211 N Clinton St
Chicago, IL 60661, USA

Chicago and North Western Railway Power House - National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance:

The Chicago & North Western Railway Power House, built between 1909 and 1911 and designed by the Chicago architectural firm of Frost & Granger, meets Criterion A and Criterion C for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. The period of significance for the Power House is from 1909, when construction started, to 1954, the fifty-year cutoff for significance to the National Register.

The Chicago & North Western Railway Power House is significant under Criterion A for its association with the transportation history of the city, as the energy facility that provided steam heat to the train station, the train yard and the standing passenger cars as well as the various other nearby facilities that were associated with the operation of the railroad, including the Interlocking Tower (where switching took place, just east of the Power House), the freight houses (where less-than-car-load shipments were held), and the Erie Street Coach yard (where passenger cars were kept heated so as not to freeze up). 1 In addition, its generator provided all of the electricity to the buildings that were included in the complex of buildings making up the Chicago and North Western Station.2 The Power House was part of a railroad whose lineage dates back to the beginning of train transportation in Chicago. Operating until c. 1962, when the building was retired, the Power House is the only remaining structure associated with providing energy for use by the Chicago & North Western Railway and one of two remaining railroad power houses in Chicago. 3 The other structure, built for Chicago's Union Station, was designed by Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, in the mid 1920's. Both power houses were contemporary with the train stations they served, although the power house associated with Union Station is located away from the station, with no apparent visual connection. The North Western's power house was part of an enormous complex. Some less distinguished sections that were attached to the head house remain, but the much-admired terminal building commonly referred to as the "North Western Station" was demolished in the 1980s and replaced by a high-rise building, designed by Murphy/Jahn in 1987, that contains offices for Citicorp Center and terminal facilities.

The Chicago & North Western Railway Power House is also eligible for listing on the Register under Criterion Cas an excellent example of Beaux Arts Architecture, incorporating Italian Renaissance Revival elements that complement Frost & Granger's Renaissance Revival design for the Chicago & North Western Station. It is built of cream-colored brick with recessed courses, resembling the stone wall surfaces that are characteristic of Beaux Arts architecture. Its grand arched openings and flat roof are featuring that Beaux Arts buildings share with those designed in the Italian Renaissance Revival style. Designed at the same time Daniel Burnham and Edward H. Bennett were completing their Plan of Chicago, the North Western Railway's complex of buildings, including the Power House, was designed as a unified urban composition, like the buildings incorporated in Burnham and Bennett's Plan. Both were based on the 191 h Century French tradition of the Ecole de Beaux Arts, where Alfred Granger had studied. Charles Frost and Alfred Granger, both of whom were married to daughters of Marvin Hughitt, president of the North Western Railway, designed a great many stations for the company. Although its function was primarily utilitarian, the Chicago & North Western Railway Power House was designed as a high style building, and it continues to display a high level of artistic value, craftsmanship and integrity.

HISTORY: Railroading in Chicago and the Growth of the Chicago & North Western Railway
The history of the Chicago & North Western Railway Power House is inextricably linked to the story of railroading in Chicago, the history of the North Western Railway and the development of construction of the North Western's Chicago railroad stations. During the years that the Chicago & North Western Railway was in business, Chicago was the railroad center of the country, and its station played a major early role in the lives of both immigrants, arriving to make their home in Chicago and of commuters, who streamed in and out of the city from their homes in the north and northwest suburbs on a daily basis.4 Providing heat and electricity for railroad facilities, the Power House was an integral, important part of the functioning of the railroad station.

The first railroad line to provide service to and from Chicago, the Galena and Chicago Union, was chartered in 1836 and built to connect the city with lead mines in Galena. It was an ancestor of the Chicago & North Western, 5 which was formed through a series of mergers in the mid 1860s. In 1848, thirteen years after the charter was granted, the railroad's first locomotive, named the "Pioneer" and currently installed in the Chicago Historical Society, arrived in Chicago and within a few years the line was completed as far as Elgin. This and other steam-powered locomotives soon carried trains that crisscrossed the country from Chicago. Located in the center of the United States, Chicago provided markets where Midwesterners could sell their agricultural produce, lumber and other products and could buy goods manufactured in the East. Coal and Mineral ore were regularly transported through Chicago. Grain markets, meatpacking, steel manufacturing and other industry flourished; Chicago's population skyrocketed. The railroad provided the means for workers from all over the country as well as foreign immigrants to come to Chicago for employment.

The railroad also provided the means for the affluent to move out of Chicago and led to the development of the suburbs. As Chicago's population grew, and the city became more crowded and polluted, wealthy merchants, businessmen, doctors and lawyers all looked to move outside the city, and speculators bought up land where the affluent could purchase or build homes. The main line of the Chicago & North Western Railway, which runs north along the lakeshore, enabled the growth of Chicago's North Shore Suburbs.

EARLY TRAIN STATIONS: The construction of the Railroad's First Power House
In 1848, the Galena and Chicago Union built its first depot south of Kinzie Street and east of Canal Street, on the west side of the north branch of the Chicago River, several blocks west of the station that was to be built in 1911. As the railroad expanded, this station was enlarged. Then, in 1853, the Galena completed a two-story brick passenger depot south of Kinzie facing Wells Street. A story was added in 1863. These were small buildings. The Wells Street station burned in the Chicago fire of 1871 and was replaced. 7 But no large monumental building was constructed until April, 1880, when the prolific architect, W. W. Boyington completed plans for a new Wells Street Depot for the Chicago & North Western. 8 The railroad's new station was imposing, a red brick Queen Anne building with sandstone trim that stood 4-plus stories and had a tall square clock tower, topped by a steep pointed roof that was equal in height to the building. It contained a richly appointed grand gentlemen's and ladies' waiting room, 144' x 60', which occupied almost an entire floor and was intended exclusively for intercity passengers. Adjacent was an equally lavish dining room. There were two floors of offices above the waiting room; below was a 126' x 56' ground floor passenger waiting room for commuters. It had a modest shed, but business expanded rapidly, with immigrant travel growing and shipping playing a huge role, as Chicago became the mail order center for catalogue retailers, Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward.

The growth in railroading that took place in the early 1890s forced the expansion of the railroad facilities in 1892. Additions included the construction of a boiler and engine house that was to be located a quarter of a mile west of the station. It was a brick building containing four boilers, two Thompson-Houston dynamos, two Edison dynamos and two steam pumping engines. The dynamos generated electricity for 60 carbon arc and 950 incandescent lamps. The steam pumps were used to supply hydraulic and pneumatic pressure for an installation of interlocking switches and signals in the passenger coach yard. The exhaust steam from the boilers was used to heat the depot buildings, replacing separate furnaces in each building. But train congestion and commuter/immigrant traffic could not be sufficiently alleviated by this change. Nor were traffic and congestion helped by the construction of a new annex to the station and new platforms, additional tracks and sheds-- completed in 1902. To complicate issues, the city passed an ordinance in 1901 that forced the railroads to elevate their tracks above city streets to allow for sufficient height to create underpasses. 9 Today the boiler and engine house are gone. The Merchandise Mart was built on the site of the Chicago & North Western Railway's 1880 station.