Est. 1887 · Glessner House (H.H. Richardson, 1887) · Prairie Avenue Historic District · Millionaire's Row · Marshall Field Residence Site
Prairie Avenue developed in the years after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 as the residential preference of the city's industrial elite, displacing earlier addresses on the near North Side. By the late 1880s, the stretch between 16th and 22nd Streets held more concentrated wealth per block than any other street in the country. Department-store founder Marshall Field, meatpacker Philip Armour, railcar magnate George Pullman, and at least seventy other named industrialists maintained residences along the avenue, supported by a service infrastructure of stables, carriage houses, and small commercial buildings on the side streets.
The 1887 Glessner House at 1800 South Prairie Avenue is the masterwork of Henry Hobson Richardson and one of his last commissions before his death in 1886. The house's Richardsonian Romanesque granite exterior and inward-facing courtyard plan represented a deliberate break from the Italianate and Second Empire conventions of earlier Prairie Avenue mansions. The Glessner family donated the house to a preservation group in the 1960s, and it now operates as a National Historic Landmark and house museum.
Most of Prairie Avenue's other mansions were demolished between the 1920s and 1960s as the South Loop industrialized. A handful survive, including the 1873 Marshall Field Mansion, the Kimball House, and the William W. Kimball House next door to Glessner. Glessner House operates the Shadows on the Street walking tour during the Halloween season, leading 60-minute walks through the surviving district. The tour was launched in the early 2010s and runs annually with multiple Saturday-evening time slots in October.
Sources
- https://www.glessnerhouse.org/walking-tours
- http://glessnerhouse.blogspot.com/2012/10/shadows-on-street-haunted-tours-of.html
- https://www.preservationchicago.org/glessner-house-presents-walking-tours-of-prairie-avenue-motor-row-and-haunted-historic-prairie-avenue/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glessner_House
ApparitionsPhantom voicesPhantom footstepsLights flickering
The death of Marshall Field Junior in November 1905 anchors the tour's first major stop. Field Junior, the eldest son of the department-store founder, was found shot at his home at 1919 South Prairie Avenue and died days later. Newspaper coverage at the time circulated multiple competing accounts including accidental discharge while preparing for a hunting trip and an alternative scenario involving the Everleigh Club brothel on nearby Dearborn Street. The Field family's official account remains the only one in the public record. Witnesses to reported activity at the former residence have described a man's voice in upper rooms.
The Philander Hanford house, demolished in the early 20th century, was the site of a documented sequence of in-residence deaths during the 1890s. Tour material covers Hanford family losses to illness and accident, drawing on Cook County records. The Edson Keith residence remains one of the surviving Prairie Avenue mansions, and Glessner House's research catalogues long-running reports of footsteps in upper rooms and lights observed from the street after dark.
The tour presents these accounts as documented witness reports rather than confirmed paranormal activity. Glessner House's blog has published research notes on Marshall Field Junior's case and on the Hanford documentation, and the program is run by trained docents with backgrounds in architectural history and local research.
Notable Entities
Marshall Field Jr.Edson Keith
