In pre-Fire Chicago, the rich lived side by side with ‘middling’ folk and neither would ever be very far from the poor. He did not know that the nature of the neighborhood would change almost overnight. All in all, it seemed the perfect site for his new brick mansion and he would profit from the land boom.Ĭharles Hull would soon have neighbors, but not the kind he had envisioned. Here, he was certain, others would follow in his footsteps. The large blocks of land were not divided and subdivided like those closer to the heart of the city. Looking at an 1855 map of his city, Hull had selected an area devoid of neighbors. Here, on the steps of his mansion, he thought to watch his Chicago grow. The noise, congestion and smells of the commercial district to the north and the lumber district to the south were far removed. Even Halsted Street at his doorstep was unpaved and minimally traveled. The vast acres to the east stood unoccupied with only the faint visages of streets outlined on the prairie. When Charles Hull stood on the steps of his new mansion at Polk and Harrison streets, he took in a view of the city from what was a suburban fringe of Chicago.
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