Lake Transfer station history

[andrethebusman]

Here is a bit of a historic question that apparently has had a lot of debate over the years: When did the Lake St platforms at the old Lake Transfer station at Paulina open, and were they all-new or a "replacement" for a Wood St station? For years the general consensus has been that Lake St had a "Wood St" station and that these platforms were an extension or partial replacement for same in 1913. I beg to differ, and would like to see any real proof of this. Look at several of the pre-1913 maps on Dennis McClendon's "Chicagoinmaps.org" site that show the Ls. None show a station between Robey (Damen) and Ashland, though all show the Met's Lake St station. Now I could understand if the Met 1898 map didn't have this, maybe because the Lake St was a competitor, but neither does the New Encyclopeadic Atlas map from 1909, which as far as I can tell accurately shows all other stations.

Now as a secondary to all this, the Lake transfer station as it existed in modern times was basically a very strangely laid out place where the old Met station on the north side of Lake St once had stairways up to the Met level, and a newer stationhouse (from 1913?) on the south side of Lake St that replaced the one on the north side of the street had stairs leading to the inbound Lake St platform. In order to go to the outbound Lake St platform, one apparently had to go "up and over" using the Met level. What I am really surprised at is that nobody seems to have ever made a decent sketch of how this was all laid out, which I find really odd as the station was basically intact until the early 60's, and it is a fact that more than one fantrip stopped there on the Met level. By chance does anybody on this forum have any shots taken there, or remember anything?

 

[Mr Downtown]

Here's the 1916 Sanborn's fire insurance map:

 

 

Edited June 20, 2015 by Mr Downtown