Nickerson House - History

History

The house was commissioned by Samuel Mayo Nickerson, one of the founders of the First National Bank in Chicago and Union Stockyards National Bank, as well as having interests in liquor and wine businesses and an explosives company during the Civil War.

Nickerson, his wife Mathilda Pinkham Crosby, and their son Roland lived in the house from 1883 to 1900. The mansion was used for many social gatherings characteristic of the Gilded Age, including a masquerade ball and a number of receptions. It also served as exhibition space in which the Nickersons displayed their renowned art collection of American and European paintings and drawings, Indian jewelry, and Japanese and Chinese ivories and curios. In 1900 the Nickerson Collection was donated to the Art Institute of Chicago.

After the Great Fire, the Near North Side became a fashionable neighborhood for prominent Chicago business owners like Nickerson. Because the area was home to Cyrus H. McCormick, his brothers William S. McCormick and Leander J. McCormick, and their descendents, whose mansions were mainly concentrated along Rush Street, the neighborhood was known as McCormickville. Other notable residents of the Gilded Age period include Ransom R. Cable, Lambert Tree, Perry H. Smith, Joseph T. Ryerson, and Edward T. Blair.

Upon retiring from his position as president of the First National Bank of Chicago in 1900, Nickerson sold the house to Lucius George Fisher, the president of Union Bag & Paper Co., who owned the house until his death in 1916. After purchasing the house, Fisher hired the Prairie School architect George Washington Maher to redesign Nickerson's art gallery, making it into a trophy room and rare book library. Among other features, Maher had a stained glass dome built to replace the room's skylight. As part of the remodeling, new book cases and a monumental mantlepiece, attributed to Robert E. Seyfarth who was an architect in Maher's office at the time, were installed in the gallery. The iridescent glass tile fire surround of the mantle was created by the Chicago firm of Giannini & Hilgart.

The family's decision to sell the mansion after Fisher's death in 1916 sparked what is believed to be Chicago's first successful preservation effort. After the house remained on the market for three years without a buyer, a group of prominent Chicagoans, including Cyrus Hall McCormick II, William Wrigley, Jr., and Julius Rosenwald, were concerned about the possible demolition of the magnificent residence. The group raised the money to purchase the house as a civic effort, and in 1919 presented the deed to the American College of Surgeons. This gift spurred the College of Surgeons' decision to make Chicago its headquarters. From 1919 to 1965, the organization utilized the former Nickerson residence as administrative offices and meeting rooms.