Mandel Brothers
Mandel Brothers Soundex Code M534
Architect: Holabird and Roche
from http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/2755.html
This retail enterprise, which would become one of Chicago's leading department stores, was founded in 1855 by Bavarian immigrants Solomon Mandel and his uncle Simon Klein.
Their first store was located on Clark Street. In 1865, after Solomon's brothers Leon Mandel and Emanuel Mandel joined the firm, its name became Mandel Brothers.
Purchasing in New York and Paris and selling in Chicago, the enterprise grew.
By the 1880s, its new store on the corner of State Street and ]]Madison Street]] employed about 800 people.
By the beginning of the 20th Century, the workforce had grown to over 3,000 people.
Rebuilt in 1912 and renovated in 1948, the State Street store continued to operate into the 1970s, when the company folded amid State Street's demise as a major retail center.
In 1961 Wieboldt's Stores, Inc. enlarged itself by acquiring the failed Mandel Brothers store on State Street as well as a smaller branch store in Lincoln Village Shopping Center.