2110 S Prairie Ave
Chicago, IL 60616, USA

Harriet F.Rees House - National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance:

SUMMARY
The Harriet F. Rees House at 2110 South Prairie Avenue is eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion C for local significance as a finely crafted urban residential example of late nineteenth-century Romanesque Revival-Style architecture and designed by the noted Chicago architectural firm of Cobb & Frost. Recognized in the Chicago Historic Resources Survey as an orange-rated or locally significant building, the Rees House is also a rare, outstanding single-family residence remaining at the south end of Upper Prairie Avenue, Chicago's most fashionable late nineteenth-century residential enclave. Exceptional architectural integrity remains in this substantial house built in 1888 by the widow of James H. Rees, a prominent nineteenth century Chicagoan, who was significant in the real estate community as an early and influential property title abstractor and mapmaker.

HISTORY OF THE NEAR SOUTH SIDE AND CHICAGO'S UPPER PRAIRIE AVENUE"
The Near South Side community, where the Rees House is located, has origins in the early nineteenth-century. Many years before Chicago's historic Prairie Avenue was developed, it was the site of the Fort Dearborn Massacre of 1812, which occurred shortly after the evacuation of the fort located on the south bank of the Chicago River. Following the departure of Native Americans, over two decades would pass before permanent settlement occurred in the area. In 1834, Elijah D. Harmon first purchased a 138-acre tract bounded by IS''' Street on the north, 22""^ Street (Cermak Road) on the south. State Street on the west, and Lake Michigan on the east. One of the community's first European settlers, Henry B. Clarke, completed his Greek Revival-style home in the area in 1836 on a twenty-acre parcel purchased from Harmon. Later settlers in the community were of German, Irish, and Scandinavian descent and had worked on the Illinois and Michigan Canal begun in 1836 and completed by 1848. Once the canal was finished, residents found work in the community's lumber district that emerged along the south branch of the Chicago River. As water transportation was supplanted by the railroads by the late 1850s, industries began to locate along the rail lines that pushed

Harriet F. Rees House Chicago, Cook County, IL
through the Near South Side. Development, which was very limited prior to the railroads, began as workers in these industries-built homes. By 1853, the city limits were expanded southward to 31®' Street, and further development was launched with the expansion of street car lines from the central business district into the neighborhood. However, a large portion of the community remained undeveloped until after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

The Harriet Rees House was built at the south end of what is known as "Upper Prairie Avenue," one of Chicago's most prestigious residential streets of the late nineteenthcentury. From 16"^ Street to 22"'' Street, the northern section of late nineteenth-century Prairie Avenue boasted uninterrupted blocks of imposing, well-built mansions designed by prominent architects in fashionable styles. Along this linear avenue that runs north to south, Chicago millionaires such as George Pullman, Philip D. Armor, and Marshall Field took residence in the years following the Great Fire of 1871. At that time, Chicago's pioneering families rebuilt their homes away from the increasingly commercial downtown area, and on land untouched by debris from the fire. Residential growth and development were also attracted to Chicago's south side, particularly along Prairie Avenue, because of hindrances caused by the location of the Chicago River and its branches. While residents of the north and west sides had to cross the waterways, enduring congested river and land traffic to and from the Loop, south siders had no such geographic barriers and thus easier and quicker access.

Prairie Avenue and nearby streets were first laid out as the Assessor's Division, a subdivision stretching from 17'^ Street on the north, 22"" Street to the south, the Illinois Central Railroad tracks to the east, and State Street to the west. This pre-fire land division resulted from speculation of railroad expansion southward from the Loop into then suburban Hyde Park by 1855-56. Sometime before June 1852,^ John N. Staples, a brick manufacturer, is believed to have constructed the first house on Prairie Avenue. This two-story Italianate-Style residence was built at 1702 South Prairie Avenue. Development on the Avenue was briefly slowed by the Civil War but accelerated soon after. By 1870, Prairie Avenue received one of the avenue's most expensive homes, costing an exorbitant $100,000. For Daniel M. Thompson, a grain elevator operator, an Italianate villa was constructed at the corner of Prairie Avenue and 12"^ Street^ on a site where lots were 200 feet deep. Soon, numerous families of means began to call Prairie Avenue home, including Chicago's most prominent businessmen and industrialists. Chicago novelist (and Prairie Avenue resident) Arthur Meeker referred to Prairie Avenue as the "sunny street that held the sifted few." The rise of Prairie Avenue continued by 1874 when Chicago trade periodical. The Land Owner, labeled Prairie Avenue as "one of the most fashionable and handsomely-built of all of our South-Side thoroughfares." The issue featured engravings of residences built by Chicago's aristocrats and, as a result, further promoted Prairie Avenue as the city's residential showplace of its day. It was also a street of firsts, having the first house in Chicago to be illuminated with electric lights in 1882. According to architectural historian and Prairie Avenue expert Mary Alice Molloy, Prairie Avenue would remain Chicago's "residence street par excellence" for more than three decades in the late nineteenth-century.

By the late 1880s, most lots on Upper Prairie Avenue had been improved with two- to three-story single family detached residences. Many were on standard 25-foot lots with similar setbacks, while others covered two or more lots. Homes on Prairie Avenue were lavishly detailed on their principal facades, or two facades when situated on a corner. Prairie Avenue residents commissioned designs by noted architects of the era, both nationally and locally reputable. The street showcased designs by architect William LeBaron Jenney, who introduced French architecture to Prairie Avenue in his design at 1701 for hardware giant William Gold Hibbard (demolished); architect Richard Morris Hunt, who designed a home for Marshall Field; architect Henry S. Jaffray, a Hunt protege; who designed the Second Empire style George Pullman House at 1729 and S. S. Beman who designed its numerous additions (demolished); the architectural firm of Burnham and Root who designed the John B. Sherman Residence in the Victorian Gothic Revival style at 2100 (demolished); and the architectural firm of Cobb and Frost who designed a Romanesque Revival-Style brownstone for Miner T. Ames in 1886 at 1811 South Prairie Avenue.

Masonry construction dominated Prairie Avenue, including the widespread use of quarried limestone. The richness of the high-quality stone appealed to the residents of Prairie Avenue, whose home needed to reflect their affluence. Buff white when freshly quarried, the "marble" was then polished to a smooth finish. Marketed as "Athens Marble" and "Joliet Marble," the stone product from both the Joliet, Illinois and Lemont, Illinois quarries could be cut to specific sizes. Lemont limestone was particularly sought after for dimension stone since it was free from visible fossil bodies, had a fine grain and standard color without streaks, and was found in layers thick enough to be cut into blocks. Limestone was also used in brick residences along Prairie Avenue for decorative accents.

Most Prairie Avenue homes were designed to impress in the picturesque styles of the late nineteenth-century, first in the Second Empire Style, followed by Victorian Gothic Revival Style and the Queen Anne Style. When architect Henry Hobson Richardson designed the masteri'ul John J. Glessner House at 1800 South Prairie Avenue (1886), the Romanesque Revival style (Richardsonian Romanesque) became the choice for residential design for Prairie Avenue's upper crust By the late 1880s the influence of Richardson's monumental design with rusticated stone and arched openings was greatly felt. One of the last homes built on Prairie Avenue, 2110, is a Romanesque Revival Style design. 2110 South Prairie was built for Harriet F. Rees, the widow of early real estate man James R. Rees, and is the sole survivor on its block from the avenue's heyday.

Prairie Avenue's decline began soon after the World's Columbian Exposition and the Panic of 1893. Challenged by Chicago's other fashionable areas, such as the Gold Coast where prominent Chicagoan and hotelier Potter Palmer built his north side home, construction on Prairie Avenue essentially ceased by 1905. As land prices dropped in the early twentieth-century. Prairie Avenue faced transformation. The once high-end residential community became transient as many of the grand homes were converted into boarding houses. When industries began to insert buildings into the residential streetscape in the first decades of the twentieth-century, Chicago's planners responded. By designating the entire area for commercial purposes in the first zoning ordinance in 1923, the residential district's demise was sealed. Many residences were demolished through the years, including those condemned at mid-century. By 1966, efforts were started to save remaining residences on Prairie Avenue when the Glessner House was rescued from demolition. Today, a locally-designed landmark district protects the late nineteenth-century homes remaining on Prairie Avenue. When the Chicago Historic Resources Survey (CHRS) was conducted in recent years, only a total of nine residential buildings, including the Rees House, remained on upper and lower Prairie Avenues.