Wright Auction

In 1987, Grannen was approached by the owner of Three Oaks Wrecking Co., the company that handled the 1972 demolition of the Chicago Stock Exchange. Prior to going out of business in 1973, Three Oaks stored several truckloads of architectural fragments from the Stock Exchange in a rail yard on the far south side. Grannen had been previously approached by the company with various items that had been salvaged from the Stock Exchange. However, by this time Three Oaks was losing the lease on the rail yard and offered Grannen a chance to buy it all. Grannen and his team spent an entire summer excavating fragments that had been buried in the sandy ground.The wrecking company had taken care to spray the iron and metal fragments to prevent corrosion before burying them, presumably to protect against thieves or would-be urban grave robbers. That summer, Grannen recalls being visited by a man every day who seemed to have been living in a wooded area near the rail yard. Clad in a loin cloth and clutching a homemade bow and arrow, the visitor quietly observed them as they pulled the fragments from the ground, before disappearing back into the woods.