Twenty-one Years to Build

One Prudential Plaza (formerly known as the Prudential Building) is a 600-foot-tall, 41-story structure in Chicago completed in 1955 by the architectural firm Naess & Murphy, and constructed by the George A. Fuller Co. It is categorized as an International Style building, a response to move away from the ornate architecture of the 19th century. The general public did not warm up to the bland concrete slab style at first. 

The building served as headquarters for Prudential's Mid-America company, and was the tallest structure in the city at the time. It was built on real estate air rights, the area above the Earth's surface, over the vast Illinois Central Railroad yard, eventually paving the way for today's Millennium Park to the south. Offset atop the building was a mast that served as a broadcasting antenna for Chicago's WGN-TV. The building was home to the Chicago Tribune and Tribune Publishing after leaving Tribune Tower in July 2018. The Tribune moved out of One Prudential Plaza and relocated its offices and newsroom to the Freedom Center at the beginning of 2021.

It was the city's first downtown skyscraper in twenty-one years and included a must-see observation deck. It was reported that 1.5 million people visited the deck in its first three years of existence. The building included two restaurants: Stouffer's Gibraltar Room, located off the lobby, and Stouffer's Top of the Rock on the 41st floor. The novelty of viewing four states on a clear day succumbed to taller buildings erected near it, making Lake Michigan the only distant view. The Top of the Rock closed in 1976, and the Gibraltar Room in 1982. 

The original 200-foot Prudential signage was red and used a bold sans-serif font in capital letters. Very easy to read even from some distance. The replacement sign was a blue serif font, including a modernized Gibraltar logo. Being distanced from the building's surface, it cast a confusing drop shadow and is nearly impossible to read on sunny days. The blue signage will eventually be removed by the current owners, Wanxiang America Real Estate Group, for Prudential began moving out of the original building and its newer, 61-story skyscraper in 2024 to smaller confines directly west along the Chicago River.  Not being removed (above) will be the Rock of Gibraltar, a 65-ton, 30-foot-high two-dimensional carving on the west side of the original building, designed by artist Alfonso Iannelli.

Shampoo Tube

If you are of a certain age, Prell Shampoo was a common product in your home. Attractively priced, it was an iconic, clear green concentrate in a unique, unbreakable soft plastic tube. It has not disappeared from shelves since 1947. It continues to be a viable choice for both women and men.

Prell shampoo was founded by Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1955, Prell was initially marketed toward women "who want their hair to have that radiantly alive look." But men discovered it as well, who seem to be attracted to its nostalgic fragrance. Concentrated Prell Radiant Shampoo dates back to around 1957 and was designed by Donald Deskey, a renowned figure in modern industrial design. Prell became one of the top-selling shampoos by 1977.

Throughout Prell's long history, it has been loved for its rich lather and clean scent. It is the oldest consistently made American shampoo brand. Prell, with its distinctive green color, became widely recognized due to its unique advertising campaigns and appearances in popular culture. 

Procter & Gamble sold the brand to Prestige Brands International in November 1999. Prestige then sold Prell to Ultimark Products in October 2009. In 2016, Scott's Liquid Gold-Inc. acquired Prell. In turn, Prell Products Inc., headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, acquired Prell from Scott's Liquid Gold in 2022. Despite the advertising glut of more expensive shampoos with ingredients that are difficult to spell, Prell remains a popular product for many.

Putting A Price On Knowledge

The World Book Encyclopedia is an American encyclopedia. World Book, Inc. is based in Chicago, Illinois. The 2023 edition contains more than 14,000 pages with over 25,000 photographs within 22 volumes.

World Book was founded by publishers J. H. Hansen and John Bellow, who realized that existing encyclopedias were too technical for most readers. Michael O'Shea, professor of education at the University of Wisconsin, once  stated, "... encyclopedias are apt to be quite formal and technical. A faithful effort has been made in the World Book to avoid this common defect." The first edition of the World Book Encyclopedia was published in 1917, by the Hanson-Roach-Fowler Company.

Note: The encyclopedia was an expense many families could not afford. It was cheaper to go to the local library. A complete 19-volume set for the 1957 edition pictured was $170. Other binding styles were less, however. The current 22-volume 2024 edition is $1,200.

Short Hoppers

Ozark Air Lines began public operation in the US in 1950, operating from their headquarters located at Lambert–St. Louis Municipal Airport. Ozark purchased Douglas DC-3s from the defunct Parks Airline with regular flights between St. Louis and Chicago, including short hops along the way, and to Tulsa and Memphis. By 1955, the airline used its thirteen DC-3s to serve thirty-five cities between Sioux City, Indianapolis, Wichita, and Nashville. By 1960, turboprop Fairchild F-27s (above) replaced the aging DC-3s with its first Douglas DC-9-10 jets introduced in 1966. Ozark Airlines was unable to compete in the airline price wars and in 1986 was purchased by Trans World Airlines, itself unable to sustain profitability and was purchased by American Airlines in 2001. 

Note: The three swallows in Ozark's logo represented on-time flights, referring to the legend of the swallows that return to the Mission San Juan Capistrano, in California each year. 

Mr. Ferris and His Wheel

Although early "pleasure wheels" may go back as far as the 1500s, the first commercially successful Ferris wheel was designed and constructed by the Galesburg, Illinois native and engineer, George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. (1859-96) for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Ferris owned a company that tested iron and steel for railroads and bridges. He used his knowledge of structural steel to design an immense steel structure 264' tall that would amaze the visitors to the fair. It was the most popular structure at the fair. In the first five months after its debut in 1892, more than 1.4 million people rode the world's first Ferris wheel. The Ferris wheel was dismantled and then rebuilt in Lincoln Park, Chicago, in 1895, and dismantled and rebuilt a third and final time for the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. It was ultimately demolished in 1906. Modern versions have been called Observation Wheels, the tallest being the 820' Ain Dubai, which opened in late 2021 and is located in the United Arab Emirates.  

A George Ferris biography can be found here.

Broadcast Pioneers

Paul Harvey (1918-2009) was an American radio broadcaster for ABC News Radio. His shorter morning news and comment was a preview of his fifteen-minute noon broadcast. Harvey's Saturday broadcasts were commentary only, capitalizing on a particular subject or society in general. For a time, a selection from the Saturday commentaries was also used on certain local television networks, often as a closing before the station's sign-off of the day. The five-minute televised segments had Harvey standing or seated in front of a studio set suggesting a den. By the mid-seventies, his famous, The Rest of the Story was launched as a separate program. Created and written by his son, Paul Harvey, Jr., it was the backstories of famous people but was written to keep one guessing until the segment's reveal at the end. "Now you know...the rest...of the story." 

Harvey was known for other catchphrases used during his programs. When breaking for a commercial, for instance, he would announce, "Page Two" and later "Page Three." The sponsor's products were seamlessly endorsed by Harvey, eventually irritating some critics and suggesting he was a carnival huckster. His news opening phrase was infinitely famous, "Hello Americans, this is Paul Harvey. Stand by for NEWS!" His closing was no less famous, "Paul Harvey (wait for it) good day." A regular catchphrase was "This day's news of most lasting significance may be this..." In a report about someone who had done something ridiculous or offensive, Harvey would say, "He would want us to mention his name," followed by silence, and then start the next item. The last item of a broadcast, often a funny story, would usually be preceded by "And now from the 'For-what-it's-worth' department...." Another phrase made famously was, "Self-government won't work without self-discipline." He also is credited with popularizing the terms Reaganomics and guesstimate.

Harvey was the last of the old-school radio broadcasters. He served an optimistic post-WW2 era and his "Walter Winchell" style was getting dated by the dawn of the twenty-first century. His "stand by for news!" was often late to the party thanks to the Internet. Having one person dominate a news program for fifteen minutes straight is a thing of the past, as well. Harvey's conservative comments about the ills of society, much of it still relevant today, would be hated by the trolls of social media. I suspect ABC News execs were somewhat relieved his contract was void upon the death of the old codger.

For nearly 60 years, Paul Harvey News and Comment is considered the most-listened-to radio broadcast. Coupled with Harvey's distinctive delivery, a daily mix of news, commentary, and human interest stories informed and entertained a worldwide radio audience. From 1951 to 2008, his programs reached as many as 24 million people per week. Paul Harvey's news was carried on 1,200 radio stations, 400 American Forces Network stations, and in 300 newspapers. 

Let The Sparks Fly

 

The trackless trolley coach is an electric vehicle, a development of streetcar technology. They gained more acceptance by the late 1930s in large metropolitan cities across North America and became a common sight by the 1950s, with some soldiering on well into the 1960s.

By using much of the existing electrical propulsion system and distribution infrastructure already in place for streetcars, it was a cost-effective expansion of the transit system, requiring no investment in rails. Each coach appeared as the traditional rubber-tired transit bus, thus needing a second overhead wire as an electrical ground. Trackless coaches drew their electricity by utilizing the bus's two trolley poles (power collectors) attached to overhead wires. At certain points along the route, one could hear the cracking of sparks as the trolly poles came in contact when crossing parallel overhead lines or when making turns. 

Note: Chicago's trackless coach service (1964 image above) ended in 1973, co-existing with engine-powered buses that could shuttle passengers beyond the inner city. A few European cities still use this system, with Boston being the only US city as of early 2022.

The Right Components for Success

 

Foote Bros. Gear & Machine Company, manufacturers of gears, motor drives and gearboxes for a variety of industries, can be traced back to prominent Chicago businessman, Charles Plamondon, president of Plamondon Manufacturing Company, a machinist, and foundryman. This was well before the dawn of the airplane and many mergers and acquisitions later, now Derlan Industries, officially changed its name in 2002 to Northstar Aerospace to focus on the aerospace business. Northstar has become North America’s leading independent manufacturer of flight-critical gears and transmissions.

Note: While celebrating their 36th wedding anniversary aboard the S.S. Lusitania, Charles Plamondon and his wife lost their lives after the ocean liner was sunk by torpedos in 1915 off the coast of Ireland.

The Potter Palmer Ego

 

Lake Shore Drive (known by other designations by locals) is a multilevel expressway that runs alongside the shoreline of Lake Michigan, primarily through parkland, in Chicago, Illinois. Lake Shore Drive is designated as part of U.S. Highway 41. In 2021, the Chicago City Council approved a compromise ordinance officially renaming the outer portion of Lake Shore Drive for the city's first non-indigenous settler, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable.

Lake Shore Drive's origins date back to 1882 when Potter Palmer coerced the city to build the street adjacent to his lakefront "castle" (above) to enhance its value. The drive was originally intended for leisurely strolls for the wealthy in their carriages, but the auto age changed its role completely. By 1937, the famous double-decker Link Bridge over the Chicago River opened. The "drive" has been under constant revisions and renewal ever since.

Possible Punchboard Prize

 

On this day in 1905, punchboards were patented by Charles Brewer & C G Scannell, in Chicago, Illinois. Punchboards are the descendants of handmade lottery game boards, used in the US as early as the eighteenth century. Lotteries were popular but they required a large number of ticket-buyers to be successful. Brewer constructed a game board out of wood, about eight inches square, then drilled a number of holes in the board, filling each with a slip of rolled paper. He then charged patrons a fixed sum of money for a chance at several prizes or sums of cash. The patron would use a nail to push one of the slips of paper out of its hole. Each slip of paper had a number printed on it, and if the customer's number corresponded to a number listed as a winner, the customer won that prize. Like most aspects of gambling, punchboards attracted their share of mob figures and shady characters over the years. 

1939 version pictured

The Empire Builder

The Great Northern Railway reached the Pacific Northwest in the late 19th century, and for this feat, their flagship passenger train was nicknamed "The Empire Builder." They also adopted "Rocky" as their mascot logo. The railway placed new streamlined and diesel-powered trains in service by the Forties that cut the scheduled 2,211 miles between Chicago and Seattle to 45 hours. The schedule allowed riders views of the Cascade Mountains and Glacier National Park, a park established through the lobbying efforts of the Great Northern. The advertisement shows an A-B-B-A set of EMD F7 diesel units in its stunning Omaha orange and Pullman green design. 

Famed Illinois Central Streamliner

The Panama Limited was a passenger train operated from 1911 to 1971 between Chicago, Illinois, and New Orleans, Louisiana. The flagship train of the Illinois Central Railroad, it took its name from the Panama Canal, which in 1911 was three years from completion. The train epitomized Streamliner passenger service beginning in 1942 with the first diesel/electric-powered run on an 18-hour schedule. The train shaved nearly two hours off this schedule by the late Forties. The Panama Limited carried a new orange and brown paint scheme that later became standard on Illinois Central passenger trains. The earlier units included two, upper-level yellow stripes on the lead engine. The Illinois Central Railroad last ran the Panama Limited in 1971, one day before Amtrak took over, dropping the Panama Limited in favor of its former daytime counterpart, the City of New Orleans. 

The Panama LImted is shown above leaving Chicago around 1960.

Pennsylvania Not So Special

 

On this day in 1905 near Elida, Ohio, Pennsylvania Railroad E-2 Class 4-4-2 Atlantic 7002 reportedly took the Pennsylvania Special to a speed of 127.1 mph near Elida but this speed was based solely on two passing times recorded by separate observers at two different points 3 miles apart, and it is difficult to obtain even a general indication of a train's speed from signal box registers. 7002 is not officially the fastest steam locomotive due to the fact that her speed wasn't definitively recorded. 7002 also did not have a dynamometer car in her consist so the exact speed is unknown. The original 7002 locomotive was scrapped by the railroad in the Thirties and a close representative, the last E7 class locomotive, was given the 7002 number board and resides at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania outside of Strasburg, Pennsylvania. 

Universal Space Command

Co-founded by Ralph Matthews and Karl Hassel in Chicago in 1918, Zenith was a manufacturer of radio and television receivers and other consumer electronics, headquartered in Glenview, Illinois. The company was a small producer of amateur radio equipment with the name "Zenith" coming from ZN'th, a contraction of its founders' ham radio call sign, 9ZN. Joined in 1921 by Eugene F. McDonald, the Zenith Radio Company was formally incorporated in 1923. For many years Zenith used the slogan "the quality goes in before the name goes on," a phrase lifted from the Geo. P. Bent Piano Company, also of Chicago. 

Today, Zenith Electronics, LLC is an American research and development company that develops digital rights management technologies. It is owned by the South Korean company LG Electronics, formerly known as GoldStar. Zenith may be best known for the first practical wireless television remote control, Space Command, from 1956. Then again, they were the first company to experiment with subscription television, known as Phonevision. When a preannounced broadcast was ready to begin, viewers would call an operator at Zenith who would send a signal with the telephone leads to unscramble the video. 

Kelly Conquers Chicago

 

The Kelly-Springfield Tire Company was founded in Springfield, Ohio by Edwin Kelly and Arthur Grant in 1894. It is the oldest tire company in the United States,  manufacturing tires for motor vehicles in Akron, and Wooster, Ohio. It was acquired in 1935 by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, which maintained it as a subsidiary until 1999 when it was integrated into Goodyear North America. It remains a major brand under Goodyear.