Chicago River and quay, south side looking west

Butler Brothers (Firm)

Rutland Transit Company

Chicago River (Ill.)

Wagons

Warehouses -- Illinois -- Chicago

One of Edward H. Bennett's study or "before" photos, apparently taken between 1913 and 1915, for developing the design of Wacker Drive in Chicago. The date of the Butler Brothers building and the latest date the boat could have been present establish the temporal parameters for this series of pre-redevelopment views by Bennett.

The roadway on the quay shows a horse-drawn freight wagon, between the covered loading areas and the river. In the distance, on the west side of the river, are the Butler Brothers Warehouses designed by D.H. Burnham & Company, the south building completed in 1913. The address was 111 North Canal Street. The Butler Brothers building also is shown in Paul Gilbert and Charles Lee Bryson, Chicago and Its Makers (1929) 598, referenced from Randall, History of Chicago Buildings, 246. See also Sally A. Kitt Chappelle, Architecture and Planning of Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, 1912-1936: Transforming Tradition (U. of Chicago Press, 1992) 147-48. See also Encyclopedia of Chicago http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/11090.html

The freighter ship in the river is labeled "Rutland Transit Co." The 1912 Panama Canal Act (P.L. 62-337), according to an undocumented online posting, prohibited Rutland from operating on the Great Lakes after 1915. Thus, this photo can be dated provisionally between 1913 when the Butler Brothers building was completed and 1915 when the Rutland ship was no longer able to operate on the Great Lakes.

Bennett, Edward H. (Edward Herbert), 1874-1954

Marcia O. and Edward H. Bennett III Collection

1913-1915

Marcia O. and Edward H. Bennett III Collection (Lake Forest College)

image/tiff

eng

Image

lfspbennett00040.tif

photographic print

14.2 x 8.7 cm (4 1/2 x 3 1/4 in)