Moving a House on Prairie Avenue - 1891

The subject house where it was stopped on
Prairie Avenue just south of Twenty-first Street

The landmark Harriet F. Rees house, designed by Cobb & Frost, was built at 2110 S. Prairie Avenue in 1888.  Later this month, plans call for lifting the four-story masonry structure off of its original foundation and relocating it one block to the north where a new foundation will be prepared at 2017 S. Prairie Avenue.  All of this is being done in preparation for construction of the new DePaul Arena which will occupy the entire block on which the house currently sits.

Although the idea of moving a house is intimidating, the practice was actually quite common in the late 19^th century.   In 1891, another house was moved along the 2100 block of Prairie Avenue and the episode created quite a stir amongst the residents at the time.  The long forgotten controversy is recorded for posterity in two articles published in the Chicago Tribune that year.

On September 14, 1891, the Tribune reported the situation in an article entitled “Prairie Avenue Residents Up In Arms – A House-Mover’s Disrespect for Stately Old Elm Trees.”  In this particular situation, Prairie Avenue was merely being used as the route between the original site of the house on Michigan Avenue and its new site at 46^th Street and Indiana Avenue.  The article read:

“A dilapidated wreck of an old frame house completely blockades Prairie avenue, so far as traffic concerned, just south of Twenty-first street.  It has been standing there, covered with dirt and cobwebs, a very beggar of a house among the handsome residences of John B. Sherman, P. D. Armour, Eugene S. Pike, R. W. Roloson, M. M. Rothschild, and Mrs. E. J. Kimball, for the last three days.  It would have been out of this neighborhood long ago, but Mr. Armour, Mr. Pike, et al. will not permit it.  Not that they admire the old hulk, but they do not desire to have the stately old elms in front of their homes ruined.

“It had hardly passed Twenty-first street before a number of branches of the trees in front of Mr. Pike’s residence, No. 2101 Prairie Avenue, were broken off.  It is still jammed hard against the limb of another of Mr. Pike’s trees, where it was stopped by order of the Street Department in response to angry remonstrances of Phillip D. Armour of No. 2115.  Mr. Armour didn’t want to have his trees torn down by the building and he called on Commissioner Aldrich to protest against the further progress of the house in that direction.  Superintendent of Street Obstructions Bell ordered the house-mover to take the house down Twenty-first street to some street where it will cause less trouble.

“The building is owned by Tim Keefe, and was being taken from No. 1833 Michigan avenue by Building Mover William Kruger.  The permit was issued Aug. 15 to expire Aug. 31 and he did not secure its renewal until Sept. 11, a day after the injury to Mr. Pike’s trees was done.  The permit was for a house twenty-two feet wide, but one of the residents of the avenue who went to the trouble of measuring the building found that it is twenty-nine feet four inches wide, while the street is but thirty-two feet from curb to curb.

“’The City of Chicago,’ he declared, ‘had grown so large that we should no longer permit the removal of frame buildings over our streets.’” 

This photograph shows where the house was stopped during its move.  Shown from left to right are the houses of Max Rothschild (2112), Harriet Rees (2110), Mark Kimball (2108), John B. Sherman (2100) and Ebenezer Buckingham (2036).  The image dates to the early 1890s, so may well show the trees after they were damaged by the house move.

Troubles continued for Mr. Keefe, the owner of the house in question, as indicated by a second article entitled “Objects to Official Interference” which appeared six weeks later on October 27, 1891:

“Thomas H. Keefe bought a frame house at No. 1833 Michigan avenue, and hired William Kruger, a house mover, to transfer the building to Forty-sixth street and Indiana avenue.  The Street Department gave permission to move the house along Prairie avenue, but at Twenty-sixth street objections were made, and the building was turned back and sent down a side street.  Since then Keefe says progress has been stopped every few blocks by either the police or other city officers, and the building now blocks traffic on Forty-sixth street within a stone’s throw of its destination.  Yesterday Keefe and Kruger went into the Superior Court and sought to restrain further interference by asking an injunction against J. Frank Aldrich, Hempstead Washburne, Richard W. McClaughry, Nicholas Hunt, James E. Burke, and the city.”

No further information appears in the Tribune about the house, but presumably it was soon after moved the last few feet to its new location on Indiana Avenue, and the matter was finally put to rest.   

Next week:  The first move of the Henry B. Clarke house in 1872

Woman's Athletic Club of Chicago

The Woman’s Athletic Club of Chicago, celebrating its 115^th anniversary in 2013, has deep Prairie Avenue roots.  Its founding can be traced back to a dinner party at the home of Mrs. Philip D. Armour at 2115 S. Prairie Avenue, and many of the early members and supporters were residents of the street as well.  On March 9^th, the museum offers the exciting opportunity to tour the beautiful Club building completed in 1929 at 626 N. Michigan Avenue, including the elegant public spaces, as well as rarely seen behind-the-scenes spaces, truly an upstairs-downstairs experience.   For further information on the tour, call 312-326-1480.  Group size is strictly limited.

The idea for a Club where women could exercise and enjoy a leisurely meal with friends originated with Mrs. Paulina Harriette Lyon.  One night, while dining at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Philip D. Armour, she described her vision of the club.  Mrs. Belle Ogden Armour found the idea most intriguing and an important project for women of the city to undertake (unlike the men who thought it an “excellent joke”), and soon after pledged $50,000 to put the project in motion.   Such an idea was entirely new; it would become the first athletic club for women in the United States.   The Club was officially incorporated on September 13, 1898 and Mrs. Armour was elected president.  Several of Mrs. Armour’s neighbors quickly joined, including members of the Allerton, Caton, Drake, Hutchinson, Lowden, Pullman, Pike, and Smith families, and nationally prominent women such as Susan B. Anthony, Julia Ward Howe, and the wife of President McKinley accepted honorary memberships.

The first home for the Club consisted of three floors in a six-story building on Michigan Avenue north of Adams (now the site of the Peoples Gas Building).  The official housewarming took place May 24, 1899 and it would remain the home of the Club until 1909, when they moved to larger quarters in the recently constructed International Harvester building at 606 S. Michigan Avenue (where John Glessner had his office).   It was in that same year that Belle Armour was made honorary president for life (she died in 1927).

The Club had long dreamed of a building of its own and the opportunity came in the late 1920s when a site became available at the northwest corner of Michigan Avenue and Ontario Street.  Architect Philip B. Maher, just 33 years old at the time, was hired to design the building, and designer Marian Gheen the interiors.  North Michigan Avenue was undergoing a major transformation at the time, so the move north was considered most appropriate and timely.   When the building was designated a Chicago landmark on October 2, 1991, the report said in part:

The building’s architecture illustrates the sophisticated urban ambience of North Michigan Avenue, as it was originally planned and developed in the 1920s.  The modern French-style classical design, which is reminiscent of continental-style Parisian elegance, is one of the last standing links to the street’s formative years.

The building was dedicated and opened in April 1929, just a few months before the Stock Market Crash and the start of the Great Depression.  The Club struggled during those early years in their new building, but a persistent and dedicated group of members ensured its long-term survival, as other Clubs around them failed never to reopen.

Among the more interesting furnishings are the chandeliers in the second floor gallery and card room, made from two old gas chandeliers which once hung in the John B. Drake home at 2114 S. Calumet Avenue.  The nearby Ladies Powder Room contains several miniature rooms created by Mrs. James Ward Thorne, a resident of 1708 S. Prairie Avenue and a friend of George and Alice Glessner and Blewett and Frances Lee, who occupied the two houses immediately to the north.  The second floor also features a portrait of founding president Belle Armour (shown below), painted in 1939 by Charles Sneed Williams. 

Today, the Club serves as a thriving link to our City’s past and continues to provide an elegant oasis for its members amidst the hustle and bustle of North Michigan Avenue.