For immediate release (4/5/98)
Contact: Lori Grove, 312-421-0078.
The University of Illinois at Chicago intends to tear down six prominent buildings on Maxwell Street as soon as possible under the claim that these buildings are not historically important. This demolition would wipe out the core of the Maxwell Street National Historic District which has received support from all over the world.
See <http://www.openair.org/maxwell/ppress2.html> for a general description of these buildings. Read below about one of them.
Lori Grove<lgrove2@uic.edu>, Architectural Historian and docent with the Chicago Architectural Foundation; Chris Stratton, Archeologist and Historian<<Meredocia@aol.com>.
721 West Maxwell Street is a two-story, commercial/residential building located in the area of the former Maxwell Street Market. The building measures 21'-1" (east/west) by 51'-0" (north/south) and is of brick and frame construction. Prior to being vacated ca.1993, the structure housed a commercial establishment on its first floor and had residential living space on the floor above. Structural and documentary evidence points to 721 West Maxwell Street having been constructed in two episodes.
It was originally constructed as an one-story, front-gabled, frame building (measuring approximately 21'x35') and was probably used as a residence. An exact construction date is difficult to determine, but the type of lumber used in the building--particularly the manner in which it was sawn--suggests that it was erected during the 1860s. The building is illustrated by Robinson's 1886 Atlas of the City of Chicago, which depicts it as frame (Robinson 1886:4). Ca. 1910, the house was lifted up and had a whole new story, built of brick, constructed below it. The front part of this brick addition was two-stories, and thus hid the facade of the original frame house. These changes are illustrated by the 1914 Sanborn fire insurance map of Chicago (Sanborn Map Company 1914:7). Contemporary with the ca. 1910 raising of the building was an interior remodeling of the second floor.
In the original frame portion of the building, the exterior wall studs and the ceiling joists are 2"x4", unsurfaced, white pine placed 1'-4" on-center. The studs represent a mixture of vertical- and circular-sawn lumber, while the majority of the ceiling joists appear to be vertical sawn. The rafters are an unknown (local?) softwood, measure 2'-1/2"x4-1/4", and are circular-sawn; they have an exceptionally wide centering (2'-8") and are placed so that one rafter ties in with every other ceiling joist. The roof sheathing, which runs perpendicular to the rafters and serves as a nailing surface for the roofing, is 1" thick, unsurfaced, vertical-sawn white pine and varies in width from approximately 8-10" to 1'-3." The roof was originally covered with wood shakes.
White pine lumber began arriving in Chicago during the middle to late 1830s. The lumber was sawn at local mills in Wisconsin and Michigan and then shipped by boat, via Lake Michigan, to Chicago. White pine continued to be the predominant type of lumber used in Chicago into the 1880s, when its use declined due to diminished resources and competition from southern yellow pine (Fries 1951:82, 241; Cronon 1991:196). Prior to the Civil War, the majority of sawmills in Wisconsin were equipped with vertical reciprocating saws (also known as "gate" or "muley" saws). During the late 1850s and early 1860s, however, some mills started using circular saws, which cut lumber much faster than reciprocating ones did. Circular saws remained in use throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century, but after 1880 they began to be relegated to doing coarser cutting with the introduction of the band saw; the latter saw had a thinner blade and hence was less wasteful of material (Fries 1951:61-2). The mixture of circular- and vertical-sawn white pine lumber found in the frame portion of 721 West Maxwell Street suggests that the building was constructed during this 1860s transition period, where circular saws began to be widely adopted, but older vertical reciprocating saws were still use as well. Comparative data is provided by the Seneca Grain Elevator, which is located along the Illinois and Michigan Canal, in Seneca, La Salle County, Illinois. The grain elevator was constructed in 1861 and has both vertical- and circular-sawn lumber incorporated within its structure. Although it's possible that the circular-sawn lumber used in the building may be associated with a late 1860s or early 1870s addition, it is still indicative of the transition in sawing technology during the 1860s (Mansberger 1996:13-14).
A broader construction date for the frame portion of 721 West Maxwell Street is provided by the unsurfaced character of the lumber and the use of square, machine-cut nails used in its framing. Both of these aspects are indicative of pre-1900 construction. Machine-cut nails remained the norm in Illinois until ca. 1900, after which they were supplanted by the round, wire nails we see today. Similarly, lumber began to be surfaced, or planed, during this same period. The lumber was first rough cut to the desired dimension, say 2"x4", and then run through a planer. Although this created a more finished product, it resulted in a nominal-sized 2"x4" that actually measured 1-7/8"x3-7/8" or 1-3/4"x3-3/4."
721 West Maxwell Street is one of the very few buildings dating to the 1860-1870 that has survived in the Near West neighborhood. The Landmark Preservation Council of Illinois is aware of only four other buildings in the area that date from this period; these consist of two churches, the Hull Mansion on Halsted Street, and one other residence. Aside from its relatively-early date of construction, the frame portion of 721 Maxwell Street is also significant in that it is representative of the lower-class housing in the neighborhood during the early years of its development. The building's ca. 1910 raising and interior remodeling--although dramatically altering its original character--is indicative of the manner in which many older homes in the Near West neighborhood were expanded during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in order to accommodate the burgeoning immigrant population living there. Real estate prices were high and the neighborhood was already heavily developed, so the easiest solution was to build up. The fact that the bottom floor of the building was constructed specifically for commercial use is of note and speaks of Maxwell Street's growing importance as a retail district during this period.
References Cited and Consulted:
Archaeological Resources, Inc.
1996 Historic American Buildings Survey of Illinois HABS No. CK-1996-4 in the Maxwell Street Market Area, Chicago, Illinois (721 West Maxwell Street). Report prepared for the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Illinois State Historic Preservation Agency. On file at the Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield.
Cronon, William
1991 Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.
Fries, Robert F.
1951 Empire In Pine: The Story of Lumbering in Wisconsin, 1830-1900. Madison: The State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
Mansberger, Floyd R.
1996 Archaeological Investigations at Armour's Warehouse (Hogan's Grain Elevator), Seneca, La Salle County, Illinois. Report prepared for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
Robinson, E.
1886 Atlas of the City of Chicago. Volume II. New York.
Sanborn Map Company
1914 Fire Insurance Map of Chicago, Cook County, Illinois. Volume 8. New York.
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