Items | Digital Collections at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library

Union League Club of Chicago
Image | 1888 | Picture Chicagoto maintain the civil and political equality of all citizens in every section of our common country ... Its house, one of the finest in Chicago, arranged and furnished with every comfort and luxury, is situated on Jackson Street and Fourth Avenue, close to the Board of Trade."
Michigan Boulevard widening
Image | 1919 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Michigan Boulevard Widening--Work Partly Finished."
State Street
Image | 1912 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "In the Shopping District--State Street." View is looking northeast up State Street from Madison Street.
City Hall construction
Image | 1909 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "City Hall foundations nearing completion (View taken February 15, 1909)"
Garrick Theater
Image | 1906 | Picture ChicagoThe Garrick Theater, built in 1892, was designed by Adler & Sullivan, and was located at 64 W. Randolph Street.
Post office overhead carrier system
Image | 1906 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Overhead carrier system in the post-office, similar to cash carriers used in stores."
Northwestern University, downtown Chicago
Image | 1906 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Northwestern University Building, Clark and Lake Streets, Chicago"
Scene after Tony Lombardo's assassination
Image | 1928 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Tony Lombardo, King of the Mafia, and a lieutenant for Alphonse Capone. (Left) Madison and Dearborn Streets where Lombardo was assassinated one summer afternoon."
Court House in 1860
Image | 1910 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "The Court House in 1860 (Nucleus of Business Centre, Political Rallying Place, Highest Point of Observation)"
South Branch of Chicago River
Image | 1919 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "View looking north of the South Branch of the Chicago River showing the suggested arrangement of streets and ways for teaming and reception of freight at different levels."
New South Water Street
Image | 1919 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "A typical scene of new South Water Street from State to Market Streets to be carried through along the river bank to connect with the upper and lower levels of Michigan Avenue." From text: "Consider how the improvement proposed will bring South Water Street into its destiny, not as a fruit market, but as a modern, high-class business thoroughfare. On the upper leve...
Haverly's Theatre
Image | 1883 | Picture ChicagoFrom text: "The theatre was a surprise to every one, even in Chicago, where celerity is a prevailing habit and Time has in most things been knocked out of time. The first stone was turned upon the ground on the 12th of June, 1881. Ninety days later--on the 12th of September--the new theater, completed at every point, was thrown open to the public. If the world can offer anot...
Front of Iroquois Theater
Image | 1903 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Front view of the Iroquois Theater."
Front rows and stage
Image | 1904 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Front rows of seats and front of stage."
Bird's eye view of Grant Park
Image | 1919 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Bird's eye view at night of Grant Park, the façade of the city, the proposed harbor, and the lagoons of the proposed park on the south shore. From a painting by Jules Guerin. Copyright, The Commercial Club of Chicago."
Michigan Avenue and Adams Street
Image | 1919 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "A section of Michigan Avenue and Adams Street showing Orchestra Hall, the Pullman Building, the People's Gas, Light and Coke Co.'s Building, corner of Art Institute. Courtesy Rand-McNally Souvenir Guide to Chicago."
Northwestern Sanitary Fair of 1865
Image | 1910 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "The Northwestern Sanitary Fair of 1865 (The Building was Erected on Dearborn Park, now Occupied by the Chicago Public Library, with Bryan Hall as an Adjunct)"
Interior of the Wigwam
Image | 1910 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Interior of the 'Wigwam' during the Republican Convention of 1860"
Proposed South Water Street improvements
Image | 1919 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "View of proposed South Water Street and river front improvements by E. H. Bennett, consultant architect. From the collection of the Chicago Plan Commission." From text: "To complete Chicago's great central district, the greatest in the world, South Water Street must be reclaimed for all the people. South Water Street can be made into the second finest thoroughfare ...
New Chamber of Commerce
Image | 1883 | Picture ChicagoFrom text: "The corner-stone of the new Chamber of Commerce was laid with appropriate ceremonies Dec. 13, 1882, and since then the walls of the magnificent building have gone up with marvelous rapidity, but this new temple of trade is on such a grand scale that it will be another year before it is brought to completion and ready for the machinery of commerce."
State Street
Image | 1875 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "State Street, south from Washington."
Central group of Ferguson Fountain
Image | 1913 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "The Ferguson Fountain of the Great Lakes: Central Group."
Auditorium Building
Image | 1891 | Picture ChicagoFrom text: " Auditorium Tower, the highest building in Chicago. The balcony is 260 feet high, and the observatory tower carries the height up to 275 feet. The flagstaff surmounting this is the highest thing in town--300 feet."
Chicago Public Library
Image | 1911 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "The Chicago Public Library". From text: "The Chicago Public Library is a free public institution, established under the Illinois library law of 1872, and maintained by the city as part of its public educational system. It derives its revenue from an annual library tax of approximately four-tenths of a mill, and is governed by a Board of Directors of nine members ap...
Business office in Tacoma Building
Image | 1893 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "[Engraved for The Standard Guide Company.] Business Office, New York Mutual Life Insurance Co., Tacoma Bldg [Charles H. Ferguson, Agent.]". From text: ""Elsewhere is presented in this volume an engraving of the interior of the counting room of Charles H. Ferguson, general agent of the New York Mutual Life Insurance Company for the State of Illinois. The offices are...
Looking north on State from Madison St.
Image | 1893 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "[Engraved for The Standard Guide Company.] Looking north on State From Madison St. [See "Guide."]". From text: "[W]e will endeavor to do the great retail avenue of Chicago, or at least a portion of it, before the day closes. This thoroughfare ... is one of the grandest commercial arteries in the world. By looking up "State Street" in the Index, you will learn that ...
Owings Building
Image | 1891 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Corner of Adams and Dearborn Sts". From text: "Tower of the quaint Owings Building, fourteen stories, corner Adams and Dearborn Streets, unique in design, and a cloud disturber of the first order--225 feet."
Dearborn Street
Image | 1875 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Dearborn Street, south from Monroe".
Reading room
Image | 1911 | Picture ChicagoFrom text: "The Reading Room for current periodicals is one of the largest rooms in the building occupying the entire north front on the fourth floor. Nearly twelve hundred publications are regularly received and kept on file here, comprising all the popular American and English periodicals, reviews, and weeklies, a selection of the best publications in German, French, and o...
Fort Dearborn
Image | 1869 | Picture ChicagoFrom text: "About this time the first fort was erected--a common frontier block-house, which was situated near the site of Rush street bridge, on the south side of the river."
Peristyle at the lake front
Image | 1920 | Picture ChicagoFrontispiece. Color enhanced print showing peristyle at Randolph Street and the Michigan Avenue streetwall buildings, including the Montgomery Ward Building, at center.
View west on Adams Street
Image | 1920 | Picture ChicagoPeoples Gas Building, at right.
Old Fort Dearborn
Image | 1856 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Old Fort Dearborn with surroundings in 1856. By courtesy of Chicago Historical Society."
Commercial Insurance Company's Building
Image | 1869 | Picture ChicagoLettering in illustration reads: "Commercial Insurance Company's Building 160 & 162 Washington St. Chicago." Text reads: "We have become so accustomed to look eastward for successful and reliable insurance companies, that we often overlook those at our own doors, which, in all the essentials of solvency, are the peers of any in the land. Among these the Commercial Insurance ...
First National Bank Building
Image | 1869 | Picture ChicagoThe First National Bank was located at the southwest corner of State and Washington streets.
Group of revenue assessors
Image | 1863 | Picture ChicagoCaption: ""A. C. Hesing, Martin Kimbell, Fred H. Rolschausen, H. W. Scoville, Reuben Taylor, George Dunlap, John Forsyth, W. R. H. Gray, J. C. Brown, George H. Anderson, Chester L. Root, Peter Page, C. R. Field, William James, C. N. Holden, Bernhard H. Bruns, Andrew Nelson, H. N. Heald, Fred Becker,* Albert W. Weber, Henry N. Stevens, Edward Page, Charles G. Smith, C. B. Sam...
Main banking room
Image | 1902 | Picture ChicagoFrom text: "Beyond the rooms of the savings bank … the visitor steps into the great spacious bank-room. It is a delight to the eye of even the veriest tyro in things artistic. Standing there in that magnificent doorway and viewing the splendid spectacle gleaming in the flood of light, which pours through the glass-paneled ceiling, the observer finds it difficult to realize t...
View north on LaSalle Street
Image | 1920 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "The Wall Street of Chicago." View is looking north up LaSalle Street from West Jackson Blvd.
Ruins of Chicago Postoffice
Image | 1871 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Ruins of the interior of the Chicago Postoffice after the Great Fire of 1871. By permission of Chicago Historical Society."
Dearborn Street
Image | 1906 | Picture Chicagoat the other, the Chicago River. Further to the north the street becomes Dearborn Avenue, a popular residential street ending at Lincoln Park." View is looking north from present-day Congress Parkway.

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