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

Michigan Avenue in the 1860's
Image | 1860-1869 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Michigan Avenue in the '60s. Original owned by Chicago Historical Society."
La Salle Street from Courthouse Square
Image | 1860-1869 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "La Salle Street from Courthouse Square. Original owned by Chicago Historical Society."
Chicago Tribune building
Image | 1869 | Picture ChicagoFrom text: "The new Tribune building [i]s, in every respect, a model of beauty, convenience and comfort, and an ornament to the city. It is located on the corner of Madison and Dearborn streets. It fronts 72 feet on Dearborn, by 121 feet on Madison street, and covers an area of 8,712 square feet. The building is constructed entirely of fire proof materials. It is four storie...
Masonic Temple
Image | 1891 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Masonic Temple."" From text: "It might be added that the Masonic Temple at the corner of State and Randolph Streets will when completed, prove one of the finest buildings in the world. A glance at our artist's sketch of the Masonic Temple as it will appear when completed, will afford a better criterion of the architectural beauties of the structure than any verbal ...
Dome and Grand Stairway
Image | 1912 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Dome and grand stairway of Art Institute, completed in 1912. Courtesy of Art Institute of Chicago". From text: "There are now in 1911, fifty public exhibition galleries, of which twenty-seven are skylighted, and plans are being made to extend the building eastward by bridging the Illinois Central railroad tracks with skylighted galleries and building new museum hal...
Chicago Tribune Building
Image | 1893 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "[Engraved for The Standard Guide Company.] Chicago Tribune Building, Madison and Dearborn Sts. [See "Newspapers."]"
Michigan Boulevard before widening
Image | 1919 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Michigan Boulevard at Randolph Street before Widening."
Chicago Club
Image | 1888 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Chicago Club, Monroe St." From text: "After the fire the present building was erected on Monroe Street, just opposite the Palmer House."
Illinois Central Station
Image | 1912 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Grant Park, the Lake, Michigan Boulevard and Central Station of the Illinois Central R. R."
Grant Park adjoining Central Station
Image | 1930 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Grant Park, Adjoining Central Station, Showing the Buckingham Fountain and Other New Improvements Under Way." From text: "Buckingham Fountain, in Grant Park at the foot of Congress Street, is the largest and one of the most beautiful fountains in the world. It has several varieties of displays and is illuminated at night. Closed during the winter months."
View north from Court House dome
Image | 1910 | Picture ChicagoLake Michigan is in the distance.
Corner of State and Washington
Image | 1906 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Corner of State and Washington Streets, showing the Marshall Field establishment[.] Marshall Field's retail dry goods store, the largest in the world, is located at the corner of State and Washington streets. The great Field store extends along State Street to the next block. On the corner fronting the pedestrian from almost any angle, hangs a huge clock which an e...
Siegel, Cooper & Company
Image | 1906 | Picture Chicagouniversally known as "The Big Store." Almost every commodity of commerce ranging from soap to diamonds is sold over the counters of this immense business institution. It requires a corps of nearly two thousand employees to attend to the wants of customers. Siegel, Cooper & Company have stores also in New York and Boston." Building was designed by William Le Baron Jenney.
Terrace Row
Image | 1910 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Terrace Row--"The Marble Terrace" The Lake Front By Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society". The Marble Terrace stood on property later occupied by the Auditorium Building.
Conspiracy meeting
Image | 1889 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "The Conspiracy meeting at 54 West Lake Street. Waller reading Engel's 'plan.'"
In front of the theater
Image | 1903 | Picture Chicagolaying dead on the sidewalk."
Michigan Avenue looking north
Image | 1919 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "A view of Michigan Avenue looking north across Grant Park."
LaSalle Street
Image | 1875 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "LaSalle Street, Chicago, south from Washington."
Chicago Opera House
Image | 1893 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "[Engraved for The Standard Guide Company.] Entrance to the Chicago Opera House. [See "Amusements."]". From text: "Located in the Chicago Opera House building, a magnificent structure, southwest corner of Clark and Washington streets, opposite the Court-house ... The theatre was built for Mr. Henderson, and arranged with the idea in mind of the subsequent production...
Chicago The Vacation City book cover
Image | 1930 | Picture ChicagoText on cover: "Chicago The Vacation City Illinois Center The Road of Travel Luxury". From text: "Grant Park, between East 11th Place, Michigan Boulevard, Randolph Street, and Lake Michigan, is Chicago's down-town playground, 303 acres in extent. … In Grant Park are ... Buckingham Fountain ... [and] ... Ivan Mestrovic's bronze American Indians ..."
Chicago from the air
Image | 1930 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Chicago from the Air, Showing Lake Michigan, Grant Park and Michigan Boulevard". From text: "Europeans have sauntered up Michigan Avenue at theatre time, when the moon was climbing out of the lake, silhouetting the classic lions of the Art Institute against a Maxfield Parrish sky, glorifying the Grecian peristyle with its silver radiance, and they have pronounced i...
South Water Street today
Image | 1919 | Picture Chicagoobstructive to its prosperity, and a conflagration danger to the whole Loop district. South Water Street is a physical misfit. If left as it is, it must forever remain dwarfed, destroying its own usefulness."
Ambulance loaded with fire victims
Image | 1904 | Picture ChicagoFrom text: "While the streets began to crowd for blocks around with weeping and heartbroken persons in mortal terror because of knowledge that loved ones had attended the performance, patrol wagons, ambulances and open wagons hurried the injured to hospitals. Before long they were called upon to perform the more grewsome [sic] task of removing the dead. In wagon loads the la...
Chamber of Commerce
Image | 1869 | Picture Chicagoand above this the grand hall, where the members of the Board of Trade assemble daily. The building is surmounted by a Mansard roof, pierced with oval windows, the corners ornamented with urns. The entrance consists of four handsome Corinthian columns, from which spring three arches supporting a handsome balcony, underneath which a broad flight of stairs leads to the first f...
Chicago harbor
Image | 1869 | Picture ChicagoFrom text: "In 1833 Congress made the first appropriation of $30,000 to improve the harbor. The north pier was run out a short distance and a light-house erected. An embankment was made to cut off the river from her old channel, which had previously emptied into the lake near the foot of Madison street. This work was commenced in the summer of 1833, and vigorously pushed for...
Christian Brothers Academy
Image | 1869 | Picture ChicagoFrom text: "The Academy of the Christian Brothers, on Van Buren street, near Clark, was first opened in the spring of 1868, and has already achieved a very high and deserved celebrity. In the Order of the Christian Brothers, founded for the purpose of devoting themselves to the education of youth, the members are trained especially to fulfill the duties of teachers. How well...
Merchants Insurance Company building
Image | 1869 | Picture ChicagoFrom text: "One of the most stately and beautiful edifices in the United States, is the new building of the Merchants Insurance company of Chicago, on the northwest corner of LaSalle and Washington streets. It is five stories in height, and has a frontage of ninety-six and one-third feet on LaSalle street, and a frontage of one hundred and eleven and a half feet on Washingto...
The heart of Chicago
Image | 1920 | Picture ChicagoBird's eye view looking southeast across the Chicago River towards the Loop. Wolf Point appears in foreground.
Merchants' Farmers', and Mechanics' Savings Bank
Image | 1869 | Picture ChicagoFrom text: "We give a view of the building occupied by the Merchants', Farmers and Mechanics' Savings Bank, No. 13 Clark street. This institution was chartered in 1861, and in 1864 removed to its present very appropriate and convenient edifice. The institution is in a highly flourishing condition, and is deservedly popular.""
George B. Carpenter & Co.
Image | 1893 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "[Engraved for The Standard Guide Company.] Geo. B. Carpenter & Co.--Fifth Ave. and South Water St. [See "Guide."]"
Hooley's Theatre
Image | 1893 | Picture Chicagoheight to 'gridiron,' 62 feet. The theatre is also supplied with the latest patent smoke and fire escape and ventilator. The auditorium is furnished with 'Hooley's Opera Chair,' and lighted throughout by the latest incandescent electric system."
Strauss, Yondorf & Rose building
Image | 1891 | Picture ChicagoFrom text: "Strauss, Yondorf & Rose, Wholesale Clothiers. … They occupy a handsome structure on the corner of Market and Quincy streets, ten stories and basement, being the first actual fire-proof building in the city erected and used for commercial purposes. ... [t]he ninth and tenth stories are used for sample rooms, thus securing on these floors at all times of day an uno...
Delivery room
Image | 1911 | Picture ChicagoFrom text: "The Delivery Room proper, which extends across the entire width of the building, with a length of 134 and a depth of 48 feet, is divided into three parts by a rotunda in the center, surmounted by a beautiful stained-glass dome. Elliptical arches rise from the marble piers at the four corners, and the walls above are elaborately covered with mosaics, into which ar...
Exposition building
Image | 1875 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Exposition Building, Chicago." This appears to be an image of the Interstate Exposition Building, which was located along South Michigan Avenue, in present day Grant Park. See http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/3516.html
Reception at Court House
Image | 1910 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Reception of the remains at the Court House"
View south from Court House dome
Image | 1910 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Views from the Court House dome in 1858 Washington and La Salle Streets (Looking South and Southwest) By Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society". View appears to be looking nearly due south.
New City Hall and County Building
Image | 1908 | Picture ChicagoFrom text: "On the opposite page is a fine representation in half-tone of the new County Building and City Hall, as the conjoined, magnificent structure will appear when the city half of it shall have been completed. The county half has been officially occupied since July 5, 1907, and it is certain that the officers and employes (sic) of no county in the United States are mo...
Post Office pneumatic tube system
Image | 1906 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "End of the big pneumatic tube system in the basement of the Chicago Post Office." From text: "The underground pneumatic tube system is the largest of the kind in the world. There are three double-tube trunk lines, aggregating over eighteen miles of eight-inch cast iron pipe. Of these lines the stockyards branch is the longest, the station being six and one-half mil...
Michigan Avenue streetwall
Image | 1912 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Chicago's Sky Line and Water Front of the Down-Town Business District" Caption also identifies buildings in view. They are, from left to right: "Blackstone Hotel", "Harvester Building", "Congress Hotel and Annex"", "Auditorium Hotel", "Fine Arts Building", "Chicago Club", "McCormick Building", "Stratford Hotel", "Railway Exchange Building", "Theodore Thomas Orchest...
Municipal Court and Illinois Athletic Club
Image | 1912 | Picture ChicagoCaption: "Municipal Court and Illinois Athletic Club Buildings" These buildings are located at 116 South Michigan Avenue and 112 South Michigan Avenue.

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