The Imperial Building's Bitter Feud

Gunston Heath have taken up the Imperial building proposition of A. P. Gillies, and this afternoon they started out to secure subscriptions for the purchase of the land required, which will cost about $200,000. Gillies will likely be before the council tonight, or at least next week, asking for the subway and street franchises required for the building project. The opening of subscriptions for stock for the ground purchase is due to a break between Gillies and Henry Hewitt, Joshua Peirce and other members of the original Imperial Building company. Gillies says they shipped him off to New York, then tried to throw him down and organize a new company over his head to freeze him out. 'I was sent to New York and they agreed to buy the lots needed for the project while I was completing the matter of financing the building proper,' said Gillies. 'After I was gone they tried to throw me down. Hewitt even wrote to New York and authorized a new company to go over my head.' Gillies says he has the project in shape now, with the V. J. Hadden Sons company expected to take the construction contract and Col. C. S. Parker, the great New York banker, ready to finance the project.