Welcome! When we left you last time, the Tremont House had just succumbed to the Great Chicago Fire. John B. Drake, founder of the Drake hotel dynasty, was associated with the Tremont House hotel until 1873, when he bought the lease and furnishings of the rebuilt Grand Pacific Hotel and was once again able to offer his guests a high standard of luxury and service. Thus, Drake was able to conduct his annual great game dinners every Thanksgiving in three successive locations: the two Tremont Houses and the Grand Pacific on Jackson Boulevard, which became an unofficial salon for wealthy Republicans, just as the Palmer House was a hangout for the city’s affluent and powerful Democrats.
Those great game dinners might have lasted years longer had Drake not unexpectedly butted heads with another famous Chicagoan, one who had a mercenary attitude on real estate: Levi Z. Leiter, a former partner of Marshall Field. Field and Leiter had a troubled professional relationship. In 1881, they disagreed one time too many over business strategy: Leiter thought the wholesale business was more important than retail, which he dismissed out of hand, whereas Field knew that high-level urban retail directed primarily at women would make a lot more money. Field decided he’d had enough of his disputatious partner and bought out Leiter, then set about refashioning the company’s strategy and renaming the firm after himself. Leiter retired from the merchandising business and from then on focused on his real estate holdings and service organizations.
The Curious Traveler's Guide to Route 66 in Metro Chicago 