The trip into Chicago from Michigan City, early on a sunny Sunday morning with very little traffic, went without a hitch. Alonzo stayed at the City Hotel while the group bought provisions, wagons, and horses. He found Chicago “a dirty, filthy place with some cholera.” First task, find the Page Brothers Building, former location of the City Hotel, at the corner of State and Lake. I turned right on State St. from Randolph, turned right on Lake and there was a parking spot.
There was another City Hotel in Chicago that had caused me some confusion at first because it became the Sherman Hotel in 1848. The one I was looking for was a little more obscure and it was through a lucky Google search that I found it.
“Stiles Burton has built on this site the City Hotel, ‘the great brick building of 1848’ three stories high, on the site of the former frame inn of the same name.” City Hotel occupied a space 18 X 84 ft. Burton had originally owned a grocery/liquor store on the site.
“Followed by the Page brothers Building 177-191 N. State St., SE corner of E. Lake, built in 1873 formerly the Burton Building. Page Building is six stories high on spread foundation. This is one of the very few remaining cast-iron fronts in the city.”
History of the development of Building Construction in Chicago by Frank Alford Randall and John D. Randall. U of IL Press, 1999, page 80
The Chicago Theater Preservation Group now owns the building and you can see that venerable icon next door. (photo 1)
Back around the block to Randolph and ready to start the journey. Check out Randolph at 9:00 AM on a Sunday morning. You’ll see my wagon (with my horses hidden under the hood) at the far right. The group headed out Randolph where it becomes Ogden and turns SW. Alonzo followed this route for 11 miles to Doty’s House at Lyons where the camped. Just a few years later the plank road from Chicago ended here. Today that location is the corner of Ogden and Joliet. (photos 2 and 3)
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