Michigan yields a human tale that is as dramatic
as the home's architecture.
This vacant house has fascinated me for years.
It stands on the northwest corner of 45th and
Michigan, overshadowed by the architectural
bombast of the old Swift Mansion that sits on the
southwest side of the intersection. The blond
Renaissance Revival house is barely boarded up,
but shows no signs of break-ins or squatters.
Bethel AME Church, located one door north, owns
the house and keeps the grass cut. The home was
the church's parish house of spell. But anyone
with a passing interest in the old South Side
boulevards knows the story is deeper than that.
Like the Swift mansion and many late 19th
century homes built along Michigan, Indiana,
Drexel and King Drive boulevards, the house at
4448 S. Michigan has it roots in a time when the
Near South Side was an early Chicago Gold Coast
where money from the Union Stockyards,
railroads, downtown department stores and
everything else that turned a profit came home to
rest.
***
The house was built by John R. Hoxie, a
prominent Chicagoan and Social Register-type
who was a founder of the Stockyards and the
Stockyards Bank. He owned the world's largest
hog ranch---1,500 acres---in Texas. Hoxie died in
November, 1896 and his funeral was in the
home's parlor. Hoxie left his wife a fortune valued
at $6 million, a sum equal to $132 million today.
The town of Hoxie, Texas and a street on Chicago's
Southeast Side are named for him.
Mary Hoxie remained in the house and
maintained a second residence in the leafy rich
suburb of Lake Forest. A burglar slipped into the
Michigan Avenue house in 1903 and stole $3500
in jewels while the family was in the house
unaware. 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." It was
only the beginning of the Hoxie's troubles.
(...read on....)
