Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1899 — POTTER PALMER, OF CHICAGO* [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

POTTER PALMER, OF CHICAGO*

He I» Much More than the Husband of a Famous Woman. .The newspaper reading world knows mnch about Mrs. Potter Palmer, of Chicago. She sprang before the public eye as the president of the Woman's Board of Managers of the World’s Fair. More recently, her successful management of the love affairs of Count Cantacuzene and Miss Julia* Grant, her niece, lias kept alive the public Interest 4n this forceful and attractive woman. Like Mary Ellen Lease, she eclipsed her husband, of whom little ever appears in print. And yet Potter Palmer is a great business man, one of the real makers of Chicago and a power In the financial world—one of those silent forces, which contribute so much to the world’s progress. Potter Palmer was a young man when he located In Chicago fifty years ago. He invested a few thousand dollars in a dry goods store and soon had the cream of the city trade. His surplus cash went into real estate and the soil was fertile. He was a wealthy man when,, at the close of the war, he took Into'partnership with him Marshall Field and Levi Leiter. State street, now Chicago’s leading thoroughfare, was then a narrow, dirty lane. Lake street was the commercial center. Potter Palmer proposed to make State street the commercial center. Men ridiculed him, but be went over to the despised street bought a mile of frontage and commenced building commercial palaces. His firm occupied the first and other firms quickly took others. When the fire of 1871 came, Potter Palmer owned thirty-two buildings on State street. All were destroyed. He borrowed $3,000,000 and rebuilt them, better and stronger than before. Then he looked about for a spot where he might build a home. What is now the magnificent boulevard known as the North Shore drive was then a heap of sand. Here he built and sold adjoining property to the best class of people. The boulevard is the result. Then he built the Palmer House, Chicago’s finest hostelry In his day, which it is now said he will tear

down In the near future and erect In its stead a commercial palace. These are a few of the things he has done for Chicago. He has never desired political honors, never sought them. He might have won honors in this field, but they were not to his liking. He has preferred to be the simple business gentleman, eager for the welfare of Ms city, building always for the public weal as well as his own good. His later years are spent in the midst of artistic surroundings of his exquisite home. There has always been in his nature that vein of sentiment which never desired that Chicago should be of the material only. Parks, boulevards, art treasures, music have to him always seemed as much a legitimate part of the being of the city as mercantile establishments and steam roads. Hp has enriched Chicago in this direction also.

POTTER PALMER.