Foley & Co., makers of cough syrups and other medicines, built this small industrial structure at 945-947 W. George Street in 1927. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
Now that school is out for the summer, I’ve been spending more time with my grand-nephew Cooper, an exceptionally bright nine-year-old. When we’re in the car together, Cooper and I like to look closely at the buildings around us. Recently, we were on a road flanked by industrial complexes, and he was intrigued by these structures. This made me think about how commonplace manufacturing buildings once were in Chicago, and so much less so today. I knew that Abbott Labs and Searle had previously operated here, but until conducting recent research, I had no idea that historically Chicago one of the nation’s leading manufacturers of remedies, medicines, and pharmaceutical products.
These industrial buildings at W. Jackson Boulevard and N. Sangamon Street, ca. 1945, were all later demolished. Photographic Images of Change by Burke and Dean, University of Illinois at Chicago Special Collections Department.
E.W. Kimble’s cartoon “Death’s Laboratory,” appeared on the cover of Collier’s in 1905, suggesting that greedy patent medicine companies were poisoning their customers. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
During the mid-to-late-19th century, as American cities like Chicago experienced rapid growth, many urban residents suffered from illnesses and health problems. Since working-class citizens rarely had access to doctors or other medical professionals, they often relied on over-the-counter remedies and medicines to treat a wide range of symptoms and conditions. These products were classified as patent medicines. As they were rarely patented, this term was misleading. Due to the lack of government regulations, medicines did not undergo scientific testing and their formulas were generally kept secret. In reality, many patent medicines were harmful because they contained alcohol or other ingredients (such as cocaine or morphine) that could be dangerous and/or addictive.
By 1900 more than 150 Chicago firms were producing over $2.25 million in patent medicines and compounds. The industry’s success was due at least in part to the extremely aggressive marketing and advertising campaigns undertaken by their producers. Companies developed creative and sometimes deceptive ways to promote their products. Along with not having to reveal ingredients, companies got away with making outrageous claims about the effectiveness of their medicines and remedies. A growing movement to protect consumers from dangerous and/or fraudulently advertised products led to the approval of a Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906.
Advertisement for Fahrney’s Blood Cleanser, ca. 1885.
Patent medicine firms were generally founded by medical doctors or druggists. Some came from families that had been passing recipes down for generations. Dr. Peter Fahrney could be classified as all of the above. Born in Quincy, Pennsylvania in 1840, he was the grandson and namesake of a physician who was known for mixing his own botanical compounds. (Some of the elder Fahrney’s recipes were said to have come from the Conestoga Indians.) The younger Peter Fahrney had received a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He then briefly practiced in his home state and began manufacturing patent medicines with his brothers. In the mid-1860s, Peter and his wife Mary moved west, settling first in Polo, Illinois (at the state’s northwest corner) and then Chicago, where he established his own firm in 1869.
On March 4, 1904, this advertisement for the laxative called Dr. Peter’s Kuriko appeared in the Utah-Korrespondenten, a newspaper geared towards Swedish immigrants.
After his original laboratory was destroyed by the Chicago Fire, Dr. Fahrney quickly rebuilt in a new downtown location. By the early 1890s, Peter’s sons had joined the business. Headquartered near S. Hoyne Avenue and W. Madison Street (in a building that no longer exists), the firm made a variety of products including “Dr. Peter’s Blood Vitalizer,” to treat rheumatism, kidney and liver problems, and other ailments; a laxative called “Kuriko;” and “Fahrney’s Alpen Krauter,” a sleep aid which supposedly also helped with nervousness. Quite savvy about marketing to immigrants, the Fahrneys ran ads in foreign newspapers and also used different names for products depending on which European group was being targeted.
Architect Nelson Max Dunning designed the 1917 Peter Fahrney & Sons manufacturing building at 2501 W. Washington Boulevard. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
Close-up of Dr. Peter Fahrney & Sons front entryway. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
Peter Fahrney’s four sons continued to run the business after their father’s death in 1905. (Fahrney was described as a multi-millionaire in his obituary.) Business was booming. About 12 years later, Dr. Peter Fahrney & Sons commissioned N. Max Dunning to design a four-story manufacturing structure at 2501 W. Washington Blvd. A talented local architect, Dunning was especially well-known for such industrial buildings as the American Book Building at 300 E. Cermak Street.
The Farhneys’ facility was located only about a mile from Chicago’s Medical District. Clad in red brick, the industrial building is trimmed in cream terra cotta and features a Gothic Revival doorway surround topped by a terra cotta banner heralding the company name.
Dr. Peter Fahrney & Sons operated out of 4541 N. Ravenswood Avenue from the early 1950s until the 1970s. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
“Display ad for Foley’s Honey & Tar,” Akron Daily Democrat, February 27, 1901.
The firm ran out of its W. Washington Boulevard building until the early 1950s. Business was then slowing, so Dr. Peter Fahrney & Sons began renting a smaller space at 4541 N. Ravenswood Avenue. The company continued to sell longtime products such as Alpen Krauter, which it promoted as an herbal “home remedy that has been successfully used for over 100 years.” In the mid-1960s, the Purdue Frederick pharmaceutical company acquired the firm, and within a decade, Fahrney’s products were no longer manufactured.
A major competitor of Dr. Fahrney was John B. Foley, an Ohio druggist who had been making patent medicines since the early1880s. Recognizing that Chicago was becoming a mecca for the industry, he relocated here in 1888. His premier product, Foley’s Honey & Tar, was composed of honey, pine tar, a few other innocuous ingredients, and seven-percent alcohol. In the early 1900s, Foley & Co. operated from two floors of a seven-story structure at 319-333 W. Ohio Street. The firm’s array of products included Foley’s Kidney Cure, Foley’s Cathartic Tablets, and Foley’s Foot & Corn Relief, and Foley Family Favorite Worm Candy (for children who had round worms).
By 1905, Foley & Co. had a staff of 84 women and 26 men who worked out of two stories of this building at 319-333 W. Ohio Street. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
Soon outgrowing its existing space, Foley & Co. purchased property in Lakeview to build a plant at 2835 N. Sheffield. Architect Edmund R. Krause designed a three-story brick structure with large windows, to, according to the Inter-Ocean “allow a maximum of glass on all four sides.” The structure rose in 1912.
Cover of the 1914 Foley & Company Almanac. Courtesy of Made in Chicago Museum: madeinchicagomuseum.com/single-post/foley/
Foley & Co.’s new facility included an in-house printing department that produced a slew of promotional materials including an annual family almanac with health hints and plenty of advertisements for Foley’s products. Business was brisk and Foley & Co.’s new plant quickly became overcrowded. As a result, the company hired Krause to design an addition that increased the height of the building by two more stories. The work was completed in 1919.
Foley & Co.’s structure at 2835 N. Sheffield was built in two stages, with the first three stories in 1912, and the upper two, seven years later. Photo by Julia Bachrach.
Kitty corner from their N. Sheffield Avenue structure, the Foley & Co. building at 945-947 W. George Street was completed in 1927.
By the mid-1920s, patent medicines were receiving more scrutiny from medical professionals and the FDA. As detailed by the Made in Chicago Museum website, in 1924 the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that “federal authorities found Foley & Co. guilty of using ‘false and fraudulent claims’ in promoting” its kidney pills. Such cases were becoming commonplace, and the Foley’s Kidney Pill scandal received only minimal attention in the newspapers. But business was slowing, so when John B. Foley died in 1925, his son, Loyal Ludington Foley, began streamlining operations. He shut down the company’s in-house print shop, sold the existing plant to a competitor, E.C. Dewitt & Co., and hired architects Foltz & Co. to design a smaller plant nearby at 945-947 W. George Street.
When Loyal L. Foley died in 1940, his younger brother, John B. Foley, Jr., began heading the family business. By the early 1950s, the Federal Trade Commission was investigating the firm for misleading claims about the curative effects of Foley’s Honey and Tar Compound. In 1957, Foley & Co. moved from Chicago to Alabama, where the family owned vast amounts of land. (In fact, Foley, Alabama was named for them.) Six years later, Foley & Co. sold all of its assets to Myers Laboratories, Inc. of Pennsylvania.
F & F Laboratories operated out of the industrial complex at 3501 W. 48th Place from the late 1930s until 2015. (A. Epstein produced the mid-1940s addition on the west side of the complex.) Photo by Julia Bachrach.
While Chicago had lost its prominence in the industry by the 1970s, some makers of remedies and medicines continued to operate here. One example is F & F Laboratories, a longtime Chicago producer of cough drops and cough syrups. After Smith Brothers acquired F & F in 1977, cough drops continued to be made in the old F & F factory on W. 48th Place for nearly 40 more years. The business faltered and closed down in 2015.
Now a residence, the building at 3845 N. Ravenswood Avenue housed D.D.D. Laboratories from about 1915 to the late 1920s. (The firm that made treatments for Eczema and other skin diseases.) Photograph by Julia Bachrach.
While some people may consider old industrial buildings mundane, I think they are fascinating, and I’m always pleased when they are recycled to a new use. I hope you agree.