. So much information has been digitized that, while I couldn’t dive into the collections at the Newberry Library, the Chicago History Museum, or the Art Institute of Chicago, I could locate primary source materials that had been digitized through many of the sources listed below.

Discovering the history of these landmarks required investigative skills (I knew that journalism degree would come in handy) and digging deep to find things like annual reports from the Chicago Historical Society or the original Plan of Chicago. I spent many a happy afternoon diving into newspaper archives. Tip: do not do this if you have to be anywhere any time soon. Browsing ads and articles from the 1800s is fascinating.

It was fun, but it was also time consuming and sometimes aggravating, especially when I began to wonder if I was procrastinating so I wouldn’t have to actually write. But then, more often than not, that one last search would reveal some cool little tidbit that would direct how I’d tell the story.

Every time I’d nail down a fact or either confirm or refute a rumor I’d do a little dance. That kind of stuff makes my journalist heart happier than unlimited time with an unabridged dictionary. Being confident I knew what really happened—or at least what was reported at the time—gave me the freedom to tell each landmark’s story in a way that is honest and, hopefully, entertaining.

Because this book is about the stories, I didn’t include footnotes or endnotes. Those can be distracting, and I didn’t want to pull you out of these captivating tales. Plus, listing every resource would practically double the size of this book—and it’s already pretty lengthy.

Below I’ve listed a few of my go-to sources. These and more are listed on the Resources page of livinglandmarksofchicago.com. Also on the website are detailed sources for each landmark, and you can find those on the landmark’s individual page. You can find a link to a page with all of the landmarks from the navigation menu.

Please note that since these sources are online, they’re subject to change or disappear entirely.

Chicago Architecture Center

The Chicago Architecture Center should be the starting point for anyone interested in Chicago’s buildings. In addition to their incredible tours, especially their famous river cruises, their online database offers summaries of many of the city’s most significant landmarks. architecture.org

Chicagology

Chicagology “is a study of Chicago history with a focus on the period prior to the Second World War.” The site features newspaper articles, magazine excerpts, and editorial summaries about historic buildings, people, and lots of other things, like Prohibition, horse racing, and the Chicago park system. chicagology.com

Chronicling America

Sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress, this site provides “access about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages.” Newspaper pages date back to 1777. chroniclingamerica.loc.gov

City of Chicago Landmark Designation Reports

Most of the landmarks in this book are designated Chicago landmarks. The official reports usually include information about the architect as well as a description of the building. There’s often a section on the context of the landmark. For example, the Chicago Board of Trade report includes backstory on why a board of trade was needed in the first place. Many of these reports are available at archive.org.

Early Chicago

This site is organized like an encyclopedia and is published by the authors of A Compendium of the Early History of Chicago to the Year 1835, when the Indians left, Ulrich Danckers and Jane Meredith, with the help of the contributing editor John F. Swenson. The topics are extensively researched, and site includes a massive bibliography. Early Chicago is a great resource for authoritative information on Jean Baptise de Sable (and why it’s de Sable and not du Sable). earlychicago.com

Find A Grave

Find A Grave is a helpful site for finding birth and death dates and, of course, where people are buried. Portions of the family tree are often listed, as well as brief biographical information. Because it’s built by user-generated content, it’s a good idea to confirm accuracy. findagrave.com

HathiTrust Digital Library

Don’t get me started on this incredible resource, because I may not stop talking about it. This is a researcher’s mother lode. And it’s free! HathiTrust is a “not-for-profit collaborative of academic and research libraries preserving 17+ million digitized items.” This is where I found Louis Sullivan’s autobiography, an Official Street Guide to Chicago from 1890, an 1856 Chicago city directory, and the catalogue of the collection Samuel and Matilda Nickerson donated to the Art Institute, among many, many others. hathitrust.org

Hidden Truths

I bow down to the research skills and dedication of Pamela Bannos. Her project details the story of the Chicago City Cemetery and Lincoln Park, and it is an extensive and exhaustive look at a specific piece of the city’s past. She used the same tenacity to research the Museum of Contemporary Art and its location, and her efforts provided insights into notorious scallywag Cap Streeter (see the Drake Hotel chapter). hiddentruths.northwestern.edu and shifting-grounds.net

Illinois Secretary of State Document Teaching Packages

This site provides historical documents intended for educators from the Illinois State Archives. The Early Chicago, 1833 - 1871 section includes a Census Report from August 9, 1852; a July 12, 1849, Petition for Frederick Douglass’ Use of City Hall, signed by several prominent Chicagoans; and a Petition Relating to Geese Running at Large from August 29, 1845. There’s also Suggestions for Further Reading. Because this site is a teaching guide, there are suggested questions and an instructor’s manual. Educators can request physical copies of these documents. cyberdriveillinois.com

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, and it has an enormous digital collection. Of particular interest for this book were maps of Chicago, as well as historic photos that helped provide context.

National Register of Historic Places Nomination Forms

Several of the landmarks are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Information on the nomination forms is similar to what’s on the Chicago Landmarks Designation Reports. Many of these are available at archive.org.

Newspapers.com

Two words: Rabbit Hole. Newspapers.com publishes scans of newspapers dating to the 1700s. The database is searchable by keywords, dates, location, and specific paper. There’s a version available through my local library, but I subscribed to gain access to Chicago Tribune’s archives. This resource not only provided information current to the construction and early years of many landmarks, but also the context of what was happening in Chicago and the world. newspapers.com

Preservation Chicago

This passionate organization “protects and revitalizes Chicago’s irreplaceable architecture, neighborhoods and urban green spaces.” Each year they select seven historic sites that are in danger of being lost. Landmarks in this book that have been protected include Union Station, the New York Life Insurance Building (Kimpton Gray), the Federal Life Insurance Building (Arlo Chicago), and Carbide and Carbon Building (Pendry Chicago - the win is attributed to the St. Jane renovation). preservationchicago.org

Wikipedia

Wikipedia can be a good resource, if used with caution. The reason I find it useful is the References section. This can sometimes provide resources, including articles, books, links to authoritative sites, and academic papers. I would never pull information from Wikipedia without verifying it elsewhere, and I do mean never, but it’s a decent starting place. wikipedia.com

Additional resources at livinglandmarksofchicago.com/resources

The title page of A Brief History of the Chicago Historical Society, published in 1881, tells a story:

Organized 1856.

Incorporated 1857.

Collections Destroyed, October 9, 1871.

Re-organized, 1872.

Destroyed second time, July 14, 1874.

Re-organized again, 1877.

It’s a very Chicago story. Of planning and building, of setbacks, of re-building, of more setbacks, and of re-building, again. It’s a story of a museum, but it’s also a story of a people and a city that won’t give up.

The Chicago Historical Society’s story begins in 1856, when Reverend William Barry suggested creating an association to preserve history. He was joined by prominent citizens, including the city’s first Mayor, William B. Ogden, and J. Young Scammon, who published Chicago’s first newspaper.

The society incorporated in 1857, only twenty years after the city itself had done the same. Chicago was so young it didn’t have much history of its own, but that wasn’t a problem. The charter included the preservation of American’s past as well as that of Chicago, Illinois, and the Old Northwest.

At first, the society met and stored their collections in Walter Newberry’s building at the northwest corner of Wells and Kinzie. In 1868, the year Walter died while at sea, the Society finally got its own building, billed as a perfectly fire-proof structure, at Dearborn and Ontario.

According to A Brief History, by then the Society had amassed over one hundred thousand documents. Their catalog included “nearly complete” records of the “United States Government, in every department, from its organization down to the present time” as well as documents and publications of the Territorial and State Governments of Illinois and laws and legislative records for all of the Colonies.

It also included Abraham Lincoln’s final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. The President had donated the draft to the organizers, who were all women, of the North-western Soldiers’ Fair so they could sell it to raise money for wounded Civil War soldiers. The Chicago Historical Society purchased it for a sum of $3,000 and added the proclamation to its collections.

On October 9, 1871, that document, and every other piece of history collected by the society, went up in flames.

Read more

It’s difficult to comprehend just how big the Merchandise Mart is. You can say it’s four million square feet. You can know it was once the largest commercial building in the world.

You can mention that there are six and a half miles of corridors, that the initial plate glass order would stretch for seven miles, and that thirty thousand people enter through its doors every weekday, but none of that sinks in until you stand in front of it and look left, right, and up.

Even then, the sheer scale can escape you.

James Simpson, president of Marshall Field & Company, was the force behind this massive building. Like John Shedd, Harry Selfridge, and Marshall Field himself, he was another top-level executive who started at the bottom as a young man and worked his way up. James was only seventeen when he began working at Marshall Field’s as a clerk. The Scottish immigrant, who’d been in the states since he was six, so impressed Marshall that he made James his confidential clerk (basically a private secretary) within a year.

In 1906, James was promoted to second vice president and assistant to John Shedd, who’d been appointed president after Marshall’s death in January of that year. Eleven years later, James moved up to first vice president, and when John retired in 1923, James took the top spot.

Marshall Field & Company had always had a robust wholesale wing. Marshall’s early partner, Levi Leiter, wanted the company to be wholesale only and get rid of retail altogether. Marshall disagreed, got rid of Levi instead, and managed to grow both.

Read more

Get Living Landmarks of Chicago for the Chicago and history lovers in your life! Limited autographed copies available in paperback and hardback. Must order by December 17. LEARN MORE HERE.

On January 6, 1836, Chicago trustees ordered constables to remove all buildings from public streets.

Let that sink in for a moment.

In 1836, people were erecting buildings in the middle of the street, and enough people were doing this that trustees had to issue an order for their removal.

Three years after its incorporation, the town of Chicago already had a couple of hotels and a few houses of worship. It had been platted. George Dole began shipping beef and pork in 1832, presaging the Midwest’s future role in feeding the world.

Chicago had plans. But in the meantime, people were ignoring all sense of civility and putting up buildings in the middle of the street.

The chaos was the product of a quickly changing world. In the mid-1830s and into the 1840s, people were heading not only to Chicago and other frontier towns, but to the rural areas beyond them. It didn’t take long for settlers to realize they’d landed on some pretty fertile ground.

After harvest, getting their crops to places like Chicago that had buyers and options, albeit limited, for distribution was hampered by bad roads, no roads, and generally poor traveling conditions. Nevertheless, farmers braved the mud and muck to try to sell what they’d grown.

Once they got there it was a madhouse.

Read more

It was December of 1923 when Chicago learned that it would be getting an aquarium. A rumor leaked that John G. Shedd was going to donate two million dollars for that purpose, and John was known as a pretty generous guy. He’d contributed six figures to the Young Men’s Christian Association, gave $50,000 to the Smith college development fund, and was an early and consistent supporter of the arts, not to mention his work helping to bring the Plan of Chicago to life.

The papers called the aquarium an early Christmas gift, and in January the Chicago Tribune published a preliminary drawing of the new museum. It would sit just east of the Field Museum of Natural History. It was a perfect location, not only because it was right on Lake Michigan, but because it would continue the combined legacies of Marshall Field and the man who succeeded him.

John Graves Shedd was born on a New England farm in 1850. One winter he and his brother were out sugaring, or tapping trees for syrup. John fell while carrying a yoke of heavy pails filled with the sticky substance and it leaked into his boot. While his brother laughed, John decided then and there that he would quit.

The next June, shortly before he turned seventeen, he made good on his word and found a job at a grocery in Bellows Falls, Vermont. His pay may have only been $1.50 a week, plus room and board, but he’d gotten off the farm and he wouldn’t go back.

After a year he returned to his hometown of Alstead, New Hampshire, where he found a job at James H. Porter’s general store and met the proprietor’s niece Mary.

When John was twenty-one he took a job at another dry goods store, this time in Rutland, Vermont, but a fire burned the store down after he’d only been there for three months. Benjamin H. Burt hired the young man and doubled his pay. Even though Mr. Burt would leave a lifelong impression on John, enough so that he kept a portrait of Benjamin in his office until he retired, the ambitious young man had big dreams.

Within a year he made his way to Chicago, determined to work for the biggest store in town. That store was Field, Leiter and Company.

Read more

Before Max Adler became the philanthropist who gave Chicago its first planetarium, he was convinced his life would unfold on a stage, not among the stars. Born in Elgin to Jewish-German immigrants, the young Adler showed real promise as a violinist. He even traveled abroad to refine his technique, aiming for a career as a world-class musician. But talent, as he learned, isn’t the same as destiny. After years of study, he realized he didn’t have the elusive “it” required to succeed at the highest level.

That detour didn’t diminish his love for music. In fact, it shaped the rest of his life. Because Adler understood musicians so deeply, he also understood a young woman named Sophie Rosenwald, who shared his passion.

Their mutual love of music sparked something greater, and in 1897 they married. That same year, her brother Julius — already two years into a promising mail-order venture — invited Max to join him at Sears, Roebuck and Company. Adler began by merchandising musical instruments. It turned out he had an eye for what people wanted and a knack for business that far outpaced his musical talents.

Sears made millionaires out of both men. Julius went on to found the Museum of Science and Industry. Max built something more celestial. After encountering a brochure about Munich’s Deutsches Museum, he traveled there to see it with his wife’s cousin, architect Ernest Grunsfeld Jr.

What he discovered inspired a vision that was both scientific and deeply human: a place where people could contemplate the vastness of the universe together. “Under the heavens,” he said at the Adler’s dedication, “everything is interrelated.”

And it all started with a violin.

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Most cultural institutions begin because of lofty ideals. Someone wants to make the world a better place by enriching the experiences of others, usually through art, in all its forms; beauty; and understanding. By the mid-1920s, Chicago was already the beneficiary of several philanthropically-minded souls, and it had an art museum, an opera company, an orchestra, and a museum of natural history, all of which were recognized and respected.

These institutions instilled wonder and could take a person beyond the hum-drum of daily life, opening whole new worlds. When Max Adler decided the city needed a planetarium, his ideals were even loftier than most. Some might even say they were astronomical.

In 1930, few people had seen a planetarium. That’s because they were brand-spanking new: Carl Zeiss invented a projector that would display an accurate image of stars and planets on a dome in 1923 and Munich’s Deutsches Museum opened the first planetarium the same year.

This was the same museum whose hands-on exhibits, including a working coal mine, had so intrigued Julius Rosenwald’s son that the Sears magnate decided to create an interactive science museum. When a friend of Max Adler’s gave him a brochure about the new planetaria in the German museum, he was intrigued; as a recently-retired executive who’d made millions, he could do something about that curiosity.

Max Adler was a businessman, but he didn’t start out that way. Born in Elgin, Illinois, to Jewish-German immigrants, he was all set to be a world-class violinist, even studying abroad to improve his skills. He was good. He had talent. But, after awhile, he realized he didn’t have “it.” He understood musicians, however, and what they were looking for.

That included a young woman named Sophie Rosenwald. She shared an interest in music, and the two discovered they shared an interest in each other.

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In 1909, Chicago had a problem. The city boasted a world-class symphony, stunning architecture, and enough civic pride to fill Lake Michigan twice over. But opera? Chicago had to wait for New York companies to grace the city with their presence.

Music critic Karleton Hackett wasn’t having it. He started agitating for Chicago’s own opera company, and his publisher, John Shaffer, jumped on board. Soon enough, Oscar Hammerstein—cigar maker and grandfather of the famous lyricist—expressed interest in bringing opera to Chicago. He’d already created a competitor to the mighty Metropolitan Opera. All it would take was half a million dollars.

Shaffer said he’d raise it, but on one condition: a seven-member board of directors, with three spots reserved for Chicagoans.

Hammerstein, according to C.J. Bulliet’s How Grand Opera Came to Chicago, “almost flew into a rage.” He informed the Chicago publisher that “he never had had any directors, and that he managed his businesses alone. He would not consider for a moment, he said, having anybody from Chicago on a board of directors for a Chicago opera.”

Wrong answer.

Shaffer wasn’t about to hand his city’s opera over to a New York autocrat. The very next day, the Met’s Otto Kahn sent a cablegram promising Chicago a first-class company in a modern theater. Shaffer reached out to forty-nine wealthy Chicagoans. Every single one pledged $5,000.

By November 1910, the Chicago Grand Opera Company opened its first season with Verdi’s Aida.

Chicago had gotten its opera from New York after all—but on Chicago’s terms, with Chicago money, and with Chicagoans in charge. Well, sort of. The drama was only beginning...

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Lyric Opera of Chicago is such an institution that it seems its existence has always been a given. But just like the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Field Museum surmounted multiple difficulties in their early years, establishing a permanent opera company was no easy task. And since this was opera, its drama was on an even grander scale, almost Wagnerian in scope.

Chicago wanted opera. With the popularity of the Grand Opera Festival in 1885, Ferdinand Peck confirmed that desire. He hired Adler and Sullivan to build an amazing, acoustically perfect theater, even though the city had no company of its own and had to rely on traveling productions to get its fix.

The Auditorium Building opened in 1899, providing Chicago with its very own opera house - yet it still had to wait for the Metropolitan Opera and, later, the Manhattan Opera Company to visit from New York.

That was a wholly unacceptable situation to Chicago Evening Post music critic Karleton Hackett. In early 1909, he began making noise that Chicago needed its own opera company. He appealed to the city’s civic pride, of which it had plenty to spare, pointing to the Chicago Symphony and its Orchestra Hall as an example of what Chicago could do when it decided it wanted something. Karleton’s publisher, John Shaffer, agreed with him.

John not only agreed, he jumped right in.

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The Carbide and Carbon Building is unique in Chicago. Its green terra-cotta tower with shining black base and golden summit stands out in a skyline of muted shades of beige and gray and the occasional white. The legend goes that the Burnham brothers designed it to resemble a champagne bottle’s green glass topped with foil.

That’s a fitting description and it makes sense considering the building was completed nine years into Prohibition, but the origin is less fanciful. Instead of being inspired by booze, this noteworthy skyscraper is an illustration of the evolution of buildings and how architects, in the best tradition of scientists, build on the works and ideas of others.

New York-based Union Carbide and Carbon wanted a Chicago presence, and they selected the Burnham brothers to make it happen. The brothers were the sons of that Burnham, the legendary force behind the White City and co-author of the Plan of Chicago.

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Michigan Avenue just north of the Chicago River is architectural eye candy. There’s the gleaming white Wrigley Building on the west, the Tribune Tower with its flying buttresses on the east, and beyond that is the InterContinental Chicago, an art deco skyscraper with a distinctive yellow dome. That dome is the crown of a madcap building that’s the embodiment of the organization that created it.

In the midst of the roaring twenties, Chicago’s Shriners decided they needed their own athletic club. Sure, they could have gone to the Chicago Athletic Association, but that was filled with fuddy-duddies and the Shriners were anything but. An offshoot of the Freemasons, the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, as the group was officially known, was all about having fun. As in, that’s why the order was created in the first place.

In the 1870s a small group of New York Freemasons, including actor Billy Florence and Walter Fleming, M.D., felt that the fraternity, while worthwhile, was a bit too stoic for their tastes.

After attending a party hosted by an Arabian diplomat during a trip to France, Billy was inspired by the event’s “exotic style, flavors and music.” When he got back home he suggested an Arabic theme to Walter. The good doctor, who was savvy in the ways of Freemason rituals, agreed, and between the two they created their own fraternity based on fun, fellowship, and philanthropy.

They weren’t complete rebels, though—you had to be a third-degree mason before you were eligible to become a Shriner.

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After some incredibly bad decisions ended in criminal charges, a conviction (which was overturned), and suicide, The Stevens Hotel changed hands a few times until it ended up owned by Stephen Healy.

However, another man wanted it. Conrad Hilton had already tried to get it, but then the Army beat him to it. By early 1945 he decided he’d waited long enough and he headed to Chicago, determined not to leave until he owned the Stevens Hotel.

That would prove to be tricky, because Stephen Healy was a slippery little sucker. Conrad thought he had a deal multiple times, but Stephen would renege and ask for more money. When Stephen disappeared after the third negotiation, which would have netted him a million dollars in profit, Conrad’s friend Willard Keith took matters into his own hands. Willard had had enough of the Chicago winter and wanted to get back to California, so he trudged into the snow, found Stephen, and told him that Conrad was tired of his shenanigans and would just buy the Palmer House instead.

Conrad got the Stevens. He ended up paying seven and a half million for it, but he got his hotel. Ten months later, he got the Palmer House, too.

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On a separate note… if you like gripping stories where the bad guys always get it and the good guys always win, you’ll love my Travel is Murder mystery series! I’m launching special editions of all six books - click here, then click on Notify me on launch. The more followers I have, the more likely Kickstarter is to share (and that’s a really good thing).