Map of the Central Business District of Chicago

A rare wall map of Chicago’s downtown district.

This jaw-dropping plan of downtown Chicago and the area surrounding was published in 1912 by the Chicago Real Estate Index Company on behalf of McKinney, Hodge, and Manns, a local industrial and business real estate firm. The image is bounded by Halsted St. (east), Chicago Ave. (north), Lake Michigan (east), and 21st St. (south).

The map’s large scale allows for the presentation of minute details about the contemporary composition of the Windy City’s economic heart. The most immediately obvious feature is the immense concentration of railways along Lake Michigan and the Chicago River. Tracks for steam railroads, surface lines, and elevated railways are noted along with their myriad of supporting structures like transportation depots, stations, rail yards, cold storage, and repair facilities. Much of this property is highlighted in pink, while a subset is further bordered in bright red – perhaps reflecting the commercial interests of the real estate firm. Various industrial properties like grain elevators, warehouses, factories, and power stations, again hugging the waterways, are outlined and named.

Not all was smoke and noise in Chicago in the early 1910s. Though the skyline was missing its most iconic skyscrapers, the central Loop contained many of the city’s finest buildings like City Hall, the Federal Building, and the Chicago Public Library. World-class shopping was available at Carson, Pirie, Scott, Marshall Field & Company, and Montgomery Ward. Luxury accommodations were provided by the Congress, Sherman, and Palmer House hotels. Cultural institutions were also present, notably at the Art Institute and the proposed site for the new Field Museum of Natural History, just south of Grant Park.

The map is rare and possibly unrecorded, with no entries in OCLC or other online repositories. An extensive catalog of the Chicago Historical Society identifies a smaller map of the same title, while a huge example is available at the University of Southern Mississippi. (See here for what appears to be the upper half). This is thus apparently the second largest in a series of three similar maps published on increasingly larger scales;

Sources: OCLC:1001346475; Open House Chicago; Chicago Historical Society; Encylopedia of Chicago; Chicagology;