Wild Ride -- Woe . . . Woe . . . Woe (Chicago Daily News Archives) |
It’s all glitter
and lights on Michigan Avenue these days with the great wall of skyscrapers
facing off against the green spaces of Grant Park and Millennium Park and,
beyond that, the lake. It’s hard to
imagine a time when the road was filled with horse manure, the sky was clouded
with coal smoke, and horses and new-fangled automobiles staged an ongoing game
of chicken.
But that’s the way
it was back on this date, January 12, in 1903 when Thomas McInerney, who had
just driven a hearse with the remains of Mrs. William O’Brien to the old
Central Station at Michigan Avenue and Roosevelt Road for transportation to the
cemetery, found his team frightened by a steam engine on the nearby elevated
track.
The horses took off,
headed north on Michigan Avenue at Sixteenth Street, pursued by another
carriage, driven by James Murphy, and a mounted park policeman. The wild chase lasted nearly three-quarters
of a mile when McInerney’s horses swerved, crashing against the iron support of
an electric light at twenty-Second Street. Mr. McInerney was “painfully injured” and the
hearse, valued at $3,500, was demolished.
It appears that the
wild dash involving Mr. McInerney’s horse-driven hearse, Mr. Murhpy, and the
police officer ended in a dead heat.
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