First Regiment Armory, 1552 S. Michigan Ave. (1891-1967)
One of Chicago’s many under-appreciated contributions to world history is the birth of the labor movement. The Haymarket Affair, on May 4, 1886, was a demonstration by tens of thousands of workers at Desplaines and Randolph Streets (then called Haymarket Square) in response to a police crackdown after a general strike called on May 1. During the demonstration, a bomb was thrown that resulted in the deaths of seven police officers.
Eight demonstrators—most of them self-described anarchist immigrants-- were convicted of the murders, and seven were sentenced to death. Four were executed in 1887, another committed suicide in prison on the eve of the execution, and the other three were pardoned by Governor John Altgeld in 1893. The general strike of May 1, 1886 and the resulting martyrdom of the convicted strikers is the reason that May 1 is commemorated each year throughout the world as a day to recognize organized labor and its struggles.
Yet in the aftermath of the violence in Haymarket Square, prominent business leaders in Chicago became concerned that they and their families might be targeted with violence. The area with Chicago’s most affluent business leaders in the late 19th Century was Prairie Avenue in the South Loop, home to Marshall Field, George Pullman, Phillip Armour, Potter Palmer, among others, on a stretch of opulent homes known as “Millionaire’s Row.”
Fearing a potentially violent working class uprising, the residents of Prairie Avenue placed political pressure on politicians to construct an armory to protect Chicago’s most prominent businessmen. Daniel Burnham and John Root were commissioned to design the First Regiment Armory at 1552 S. Michigan Avenue, just three blocks from the homes of the most prominent business leaders in Chicago.
The decorative fortress on the northwest corner of 16th and Michigan was constructed between 1889 and 1891, and featured thick stone walls, rounded turrets, and slots for firing rifles in defense of the military troops stationed within. The roof featured skylights that bathed the interior in natural light, a feature similar to Burnham and Root’s Rookery Building in downtown Chicago.
Transportation and communication technology advances in the early part of the 20th Century allowed prominent business people to disperse to more comfortable areas, away from the danger and inconveniences in the loud and crowded Prairie Avenue corridor. New bridge technologies at the dawn of the 20th Century made river crossings from the Loop to Chicago's less densely-populated North Side more reliable. New bedroom communities in leafy suburbs like Riverside and Lake Forest were served by commuter railroads. As the wealthy abandoned Prairie Avenue for the North Side, Hyde Park, and the suburbs, a seedy element gradually took over the neighborhood by the 1920s. The Armory, no longer necessary, was turned to other uses—sporting events, car shows, conferences, billboards, and cheap spectacles.
In 1967, just before the anti-war demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention, the First Regiment Armory was demolished. A modern two-story building housing a bank branch occupies the site today.
Photos Courtesy Library of Congress
