Raising of Chicago
Encyclopedia
During the 1850s and 1860s engineers carried out a piecemeal raising of the level of central Chicago
. Streets, sidewalks and buildings were either built up or else physically raised up on jacks. This work was paid for both out of the public purse and by private property owners.
upon the shore of which it stands, and so for many years during the nineteenth century there could be little or no naturally occurring drainage at the city surface. Standing water festered and caused living conditions to be unpleasant, or much worse. Epidemics including typhoid fever
and dysentery
blighted Chicago six years in a row culminating in the 1854 outbreak of cholera
that killed six percent of the city’s population. Sanitary conditions were in no small measure blamed for these deadly outbreaks.
The crisis forced the city's engineers and aldermen to take the drainage problem seriously and after many heated words had been spent—and following at least one false start—a solution eventually materialised. In 1856, engineer Ellis S. Chesbrough's plan for the installation of a city-wide sewerage system was submitted to and adopted by the Common Council. Drains were laid, roads and sidewalks were covered with several feet of soil and refinished, and much of the rest of the city was put on jacks and raised to the new grade.
building in Chicago to be thus raised—a four story, 70 feet (21.3 m) long, 750 ton brick structure situated at the north-east corner of Randolph Street
and Dearborn Street—was lifted on two hundred jackscrew
s to its new grade, which was 6 in 2 in (1.88 m) higher than the old one, “without the slightest injury to the building.” It was the first of more than fifty comparably large masonry buildings to be raised that year. The engineer in charge was a Bostonian Mr James Brown, who went on to partner with longtime Chicago engineer James Hollingsworth; Brown and Hollingsworth became the first and, it seems, the busiest building raising partnership in the city. Before the year was out, they were lifting brick buildings more than 100 feet (30.5 m) long, and the following spring they took the contract to raise a brick block more than twice that length again.
By 1860 confidence was sufficiently high that a consortium of no fewer than six engineers—including Brown, Hollingsworth and George Pullman
—took on one of the most impressive locations in the city and hoisted it up complete and in one go. They lifted half a city block on Lake Street
, between Clark Street
and LaSalle Street
; a solid masonry row of shops, offices, printeries, etc., 320 feet (97.5 m) long, comprising brick and stone buildings, some four stories high, some five, having a footprint taking up almost 1 acres (4,046.9 m²) of space, and an estimated all in weight including hanging sidewalks of thirty five thousand tons. Businesses operating out of these premises were not closed down for the lifting; as the buildings were being raised, people came, went, shopped and worked in them as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening. In five days the entire assembly was elevated 4 in 8 in (1.42 m) clear in the air by a team consisting of six hundred men using six thousand jackscrews, ready for new foundation walls to be built underneath. The spectacle drew crowds of thousands, who were on the final day permitted to walk at the old ground level, among the jacks.
hotel on the south-east corner of Lake Street and Dearborn Street. This building was luxuriously appointed, was of brick construction, was six stories high, and had a footprint taking up over 1 acres (4,046.9 m²) of space. Once again business as usual was maintained as this vast hotel parted from the ground it was standing on, and indeed some of the guests staying there at the time—among whose number were several VIP
s and a US Senator
—were completely oblivious to the feat as the five hundred men operating their five thousand jackscrews worked under covered trenches. One patron was puzzled to note that the front steps leading from the street into the hotel were becoming steeper every day and that when he checked out, the windows were several feet above his head, whereas before they had been at eye level. This huge hotel, which until just the previous year had been the tallest building in Chicago, was in fact raised fully 6 feet (1.8 m) without a hitch.
150 feet (45.7 m) long, 80 feet (24.4 m) wide and five stories high, located at the corner of South Water Street and Wells Street. This was a very heavy building; its ornate iron frame, its twelve inch (305 mm) thick masonry wall filling, and its “floors filled with heavy goods” made for a weight estimated at 27,000 tons, a large load to raise over a relatively small area. Hollingsworth and Coughlin took the contract and in November 1865 lifted not only the building but also the 230 feet (70.1 m) of stone sidewalk
outside it. The complete mass of iron and masonry was raised 27.5 inch (0.6985 m), “without the slightest crack or damage.”
by the engineer John C. Lane, of the Lane and Stratton partnership. These gentlemen had apparently been using this method of lifting buildings in San Francisco
since 1853.
Many of central Chicago’s hurriedly erected wooden frame buildings
were now considered wholly inappropriate to the burgeoning and increasingly wealthy city. Rather than raise them several feet, proprietors often preferred to relocate these old frame buildings, replacing them with new masonry blocks built to the latest grade. Consequently, the practice of putting the old multi-story, intact and furnished wooden buildings—sometimes entire rows of them en bloc—on rollers and moving them to the outskirts of town or to the suburbs was so common as to be considered nothing more than routine traffic. Traveller David Macrae wrote incredulously, “Never a day passed during my stay in the city that I did not meet one or more houses shifting their quarters. One day I met nine. Going out Great Madison Street
in the horse cars we had to stop twice to let houses get across.” As discussed above, business did not suffer; shop owners would keep their shops open, even as people had to climb in through a moving front door. Brick buildings also were moved from one location to another, and in 1866, the first of these—a building of two and a half stories—made the short move from Madison Street out to Monroe Street. Later, many other brick buildings were to be rolled much greater distances across Chicago.
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. Streets, sidewalks and buildings were either built up or else physically raised up on jacks. This work was paid for both out of the public purse and by private property owners.
Background
The city of Chicago scarcely rises above Lake MichiganLake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
upon the shore of which it stands, and so for many years during the nineteenth century there could be little or no naturally occurring drainage at the city surface. Standing water festered and caused living conditions to be unpleasant, or much worse. Epidemics including typhoid fever
Typhoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known as Typhoid, is a common worldwide bacterial disease, transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person, which contain the bacterium Salmonella enterica, serovar Typhi...
and dysentery
Dysentery
Dysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...
blighted Chicago six years in a row culminating in the 1854 outbreak of cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
that killed six percent of the city’s population. Sanitary conditions were in no small measure blamed for these deadly outbreaks.
The crisis forced the city's engineers and aldermen to take the drainage problem seriously and after many heated words had been spent—and following at least one false start—a solution eventually materialised. In 1856, engineer Ellis S. Chesbrough's plan for the installation of a city-wide sewerage system was submitted to and adopted by the Common Council. Drains were laid, roads and sidewalks were covered with several feet of soil and refinished, and much of the rest of the city was put on jacks and raised to the new grade.
Earliest raising of a brick building
In January 1858, the first masonryMasonry
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units laid in and bound together by mortar; the term masonry can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are brick, stone, marble, granite, travertine, limestone; concrete block, glass block, stucco, and...
building in Chicago to be thus raised—a four story, 70 feet (21.3 m) long, 750 ton brick structure situated at the north-east corner of Randolph Street
Randolph Street (Chicago)
Randolph Street is a street in Chicago. It runs east-west through the Chicago Loop, carrying westbound traffic west from Michigan Avenue across the Chicago River on the Randolph Street Bridge, interchanging with the Kennedy Expressway , and continuing west. It serves as the northern boundary of...
and Dearborn Street—was lifted on two hundred jackscrew
Jackscrew
A jackscrew is a type of jack which is operated by turning a leadscrew. In the form of a screw jack it is commonly used to lift heavy weights such as the foundations of houses, or large vehicles.-Advantages:...
s to its new grade, which was 6 in 2 in (1.88 m) higher than the old one, “without the slightest injury to the building.” It was the first of more than fifty comparably large masonry buildings to be raised that year. The engineer in charge was a Bostonian Mr James Brown, who went on to partner with longtime Chicago engineer James Hollingsworth; Brown and Hollingsworth became the first and, it seems, the busiest building raising partnership in the city. Before the year was out, they were lifting brick buildings more than 100 feet (30.5 m) long, and the following spring they took the contract to raise a brick block more than twice that length again.
The Row on Lake Street
George Pullman
George Mortimer Pullman was an American inventor and industrialist. He is known as the inventor of the Pullman sleeping car, and for violently suppressing striking workers in the company town he created, Pullman .-Background:Born in Brocton, New York, his family moved to Albion,...
—took on one of the most impressive locations in the city and hoisted it up complete and in one go. They lifted half a city block on Lake Street
Lake Street (Chicago)
Lake Street is an east-west arterial road in Chicago and its suburbs. Part of Lake Street is designated as U.S. Route 20. Lake Street begins in the city of Chicago and travels west and slightly north to the Chicago suburbs. It ends at the eastern terminus of the Elgin Bypass around Elgin, where...
, between Clark Street
Clark Street (Chicago)
Clark Street is a north-south street in Chicago, Illinois that runs close to the shore of Lake Michigan from the northern city boundary with Evanston, to 2200 South in the city street numbering system...
and LaSalle Street
LaSalle Street
LaSalle Street is a major north-south street in Chicago named for Sieur de La Salle, an early explorer of Illinois. The portion that runs through the Loop is considered to be Chicago's financial district...
; a solid masonry row of shops, offices, printeries, etc., 320 feet (97.5 m) long, comprising brick and stone buildings, some four stories high, some five, having a footprint taking up almost 1 acres (4,046.9 m²) of space, and an estimated all in weight including hanging sidewalks of thirty five thousand tons. Businesses operating out of these premises were not closed down for the lifting; as the buildings were being raised, people came, went, shopped and worked in them as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening. In five days the entire assembly was elevated 4 in 8 in (1.42 m) clear in the air by a team consisting of six hundred men using six thousand jackscrews, ready for new foundation walls to be built underneath. The spectacle drew crowds of thousands, who were on the final day permitted to walk at the old ground level, among the jacks.
The Tremont House
The following year a team led by Ely, Smith and Pullman raised the Tremont HouseTremont House (Chicago)
Tremont House was a leading hotel in Chicago, United States, that served as the Headquarters for the Illinois Republican Party during the 1860 Republican National Convention held at the nearby Wigwam as they lobbied for Abraham Lincoln's nomination. Both Lincoln and Stephen Douglas started...
hotel on the south-east corner of Lake Street and Dearborn Street. This building was luxuriously appointed, was of brick construction, was six stories high, and had a footprint taking up over 1 acres (4,046.9 m²) of space. Once again business as usual was maintained as this vast hotel parted from the ground it was standing on, and indeed some of the guests staying there at the time—among whose number were several VIP
Very Important Person
A Very Important Person, or VIP is a person who is accorded special privileges due to his or her status or importance.Examples include celebrities, heads of state/heads of government, major employers, high rollers, politicians, high-level corporate officers, wealthy individuals, or any other...
s and a US Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
—were completely oblivious to the feat as the five hundred men operating their five thousand jackscrews worked under covered trenches. One patron was puzzled to note that the front steps leading from the street into the hotel were becoming steeper every day and that when he checked out, the windows were several feet above his head, whereas before they had been at eye level. This huge hotel, which until just the previous year had been the tallest building in Chicago, was in fact raised fully 6 feet (1.8 m) without a hitch.
The Robbins Building
Another notable feat was the raising of the Robbins Building, an iron buildingCast-iron architecture
Cast-iron architecture is a form of architecture where cast iron plays a central role. It was a prominent style in the Industrial Revolution era when cast iron was relatively cheap and modern steel had not yet been developed.-Structural use:...
150 feet (45.7 m) long, 80 feet (24.4 m) wide and five stories high, located at the corner of South Water Street and Wells Street. This was a very heavy building; its ornate iron frame, its twelve inch (305 mm) thick masonry wall filling, and its “floors filled with heavy goods” made for a weight estimated at 27,000 tons, a large load to raise over a relatively small area. Hollingsworth and Coughlin took the contract and in November 1865 lifted not only the building but also the 230 feet (70.1 m) of stone sidewalk
Sidewalk
A sidewalk, or pavement, footpath, footway, and sometimes platform, is a path along the side of a road. A sidewalk may accommodate moderate changes in grade and is normally separated from the vehicular section by a curb...
outside it. The complete mass of iron and masonry was raised 27.5 inch (0.6985 m), “without the slightest crack or damage.”
Hydraulic raising of the Franklin House
There is evidence in primary document sources that at least one building in Chicago, the Franklin House on Franklin Street, was raised hydraulicallyHydraulics
Hydraulics is a topic in applied science and engineering dealing with the mechanical properties of liquids. Fluid mechanics provides the theoretical foundation for hydraulics, which focuses on the engineering uses of fluid properties. In fluid power, hydraulics is used for the generation, control,...
by the engineer John C. Lane, of the Lane and Stratton partnership. These gentlemen had apparently been using this method of lifting buildings in San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
since 1853.
Buildings relocated
Framing (construction)
Framing, in construction known as light-frame construction, is a building technique based around structural members, usually called studs, which provide a stable frame to which interior and exterior wall coverings are attached, and covered by a roof comprising horizontal ceiling joists and sloping...
were now considered wholly inappropriate to the burgeoning and increasingly wealthy city. Rather than raise them several feet, proprietors often preferred to relocate these old frame buildings, replacing them with new masonry blocks built to the latest grade. Consequently, the practice of putting the old multi-story, intact and furnished wooden buildings—sometimes entire rows of them en bloc—on rollers and moving them to the outskirts of town or to the suburbs was so common as to be considered nothing more than routine traffic. Traveller David Macrae wrote incredulously, “Never a day passed during my stay in the city that I did not meet one or more houses shifting their quarters. One day I met nine. Going out Great Madison Street
Madison Street (Chicago)
Madison Street is a major east-west street in Chicago, Illinois. Prior to human intervention, the Chicago River emptied into Lake Michigan at the present day intersection of Madison Street and Michigan Avenue....
in the horse cars we had to stop twice to let houses get across.” As discussed above, business did not suffer; shop owners would keep their shops open, even as people had to climb in through a moving front door. Brick buildings also were moved from one location to another, and in 1866, the first of these—a building of two and a half stories—made the short move from Madison Street out to Monroe Street. Later, many other brick buildings were to be rolled much greater distances across Chicago.
External links
- The Lifting of Chicago: Source Page Primary Document Sources.
- Raising Chicago: An Illustrated History