These are from an estate sale…and it looked like a regular office, and in the back there was this big workspace area. It turned out it was a former boilermaker company, and it was a service and sales location. It started out as Johanssen Water Heater Company, which was at 1239 Fullerton, which now is a Starbucks. This is a letterhead from them. It was mostly a lot of tools and stuff at this sale, but I found this one little packet of old brochures and stuff. And it was really full of nicely printed old technical drawings…and photographs of their machinery. There was even one that shows pictures of buildings where they had installed their steam boilers… Some of these [boilers] are still around, if you live in an old Chicago apartment building…Then there is a book of Boiler Tube Facts… and this from the District Police of Massachusetts, The Steam Boiler Rules, published by the Board of Boiler Rules…These were fun to find, and it makes me think of all the things that might be hidden away in old Chicago buildings just waiting to be discovered.

This belongs in the Museum of Things Found in Old Chicago Buildings

Exhibited by Eric Bartholomew

Transcript edited by Eric Bartholomew