The History of Marshall Field’s Wholesale - Warehouse Store, Chicago (1885-1930).

By the time of the Great Chicago Fire in 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 retail and wholesale divisions. The building they shared was destroyed in the fire, allowing Field to construct new buildings for each. 

In 1872, he completed a five-story structure at Madison and Water Streets (now Wacker) to house the wholesale division. 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, near the location of the Chicago Board of Trade Building.

In 1885, Field contacted architect Henry Hobson Richardson with the proposition of designing a new building on the site for the Marshall Field's Wholesale Store (sometimes referred to as the Marshall Field's Warehouse Store).

Richardson completed preliminary plans by summer and, in October, traveled to Chicago to unveil the finished plans and sign the contract. 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.

The statistics for the building were staggering for the time being. The completed structure stood seven stories high, with a full basement on spread foundations. It fronted 325 feet on Adams, 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 ($25,077,735 today) was an enormous sum of money at the time but just a fraction of the wholesale division sales for 1887, which were over $23,000,000 ($648,946,100 today). Marshall Field owned the land and building 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 for its overall size and 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 with two arches over everyone for the below floors. Groups of four rectangular openings marked the top floor, creating a horizontal band above the vertically thrusting arches. 

Above this was the crocket 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.

Packing Department

Despite the lavish praise of the building, pure economics 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 manufacturers' appeals to buy directly at lower prices, and the success of huge mail-order houses further contributed to the decline of wholesale. To breathe new life into the wholesale division, plans were announced in 1927 to construct a massive new facility, covering two city blocks and containing 4,000,000 square feet of space. The new building, the Merchandise Mart, served as the death knell for Richardson's Wholesale Store building.

The Merchandise Mart, built by Marshall Field & Co. and later owned for over half a century by the Kennedy family, opened in 1930.

Marshall Field & Co. engaged Graham, Anderson, Probst & White to draw up specifications for demolishing the old building. The massive structure was reduced to rubble by mid-summer to accommodate a parking lot. Little was salvaged except machinery and equipment, lighting fixtures, brass rails, gates and revolving doors. The granite and sandstone, praised for their visual impact, were used as fill to create a level surface for the asphalt parking lot.

Marshall Field Wholesale Advertisement from 1907.

Marshall Field Wholesale Advertisement from 1907.

Marshall Field Wholesale Advertisement from 1907.

MARSHALL FIELD AND COMPANY ARTICLES

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Edmund Richard "Dick" Taylor, Father of the Greenback, businessman, politician, and soldier from Illinois.

Edmund Richard "Dick" Taylor

Born Edmund Richard Taylor (1804-1891) in Lunenburg County, Virginia, son of Giles Y Taylor (1766–1830) and Francine "Sina" Stokes. In later years, he preferred to use his middle name rather than his first name, and used it in its short form. Thus he became known as "Dick" Taylor, and his middle initial was written "D" in formal documents.

Dick Taylor was an Indian trader in his youth. In the fall of 1823, he began general merchandising with Colonel John Taylor in Springfield, Illinois. On September 18, 1829, he married Margaret Taylor (born December 28, 1813 in Kentucky), the daughter of Col. John Taylor and Elizabeth (Burkhead) Taylor.

In 1830, he was elected to the Illinois State Legislature, representing Sangamon County. In 1832 he was re-elected, defeating several challengers including Abraham Lincoln. Taylor was the only man to defeat Lincoln in a direct election. In 1834 he was elected to the Illinois Senate from Sangamon County.

In 1835, he was appointed by President Andrew Jackson as Receiver of Public Moneys in Chicago, where he was in charge of substantial sales of federal land. After holding this position for four years, he returned to the private sector. He continued to play a leading role in Democratic Party politics in Illinois.

Excerpt from "Herndon's Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life.
"Among the Democratic orators who stumped the county in the late1830s was one Taylor commonly known as Col. Dick Taylor. He was a showy, bombastic man, with a weakness for fine clothes and other personal . adornments. Frequently he was pitted against Lincoln, and indulged in many bitter flings at the lordly ways and aristocratic pretensions of the Whigs. He had a way of appealing to "his horny-handed neighbors," and resorted to many other artful tricks of a demagogue. When he was one day expatiating in his accustomed style, Lincoln, in a spirit of mischief and, as he expressed it, "to take the wind out of his sails," slipped up to the speaker's side, and catching his vest by the lower edge gave it a sharp pull. The latter instantly opened and revealed to his astonished hearers a ruffled shirt-front glittering with watch-chain, seals, and other golden jewels. The effect was startling. The speaker stood confused and dumbfounded, while the audience roared with laughter. When it came Lincoln's turn to answer he covered the gallant colonel over in this style:

"While Colonel Taylor was making these charges against the Whigs over the country, riding in fine carriages, wearing ruffled shirts, kid-gloves, massive gold watch-chains with large gold-seals, and flourishing a heavy gold-headed cane, I was a poor boy, hired on a flat-boat at eight dollars a month, and had only one pair of breeches to my back, and they were buckskin. Now if you know the nature of buckskin when wet and dried by the sun, it will shrink; and my breeches kept shrinking until they left several inches of my legs bare between the tops of my socks and the lower part of my breeches; and whilst I was growing taller they were becoming shorter, and so much tighter that they left a blue streak around my legs that can be seen to this day. If you call this aristocracy I plead guilty to the charge."

Taylor was a pioneer of the coal industry in Illinois. In 1823 he took an interest in coal and opened the West End Shaft, also known as West End Coal Mine. In 1856, he sank a shaft in La Salle County, Illinois, operating as the Northern Illinois Coal and Iron Company. He also owned other mines in that area. On February 18, 1863, at a convention in Chicago of the coal operators in Illinois, Edmund was appointed Chairman.

Taylor played an important role in Illinois in promoting and bringing about "internal improvements" (canals, railroads, and other transportation infrastructure). General Usher F. Linder stated "If any man deserves more credit than another for the completion of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, it is Col. Edmund D. Taylor." When the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad was incorporated on January 16, 1836, Taylor was appointed commissioner and director. On January 18, 1837, at Russell's Saloon in Chicago, supporters of internal improvements held a mass meeting. William H. Brown was called to the chair and William Stuart appointed Secretary, Francis Payton stated the objects of the meeting. A committee of five was appointed namely: Edmund D. Taylor, Captain J. B. F. Russell, Francis Payton, John Harris Kinzie (eldest son of John Kinzie), and Joseph N. Balestier. The meeting declared in favor of the immediate construction of the Illinois Central Railroad and general system of improvement.

On February 5, 1857, the Chicago Merchants' Exchange company was incorporated by: Edmund D. Taylor, Thomas Hall, George Armour, James Peck, John P. Chapin, Walter S. Gurnee, Edward Kendall Rogers, Thomas Richmond, Julian Sidney Rumsey, Samuel B. Pomeroy, Elisha Wadsworth, Walter Loomis Newberry, Hiram Wheeler and George Steele.

Taylor had several tours of military service. During the Winnebago War of 1827, he enlisted as a private in Captain Bowling Green's Company of the militia on July 20, 1827, and was honorably discharged on August 27th. During the Black Hawk War of 1832 he was commissioned as a colonel in the state militia on June13th by governor John Reynolds. He was also Aide-de-camp to Brigadier General Joseph Duncan of the Brigade of Mounted Volunteers, in service of the United States. During the Civil War (1861-1865), Taylor was again commissioned a colonel. He did not serve in the field, but was employed very extensively by President Lincoln as a confidential messenger.

By late 1861, it was clear that the Civil War was going to be much more costly than anyone had expected, and that the Union would have to raise or find or borrow vast amounts of money. Taylor had the idea that the Union could pay its expenses with newly created money in the form of paper currency ("greenbacks").

Image of a one dollar "Greenback," first issued in 1862.

Taylor mentioned his idea for greenbacks at General Ulysses S. Grant's headquarters in Cairo, Illinois. On January 16, 1862, Taylor met privately with President Abraham Lincoln at his request. Taylor suggested the issuance of treasury notes bearing no interest and printed on the best banking paper. Taylor said "Just get Congress to pass a bill authorizing the printing of full legal tender treasury notes... and pay your soldiers with them and go ahead and win your war with them also. If you make them full legal tender... they will have the full sanction of the government and be just as good as any money; as Congress is given the express right by the Constitution." In a letter dated December 16, 1864, President Lincoln named Col. Edmund D. Taylor as "the father of the present greenback." Taylor cited his suggestion of the greenback in his 1887 petition to Congress for reimbursement of his out-of-pocket expenses and he included the 1864 letter from Abraham Lincoln. In February of 1888, he added a more recent letter from General John McClernand, who had been at Cairo at the time, and confirmed Taylor's account.

My dear Colonel Dick:
I have long determined to make public the origin of the greenback and tell the world that it was Dick Taylor’s creation. You had always been friendly to me. and when troublous times fell on us, and my shoulders, though broad and willing, were weak, and myself surrounded by such circumstances and such people that I knew not whom to trust, then I said in my extremity, ‘I will send for Colonel Taylor — he will know what to do.' I think it was in January 1862, on or about the 16th, that I did so. Said you: ‘Why, issue treasury notes bearing no interest, printed on the best banking paper. Issue enough to pay off the army expenses and declare it legal tender.' Chase thought it a hazardous thing, but we finally accomplished it, and gave the people of this Republic the greatest blessing they ever had — their own paper to pay their debts. It is due to you, the father of the present greenback, that the people should know it and I take great pleasure in making it known. How many times have I laughed at you telling me, plainly, that I was too lazy to be anything but a lawyer. 

Yours Truly,
A. Lincoln

During the Civil War, Taylor had spent considerable sums from his own pocket for travel on government business and in raising and equipping Union troops. At the time, he asked for no reimbursement. But in 1887, he applied to Congress to be repaid $15,000 of his expenses. Taylor retained considerable standing in Chicago's business community. His petition included a supporting memorial signed by 56 prominent men of Chicago and Illinois. Taylor's petition was considered by the Committee on War Claims, but it was rejected for want of documentation. Taylor renewed his petition in 1890, but it was again rejected.

Taylor was ruined by the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed 14 stores owned by him. He had insurance, but it was with Chicago firms that were overwhelmed by the disaster.

Worn Head Stones for Edmund D. Taylor and his wife Margaret Taylor.

Taylor died in Chicago, Illinois, on December 4, 1891. He is buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Sangamon County, Illinois.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Philip Maxwell, M.D. was the eleventh and last surgeon of Fort Dearborn.

Philip Maxwell was born in Guilford, Vermont on April 3, 1799. Maxwell moved to Sackett's Harbor, New York, where he became a physician. He was a member of the New York State Assembly (Jefferson County) in 1832. 

The wedding portrait of Philip Maxwell, married in 1822.

He was commissioned as a physician for the United States Army and was assigned to Fort Dearborn in Chicago as an Assistant Surgeon, arriving on February 3, 1833 and served until the fort was abandoned on December 29th, 1836.

While in Wisconsin, Dr. Maxwell was so impressed with the beauty of the country surrounding Lake Geneva he paid $1,600 ($37,000 today) to plat Lake Geneva in 1833, and is acknowledged as the "Father of Lake Geneva" for having done so.

Plat of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

He was listed among the “500 Chicagoans” on the census prior to the incorporation of Chicago as a town on August 12, 1833. On September 26, 1833 he signed the Chicago Treaty document with the Indians as a witness and received $35 ($920 today) for a claim he made at this treaty.

He was promoted to a full surgeon in 1838 and served with General Zachary Taylor at Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He decided to make his home in Chicago after resigning from the service. From 1844 to 1847, he ran a doctors office at the corner of Lake and Clark Streets. 

A rotund gentleman of about 280 pounds, he was known for his jolly demeanor and a flair for horsemanship with a reputation for galloping "hell-for-leather" through town.

In 1845 he served as Chicago's City physician and sat on the Chicago Board of Health. In 1848, he joined the practice of Dr. Brockholst McVickar at Lake and Clark Streets, near the popular Tremont House, where he resumed his role as a physician. His spirited discussions at the billiard table of the Tremont House with Dr. Egan, a like large man of wit and overflowing humor, have become legend.

His name was mentioned among the attendants at the meetings that resulted in the organization of the Chicago Medical Society in 1850. In 1853 he became the State Treasurer of Illinois. 

In the Spring of 1855 he bought land there and began building a large summer house in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, moving in the following spring. Tall windows, broad entrances, elaborate ornamental wood moldings, marble fireplaces and grand staircase gave testimony to Dr. Maxwell’s position as a community leader.

Having relocated to Wisconsin, Philip’s office in Springfield was declared vacant by reason of his non-residence in the state of Illinois. He announced his permanent move to his new house in Wisconsin. 

Regarded as one of Lake Geneva’s finest landmarks, the building predates all of the area’s notable summer mansions and served as a summer residence for a line of several prominent Chicago industrialists who entertained both political and social dignitaries. General Ulysses S. Grant once stayed here. It was also the site of an early courtship of Nancy Davis, who later became the wife of President Ronald Reagan.

Dr. Philip Maxwell's summer house, built in 1855, in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

The property was rescued from total dereliction in the late 1970′s by Ruth Ann and Christopher Brown who made it their home and established it as a five room bed and breakfast for more than two decades .

In 2002 Nancy Golden Waspi followed her heart and purchased the property to create a charming Inn and Restaurant named the “Golden Oaks” in honor of her Family and respect to the original name “The Oaks.” She further Improved the property and filled the home with love and great energy for the next decade creating beautiful and memorable experiences from all who visited.

In 2012 Andrew Fritz of Lake Geneva’s Baker House (built in 1885), adopted the home from Nancy and began to put his creative twist on things. This became a detailed three year renovation project which included acquiring the adjacent land and buildings, which were originally part of the five acre 1856 Maxwell Estate. The completed boutique resort encompasses three acres of gardens, lounges, outdoor fireplaces, a heated pool, croquet and bocce ball amusement and 30 luxury hotel rooms steeped in history and renewed with dramatic Gilded Age grandeur.

Maxwell's book, "Doctor Maxwell’s Prescription and Diet Book of the Sick and Wounded at Fort Dearborn, 1832-1836," is preserved at the (Chicago Historical Society) now the Chicago History Museum.

Philip died on November 5, 1859, aged 60 years, at his home in Lake Geneva. Hundreds of mourners travelled by train from Chicago for his funeral. Philip was buried in Pioneer Cemetery in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. His beloved wife, Jerutha, died from breast cancer complications at home in Lake Geneva on March 27, 1875.

Chicago's famous Maxwell Street is named for Philip Maxwell.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.