I have a little
more about Springfield’s first public market I mentioned in my piece about farmers
markets, “Sustainable
agriculture.”
Produce and meats were sold in a building erected for the purpose on
the square in 1832. Paul Angle reminds us that a larger market house was built
in 1843 on Sixth Street between Washington and Jefferson. In its day, writes Paul Angle in Here I
Have Lived, the market house had been “a thing of beauty and a point of
pride.” But as Springfield’s distribution and retailing systems evolved, the
market house was gradually abandoned and the city tore it down in 1855.
In the summer of 1860 work began on a new market
building on the corner of Fourth and Monroe streets; North Enders complained
because the new market was not (as the Illinois State Register put it at
the time) “centrally located,” so the city built another one, at 5th and
Madison. This was handsome brick structure, and while it served only briefly as
a market it made an admirable machine shop and foundry, which is what Albert Ide operated
there after he bought the Market House from the city in 1876. In 1896, the Union Market was razed. Apparently
it operated for only 6 or 7 years. It served as a National Guard armory, a
temperance hall, theater and streetcar barn before it was replaced by the late,
lamented Odd Fellows Building.
This article appears in May 7-13, 2015.
