Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - Banks of the Boneyard (Charles Kiler) [PAGE 56]

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Alley L

6l

So endeth the coal story, and a lot of young college boys were out of jobs all of a sudden. Our records turned out to be of great service however, and Frank Qark kept me busy with other investigations until about February, when my old friends, W. L. Abbott '84, \V. H. Stockham '85, and George N. Morgan '84, approached me with a proposition that was going to make us all rich. The World's Fair which was to have been held in '92 had to go over for a year because it wasn't ready. Neither the buildings nor grounds were ready for the big show, nor was the city of Chicago ready. My trio of friends were successful young business men, Abbott an engineer, Stockham a manufacturer, and Morgan a lawyer, with whom I had studied and worked between jobs. They suggested that they would back me in a hotel venture. They held out glowing dreams of the lack of hotels in down-town Chicago. Rooms were so scarce that visitors would pay almost any price for them. Ten to fifteen dollars a day would be easy to get, and money would be so plentiful it would come a runnin' up hill to get into our coffers. It didn't take much to convince me; I believed everything they told me, and we closed a lease for three buildings, each three stories high and all alike. The location was on Congress street just west of the Auditorium Annex, now called the Congress Hotel, which was being finished while we were remodeling our three old buildings and making them into a hotel. They were the dirtiest buildings I ever saw; the tenants ahead of us were a bunch of Armenian Rug Dealers, and after viewing the dirt left by these gents, I had some sympathy for the Turks in their efforts to clean up the Armenians. Our buildings had to be cleaned, wired for electricity, closets had to be built into rooms, plumbing modernized, everything decorated and furnished—and we had about six weeks to get the job done, for our lease was from March 15, for one year, with an option to purchase within that period. Artisans were all employed in Chicago, the whole city was working feverishly getting ready for the Fair. I don't know how it was done, but we opened for business on March 15 confidently expecting people to come in droves begging to be "taken in"—double exposure—at $10 to $15 a day per each! Well, our dreams bursted like bubbles; the people didn't come, and aside from the wonderful friends in Champaign-Urbana, we had very few registrations in April. I cut the rates for the friends from home, and welcomed a British M. P. by the name of Fred G. Byles