The Glessner Center

Glessner House Museum is one of two buildings in Chicago that carry the Glessner name.  The other is a lesser known, five-story brick loft building at 130 S. Jefferson Street in the West Loop known as The Glessner Center.  In this article, we will explore the history of that building and how it came to be known by that name.

John Glessner arrived in Chicago in December 1870 with his new bride, in order to take over management of the sales office for his farm machinery firm, Warder, Bushnell & Glessner.  Business thrived under his capable leadership, and by the early 1880s, the firm sought to build a larger headquarters to house their offices, showrooms, and warehouse. 

In August 1882, the firm purchased a lot at the northwest corner of Adams and Jefferson, measuring 80 by 200 feet, for $31,000.  Glessner engaged the firm of Jaffray & Scott to design the five-story building.  The newly formed partnership consisted of architect Henry S. Jaffray (best remembered today for his design of the George M. Pullman mansion at 1729 S. Prairie Avenue), and designer Isaac Scott, a close friend of the Glessner family, who had completed numerous projects for them including furniture and interiors for their home on West Washington Street. 

All was proceeding according to plan until April 10, 1883 when a wooden pier collapsed in the north half of the building, causing the whole interior to crash into the basement level and taking much of the north wall with it.  Later that evening, during a heavy windstorm, the east wall, which had been compromised by the earlier collapse, also fell in.  Jaffray and Scott were dismissed from the project, and architect W. W. Boyington was called in to complete the building.

The new headquarters was ready for occupancy by October of that year.  Known as the “Champion Building” after the trademarked name of the machines produced by the firm, its efficient and attractive design was praised in newspapers and other publications.  The building consisted of two main parts.  The south half of the building facing Adams contained offices and the showrooms, with huge windows facing south to bathe the spaces in natural light.  The north half of the building was utilized as a warehouse, and was bisected by a tall driveway that ran east to west through the building, allowing up to eight delivery wagons to be loaded and unloaded simultaneously while protected from the elements. 

The functions of the building were clearly demarcated on the exterior – the offices and showrooms were set beneath a hipped roof with dormers and a tower, whereas the warehouse was a more utilitarian structure with a simple brick cornice.  A delicate band of terra cotta ran across the top of the large showroom windows and depicted oak leaves and acorns, an image that would be welcoming to farmers visiting to purchase equipment.  Four different designs of oak leaves and three different designs of acorns were used to create a meandering, naturalistic pattern. 

The Chicago Tribune, in an October 27, 1883 article entitled “A Champion Enterprise,” praised the building and stated, in part:

“The building, covering an area of 80x200 feet, built of the best pressed brick, terra cotta trimmings, etc. is of elegant architectural proportions, and forms at once an ornament and landmark.  Designed and built expressly for a reaper warehouse with great care in every arrangement, it is today the best-lighted and most perfect building of its kind in America.”

Main Office

(Inland Architect, October 1883)

Another article, published simultaneously in The Inland Architect and Builder, gave a detailed description of the interior:

“What are conceded to be the finest appointed mercantile offices west of New York are those just completed in the Champion Reaper Company’s building built by architects Jaffray & Scott.  These offices occupy two floors in the front part of the warehouse proper.  The total space occupied is about 60 x 80 feet.  A space of 20 feet square is occupied by an immense vault and the stairway leading to the upper tier of offices.  This stairway is open, and like the general woodwork, is of red-oak.  The main office is 40 x 60, and divided from this and also from each other by partitions composed almost entirely of plate-glass, are four offices about occupying an equally divided space, 18 x 60.  The ceilings are frescoed in colors harmonizing with a heavy, solid, polished red-oak cornice and stained glass in quiet shades, give a softening effect.  The smaller offices are elegantly fitted with grates and mantels, Turkish rugs are on the polished red-oak floors, and above the mantels bronze panels add effectiveness to the general interior, in which one is apt to forget that this is an office devoted to the demands of trade, and not a costly private apartment. . . As a whole, this office in its arrangement and light-colored decoration, with the view of securing perfect light, is a model in office construction, and reflects general credit upon architect and owner.”

John J. Glessner's office
(Inland Architect, October 1883)

After Glessner’s firm merged with others to form International Harvester in 1902, the building was utilized by the new corporation, but was sold in 1907.  Through the years, it was occupied and owned by various companies and was known by its address – 600 W. Adams Street.  For many years, it was owned by Polk Brothers, which used it as a furniture and appliance warehouse-outlet store. 

In 1984, as the surrounding neighborhood was rapidly changing, it was purchased by a developer and completely gutted and rehabbed into a luxury loft office building, containing 60,000 square feet of office space.  The architects were Booth/Hansen and Associates, with Paul Hansen serving as project architect.  

It was renamed The Glessner Center and the main entrance was shifted around the corner to 130 S. Jefferson Street.  Many of the exterior features were altered, including the roofline and corner tower, but the basic structure remains as it did when first built.  And one original interior feature was left in place – the massive door to the vault, which still bears the inscription “The Warder, Bushnell and Glessner Company – Champion Binders & Mowers.”

Schoolroom preserves Christmas traditions

On Saturday December 10 and Sunday December 11, the Glessner and Clarke House Museums will hold their annual Candlelight Tours.  These tours, held at 5:30, 6:00, and 6:30pm, focus on Christmas traditions and decorations of the mid- to late-nineteenth centuries.  A popular event for many years, the tours allow visitors the opportunity to experience the museums from a different perspective and explore how 19^th century families celebrated the holiday.  The Clarke House interpretation is based on extensive research of the period, whereas the Glessner House focuses heavily on the documentation left behind by Frances Glessner in her journal.  Reservations are required for the tours, call 312-326-1480.

A highlight of the Glessner tour is the schoolroom, a space designed specifically for the Glessners’ two children, George and Fanny, who were 16 and 9 respectively when they moved into their home in December 1887.  Since the celebration of Christmas in the family revolved around the children, it is not surprising that the decorations were largely confined to this space in the early years. 

The room is decorated with a small table-top tree, very similar to a tree the Glessner children decorated in 1888.  Such trees were common at the time, and preceded the larger trees which stand on the floor and became popular by the early 1900s.  Homemade ornaments including a tin foil wrapped bird and gold painted walnuts were typical decorations.

A somewhat unique part of the Christmas celebration undertaken by the Glessners was the “Christmas pie,” illustrated above.  Each year, Frances Glessner prepared the pie, which contained small toys buried in rice with rhymes written on paper labels attached.  Her journal entry in 1888 describes the tradition, “We had a lovely Christmas pie covered with holly and smilax.  The presents were buried in the tin pan in rice.  We had a great deal of sport pulling them out, the labels hung out.  There were rhymes on each one.”

Sitting near the pie is a plate with two gingerbread cookies waiting for Santa.  On the plate is a handwritten note composed about 1909 by Frances Lee, one of the Glessners’ grandchildren.  The note reads, “Dear Santa Clause – This year I want surprises.  Thank you very much for the lovely presents you gave me last year.  I wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year, and please give my love to all the other children.  Frances Lee.”

Surrounding the tree are gifts typical of what George and Fanny received through the years – a toy stove, a train, metal soldiers and Indians, books, a scarf and mittens, oranges (a luxury food item at the time) and a set of dominoes, the latter of which were made for John Glessner’s company, Warder Bushnell & Glessner, and distributed as a promotional item.

The Story of International Harvester

This is the second of two postings giving a brief overview of John Glessner’s business.

The last half of the 19^th century saw fierce competition in the reaper industry.  John Glessner’s company, Warder Bushnell and Glessner, was large and successful but was dwarfed by the two giants in the industry – McCormick and Deering.  In August 1902, the competition came to an end with the formation of International Harvester, a merger of five companies:  McCormick Reaper Company, Deering Harvester Company, Warder Bushnell and Glessner, Plano Manufacturing Company, and Milwaukee Harvester Company.  Not surprisingly, negotiations were long and difficult.  Representatives from the five companies were placed in separate rooms and messengers carried offers and counter-offers back and forth.  Records indicate that John Glessner played a leading role as a mediator, helping to strike an agreement that all could live with.  When the new company was formed, Glessner was appointed a Vice President and served as Chairman of the Executive Committee.  The company was capitalized at $120,000,000, making it one of the very largest corporations in the U.S. and the world at that time.

In 1907, the company completed a new headquarters at 600 S. Michigan Avenue, designed by architect Christian A. Eckstorm, well known for his industrial and warehouse buildings.  He designed a state-of-the-art modern building featuring a steel skeleton, high-speed elevators, electric lights, the most advanced mechanical systems of the day, and a floor plan designed to maximize natural light for all of its interior office spaces (not unlike the design of the Glessner House).  The 15-story Neoclassical brick-clad building featured beautiful stone detailing including a massive bracketed stone cornice, one of the largest ever designed in Chicago.  Prominently situated directly across the street from Grant Park, the building exemplified the City Beautiful movement and contributed to the civic consciousness that anticipated Daniel Burnham’s famous Plan of Chicago of 1909.   (The building was sold in 1937 to the Fairbanks-Morse Company, and has been owned and occupied by Columbia College since 1975.  It is now known as the Alexandroff Campus Center).

John Glessner retired as Vice President and Chairman in 1919 but remained active in the company for the remainder of his life.  He retained office space at Harvester and came to the office daily until just a few weeks before his passing in January 1936, one week before his 93^rd birthday.

In 1985, International Harvester sold its farm equipment business to the Case division of Tenneco, and focused exclusively on the manufacture of trucks.  The name of the company was changed to Navistar in 1986.  Today, it is North America’s leading producer of medium and heavy duty trucks, school buses, and mid-range diesel engines.

Warder, Bushnell & Glessner

This is the first of two postings giving a brief overview of John Glessner’s company. 

In 1850, Benjamin Warder of Springfield Ohio paid $30,000 for the patent rights to a reaper and formed the firm of Warder, Brokaw & Child, which became Warder & Child by 1860.  John Glessner was hired as a bookkeeper by the firm in 1863.  Three years later, the firm was reorganized as Warder, Mitchell & Company and John Glessner, then just 23 years of age, was taken in as a junior partner along with Asa Bushnell.

John Glessner was made vice president in 1870, and immediately after his marriage to Frances Macbeth on December 7 of that year, moved to Chicago where he established the main sales office for the firm on Clinton Street.  The building survived the Great Chicago Fire the following year.  The final reorganization of the firm took place in 1879, when it became known as Warder, Bushnell & Glessner.

Isaac Scott was hired to design a new headquarters for the firm in 1883.  Unfortunately a portion of the building collapsed during construction, the result of a contractor’s negligence, not Scott’s design, but Scott was replaced by architect William W. Boyington, who completed the building later that year.  The building (shown above) still stands at 130 S. Jefferson Street and is now known as the Glessner Center.

Benjamin Warder retired from the firm by 1886 at which point he moved into his newly built house in Washington D.C. designed by H. H. Richardson.  Asa Bushnell was made vice president and John Glessner the sole vice president.  Asa Bushnell later served as the governor of Ohio from 1896 to 1900.

Next week:  International Harvester is formed