January 4, 1967 –A fire is
discovered in the south end of the International Amphitheater at Forty-Third
and Halsted Streets at 9:00 p.m. with
the initial alarm is quickly upgraded to a 5-11 alarm fire with two
specials. It takes two hours to bring
the blaze under control as 2,000 people stand on the east side of Halsted
Street, watching the flames that shoot out of the building’s second story
windows. The main section of the building is saved, but the 12-year-old
addition known as Donovan Hall is extensively damaged. Chief Investigator for the Fire Department
arson unit, Edmund Voliquet, says the fire is “definitely an arson job.”
[Chicago Tribune, January 5, 1967] The International Amphitheater opened at the
end of 1934 after its predecessor burned to the ground in May of that year in
one of the largest fires in the city’s history, a blaze that spread over eight
city blocks and caused eight million dollars in damage. The 1934 fire is pictured above.
January 4, 1946 – Brigadier General John T. Pierce, commanding general at Fort Sheridan, announces that the north shore army post has processed 217,707 men and women during 1945, handling the transition from military to civilian life for individuals at the rate of 1,400 a day. The post has handled 196,633 enlisted men, 21,756 officers and 9,328 members of the Women’s Army Corps. The busiest month was October, during which 43,001 men and women were processed. With a maximum amount of time for the handling of paperwork approaching no more than 48 hours the base expects to work at this rate seven days a week for at least several more months.
January 4, 1913 -- Two big events that would have major consequences in the way Chicago moved through the twentieth century. First, U. S. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson approves the double-deck bridge on Michigan Avenue that would furnish a boulevard link between the north and south sides of the city. (See Photo for what the area looked like in 1915, five years before the bridge was completed.) AND Circuit Court Judge Lockwood Honoré enters an order confirming agreements that would give the city the riparian property between 53rd Street and 55th Street, leaving only two small tracts between Grant Park and Jackson Park to which the public had no clear title. Ride along this route on a bright, sunny summer's day and think about how huge this was.
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