Prairie Avenue - Background

Background

Residents: (left to right) George Pullman, Marshall Field, and Philip Armour

In the 1850s, railroad related industries prospered near the lumber district along the South Branch of the Chicago River. Thus, the business district began to supplant the elegant residences along Michigan and Wabash Avenues south of Jackson Boulevard. Shortly after the Civil War, the city's wealthy residents settled on Prairie Avenue due to its proximity to the Loop less than a mile away and the fact that traveling there did not involve crossing the Chicago River. In 1870, Daniel Thompson erected the first large upper-Prairie Avenue home. Marshall Field followed in 1871 with a Richard Morris Hunt design. Prairie Avenue was the most posh Chicago address by the time of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

Many of South Michigan Avenue's elegant villas were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The post-fire South Side of Chicago grew rapidly as all economic classes left the city's center. Many of Chicago's elite families settled along Prairie Avenue. By the 1870s and 1880s, Prairie Avenue was the location of elaborate houses between 16th Street and 22nd Street (now Cermak Road). In 1886, the urban elite, including George Pullman, Marshall Field, Philip Armour and John B. Sherman all owned family homes in this area that created an opulent Prairie Avenue streetscape reminiscent of European city streets; as such, it was widely regarded as the city's most fashionable neighborhood. Businesses, such as the Pullman Company, Armour & Company and D.H. Burnham & Company, with ties to Prairie Avenue had national and international reach and impact. Additional grand homes (including many Queen Anne Style architecture and Richardsonian Romanesque) were located on Prairie between 26th and 30th Streets starting in the mid-1880s. The last mansion, a three-story Georgian Revival residence with 21 rooms, was built in the district at 2126 Prairie Avenue in 1905.

However, as the start of the 20th century came, industry's pervasive reach, increased railroad soot, and an encroaching vice district, caused the area to become less desirable, and the social elite vacated the region for quieter neighborhoods such as Kenwood, the Gold Coast and more commonly the suburban North Shore. The Chicago Tribune highlighted 1898 Prairie Avenue as a place that was undesirable to those for whom it was affordable, and unaffordable to those for whom it was desirable. Light industry and vacant lots overtook Prairie Avenue during the second half of the 20th century. The elegant mansions were mostly torn down or fell into extreme disrepair. By the 1970s, most of the residential buildings had been replaced by factories and parking lots. Starting in the late 1990s, the downtown housing market flourished in Chicago and the resulting boom that has transformed many neighborhoods revived Prairie Avenue, causing most of the factories to be demolished or converted to loft condominiums. The factories have been replaced by condominium projects and most of the remaining mansions have been renovated.