West Adams and South Canal Streets
Opened 1925
Architects: Graham, Anderson, Probst & White
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Union Station, located along the west side of the Chicago River between Adams and Jackson, was the primary passenger terminal of four major railroads serving the city during the early twentieth century: the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Burlington Route, the Alton Railroad, and the Milwaukee Road. From Union Station, Chicagoans boarded trains bound for both coasts and many other cities and towns throughout the Midwest. The most famous trains to depart from the colossal station were the Pennsylvania's marquee trains to the east coast, including the legendary Broadway Limited, which provided crack overnight service direct to Pennsylvania Station in New York City.
Although the Pennsylvania Railroad's many daily departures served the eastern United States, the station's three other tenants primarily served western destinations. Like none of the city's other train stations, Union Station was truly a crossroads depot, where travellers from all over the country converged and then transferred to trains bound for other regions without ever leaving the station itself. This was no insignificant factor for those wary of Chicago taxi-cab drivers, whom many suspected of price-gouging and roundabout trips that took advantage of out-of-towners forced to use their services when transferring from one train station to another.
Passenger train service to the west of Chicago was provided from Union Station by the Alton Railroad, the Burlington Route, and the Milwaukee Road. Alton trains, including the Alton Limited, offered service to Saint Louis and downstate Illinois. Milwaukee Road trains included the Hiawatha to Minneapolis, the Southwest Limited to Kansas City, and the Olympian to Seattle. Burlington trains, meanwhile, conveyed travellers to numerous western destinations with its Denver Limited to Colorado, American Royal to Kansas City, and Oriental Limited and North Coast Limited through Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, and Washington. During the 1930s, the Burlington Railroad's world-famous streamlined Zephyrs breathed new life into the company's passenger division. The art-deco Zephyrs replaced many of the older named trains on their runs between Chicago, Denver, and Kansas City.
Suburbanites also utilized Union Station when commuting between their homes and Downtown offices. Notable suburban destinations included Cicero, Riverside, and Downers Grove.
Chicago's first Union Station opened in 1881 at the corner of Canal and Adams Streets and was jointly owned by a consortium of railroad companies. As the city's population increased, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the old station became increasingly crowded and unable to meet the business needs of its parent railroads. Thus, in 1913, the Chicago Union Station Company authorized construction of a replacement station.
The railroad companies involved, most notably the Pennsylvania Railroad, hoped the new Union Station would be a world-class facility, an architectural and engineering marvel that would befit the importance of the railroad industry to America's rise as an economic powerhouse. Chicago's business leaders and politicians, likewise eager to boost the image of the city, heartily backed the expansion plans. Accordingly, the new station was designed to be not only a highly efficient and fully modern transportation facility, but also a monument to the city and the social confidence of its most powerful citizens.
The railroads spared no expense in the design and construction of the new Union Station. Daniel Burnham, the city's premier beaux-arts architect, was recruited to draw up blueprints for the new facility. But Burnham died before completing the designs and the job was taken over by the architectural firm of Graham, Anderson, Probst, and White. Construction of the new station, which began in 1914, dragged on for eleven years and was hampered by shortages during World War I and labor strikes just after the war. Costs, meanwhile, escalated. Though the final price tag for the new station was never known, observers have estimated the cost at between $50 million and $75 million.
When finally opened in May of 1925 for full passenger-rail service, the station was hailed by the city's newspapers and prominent railroad officials as the most modern transportation center the world had ever known. During the dedication ceremonies, Mayor William E. Dever proclaimed the new Union Station as "America's latest triumph in railroading."
Though perhaps a trifle exaggerated, such pronouncements were not completely unfounded. The new Union Station was one of the largest train stations to be built in the twentieth century. The entire complex, including train sheds and approach tracks, occupied about ten city blocks. At the center of the station complex was the main concourse, where passengers passed beneath a ninety-foot-high, skylighted ceiling on the way to board their trains. Day and night, Chicagoans gathered to say their hellos and goodbyes as friends and relatives arrived in or departed the city. Redcaps, meanwhile, scurried about with their luggage. For those unfamiliar with the city, members of the Travelers Aid Society staffed a booth nearby to offer advice on where to stay or give assistance to stranded visitors. For longer train layovers, travellers often used the station's colossal main waiting room, which sported pink Tennessee marble floors and massive wooden benches. It was connected to the concourse by an underground passage beneath Canal Street.
To be sure, the enormous station was a self-contained urban space; travellers found most, if not all, of their needs met within its confines. Concessionaires provided a wide range of necessary and not-so-necessary services, from restaurants and snack shops to shoeshine stands and newspaper racks. Even more remarkable, the new Union Station possessed its own police force, a jail for the handling of prisoners in transit, a nursery, and a hospital, all to ensure that the well-ordered spaces of the station suffered as little disruption as possible.
Union Station's glory years were during World War II, when wartime mobilization dramatically increased its use. During the early 1940s, as many as three hundred trains and 100,000 passengers passed through the station each day. A significant percentage of those passengers were American service personnel en route to one of the hundreds of military bases across the country. For their benefit, volunteers opened a canteen at the station. Union Station also served an important function in the government's effort to sustain the public's morale during the war. In what some called the "world's largest patriotic display," local officials draped the concourse interior with gigantic war-bond murals and the national flags of the Allies.
During the 1950s and 1960s, as intercity passenger-train travel declined throughout the United States, Union Station remained an important, albeit less dominant, link in the nation's transportation network. In 1969, the concourse was demolished so that two office buildings and a modernized concourse could be constructed. The founding of Amtrak in 1972 led to the consolidation of most of the city's intercity passenger-train service at Union Station. The station underwent a major renovation during the early 1990s and continues to serve as a major transportation center for both suburban commuters and intercity travellers.
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Page authored: 27 May 1998
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