Pilsen / Little Village Walk - Part 1 Tied Houses

On Sunday I finally had the opportunity to take a walking tour with the people from Forgotten Chicago. While I've done two of their walks after the fact before, it was nice to do one "live". We met at the Western Avenue stop on the Pink Line. Approx 20th and Western. A good crowd of 20 to 25 people were on this walk and we walked in an area with Bell St on the East 25th Place on the South, California on the West and 19th on the North.

We looked at house styles, commercial buildings, tied houses and the 'L' itself. On the first part I'm going to focus on the tied houses. A tied house is a tavern that was "tied" to a paticular brewery. If someone wanted to open a tavern but didn't have the resources he could approach a brewery who would build the structure in exchange for only selling their product. We saw a total of 4 tied houses in the area. Three from Stege Brewery and one Schlitz

We saw the three Stege Tied houses first and then finally the Schlitz. First up is the Stege Tied house at 24th and Western. Built in 1909 the first thing that you'll notice is the damaged logo on the side of the building. Sometime after Stege's closure in 1923 the name has been blasted off the ball. A real shame!



The second Stege Tied house we looked at was at 2658 W 24th Street. This one was built in 1897 is more ornate and still operates as a tavern.



The final Stege Tied house we saw was at 2333 S California (23rd Place). Built in 1912 this was the most ornate Stege tied house built. Our tour guide in fact said it was the most ornate tied house built in the city. This one has a really cool mosaic at it's entrance. It's interesting that all three Stege tied houses are fairly close together. I wonder if that's because the brewery was located at 15th and Ashland.


The Final tied house we looked at was a Schlitz Tied house at 21st and Rockwell Built in 1899, it's a fine example of a Schlitz tied house. The globe is in nice shape and while it's been converted into an apartment, the unit still contains the bar.
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I think the tied house concept was pretty cool. One of the restrictions in ending prohbition was that tied houses were outlawed. Most states went to a three-tier model in which breweries sold to distibution companies and then the distributors sold to the taverns. This ends part one of the walking tour

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