Amazing! Within Walking Distance of Me in West Bucktown is...

... MY FATHER'S FIRST FACTORY BUILDING

As I grew up in Oak Park in the 1940s and 1950s, I was very aware of a certain Chicago address:  2014 W. Wabansia.  That was the first factory building my father, John Webb Kellogg, bought in the late 1930s.  (See picture on the right.) He was proud of owning it and of the 6 1/2 day work weeks he trudged through to pay his costs as the Great Depression gradually ended.

From age 6 or 7, I saw it rarely, but heard about "the factory" or "Wabansia" every day.  Dad occupied the first floor, which was 8 or 9 stairs up.  Beneath it was an English basement, which was several stairs down and had a low ceiling.  All but Dad's floor was rented to industrial tenants.  There was a parade of them during the many years he owned Wabansia with constant stories about tenants, complaints about late rent,  about skipping out without paying at all, being hard on the floors, walls, seeing poor management etc.

What did Dad do on his floor?   Earlier when he was selling for them, Dad bought a surgical bandage company that was going broke.  He moved that business to Wabansia.  This was cohesive bandage
rather than adhesive, meaning it stuck to itself instead of the person using it.  He had 2 brands,
Sealtex and Quick.  At first he did all of the work himself, working 18-hour days.  By the time he bought Wabansia, he was able to hire Polish women from the area to roll and box the bandage after it was processed.  Years later, a client wanted unusually wide bandage.  Either Dad or my brother, Ken, who worked with him, found it was being used to support racing horses' ankles, especially when there was a wet or muddy track.  That turned out to be a valuable piece of business.

Dan and I live in West Bucktown in Chicago.  We found 2014 W. Wabansia one day while looking for the local branch library.  The factory is no more.  It's an upscale rebuild with a small grocery store on the first floor and condos above.  There's no English basement.  When my brother in FL heard about it, he was stunned, thinking it was still a Polish neighborhood with a mixture of modest homes, apartments and industrial buildings like his.  He bought the business after Dad retired.