Chicago: Wholesaling Center
There are many ports and cities across America and throughout the world that are considered to by major centers for commerce of all kinds. Some places are known for their exports and imports, and some are famous for a specialized commodity or service. While many of these places are well known all around the world, not everyone knows that Chicago is considered a world-class wholesaling location and to that end, the history of wholesaling in Chicago deserves a closer look.
Although there has been a decline of late, Chicago wholesalers are industry leaders in the movement of a great many products like lumber, hardware, metals, grain and dry goods. The trade grew rapidly in the 1850s with the construction of a major railway and canal that helped to facilitate the movement of goods through the area. Since wholesaling is loosely defined as the movement of goods from the producers of goods to the retailers who sell them to the customer, the completion of the Illinois and Michigan Canal was especially important.
Over the next few years, wholesaling in Chicago grew in leaps and bounds to the point where by the turn of the century there were 3400 wholesalers in the city and the annual worth of their trade was a staggering $1 billion dollars.
The growth continued on an individual level for the firms that saw the potential and moved at least part of their operations to wholesaling.
The early part of the nineteenth century marked this transformation for notable firms in the Chicago area like Marshall, Field & Company where by 1906, two-thirds of their annual sales volume came from wholesaling. It wasn’t until the Great Depression that things turned the other way and by the start of WWII, many Chicago wholesalers had gone out of business.
Still, wholesaling stayed as an important part of the economic makeup of Chicago to the point where, by the 1990s, Chicago’s $190 billion in annual wholesale trade accounted for roughly 6% of the national total. Today, some of the more notable firms that still wholesale in the Chicago area include W.W. Grainger, Boise Cascade Office Products, and Topco.
Although there has been a decline of late, Chicago wholesalers are industry leaders in the movement of a great many products like lumber, hardware, metals, grain and dry goods. The trade grew rapidly in the 1850s with the construction of a major railway and canal that helped to facilitate the movement of goods through the area. Since wholesaling is loosely defined as the movement of goods from the producers of goods to the retailers who sell them to the customer, the completion of the Illinois and Michigan Canal was especially important.
Over the next few years, wholesaling in Chicago grew in leaps and bounds to the point where by the turn of the century there were 3400 wholesalers in the city and the annual worth of their trade was a staggering $1 billion dollars.
The growth continued on an individual level for the firms that saw the potential and moved at least part of their operations to wholesaling.
The early part of the nineteenth century marked this transformation for notable firms in the Chicago area like Marshall, Field & Company where by 1906, two-thirds of their annual sales volume came from wholesaling. It wasn’t until the Great Depression that things turned the other way and by the start of WWII, many Chicago wholesalers had gone out of business.
Still, wholesaling stayed as an important part of the economic makeup of Chicago to the point where, by the 1990s, Chicago’s $190 billion in annual wholesale trade accounted for roughly 6% of the national total. Today, some of the more notable firms that still wholesale in the Chicago area include W.W. Grainger, Boise Cascade Office Products, and Topco.
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