On every corner of this historic Chicago neighborhood, history lives on. Within its schools, museums, churches, fire stations, parks, restaurants, seven-story brick buildings, landmark buildings, and more, stories abound, and there’s a story for everyone.

Did you know that the West Loop was once a large garment manufacturing and mail-order storage area? The area around Jackson, Van Buren, and Peoria Streets was home to house dresses, lingerie for women, and suits made for US Presidents among other things. Tailor Lofts, a UIC dorm today, is still home to the Benjamin Franklin figurines holding a needle and thread that are perched above the entrance of the former garment factory, the J. L Taylor Company, a subsidiary of the International Tailoring Company.

The West Loop was also home to some printing and binding companies—three-color printing was perfected on Racine Street—and manufacturing outfits. Important aircraft products for WWII were made in factories on Carpenter and Aberdeen Streets. Women worked in these West Loop factories while men were away serving in World War II. Republic Tools even housed a beauty salon onsite and encouraged their female employees to wear red nail polish so their hands could be better seen while doing the, often tedious, machine work.

The famous Uneeda crackers were made by the Nabisco Company on Washington Street. The former J.W. Allen Company on Peoria Street perfected the powdered sugar donut. Northwestern Cutlery sharpened knives on Lake Street for nearby meatpackers for almost fifty years.

Mayor Carter Harrison, Chicago’s five-term mayor (1879-1893), lived in a mansion on Ashland Avenue, and his son, Carter Henry Harrison II, went to the nearby Union Park Lagoon to feed Bob, the bear, peanuts in the late 1800s. Mr. Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., creator of the Ziegfeld Follies, lived across the street from today’s Whitney Young High School. Theodore Dreiser, the author of Sister Carrie and many other books, resided near Throop and Madison Streets. Dr. George Shipman and his wife, Fannie, founded one of the first orphanages in the US, outside of New York City, The Foundlings Home, at the corner of Green

and Monroe. He always left an empty champagne basket in his medical office where children who could not be cared for by their parents or families could be left, without question or judgment.

The Congregational Baptist Church on Ashland Avenue which was built in 1865, served as Chicago’s temporary City Hall after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. It houses one of the largest Kimball organs ever made. Two landmark companies are still in business today. Since 1890, the finest harps in the world have been made at Lyon and Healy, located at Ogden and Lake Streets. Genieco, the largest incense factory in the US, was established in 1923. The company moved to Laflin Sreet in 1971 and is still in operation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Connie Fairbanks began her love affair with reading and history as a child in rural Kansas where she used to browse books on the traveling bookmobile. Connie credits her lifelong love of history to her fascination with the history of Chicago’s West Loop. Connie is known to be an engaging storyteller and always wanted to chronicle the stories all around her. Connie and her husband have lived in The West Loop since the mid-1990s so she has plenty of stories to share.