Prairie Avenue once served as an Indian trail linking Fort Dearborn to Fort Wayne in Indiana and thus derived its name from the vast midwestern prairie land between the two endpoints.[1] In 1812, the Battle of Fort Dearborn occurred in the area that is now the northern section of the street, in what is known as the Near South Side community area.[2]
Over time, the district has evolved from an upscale neighborhood to a factory district and back to an upscale neighborhood. Zoning in 1853 anticipated residential development, although only one grand villa existed at the time. By 1877, the eleven-block area of Prairie Avenue, as well as Calumet Avenue, housed elite residences. By 1886, the finest mansions in the city, each equipped with its own carriage house, stood on Prairie Avenue.[3] In the 1880s and 1890s, mansions for George Pullman, Marshall Field, John J. Glessner and Philip Armour anchored a neighborhood of over fifty mansions known as "Millionaire's Row".[1] Many of the leading architects of the day, such as Richard Morris Hunt, Henry Hobson Richardson and Daniel Burnham designed mansions on the street. At the time of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, guidebooks described the street as "the most expensive street west of Fifth Avenue".[4][5] However, after Bertha Palmer, society wife of Potter Palmer, built the Palmer Mansion that an
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