Chicago's State Street, looking south from Randolph. 1871, 1885 & 1907

State Street, south from Randolph, Chicago. 1871 (Pre-Fire). All destroyed.
You can see the horses (blury due to movement) in front of the street cars.

State Street, south from Randolph, Chicago, 1885.

State Street, south from Randolph, Chicago, 1907

Lincoln Logs Construction Toy Began in Chicago, Illinois.

Lincoln Logs may have been named after the nation’s 16th president, but they were invented by John Lloyd Wright, the son of architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

Lincoln Logs, first made out of notched redwood in 1916. Records show that the J. L. Wright Company of Chicago, Illinois, obtained US Patent №1,351,086, for the design on August 31, 1920 and had the Lincoln Logs name registered on August 28, 1923. They were marketed along with other sturdy, functional wood toys under the Red Square Toy Company name.

Red Square Toy Company was purchased in 1943 by Playskool Corporation for $800, another toy giant with roots in Chicago, still markets Lincoln Logs. Lincoln Logs were among the first toys to be promoted on television, 1953’s Pioneer Playhouse. The ads targeted affluent parents, who were most likely to own a television set and to buy educational toys.

More than 100 million sets have been sold worldwide, reaching their peak of success during the Davy Crockett craze of the 1950s. Both the toy and inventor were entered into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 1999.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale,.Ph.D.

North Pole Ice Cream Store, North Ave. near Harlem Ave., River Forest, Illinois.

Architect Bertrand Goldberg, born in 1913 in Chicago, and famous for his work on the Marina City and River City projects, designed the North Pole mobile ice cream store in 1938.

The entire store was built on wheels making it portable. Its glass walls and cantilevered roof were suspended from a mast anchored to a truck chassis; the foundation of the building.

 

Originally, the plan was to sell ice cream in Chicago in the summer and then move the North Pole to Florida for the winter months. Goldberg considered creating a series of these stores to be served by a "mother truck" where the ice cream would be manufactured en route and distributed to the stores.

Stores could be installed in a parking lot in a downtown area or other high-traffic spot.

The inventive little building was influenced by Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion House, which featured a similar roofing system. 

A Dymaxion House

Goldberg showed the design to General Wood, the President of the Sears Roebuck Company, who, as Goldberg states in his Oral History, "was very interested in it as a concept for Sears Roebuck for stores that could be erected quickly in new industrial areas. He became sort of interested in it but nothing ever happened." Goldberg continues, "the concept of a tension supported roof - of a roof supported by hanging was something which obviously I hadn't designed or invented - but the awareness of it certainly opened up a new horizon for design...You could get a building that was suddenly open at its edges rather than closed at its edges."

The History of Dime Museums in Early 20th Century Chicago, Illinois.

DIME MUSEUM HISTORY
Dime museums were famous in the United States at the end of the 19th century. 

The London Dime Museum, 314 S. State Street, (Today, 448 S. State) Chicago.

Designed as entertainment and moral education centers for the working class (lowbrow), the museums were distinctly different from upper and middle-class cultural events (highbrow). Dime museums were famous and cheap entertainment in urban centers like New York City and Chicago, where many immigrants settled.

Dime Museums were one of the lowest rungs on the showbiz ladder, sometimes not much more than a storefront with a mix of sideshow acts, macabre curios, and freaks. But it was where a hungry performer could always find work, and Harry Houdini would return to Dime Museums so many times that he earned the nickname "Dime Museum Harry." The social trend peaked during the Progressive era (ca. 1890–1920).

KOHL & MIDDLETON'S DIME MUSEUMS
Reminiscences of George Middleton as told to, and written by, his wife.

150 West Madison Street, Chicago, Illinois

In coming down from the northwest in 1882, C.E. Kohl and I decided there was an opening in Chicago for a dime museum, so we formed a co-partnership, and I went on to Chicago to look up a location, which I found at 150 West Madison Street, just east of Halsted. It was an instantaneous success, and we operated for many years.

The next year, we opened one at 150 S. Clark Street, near Madison (now 10 South Clark Street), and at 150, 152, and 154 W. Madison, opposite Union Street, which were also very successful.

 

During the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, we opened another one at 294 State Street, which was also a success. We also established them in Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Cleveland. All except Cleveland paid handsomely, our only failure in the dime museum business.

It was a strange business, and for a few years, the dime was a new price for admission to a place of amusement. Thousands and thousands of people would pass along and say, "Oh, let's go in for fun." But as years went by, those same people became critics and would not spend their dime or their time unless the show was considered worth it.

The dime museum business, with its curiosities, stage performances, and music, led to the continuous vaudeville of the theatres; then came the ten, twenty, and thirty-cent performances. The people were always demanding better shows, for which they were willing to pay, until finally, it reached the high-class vaudeville of today, in which higher salaries are paid than in any other class of amusement, except grand opera. 

So, what does this enterprising duo have to do with the World's Columbian Exposition? The Fair and the popular Midway closed at the end of October, but the men just didn't want to see it end! So, by November 12th, they had put together a gigantic show reproducing the "Old Midway," just in case there was anyone left in Chicago who had not visited the original. Rrrrrright, here on our stage! The World's Columbian Exposition.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

H. N. Bruns Florist, 1409 W Madison (now 3049 W Madison), Garfield Park, Chicago. 1907

H. N. Bruns Florist, 1409 W Madison (now 3049 W Madison), Garfield Park, Chicago. 1907