Most of the CTC's business was in hauling coal in and hauling ash back out of the Loop, back when all the buildings were heated using coal.
Marshall Fields contracted them for deliveries for a while, and they experimented with some other things, but that was the core of their business.
They were also devastated by the building of the subway tunnels through the loop, which cut many of the CTC tunnels.
So while they're a cool aspect of Chicago's history, it's not hard to see why they failed. They were an artifact of the coal heating era -- and not a very robust one at that.
As an aside, a tunnel project also was a plot device in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. It's a long time since I read it, but if I recall correctly, the tunnels were being built to break a trolley worker's strike.
Marshall Fields contracted them for deliveries for a while, and they experimented with some other things, but that was the core of their business.
They were also devastated by the building of the subway tunnels through the loop, which cut many of the CTC tunnels.
So while they're a cool aspect of Chicago's history, it's not hard to see why they failed. They were an artifact of the coal heating era -- and not a very robust one at that.
As an aside, a tunnel project also was a plot device in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. It's a long time since I read it, but if I recall correctly, the tunnels were being built to break a trolley worker's strike.