The Marshall Field Wholesale Store

The Marshall Field Wholesale Store, although gone for 85 years now, is still considered among the most important commercial structures constructed during the last half of the nineteenth century.  Virtually every book dealing with American architecture makes reference to this Chicago edifice, both for its own design and for the impact it had on later buildings in the city and across the country.  

By the time of the Great Chicago Fire in October 1871, Marshall Field had established himself as one of the giants of commerce in the city of Chicago.  His company was known for its innovative and groundbreaking policies, and consisted of two divisions for retail and wholesale.  The building which they shared was destroyed in the fire, giving Field the opportunity to construct new buildings for each.  In 1872, he completed a five-story structure at Madison and Water (now Wacker) to house the wholesale division, but within a decade, the division was already outgrowing its space, as Field continued to add new product lines.  By May 1881 he had purchased all the lots on the block bordered by Adams, Fifth (now Wells), Quincy, and Franklin. 

In 1885, Field contacted architect Henry Hobson Richardson with the proposition of designing a new building on the site.  Richardson completed preliminary plans by summer and in October travelled to Chicago to unveil the finished plans and sign the contract.  An article in the Chicago Tribune said in part:

“Beauty will be one of the objects aimed at in the plans, but it will be the beauty of material and symmetry rather than of mere superficial ornamentation.  H. H. Richardson, the famous architect . . . has long had certain ideas which he wished to embody in such a building . . . It will be as plain as it can be made, the effects depending on the relations of the ‘voids and solids’ – that is, on the proportion of the parts . . . The structure will be a distinct advance in the architecture of buildings devoted to commercial purposes in this country.”

By December 1885, the foundation was in and the stonework was underway, but the building did not even begin to approach completion before Richardson’s untimely death in April 1886.  This saddened him greatly, as evidenced by the following account of his final days written by his first biographer, Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer:

“The two weeks which passed before he died were weeks of infinite restlessness and pain; but he never complained and never lost his spirits, his hopefulness, or his keen interest in the work that was going on in the offices below.  The day he died he talked confidently to his doctor about his tasks and aspirations, and declared once more that what he wanted was ‘to live two years to see the Pittsburgh Court-house and the Chicago store complete.’  These, he said, were the works he wished to be judged by.”

The statistics for the building were staggering for the time.  The completed structure stood seven stories high, with full basement on spread foundations.  It fronted 325 feet on Adams and 190 feet on Franklin and Wells, and was 130 feet tall.  The plan encompassed 61,750 square feet per floor, totaling almost twelve acres of floor space, which could accommodate 1,800 employees.  The final cost of $888,807 was an enormous sum of money at the time, but just a fraction of the sales of the wholesale division for 1887, which were over $23,000,000.  Marshall Field owned the land and the building personally, and leased it back to his company.  The Wholesale Store opened on June 20, 1887, amid little fanfare in comparison to the opening of the retail store. 

The load-bearing outer walls were brick covered by rock-faced Missouri red granite up to the second-floor windowsills, and East Longmeadow red sandstone above.  The structure was impressive both for its overall size and for the size of the stones used.  Adjectives such as “enormous,” “palatial,” “Cyclopean,” “immense,” and “mammoth” were used to describe it in contemporary accounts.  These terms are not surprising, given that the stones in the granite base were larger than those utilized in any other building in the city.  The first-floor window sills alone were nearly eighteen feet long.

The second through fourth floors were tied together by the main arcade stretching thirteen bays on Adams and seven each on Franklin and Wells between broad corner piers ornamented with boltels.  The fifth and sixth floors were also joined by an arcade having two arches over every one for the floors below.  Groups of four rectangular openings marked the top floor creating a horizontal band above the vertically thrusting arches.  

Above this was the crocketted cornice in Gothic style “vigorously and crudely cut, to be in scale with the whole mass which it terminates.”  The plate glass windows, set in wood framed double-hung sash were recessed to the inner face of the walls to emphasize the thickness of the stone when viewed from the exterior.

Architectural critics and historians have noted the significance of the building from the day it was completed.  Richardson’s biographer Van Rensselaer said in part:

“No cathedral, however magnificent in scheme or perfect in detail, would be worth so much to us as the Pittsburgh Court-house or the great simple Field Building at Chicago . . . The Field Building is in one way his most remarkable. . . No building could more frankly express its purpose or be most self-denying in the use of ornament.  In short, the vast, plain building is as carefully studied as the smallest and most elaborate could be, and is a text-book of instruction in treatment no less than in composition.”

When Richardson’s work was the subject of an exhibit organized by the Department of Architecture of the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the 1930s, its catalog went so far as to say that:

“The Field Store is Richardson’s most important building . . . Richardson shows in the Field Store that commercial architecture might have its own honest distinction, independent both of the past and of other contemporary types of design.”

The Wholesale Store had a profound impact on other architects of the day.  Perhaps none of them was more affected than Louis Sullivan, who immediately incorporated ideas he gleaned from the Wholesale Store into such projects as the Standard Club, the Walker Warehouse and, especially, the Auditorium.  Carl Condit, in his book The Chicago School of Architecture, stated:

“The decisive change in the plans of the Auditorium came as the result of the influence of Richardson’s Marshall Field Store.  Both Sullivan and (Ferdinand) Peck had a profound admiration for the earlier building; in addition, the board of the Opera Association saw many possible economies in the adoption of its simplicity.  Fortunately, for architects everywhere, Sullivan abandoned his propensity for elaborate exterior ornament and concentrated on the architectonic effect of mass, texture, and the proportioning and scaling of large and simple elements . . .”

In spite of all the praise lavished on the building, it was pure economics that eventually led to its demolition.  By the early 1920s, the wholesale division was in serious trouble.  The railroad and especially the automobile made it easier for rural residents to travel into larger cities to shop; spelling disaster for the country merchants who had been wholesale’s best customers.  Additionally, many of the merchants in the small towns succumbed to manufacturer’s appeals to buy direct at lower prices, and the success of huge mail-order houses further contributed to the decline of wholesale.  In an effort to breathe new life into the wholesale division, plans were announced in 1927 for the construction of a huge new facility, covering two city blocks, and containing 4,000,000 square feet of space.  The new building, known as the Merchandise Mart, served as the death knell for Richardson’s Wholesale Store building.

The Merchandise Mart opened in 1930 and the company engaged Graham, Anderson, Probst & White to draw up specifications for the demolition of the old building.  The massive structure was reduced to rubble by mid-summer to accommodate a parking lot.  Little was salvaged other than machinery and equipment, lighting fixtures, brass rails, gates and revolving doors.  The granite and sandstone, so praised for its visual impact, was used as fill to create a level surface for the asphalt parking lot.  

Two sandstone capitals did survive and were later found supporting the “Horace Oakley Memorial Bench” at the Lake Zurich Golf Club.  They were subsequently moved and are now installed amongst other significant Chicago architectural fragments in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Graham Foundation.  A plaster casting of one of the capitals has just been installed in the visitor’s center at Glessner House Museum, adjacent to the permanent exhibit on H. H. Richardson.

Ironically, Richardson’s American Merchant’s Express Building was destroyed by fire the same year that the Wholesale Store was demolished.   The residence designed for Franklin MacVeagh had been razed in 1922, leaving only the Glessner house to serve as a legacy of Richardson’s impact on Chicago.  

The Auditorium and Ferdinand Peck

Tuesday December 9, 2014, marks the 125^th anniversary of the opening of Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre.  Much has been written about the Auditorium Building, its magnificent theater, the architects Adler & Sullivan who designed it, and its importance in the history of American architecture.  In this article, the 200th published to our blog since we began in January 2011, we shall look at the home of Ferdinand Wythe Peck, the driving force behind this monumental undertaking. 

Peck’s family was among the earliest to arrive in what would become the city of Chicago.  His father Phillip F. W. Peck, and mother Mary Kent Peck, arrived at the settlement of 250 inhabitants at the mouth of the Chicago River in 1831 aboard the schooner “Telegraph.”  Phillip Peck became a successful merchant in the rapidly growing city, and by the time of Ferdinand’s birth in 1848, was residing in a fine home at the corner of LaSalle Street and Jackson Boulevard, later site of the Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company.

Ferdinand Peck studied law and was admitted to the Chicago bar, but with the advantages of a privileged upbringing, devoted most of his efforts to civic affairs and becoming a promoter of his native city.  He was one of the founders of the Art Institute and a major backer of Chicago’s first opera festival in 1885, which led directly to the idea for the new Auditorium.  He incorporated the Chicago Auditorium Association in 1886 and served as its president.  Peck envisioned not just a grand theater, but the largest and most expensive theater in the world.  The complex would include a hotel and office block to help support the lavish productions anticipated for the theater.  Fellow board members included Marshall Field, George Pullman, Edson Keith, and many other business and social leaders who lived on and around Prairie Avenue on the city’s near South side.

As work continued on the Auditorium Building, Peck engaged William LeBaron Jenney to design a new home for him at 1826 S. Michigan Avenue, in the exclusive residential district where many of his board members resided.  The imposing structure, faced in Vermont granite, featured a massive four-story square tower over the entrance way at the north end, balanced by a three-story rounded tower to the south.  The overall design was Romanesque Revival, later known as Richardsonian Romanesque in honor of its chief practitioner, Henry Hobson Richardson.  Richardson had three structures underway in Chicago at the time including the Marshall Field Wholesale Store, and large homes for Franklin MacVeagh on North Lake Shore Drive, and the Glessner House at 1800 S. Prairie Avenue. 

Mr. and Mrs. Peck were anxious to host President Benjamin Harrison at their new 30-room home for dinner following the opening of the Auditorium Theater on December 9, 1889; however the house was far from finished as the time approached.  In the three days leading up to the opening, crews worked 24 hours a day to finish painting the rooms, installing furniture and draperies, and making sure everything was in order to welcome the presidential party.  Friend and neighbor Marshall Field loaned furniture, draperies, and rugs from his store.

The dinner party at the house went off as planned, with guests including President Harrison, Vice President Levi P. Morton, members of his cabinet, and Adelina Patti, the opera star who had sung “Home, Sweet Home” at the Auditorium dedication.  An oft repeated story states that when President Harrison arrived at the house and exited his carriage, he looked up at the façade of the house, which did bear a strong similarity to the Auditorium Building, and referred to it as the “Auditorium, Jr.”

"The Exposition Out of Debt"

Ferdinand Peck, known for years as “Commodore Peck” due to his interest in yachting, remained active in civic affairs, although the Auditorium would always be considered his greatest achievement.  He served as first vice-president and chairman of the finance committee of the World’s Columbian Exposition – one of the few world’s fairs ever to make a profit.  Many important guests were entertained at the Peck home during the Fair, including the Infanta Eulalia of Spain.

A few years later came another president – President William McKinley – who in 1900 appointed Peck as the American commissioner-general to the Paris exposition of that year.  In the years following, many European dignitaries Peck met during that Fair were entertained in his home.

Peck continued to live in his Michigan Avenue house until his death on November 4, 1924, even though the character of the street had significantly changed by that time.  In the early 1900s Michigan Avenue saw a rapid transformation from a fine residential street into what became known as “Motor Row,” with more than 100 automobile dealerships lining the avenue both north and south of the old Peck house.  At least one of those buildings, a beautiful Second Empire style white terra cotta clad building at 1925 S. Michigan, was financed by Peck as an investment in 1911, and was leased to B. F. Goodrich.  (It still stands today and is now part of the Motor Row Historic District). 

Photo by Jack Simmerling

Peck’s widow and son, Ferdinand Jr. remained in the house for several more years, later moving to a spacious apartment at 2238 Lincoln Park West.  The house was sold to another family and was eventually cut up into numerous small apartments.  The last mention of the old house in the Chicago Tribune was in November 1967 when the Auditorium Theater was reopened after a major restoration.  Arthur Johnson, a reporter for the Tribune wrote, in part:

“The mansion, massive and majestic, still stands, as tho in defiance of the commercial buildings surrounding it.  Weeds grow in the front and side yards.  Several windows are cracked or broken and a ‘rooms for rent’ sign is nailed to a post on the front porch.  Ghosts must have walked there last Tuesday night, waiting for the President’s carriage to roll up the side drive after the opening performance at the Auditorium.  The night passed, however, with nothing to disturb the pigeons that roost under the canopy at the stately side entrance but a stray dog or perhaps a derelict looking for a place to sleep.”

From an original sketch by Jack Simmerling, 1974

The house fell to the wrecker’s ball two years later, in 1969.  Today the site is part of a large townhouse development known as Michigan Avenue Gardens, constructed in 1998.  Peck’s house may be gone, but his greatest achievement – the Auditorium – is his lasting and enduring legacy to his beloved city of Chicago.

Happy Birthday Richard Strauss!

Wednesday June 11, 2014 will mark the 150^th anniversary of the birth of the great composer and conductor Richard Strauss.  Widely regarded during his lifetime as the greatest composer of the first half of the 20^th century, his innovative music, which bridged German Romanticism and early modernism, was championed by the first two conductors of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra during its first half century – Theodore Thomas and Frederick Stock. 

                           

In February 1895, the Chicago Tribune made the following comment at the time of the premiere of his tone poem “Death and Transfiguration” with the orchestra:

“Richard Strauss is an interesting figure in the musical world.  Appointed a conductor at the Royal Opera, Berlin, for 1896, and also to direct the orchestra concerts in that city, he is not yet 31 years old.  At present he fulfills the part of director at the Munich Royal Opera, and last summer was one of the four conductors assisting at Bayreuth.  In Germany he is regarded with favor through his symphonic compositions.

“Of this branch of his work opportunity was allowed to judge in the last orchestra program.  ‘Death and Transfiguration’ was the composition chosen.  In it the composer has given free flight to a remarkably vivid imagination, discarding ordinary artistic rules.  The demands upon the orchestra are prodigious.  If rules are ignored in the writing, difficulties are ignored in the treatment from the executants’ point of view.  In rhythm, complication of themes, and nuances it is redundant almost to the extreme of extravagance.”

Just three years later, in an article entitled “Born for a Baton,” the Chicago Tribune announced:

“The leader of the Royal Orchestra in Munich, Herr Levy, lays down the baton.  There is no necessity for him to wield it longer, as he is soon to wed an heiress.  Richard Strauss has been appointed his successor.

“This is the latest word to reach America concerning musical affairs in the fatherland.  Richard Strauss, who up to this time has occupied the position of second conductor of the Royal Opera, is what the Germans so lovingly designate ‘Ein Munchener Kind,’ having been born in Munich June 11, 1864.  He is not related by blood to the Vienna waltz king, although often erroneously counted as a member of the latter’s family, both bearing the same name.”

Richard Strauss made his debut in America in February 1904.  In a special to the Chicago Tribune from New York, dated February 28:

“The long heralded American debut of Richard Strauss of Berlin, an important figure at the present time in the world’s field of music, was made in Carnegie hall tonight at last in the Wetzler symphony concerts before an immense audience with notable enthusiasm. 

“Mr. Strauss’ compositions monopolized the program, the occasion constituting the first series of festival concerts at which his works will be consecutively exploited, and the composer himself conducted the most important number in the list, his tone poem “Ein Heldenleben,” at his first appearance.”

Strauss’ trip to America also included performances in Chicago.  In the Chicago Tribune, dated March 13, 1904 it was noted that:

“The coming to Chicago of Richard Strauss will in certain respects be the most interesting event of the present season.  There is today no man in the musical world who so completely fills the public eye as does this comparatively young German composer.  His orchestral works and his songs have made their way into every country where occidental music is cultivated as an art, and his influence in both these lines of creative music is already making itself distinctly felt.  We here in Chicago have – thanks to the presence of Mr. Thomas and the Chicago orchestra – been made unusually familiar with all orchestra works of Strauss, and through the efforts of our singers, headed by Mr. Hamlin (whose services in this line should not be forgotten), have made the acquaintance of many of his songs.  We are, therefore, in better position than is any other city in this country to receive Dr. Strauss with understanding and appreciation of what he has accomplished in music.  No other American city heard all of his tone poems so early, and nowhere have they been given with such frequency since that time as here in Chicago, for Mr. Thomas’ keen and constant search for important novelties and his realization of Strauss’ influence in present day music have caused him to place the composition of the celebrated German often before the patrons of the Chicago orchestra.

“The conditions under which Dr. Strauss will be heard here will also be peculiarly favorable.  Even the decriers of Chicago and all that is Chicagoan can but admit that the only orchestra in the United States which can compete with our own for technical and interpretative supremacy is the Boston Symphony.  The other orchestras of the country are capable, but they are not of the superior excellency that distinguishes the one we call our own and that which Boston has so long boasted.  Dr. Strauss will not have an opportunity to direct the Boston organization. 

“When he comes to Chicago therefore, he will have under his baton for the first time in this country an orchestra of supreme capabilities.  It is safe to say that Mr. Thomas, while he is no hero worshiper or is not given to lionizing anybody or anything, will see to it that his ‘boys,’ as he calls his players, are in the finest condition possible when Dr. Strauss takes them in charge week after next.”

Strauss arrived in Chicago on Wednesday March 30^th, and immediately went to the Auditorium where he led the orchestra in a rehearsal of his works lasting two and one half hours.  The concert was presented in two performances – Friday April 1^st at 2:15pm and Saturday April 2^nd at 8:15pm.  After the first concert, Chicago Tribune music critic W. L. Hubbard reported, in part:

“That master musician of modern music, that wonderful combination of poet, painter, and composer, the man to whom pictures are audible and tones visible – Richard Strauss – appeared at the Auditorium yesterday afternoon, and for over two hours some 3,700 persons sat beneath the spell his great gifts weave and listened to the tonal tales they enable him to tell.

“It may be that some who heard did not understand, and that many who listened did not fully comprehend.  For fully to grasp all that this maker of musical pictures presents to us would mean that to us, too, the tones of an orchestra were but so many pigments, and that the color and forms drawn in them upon the canvas of the vibrant air were as clear, as distinct, and as definite to our aural vision as they are to his.

“To most of us such hearing is denied – our ears are still too blind to be able to see all the dream pictures Richard Strauss’ magical power would have us see through them.  But while we may be thus blind, and while some of us in that blindness may even question the possibility of such tonal pictures existing – may, in short, doubt the possibility of music performing all the tasks he would have it perform – it was not difficult, while sitting yesterday afternoon in the presence of this mighty weaver of musical mysteries, to catch glimpses of the brilliantly colored pictures he was painting with tones, and to credit the possibility of music doing all he would have it do.”

The program opened with Theodore Thomas leading his orchestra in the prelude to “Die Meistersinger” after which he turned the podium over to Dr. Strauss for the remainder of the concert. 

“A rousing fanfare from the whole orchestra and applause loud and long continued expressed to the celebrated conductor-composer Chicago’s cordial welcome.  He bowed repeatedly, and then raised his baton for the first measures of ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra.

“After the ‘Zarathustra,’ Mme. Strauss appeared, escorted by both Mr. Thomas and Dr. Strauss.  Mme. Strauss is one of the leaders of the dress reform movement in Germany, and her gown yesterday was in this style, an elaborate creation of creamy lace and silk, which was distinctly becoming to her.  Her singing proved interesting and satisfactory from an interpretative viewpoint.  The voice has lost its richness in the upper middle register and in the high tones, but it is of no inconsiderably beauty in the lower half, and it is used throughout with so much of discretion and understanding that it seems adequate for all that is undertaken.  The seven songs heard were beautifully interpreted, and the exquisite accompaniments, played, as they were, in the finest style by the orchestra, made the performance of them in high measure gratifying.”

Richard Strauss with his wife, Pauline Strauss de Ahna

The Glessners were present at the second Strauss concert on the evening of Saturday April 2^nd, having just returned that afternoon from a two-month trip to Santa Barbara, California on account of Frances Glessner’s health.  She made the following entry in her journal:

“We had a state room and were very comfortable coming home.  Miss Gillette of Elkhart was on the train.  We got here between three and four.  Frances and Blewett met us – Alice was here at the house.  George had gone to Canada and Littleton.  Helen and Anna (her sisters) soon came.  We had a good talk and a very warm welcome from all. 

“In the evening we had the Lees and the sisters here to dinner and then we all went to the concert where we heard Richard Strauss conduct the orchestra.  Madame Strauss sang.  Mr. Thomas conducted the first number and Strauss the rest of the program.

“After the first number Mr. Thomas sat with Mrs. Thomas a while, then he called on us in our box.  Mrs. Thomas, Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Woodyatt, Mr. Baird called before the concert, - Mr. Burnham, Mr. Kramer, Mr. Block and others called in the intermission.  Frances and Blewett went out to the florist in the intermission and sent flowers for me to the orchestra and the Strauss’.”

The Potter Palmer "castle" on Lake Shore Drive

On April 4^th, Dr. and Mme. Strauss gave a benefit recital for the Russian Red Cross society at the residence of Potter and Bertha Palmer on Lake Shore Drive.  The event netted $4,500 for the relief of Russian soldiers fighting in the Far East.  The Chicago Tribune reported:

“It was entirely a Strauss recital.  It was a German evening.  Every selection given was of Strauss’ own composition.  Dr. Richard Strauss, the famous composer and orchestra leader of Berlin, did not play a single solo, but presided at the piano as accompanist for every number.  The first, second, and fourth parts of the program were by Mme. Strauss de Ahna, soprano, and the third part was by Paul Meyer, violinist, second concertmeister of the Chicago orchestra.”

The final performance by Dr. Strauss and his wife in Chicago was given at the Auditorium on the evening of Thursday April 14^th.  He traveled to Washington to give his final American concert on April 26^th before returning to Germany.  During his time in the United States he appeared in 36 concerts, and was received with enthusiasm in every city in which he performed.

NOTE:  In February 1936, when CSO conductor Frederick Stock returned from a vacation, he directed the orchestra in a performance of the tone poem “Death and Transfiguration” by Richard Strauss in memory of John J. Glessner, who had died January 20^th of that year. 

1887: A Year to Remember

On Thursday October 4, 2012, museum director Bill Tyre gave a lecture entitled 1887: A Year to Remember – the year in which the Glessners completed and moved into their new home at 1800 South Prairie Avenue in Chicago.  The illustrated talk was divided into five sections focusing on events in the world, the nation, the city, the neighborhood, and lastly the lives of the Glessner family.  We present a few interesting tidbits uncovered during research for the talk:

Queen Victoria celebrated her Jubilee (50^th anniversary on the throne) during the year.  For those who were especially devoted to their Queen, a special wallpaper was produced featuring a portrait of the Queen surrounded by images of the colonies she controlled around the world (Australia was depicted by a kangaroo).

On September 28, 1887, a horrific flood started on the Yellow River in China which ultimately led to the deaths of 900,000 and 2 million left homeless.  At its peak, the flood covered 50,000 square miles in Henan Province.  It was one of the deadliest natural disasters in history, however another flood of the Yellow River in 1931 claimed the lives of nearly 4 million people.

Dr. Lezyer Leyvi Zamenhof published his book International Language under the pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto.  His hopes were that the new language could be used as a tool for promoting world peace.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published his first Sherlock Holmes mystery - A Study in Scarlet - in Beeton’s Magazine.

Jenny Lind, the great soprano known as the “Swedish nightingale” died at the age of 67.

President Grover Cleveland embarked on a Goodwill Tour during the months of September and October, traveling as far west as Omaha, Nebraska.  Cleveland and his wife traveled in the private railroad car owned by George Pullman, known as the P.P.C. which was lavishly appointed.  Cleveland insisted on paying for the use of the car, to eliminate any appearance of impropriety.

Rev. Hannibal Goodwin, an Episcopal priest, invented the flexible roll of nitrocellulose film for a roller camera.  The patent was infringed upon by Eastman Kodak, which in 1914 paid a $5 million settlement to Goodwin’s estate.

Eadweard James Muybridge published Animal Locomotion: An Electrophotographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements with over 700 plates in eleven volumes.  This work is widely considered to be the precursor to motion pictures.

Anne Sullivan became the teacher of six-year-old Helen Keller.

The four Haymarket “anarchists” were executed on Friday November 11.  A fifth anarchist had committed suicide the previous day.

The Commercial Club of Chicago purchased 700 acres of lakefront property north of the city and donated it to the Federal government.  The next year, the military began construction of Fort Sheridan on the land.  The fort was closed in 1993.

The Newberry Library was established using a bequest from Walter Loomis Newberry (1804-1868), the present of the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad, the first railroad built from Chicago.  The first librarian William Frederick Poole, worked with architect Henry Ives Cobb to design the building, which opened in 1893.

The Chicago Kindergarten College was begun by Elizabeth Harrison and Rumah Arvilla Crouse.  It survives today as National-Lewis University.

Sixteen-inch softball was invented in Chicago on Thanksgiving Day at the Farragut Boat Club.

Prominent buildings under construction in Chicago during the year included the Auditorium Building, the Rookery (shown above), the Tacoma Building, and two churches by Burnham and Root – St. Gabriel’s Catholic Church and Lake View Presbyterian Church.