The History of the Main Chicago Public Library.

The first library in Chicago dates back to 1834, when the Chicago Lyceum maintained a circulating library of 300 volumes for its members. The Lyceum's popularity faded in 1841.

The Chicago Lyceum, a debating society, met at this "Saloon Building," which stood on the southeast corner of Clark and Lake Streets. NOTE: The word "saloon" at that time did not imply so much a tavern as a spacious meeting hall; it derived from the French word "salon." It offered the largest hall west of Buffalo, NY, for concerts, debates, dramatic performances, political ceremonies and private club offices. Chicago received its city charter under its roof in 1837 and served as city hall and Municipal Court until 1842.

Some of the Chicago Lyceum members formed a new cultural center, the "Young Men's Association and Library," created as a place for leisure and amusement away from the vices of gambling halls and saloons. The Association had a public reading room with a collection of 30,000 books, all of which were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

In the aftermath of the Fire, Londoner A.H. Burgess, with the aid of Thomas Hughes, drew up what would be called the "English Book Donation," which proposed that England should provide a free library to the burnt-out city.

After circulating requests for donations throughout English society, the project donated 8,000 books. Their donors autographed many volumes, including Queen Victoria, Benjamin Disraeli, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Charles Darwin, John Stuart Mill, John Ruskin, and Matthew Arnold.

With these books as the collection base, Chicago's leaders established the Chicago Public Library in April 1872.

The book room in the Old Water Tank, the "Original Library," on the site that is now the Rookery Building at LaSalle and Adams Streets, Chicago. (1873)

The Library Board arranged for the collection to be housed in an old water tank. For many years, the library occupied various temporary spaces while Board members looked for a permanent site. By 1874, the collection was available for circulation without charge to all Chicagoans, and two years later, it had 120,000 volumes! By 1891, Chicago boasted the most extensive library system in the country. William Frederick Poole, the city's distinguished librarian and a nationally recognized scholar, is credited for much of the library's success in that era.

Burgess wrote on December 7, 1871, in the London Daily News, "I propose that England should present a Free Library to Chicago, to remain there as a mark of sympathy now, and a keepsake and token of true brotherly kindness forever..."

In Chicago, town leaders petitioned Mayor Joseph Medill to hold a meeting and establish the library. The meeting led to the Illinois Library Act of 1872, which allowed Illinois cities to establish tax-supported libraries. In April 1872, the Chicago City Council passed an ordinance establishing the Chicago Public Library. 

In the rebuilding section of the city, on January 1, 1873, the Chicago Central Library, as it was initially named, officially opened its doors in an abandoned iron water tank (fireproof) at LaSalle and Adams Streets. The collection included 3,157 volumes. The water tank was 58 feet in diameter, 21 feet high and with a 30-foot foundation. A two-story building was soon built around it to hold city offices, and a third-floor reading room was created for the library.

Controversy and legal squabbles troubled the efforts to build a permanent home for the Chicago Public Library. The search became a high priority in the 1890s when the library's priorities shifted from service to enlightenment.

Dearborn Park, the future site of the Chicago Central Library, looking north from Washington Street. (circa 1890)

Looking southeast towards Michigan Avenue from Randolph Street, Chicago. (circa 1890)

Construction of the Chicago Central Library. (circa 1895)

This corresponded with Chicago's more significant cultural renaissance, which included the creation of the Newberry and Crerar research libraries. The three libraries agreed to divide the areas of study among them — the humanities to the Newberry Library, the sciences to the Crerar library, and popular collections to the public library.

Frederick Hild, Chief Librarian at the time, campaigned to move the library from its quarters in City Hall to Dearborn Park, a lot fronting Michigan Avenue.

On Monday, October 11, 1897, the Chicago Central Library opened its doors on Michigan Avenue between Washington and Randolph streets. The building, on the grounds of Dearborn Park (named for the Fort Dearborn Military Reservation that formally encompassed the area), cost about $2 million (about $58,500,000 today). 

The original Central Library was built on the Dearborn Park site between Washington and Randolph streets on Michigan Avenue. Circa 1898.

The building was designed by A.H. Coolidge, who won a building design competition, an associate of the firm Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge of Chicago. It took 25 draftsmen a year to complete the 1,200 blueprint drawings. They designed the building to be practically incombustible because of the lessons of the 1871 Great Chicago Fire.

The Chicago Central Library building served two purposes as the first permanent home for the Library (the building's south/Washington Street side) and the headquarters for the Grand Army of the Republic, the Civil War Union Army veterans' organization (the building's north/Randolph Street side).

By the mid-1920s, the library began to outgrow its space. As early as the 1930s, inadequate library space became a public discussion topic. Between the 1930s and 1970s, the scope of the library's offerings continued to expand; it was clearly overcrowded.

Even as early as the 1920s, the Chicago Public Library had already established itself as a landmark in the hearts of Chicagoans.

A 1967 architectural survey conducted by Chicago architects Holabird and Root confirmed that although the building was still structurally sound, the mechanical, electrical and communication systems were obsolete. Some changes were necessary.

A design competition for the renovation of the Chicago Public Library was held in 1970. Two architectural firms from Madison, Wisconsin, shared the prize for the winning design, estimating that the project would cost a prohibitive $28 million. Soon the library became the center of a spirited public debate. City officials were challenged to provide Chicagoans with a cost-effective, updated public library, and some suggested demolishing the building. Preservationists wanted to save it for its magnificent beauty and as a monument to the past.

Approximately half of the library's books and periodicals had been moved to another location by 1974. Consequently, the library's collection was then housed in two facilities. That same year, Holabird and Root were selected as the architects for a much-needed building renovation. The architects viewed the structure as a historical treasure, and their sensitive design kept the exterior and most of its decorative features intact and unchanged. The renovation began in 1974 and was completed in 1977 when the Chicago Public Library building was renamed the Chicago Cultural Center.

The center of this building, now known as Preston Bradley Hall (Preston Bradley was on the Chicago Public Library Board for over 25 years), contains a dome and hanging lamps designed by the Tiffany Glass Company of New York. The Washington Street entrance, grand staircase and dome area have inscriptions of 16th-century printers' marks, authors' names and quotations that praise learning and literature in mosaics of colored stone, mother of pearl and favrile glass. The Chicago Public Library is home to the world's largest Tiffany stained glass dome.

The Preston Bradley Hall

In 1947, the Chicago Public Library took over the entire building.

Then in 1991, the Chicago Public Library vacated the building when it opened its new State Street location named the Harold Washington Library Center, after the first African–American to be elected as mayor of Chicago. Washington served from 1983 until he died in office in 1987. In 1991, the new Harold Washington Library Center was dedicated. 

The Harold Lee Washington Library, 400 South State Street, Chicago, Illinois.

The same year the original library building was rededicated as the Chicago Cultural Center and became the nation's first free municipal cultural center.

The Chicago Cultural Center is listed as a Chicago Landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places.

Compiled and Edited by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.
Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs; Chicago Public Library;  Newberry Library

The Complete History of Chicago's Famous Lake Shore Drive.

Lake Shore Drive in 1889, taken from the top of the Chicago Water Tower.

Lake Shore Drive (referred to as the Outer Drive, also as The Drive or LSD) is probably Chicago's most famous road. Note the reconstruction 18 years after the Chicago Fire. Because of the number of homeless Chicagoans, the city allowed wooden structures to be built, as evidenced in this photograph. 

Lake Shore Drive, Chicago. circa 1900

Lake Shore Drive's origins date back to Potter Palmer, who coerced the City of Chicago to build the street adjacent to his lakefront property to enhance its value.

Palmer built his "castle" at 100 Lake Shore Drive in 1882 (today 1350 N. Lake Shore Drive) on landfills from debris from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 east of today's Michigan Avenue, which was known as Pine Street (in today's Gold Coast neighborhood). Pine was renamed Lincoln Park Boulevard in the early 1890s as far south as Ohio Street when the street connected with Lake Shore Drive.

The Potter Palmer "castle" stood on north Lake Shore Drive for more than half a century and remains one of the most legendary houses ever built in Chicago, despite being razed in 1950.

Lake Drive, Lincoln Park, Chicago, Illinois.

The drive was initially intended for leisurely strolls for the wealthy in their horse-drawn carriages. When automobiles began growing in numbers, Lake Shore Drive took on a completely different role in transportation.

On October 12, 1901, tens of thousands of flag-waving Scandinavian-Americans participated in events to celebrate the monument unveiling. Despite heavy rain that day, the festivities included a parade and a two-hour ceremony in Humboldt Park.

A bronze statue of Leif Ericson on a granite boulder in Humboldt Park, the work of a Norwegian, came to Chicago around the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.

Lake Shore Drive began at Oak Street and extended north to the city limit at Fullerton Avenue. The most notable extension was built in 1933 from Belmont to Foster avenues, which featured cloverleaf interchanges instead of at-grade intersections. This stretch of road was Chicago's first freeway, predating the Calumet Expressway by 17 years. 

Lake Shore Drive, Chicago. ca. 1910s

Chicago Tribune, Wednesday, February 2, 1927:

Leif Ericson Drive "It Stays," Official Says. Despite the protests that have arisen, south park officials announced yesterday that they will stand by their decision to name the outer drive from twenty-third street to Jackson park for Leif Ericson, a Viking, said to have landed in America in the year 1,000 AD.

Supt. George T. Donoghue for the south park board, declared that unless people insist on stressing the name of Ericson, the boulevard will still be known as the Outer Drive just as Soldier Field popularly is known as "The Stadium." "People will put their own Monikers on the the drive," Mr. Donoghue predicted, "Just as they call the drive through Lincoln park the West drive instead of Stockton drive, its proper name."

The board, he said, has considered the matter for six months. Feeling that the man should be recognized and receiving corroboration from the University of Chicago as to the historical fact. Mr. Donoghue declared that the name had been given after due consideration.

Chicago Tribune, Saturday, September 3, 1927:

Several articles have appeared of late referring to the Leif Ericson Drive as the "Outer Drive." It is beyond me why this drive is not called by the name that was rightfully given it. As all know, Chicago chose to honor the discoverer of America, Leif Ericson, who landed on the mainland of America in the year 1,000, by naming this drive Leif Ericson Drive. 

The dedication of Leif Ericson Drive on September 11, 1927, attracted 25,000 people, mostly of Norwegian birth or ancestry. 

Chicago Tribune, Sunday, January 1, 1928 (excerpt):

As it happens, the Outer Drive which has been called Leif Ericson Drive could have been Wacker Drive and when all the work has been done that Wacker Drive could have been the fine boulevard from jackson to Lincoln Park, a more imposing memorial even than South Water Street, which is now Wacker Drive, The Tribune again questioned the propriety of it, although there nothing was being detached from the city's sense of the past, but the congruity of the name was questionable in that application.

That controversy involved some of the city's substantial Norwegian citizens and The Tribune was supposed to have some prejudices in the matter, which was absurd. It presently involved some substantial Italian citizens who found in the Norwegian devotion to Ericson and implied reflection on Columbus and an intent to belittle his place in American History.

In preparation for the 1933 Century of Progress World's Fair, Leif Ericson Drive was extended south to Jackson Park. Leif Ericson Drive was one of many ticket booths and entrance/exit for the Fair.

Entrance - Leif Ericson Drive, The Colonial Village, A Century of Progress 1933-34 Chicago World's Fair. Most references to "Leif Ericson Drive" online have the wrong date of 1937. Proven wrong by this World's Fair postcard.

Chicago Tribune, Thursday, January 19, 1928 (excerpt):

New Columbus Drive to match Up with Ericson. The outer drive which will connect the proposed series of five islands extending from Roosevelt Road to Jackson Park will be named the Christopher Columbus, the south park board decided yesterday. That action was taken at the request of a delegation of Italian-American citizens who came to protest against giving the name of Leif Ericson to the south parks' "inter outer" drive, now under construction.

Oscar Durante, editor of L'Italia di Chicago Newspaper (aka: Courriere del l'Italia, Italian News, and Italian News of Chicago), and as and a school board trustee, thanked the commissioners and said that justice had been done for his countryman. Edward J. Kelly, president of the board, explained that the commissioners were not taking a stand on the question but that they had named the outer drive for Leif Ericson only as recognition of the Scandinavian population of Chicago.

However, the north and south extensions did not connect as the Chicago River cut off the two roadways. So, in 1930, plans for an outer drive bridge over the Chicago River and its approaches were estimated to cost 5,750,000. The bridge, later known as the "S-Turn," 
opened Tuesday, September 28, 1937.

Thousands attended the opening of the Outer Drive Bridge, also known as the Link Bridge, on what is now Lake Shore Drive at the mouth of the Chicago River on October 5, 1937. The bridge was intended to ease congestion on Michigan Avenue, and in 1937, it was one of the longest, most comprehensive, and heaviest bascule bridges.

Lake Shore Drive S-curve and bridge. ca.1960s.

The infamous S-curve on Lake Shore Drive, on the south end of the bridge (December 24, 1937). Note the Chicago Locks being built (between 1936-38) in the upper left of the picture.

Leif Ericson Drive continued to be called by its legal name, evident by newspaper articles, through 1939.

Beginning in the mid-1940s, a section north of North Avenue featured a unique, though problem-plagued, system of curb-high lane barriers (pretty blue lights) that could be raised or lowered (making reversible lanes) to provide six lanes in the direction of rush-hour traffic flow instead of the standard four lanes in each direction. The reversible automatic lane barriers were removed in 1979.

The raised barrier during rush hour set 6 lanes one way.

 

Chicago Tribune, Sunday, January 18, 1942:

More Bottlenecks. I have driven up and down the outer drive for the last few years watching the transformation of our boulevard system in Lincoln park. What was once a pleasant spot thru which to drive is now a concrete racetrack with ugly lamp-posts, stop lights and dizzy curves. What was meant to speed up traffic now retards it. Instead of one or two bottlenecks from the Loop to the north side we now have one continuous bottleneck. All this and millions of dollars spent, too. the men who are hired as engineers to eliminate traffic congestion could have done a better job. By Joseph S. Farina.

In 1946, the entire freeway was named Lake Shore Drive.

The 1951–54 extension of Lake Shore Drive from Foster Avenue to Hollywood Avenue cut the Edgewater Beach Hotel from the beach, reducing business. The hotel closed in 1967, and the main buildings were demolished shortly after. The Edgewater Apartment Building is still standing.

In this 1938 photograph, Lake Shore Drive ends at Foster Avenue. You can see the Edgewater Hotel further North in the picture.

Construction work at the intersection of Sheridan Road and Hollywood Avenue was completed in 1954. Vehicles from the North will turn east onto the outer drive's extension, the new northside terminus of the outer drive.

South Lake Shore Drive Heading North to Downtown in 1966.

"Lake Shore Drive" is a song written by Skip Haynes of the Chicago-based rock group Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah wrote the song "Lake Shore Drive" in 1971 where he talks about the reversible lanes as: "Pretty blue lights along the way --- Helping you right on by." An additional reference in the song lyrics says: "From rags on up to riches fifteen minutes you can fly," which denotes driving from the south side to the Loop.

Listen to the song "Lake Shore Drive."

Mayor Michael Bilandic shut down the reversible lanes of the north side outer drive in 1979. In 1978, the last year, the reversible lanes were used, and seven persons died in accidents, mainly involving head-on collisions between cars traveling in opposite directions and crossing the dividing lines.

The current S-curve includes much gentler bends starting around Randolph Street and ending just before Monroe Street.

Construction on the project began in 1982 and concluded in late 1986.

The Field Museum and Soldier Field are split on Lake Shore Drive. Northbound and Southbound roads are divided around the Field Museum and Soldier Field.

The Lake Shore Drive extension runs two lanes between 79th and 87th streets in each direction, and it opened in October 2013. 

An aerial view, looking north, of the extension of Lake Shore Drive through former steel factory property on the far south side of Chicago near 79th Street and South Shore Drive.

Looking south at the Lake Shore Drive extension.

By Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

George Stafford on his stake wagon used to move household furniture between Wheaton and Chicago between 1885 and 1890.

George Stafford on his stake wagon with the DuPage County Courthouse in the background on the far right with the clock tower. The rig was used to move household furniture between Wheaton and Chicago in the 1885-1890 period. The round trip took three days.

Courtesy of the Wheaton Historic Preservation Council.

Here is another perspective of the scene above. The water-pumping station is seen in the foreground of this circa 1900 photograph, Behind is the DuPage County Courthouse with the clock tower. 

State Street looking north from Randolph Street, Chicago. (1911)

State Street looking north from Randolph  Street, Chicago. (1911)

Leavitt's Delicatessen and Restaurant, 1320 South Halsted at the corner of Maxwell Street, Chicago. (1920s-1960s.)

Leavitt's had been selling liquor from the very moment Prohibition ended. A large cigar counter divided the deli and the restaurant. Sam Leavitt and his five brothers opened up after getting a loan from the owner of "Sinai Kosher Sausage Company." Terms of the loan included using only Sinai products.

"In 1933, Prohibition Law was repealed," Sol Leavitt (Sam Leavitt's son) wrote. "The long counter that was a soda fountain and all the grocery sections were remodeled into a long mahogany bar opposite the deli counter. Sol was 18 years old when Prohibition ended. "I remember the first night that beer was sold. The bar sold many barrels that night. Four hundred glasses of draught, ten ounces each, per barrel, retailing at 10¢ a glass. The deli counter was kept busy selling sandwiches for the drinkers. 10¢ for salami sandwiches and 15¢ for corn beef sandwiches. 

The bartender would take the order for the sandwiches and send them across to the deli counter by homemade wire trolley cars. Sandwiches were put on plates and onto the car, made to hold three at a time, and pushed across with one push. These trolley baskets were made by our expert deli man Max Karm, who had been trained in Russia in sheet metal work. New customers were amazed by the contraptions. Karm had several going across overhead."

Sol's father, Sam, died in 1945. He was 59 years old. Sol and his brothers would eventually take over the business and carry on. Sol married Shirley in 1947, and the deli and restaurant remained a Maxwell Street landmark. The business remained on Maxwell street when a new owner, Jim Stefanovic, leased the property in 1973 and operated under the name, "Jim's Original" until the wrecking ball swung. 

INDEX TO MY ILLINOIS AND CHICAGO FOOD & RESTAURANT ARTICLES.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

#JewishThemed #JewishLife

The History of Chicago's Air Quality.

Like most large cities, Chicago has a history of poor air quality. As it industrialized, Chicago relied on the dirty soft coal of southern Illinois for power and heat. Burned in boiler rooms, locomotives, steel mills, and domestic furnaces, the ubiquitous coal created an equally ubiquitous smoke. Soot soiled everything in the city, ruining furniture, merchandise, and building facades. Chicago legislated against dense smoke in 1881, but residents and visitors continued to complain about choking clouds and filthy soot. In addition to smoke, the numerous industries surrounding the slaughterhouses produced foul odors and dangerous chemical emissions, further diminishing air quality.

Coal burning steamer on the Chicago River.

Undoubtedly the poor air increased the severity of several pulmonary diseases, including asthma and pneumonia. Perhaps second only to Pittsburgh in smoke pollution at the opening of the twentieth century, Chicago gained a national reputation for its terrible air, but it also became a leader in regulation. In the early 1900s, a movement to force railroad electrification focused on the Illinois Central's waterfront line and kept the smoke issue in the news. Still, air quality did not significantly improve until coal use began to decline after World War II.

In the early 20th century, private, single-family, two and three flat residence were instructed to burn their waste in the small concrete garbage incinerators that the city constructed in the alleys behind each property as a solution to growing landfill issues. Garbage trucks would open the cooled incinerators and shovel out the ashes. Larger incinerators used by schools, hospitals, and apartment buildings.

In 1959 the city created the Department of Air Pollution Control. The new department investigated all types of emissions and suggested regulations for several previously ignored sources of pollution, including burning refuse and leaves. 

Public concern for air quality heightened after a 1962 disaster killed hundreds of London residents, and by 1964 Chicago received more than six thousand citizen air pollution complaints per year. As with the early movement to control smoke, the new activism focused on the potential negative health effects of impure air. Not surprisingly, the Loop, the Calumet Region, and northern Lake County, Indiana, were the most polluted districts in the metropolitan area.

In 1967 the U.S. Public Health Service determined that only New York City's air was more polluted than Chicago's. Impelled by citizen activism and new federal regulations in the 1970s, the city attempted to control the largest polluters, including the massive South Works steel plant. Even as these efforts began to reap benefits, however, the continuing suburbanization and auto dependence of the metropolitan area meant that auto emissions would plague the city for decades to come.

By the 1990s, a decline in heavy industry and effective regulation of auto emissions combined to significantly improve Chicago's air. Chicago no longer ranked among the nation's most heavily polluted cities.

By David Stradling
Edited by Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The Excelsior Press Brick Company at Greggs Milk Station, Todays Westmont, Illinois. (1872-1875)

In 1872, a few months after the Great Chicago Fire, William L. Gregg found the DuPage County region to have good clay for brickmaking. He started the Excelsior Press Brick Company on 80 acres at the highest point between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River valley on the Chicago-Aurora Branch of the Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q), which was completed in 1864, affording easy access to the North, South and West Divisions of the City of Chicago. 

Early on, the area was called "Bushville" while another part of the area was called Gregg's, then later known by Gregg's Corner which was settled in the second half of the 19th Century. The Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroad began to stop in Bushville in 1864. CB&Q renamed this stop "Greggs Milk Station" perhaps because of its proximity to the Excelsior brick company was to the train station or by the request of William Gregg. This area was Incorporated as Westmont, Illinois, in 1921, named for its location west of Chicago, the name implies "western mountain."

Gregg's name was left behind in the area, with Gregg’s Station, Gregg’s School, and Gregg’s Road (later Cass Avenue).

Claimed to be Gregg's Milk Station in Westmont, Illinois. (year unknown)

The Excelsior Press Brick Company's Chicago Office was located at: № 77 Dearborn Street (Today's Address: 503 S. Dearborn). The company employed at least 40 men and boys to produce up to 70,000 bricks in a 10 hour day.

The failure of the Excelsior Press Brick Company was due to Gregg's dry-pressed brick process which made the bricks crumbly.

---

BRICK BY THE MILLION.

Excerpt from Chicago Daily Tribune, October 18, 1872

A New Source of Supply of Building Material.

The Works of the Excelsior Press Brick Manufacturing Company.

Inspection of the Establishment By a Large Excursion Party.

A large excursion party of gentlemen left the Central Depot yesterday forenoon, to visit the works of the Excelsior Pressed Brick Manufacturing Company of Chicago, situated at Gregg Station, about 18 miles from the city, on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad. Included in the party wero the Philadelphia brick men who had made a trip to Chicago for the purpose of seeing the city in general, and of inspecting the new brick factory, in which they are all more or less interested. 

So many visitors came that four extra train cars were required for their transportation to Gregg Station, where they arrived in due time, and at once proceeded to inspect the brick factory, which is situated immediately south of the railroad track, having a side-track running past the kilns. The Excelsior Press Brick Company owned 80 acres of land at this point, for which they paid $175 per acre, and which is now held at $350 per acre. Here they have developed a practically inexhaustible deposit of a superior clay, which extends down to a depth of 60 feet, and here they have recently put in operation two of William L. Gregg's Excelsior Brick Machines, the first in use west of the Alleghenies, though they have been worked for over four years in Philadelphia. Several substantial frame structures have been erected for the brick machines, engine house, drying, sanding, and packing rooms, blacksmith shop, clay storehouse, etc., the works covering an area of about one acre, exclusive of the ground occupied by the kilns.

A brief sketch of the enterprise, its projector, and its claims and prospects will not be without interest to the people of Chicago, to whom, just now, the question of cheap and durable brick is of peculiar importance. Mr. Gregg, the inventor of the Excelsior Pressed Brick Machine, has spent twenty years and several fortunes in bringing his patent to perfection, and has, it is believed, fully demonstrated the uselessness of attempting to make serviceable brick from dry clay. His machine works the clay as nature moistens it, taking it directly from the bank to the machine, which accomplishes its own preparation, and does it well, if the quality of the production may be taken as a criterion. During the process of manufacture, the clay receives three distinct pressures, equal to 300 tons upon each brick, which is thus rendered extremely compact, weighing 20 percent more than ordinary brick of the same size, and, of course, renders the wall stronger, heavier, and capable of sustaining greater weight and strain. The brick are larger than the average made in Chicago, and in uniformity of shape, and perfect angles, will compare favorably with the manufactures of Philadelphia and Baltimore. Even the common bricks do not fail in these qualities. Scientific civil engineers in Philadelphia have pronounced them the strongest, best, and most serviceable brick for public works, such as culverts, sewers, arches, etc., and have sain that in the matter of dumpage alone there is a savings of at least 50 cents per thousand in comparison with home-made brick. Sixty million of these brick have been made in Philadelphia, where the two Gregg machines were unable to supply the demand.

The two machines now in operation at Gregg Station are capable of producing 70,000 brick per day of ten hours, as by the use of Caldwell's drying process the brick are dried as fast as they come from the machine, from which they are delivered on tramways to the drying tunnels, in which the "smokewater" is wholly evaporated, and the bricks are then shoved along by the same apparatus through the drying tunnels of the kiln, being handled but once previous to burning [firing]. A great feature of the establishment consists in the fact that brick may be made throughout the winter months, while hand-making yards have already closed for the season. Clay sufficient for several millions of brick is now under cover against the time when freezing weather shall put a stop to out-door work.

For the entire working of two machines, including the supply of clay, placing in the kilns, loading upon the cars, etc., forty-four men and boys are required. One month ago all these operatives were utterly unskilled in the business, but they are rapidly acquiring proficiency, and the quality of the brick is constantly improving in consequence. It is intended soon to work the machines night and day, when their total capacity will be increased to 140,000 brick per day. With these immense resources the Company can fill contracts without fail at all seasons of the year, and when it is remembered that it costs $30 per ton freight on pressed brick shipped from Philadelphia, the builders of Chicago can from some idea of the advantages which may be derived from the new manufactory at Gregg Station.

The smooth finish, fine grain, and perfect angles of the best quality of the pressed brick for fronts tell their own story, but it is well to state that the various architects in yesterday's party, after having made a thorough examination of the bricks, both common and front, held a consultation together, and unhesitatingly gave it as their opinion that, for strength in the wall, and capability of resisting pressure and strain, the Excelsior-made brick are far superior to the hand-made brick in Chicago. Another vast advantage is found in the fact that brick may be delivered on the C. B. & O. Railroad to almost any part of the city, as the road crosses the entire West Division, the business portion of the South Division, and lands in freight close to the boundary of the North Division, so that the saving of expense in cartage is a considerable item.

Chicago Tribune Ad - June 25, 1874

Court Actions

July 21, 1874 - Excelsior Press Brick Manufacturing Company vs. Thomas L. Kempater in the amount of $3,278.64.

April 13, 1875 - H.H. Scoville, Jr. vs. Excelsior Press Brick Manufacturing Company in the amount of $267.02.

October 9, 1875 - A. Shield et al. vs. Excelsior Press Brick Manufacturing Company in the amount of $101.00.

November 04, 1875 - MacGregor J. Mitcheson sued the Excelsior Press Brick Manufacturing Company for $2,000, and W.L. Gregg counter sued the same defendant for $5,000.

November 6, 1875 - The Chicago, Wilmington & Vermillion Coall Company began a suit for $7,000 against the Excelsior Press Brick Manufacturing Company.

November 18, 1875 - MacGregor J. Mitcheson vs. Excelsior Press Brick  Manufacturing Company, $1,004.98. William L. Gregg vs. Same, $4,101.77

November 25, 1875 - In the use of Malcolm McDonald et al. vs. the Excelsior Press Brick Manufacturing Company, Judge Williams yesterday appointed D.P. Newell Receiver, under a bond of $2,000.

November 30, 1875 - Judge Booth - B.B. Talcott et al. vs. Excelsior Press Brick Manufacturing Company, $2,099.96 - Richard Meldrum et al. vs. same, $4,271. 

Foreclosure and Forced Sale - Chicago Tribune - February 4, 1876

The Excelsior Press Brick Company owned 80 acres at the highest point of land near the C.B.&Q. Railroad, allowing for easy export of brick by steam locomotive. William Gregg's house was constructed atop the hill. It is now known as the Gregg Museum.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.