Industrial History: Wacker Drive Construction and Kraft Plant

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Wacker Drive Construction and Kraft Plant

The building to the left of the Wrigley Building was a Kraft Plant. More on that later.

Historic Chicago posted
Wacker Drive (known as River St before being named after the Burnham Plan commissioner) takes shape west of Michigan Ave. (1925)
Linda Phipps Lower Wacker was known as "Emerald City" due to green lights on the lower level.
Raymond Kunst shared
BDBRCPC posted
Chicago River (1925), The Wrigley Building and newly constructed Tribune Tower can be seen to the northeast.

David Daruszka commented on Historic Chicago's post
This is what the riverfront looked like.

Jeff Bransky commented on Historic Chicago's post
Here’s an old map showing River Street, South Water Street, and Market Street which are predecessors to today’s 2 level Wacker Drive.

1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

The Kraft plant is still standing in a 1938 aerial photo and we can see that the west wall of the Kraft plant was on an angle. In 1938, there are still a lot of railroad tracks along the river. It has more views of the Kraft plant because it is at the east end of the railyard.

Raymond Kunst posted
The Wrigley Building and Tribune Tower, 1945.
Historic Chicago posted
Chicago Skyline (1946)

Raymond sees the buildings built on the north side in the 1920s after the Michigan Street Bridge was built in 1920. But I see the Kraft plant before the Michigan Street Bridge changed the north side from an industrial area to a commercial/retail area.

Update:

Larry Candilas commented on Dennis' share
Top picture shows Kraft Foods but with a different advertisement, probably a few years earlier.

Jeff Nichols posted
Wrigley Building, 1940. Indiana University.
[I wonder how often they painted a new advertisement on the side of their building.]

I can't quite read the advertisement in this photo.

Maria Canzoneri posted

Cropped from a 1920 photo in Chicagology

MWRD posted
Historical Photo of the Day: The Wrigley building and the Chicago River in downtown Chicago on June 13, 1922, viewed to the northeast from an area near Wabash Ave.
Dennis DeBruler The advertisement is painted on the wall of a Kraft plant. C&NW State Street Yard is on the left.

The Kraft building is advertising giving to the Red Cross.

Taylor Rosen posted
Chicago, Illinois circa 1945.
[Some comments pointed out the Playboy/Palmolive building.]

Historic Photographs posted
In 1953 , the 600-foot-long, 70- foot-wide Marine Angel transited the Chicago River.
Steven Phillips: Ok, I just read about it. The short version is, it was working as a bulk cargo hauler on the Mississippi and was switching to the Great Lakes. The St. Lawrence Seaway didn't open till '59, so up the Illinois river to the Chicago river it was. It was also 620' and had 7" of clearance on each side in this turn.
Bill Meech shared
[We can see the north leaf of the DuSable (Michigan) Avenue Bridge in its raised position.]

Another view of the Kraft Building and another advertisement on the side.

Jacob Sieg posted
Here's a look back on some of the marvelous buildings and structures of Chicago: The Carbide and Carbon Building, Pure Oil Building, Mather Tower, Tribune Tower, Wrigley Building, and the Wabash Avenue Bridge and Drive.
Cindy Greenwald: The Wabash Avenue Bridge was built in 1930. The State Street Bridge was begun in 1939 and finished in 1949, due to WWII. This image is probably from the early 30s. Look at the body styling of the cars parked on Wacker Drive. Still squared-off and boxy, and not curvy as they'd have been later on.

Later, Wacker Drive was extended further east.