City - Chicago - Shopping Crowds 1940 Postcard

Colorized photo from 1940, July Original title: State Street Photographer: John Vachon Location: 14 W Randolph Street, Chicago, IL We are looking at the corner of W Randolph St and State St. Across the way is Marshal fields, an historic department store. As you can see it is really bustling back then, crowded streets, double-decker buses and taxis. What is actually interesting though, is the road. Chicago for the most part used clay bricks to pave their roads. Bricks can stand up to a lot of wear and tear, and can last hundreds if not thousands of years. Before the great fire, they had dirt roads, but people could not stand the mud, so they replaced the dirt with wooden boards, then later on just the ends would stick out, but due to rot and of course that huge fire they stopped that practice. Back in 1872, Chicago had over 60 different brick manufactures, because apparently under the grass fields, there was a lot of clay. And while the color varied a bit, for the most part is was a buff and salmon pink color, this brick even had its own name, they were known as Chicago Street Paver Bricks. While other cities used granite pavers, Chicago used brick instead. Only in the most heavily traveled areas and industrial areas did they use granite. As the bricks wore out, they would dig them up and flip them over. They would use these bricks to build buildings as well. Over time clay bricks were phased out when concrete blocks came out. And then environmental concerns, many companies had to update their kilns and due to expense they shut many of them down in the 1970s. Current many streets still have those pavers and tracks, they simply added a black top on top of them, preserving what's underneath. As the streets wear out you get to see both the wooden and brick pavers.