THE CHICAGO CITY MANUAL CONTAINING A List of the Executive and Other City Officers, with And Many Other Matters Relating to the City Gov- Latitude and Longitude of Chicago Taken in 1858, at the dome of the Court House in Chicago, by Lieutenant Colonel J. D. Graham, U. S. A. Latitude-41 degrees 53 minutes 06.2 seconds north. Longitude-West of meridian of Greenwich; 87 degrees 38 minutes 01.2 seconds, or 5 hours and 50 minutes 32.08 seconds. COUNTY BUILDING AND CITY HALL On the opposite page is a fine representation in half-tone of the new County Building and City Hall, as the conjoined, magnificent structure will appear when the city half of it shall have been completed. The county half has been officially occupied since July 5, 1907, and it is certain that the officers and employes of no county in the United States are more splendidly provided for. The decayed and crumbled City Hall was still occupied until recently, when its late inhabitants removed, a few in one direction and a few in another, but the greater number have settled in the temporary City Hall, erected by a private citizen, specially for the city, on the south side of Randolph, between Fifth avenue and Franklin streets. How long the new City Hall will be in building may be calculated fairly closely by referring to the time it took to erect and finish the County Court House. Those two structures were twinned together, siamese fashion, in the brains of the architects that went before the present ones, but the former plan is not, with respect of conjointness, strictly followed; there are no passageways from one to the other. The estimated cost of either half is about $2,500,000,-$5,000,000 the proximate cost of the two halves completed. Though now it is over a year since the new County Court House was first occupied, it is only recently that the citizens generally have begun to manifest an interest in its artistic proportions and ornamentation. Most people have not heard, or if they have the fact has not been fully taken in, that there is a public building centrally situated in this city, which for massive solidity and impressive magnificence is not excelled (its comparative size considered) by any other in this country. It should be visited by men and women of knowledge and taste before the splendid interior has been sullied by use and its outer walls have become marked by the destructive climate. The city officials and the council of Chicago have made several removals, each removal marking a stage in the growth of population and wealth of the city. In the city's very infancy the council occupied, first, a room in a building known as the Saloon Building on the northeast corner of Clark and Randolph streets. Next they moved to the Chapman (Mrs. Nancy Chapman) block at the corner of Randolph and La Salle streets. In January, 1848, the city erected a structure in the middle of State street, between Randolph and Lake streets, for the purposes, on the ground floor, of a market, while the second floor was divided into rooms for the Mayor, the Council, the City Clerk and the other officials. This answered without much complaint until 1850, when |