Lee Bey: The Urban Observer

(photos by Lee Bey)

This vacant house on the northwest corner of 45th and Michigan has fascinated me for years. 

The blond, Renaissance Revival-styled house is largely overshadowed by the architectural bombast of the landmark Swift Mansion on the southwest side of the intersection. But its story is as dramatic as that of its neighbors. Maybe more...                                                                

The house was built by John R. Hoxie, a prominent Chicagoan and Social Register-type who help found the Chicago Stockyard and the Stockyards Bank. He owned the world's largest hog ranch--1,500 acres--is Texas. The town of Hoxie, Texas and a street on Chicago's Southeast side are named for him. When Hoxie died in 1896, the funeral was in the home's parlor. Hoxie left his wife, Mary, $6 million, a sum that roughly equals $132 million today. Hoxie family's luck would go downhill afterward.

In 1903. a burglar slipped into the house and stole $3500 in jewels while the family was in the house. According to the Chicago Tribune's account, the criminal scaled the front columns and second-story balustrade and entered a window, all "in the glare of electric light." 

In 1908, Mary Hoxie, a son and her daughter Anna Good were driving through Buffalo NY in the rain. When the chauffeur pulled over and jacked up the car to put chains on the tires for better traction, the auto slipped the jack and tumbled down an embankment, killing Anna Good. At the Michigan Avenue house, Mary's other son, Gilbert received a telegram saying all had survived. He didn't know the truth until he read the next day's newspaper.

(Above) An ornate window--mangled a bit with glass block--gives a sense of the home's majesty.

In 1909, Mary Hoxie was sued by the University of Boston Press for refusing to pay $83,000, as promised, for a set of Charles Dickens novels that had been valued at $1 million. Mrs Hoxie found herself in court once again in 1910 when she sued her former son-in-law, Harry Good, for custody of her granddaughter, Katherine, 7. The Goods were divorced at the time of the car accident that killed Katherine's mother; after the accident, Mary Hoxie denied Good permission to his daughter, claiming his real interest was not the girl but her $5,000 a year allowance.

In 1913 Gilbert Hoxie died of heart disease at age 35. He operated a company that created the Hoxie Bullet, a piece of rifle ammunition that was a nasty bit of business. The bullet had a small steel ball embedded in the tip that would spread like a star on impact, tearing gaping holes in whatever---and whoever--it hit. Gilbert left his wife and son $110,000, or about $2 million today.

By 1915, the Hoxies seem to fall from public prominence. Katherine Hoxie surfaced in 1920 at age 17 and was dubbed "Poor Little Rich Girl" by the Chicago Tribune when she asked Cook County Probate Court Judge Henry Horner (the man who'd become governor in 1933) for permission to by a $4,000 car.

"You may have the car," Horner ruled.

"Goody," she replied. She could afford it. Her allowance had grown to $15,000 a year.

(Above) Imagine the glass that was once here. 

By 1930, the Hoxies had moved from Michigan Avenue and the house became the Martha Washington Home for Crippled Children. The Martha Washington operations moved in 1943 and the home briefly became the Clarance Cameron White School of Music, named for the noted black composer and violinist. By the 1950a, Bethel AME Church owned the property---and still does. The church itself is one door north.

The church keeps watch over the house. Though barely boarded up, there seems to be no signs of squatters or break ins. Grass is cut. Its future awaits.