Showing posts with label 1978. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1978. Show all posts

Monday, August 17, 2020

August 17, 1978 -- Michigan Avenue German Consulate Under Siege


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August 17, 1978 – The Vice-Consul at the West German Consulate office at 104 South Michigan Avenue is held hostage for ten hours before he is freed by two Croatian terrorists.  The ordeal begins innocently enough when Werner Ickstadt receives a call from the switchboard operator that a Croatian desires an appointment.  Ickstadt leaves his desk to greet the visitor, but instead finds two men one of whom “entered, pushed me aside and pulled a pistol out.”  [Chicago Tribune, August 18, 1978].  Some staff members are able to leave as Ickstadt shouts a warning.  A second man enters with what he says is a bomb in his right hand, saying that he only has to touch two wires together and the building will blow up.  The two intruders assure Ickstadt that nothing will happen to him … they just want him to call the West German government and see that a Croatian nationalist imprisoned in Germany is set free.  At this point there are seven hostages in Ickstadt’s office, but he is able to convince his captors to release an 82-year-old Chicago lawyer and the 17-year-old daughter of the German Consul General.  The two men allow their captives to call family members, pass out cigarettes, order coffee, and even shell out ten bucks for food.  Throughout the ordeal negotiations are conducted which pay off toward evening when the brother of the German prisoner, who happens to be in Chicago, convinces the two men to surrender.  Icstadt sums up the day’s events by saying, “It makes you feel good when you have people from the country where you are a guest try to do everything to assist you.  Makes you feel very good.”  Hero of the day is Deputy Police Superintendent Victor Vrdolyak, who finds himself chief negotiator when officials learn that he speaks Croatian.  He says, “Since he wouldn’t let me near the office, I sat in a chair and had a lot of small talk with him in Croatian.  I asked about his family, where he was from – anything I could think of.  I kept my hands visible at all times.”  [Chicago Tribune, August 19, 1978].  On August 25 a federal grand jury indicts Bozo Kelava, 35, and Mile Dodzman, 31, charging that they “seized, confined, kidnaped, and held for ransom” [Chicago Tribune, august 26, 1978] four people in a 10-hour, 20-minute takeover.  Bond is set at one million dollars for each man.  The Holabird and Roche- designed Monroe Building, pictured above, is where the tense day's events took place.

August 17, 1982 – Preliminary plans for transforming Goldblatt’s closed store on State Street into the Chicago Public Library are unveiled at the Library Board of Director’s meeting.  City architect Joseph Casserly declares that a plaza at the Jackson Street entrance to the building is part of “a design that will give a new, highly imaginative identity to the building.” [Chicago Tribune, August 18, 1982] The plan also has the city demolishing the Kee Department Store on the corner of Jackson Boulevard and State Street, thereby making a Jackson Boulevard entrance to the library feasible.  It is anticipated that the main library will begin moving its collection into the renovated department store sometime in January of 1984.  The top photo shows an artist's rendering of what the converted department store would look like once it becomes the new main library.  The photo below that shows how close the new library on State Street south of Van Buren is to the proposed Goldblatt's conversion.

August 17, 1976 – A sniper opens fire on a crowd in front of the Conrad Hilton Hotel, wounding two people.  Witnesses say that as many as five shots may have been fired from an elevated sidewalk across the street in Grant Park.  William Charnota, an elevator starter at the hotel at 720 South Michigan Avenue, is grazed in the back of the leg by a bullet, and a minister from San Diego, in town for the Convention of the International Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, is wounded in the hip.  The minister’s wife says, “I wasn’t too keen on coming here in the first place.  I’ve heard all about Chicago and unfortunately it all came true, too true for me.”  Charnota says, “Everybody was falling down, hitting the sidewalk.  When you see all that, you know it’s not just firecrackers. It was pretty crowded.  I guess he figured he had a good target.  It happened in seconds.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, August 18, 1976] Although a witness describes the assailant to police, darkness and confusion allow the gunman to escape.  In the above Chicago Tribune photo, police search the area in Grant Park across the street from the Conrad Hilton Hotel.

August 17, 1950 – A homeless Navy veteran, James Wagster, 45, leaps into the Chicago River from the Lake Shore Drive Bridge, setting in motion a remarkable series of events that ultimately saves him from death.  Birdell Grant, 28, comes upon Wagster as he stands on the bridge, looking down at the water.  Grant, just released from the prison at Statesville and having been rejected for jobs at 25 places, asks Wagster for directions to an office where he can apply for work as a stevedore.  Wagster’s answer is a question . . . he asks Grant if he has a drink on him.  When Grant replies that he does not, Wagster announces that he is going to get one and jumps from the bridge.  Grant, who suffers from a bone ailment for which he has undergone five operations, makes his way down the bridge stairs to the water’s edge, removing his shirt and shoes on the way, and jumps into the water, suffering cramps just as he reaches Wagster.  Two passing motorists hear the commotion and they, too, jump in the water and swim 60 yards to the two men.  By that time the two bridge tenders, Jack Northrup and Leo Loughran, toss life preservers to the men and a Coast Guard boat arrives to help all four men ashore.  In his efforts Grant loses his last 15 cents;  one of the bridge tenders gives him money for his transportation back home.  Wearing only shorts and wrapped in a police blanket, Wagster, when asked in South State Street Court why he had jumped, tells the judge, “Judge, I must be crazy.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, August 17, 1950]



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Sunday, August 16, 2020

August 16, 1978 -- Loop Elevated Should Go ... Says Tribune Editorial



August 16, 1978 – In an editorial the Chicago Tribune states its opposition to a recommendation by the Chicago branch of the American Association of Architects that a way be found to preserve Chicago’s Loop elevated structure.  The paper asserts, “Anyone who finds a resemblance between Chicago’s elevated and San Francisco’s cable cars must have been standing at Lake and Wabash so long that the screeching has softened his brain.  No way can the “L” be considered charming, quaint, fun, or attractive to visitors . . . There is no good reason, either sensible or sentimental, to preserve the “L” one day longer than is economically unavoidable.  The noisy, dirty eyesore is of no architectural value and will interfere with the practical and esthetic pleasures and profitability of both the State Street mall and the North Loop renewal plan.”   

August 16, 1965 – United Air Lines Flight 389, carrying 24 passengers and a crew of six, disappears from radar screens only five minutes from its scheduled arrival at O’Hare International Airport.  Boats searching the lake about seven miles off Highland Park are hampered by darkness, but twisted pieces of wreckage are reported.  The last communication with the flight occurs at 9:18 p.m. as the O’Hare control tower gives directions for approach to the airport, receiving a “Roger” from the pilot.  Search planes and helicopters drop flares in an attempt to illuminate the search area, and by 1:00 a.m. more than 20 vessels are there, many of them private boats from yacht clubs along the North Shore.  A temporary morgue is also set up in the gymnasium of Highland Park High School. The plane had only been in service for three months at the time of the crash.  Three months later another Boeing 727 crashes on approach to Cincinnati, killing 62 of the 66 passengers on board.  Three days after that United Airlines Flight 227, another 727, crashes on landing at Salt Lake City International Airport, killing 43 of 91 on board.  There is widespread concern that the Boeing 727, first flown in 1963, is an accident waiting to happen.  Extensive review, however, reveals that the airplane is airworthy and properly certified. Those reviews also reveal that pilots, accustomed to flying DC-6’s and other propeller planes, were having trouble adjusting to the rapid descent of the new plane.  The Federal Aviation Agency subsequently required airlines to make changes in training procedures to emphasize the importance of stabilized approaches. The above Chicago Tribune photo shows the crowd gathered on a Highland Park beach, awaiting word from the search area.

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August 16, 1963 – The Commission on Chicago Architectural Landmarks appoints a committee to draft an ordinance that will provide a framework for the city to preserve its important architectural and historical places.  At the meeting, held at the Art Institute of Chicago, the commission also designates Hull House an architectural landmark and initiates an inquiry into the status of the vacant Sullivan house at 4575 Lake Park Avenue.  Its last order of business is the decision to submit a request to the building department as well as the department of city planning, asking that the commission be notified if a proposal is made to demolish the Reliance building at 32 North State Street, a building that has already been designated a landmark.  It is too bad that the initiative was launched so late, after many historic city treasures had been lost and many more were soon to be gone.  The Sullivan home on Lake Park Avenue is an example.  Originally built for architect Louis Sullivan's mother, it was finished about the time of her death in 1892.  Sullivan, himself, lived in the home until 1896 when his brother, Albert, took up residence with his family.  Despite being designated a landmark in 1960, the home was razed in 1970.  It is pictured above.



August 16, 1893 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that the Art Institute of Chicago and the Armour Institute have joined forces “for the purpose of establishing in Chicago a full and thorough course of study in architecture.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, August 16, 1893] W. M. R. French will direct the Art Institute coursework, and the Reverend F. W. Gunsaulus will handle the work for the Armour Institute.  The Art Institute library in 1893 had 1,300 books and 19,000 photographs with 200 books and 1,000 photographs relating directly to the subject of architecture.  The Armour Institute had 10,000 volumes in its library as well as physical and chemical laboratories and courses of study in electricity, mining, and mechanical engineering.  Director French says of the decision, “The Armour Institute, under the Presidency of the Rev. F. W. Gunsaulus, has laid out courses of technical study of the highest order. The departments of mechanical engineering, electricity, civil engineering, etc., are equal to those of the Institute of Technology of Boston, and the laboratories, shops, library, and appliances are in accord with the most approved and modern practice in technical schools.  There are already 500 applicants to enter the various departments upon the opening of the first school year, Sept. 14.”  William French is shown above at the easel. Reverend Gunsaulus is the man at the desk in the photo above that.


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Friday, August 7, 2020

August 7, 1978 -- Illinois Center's First Residential Building Begins Rising


August 7, 1978 – Construction begins on Columbus Plaza, the first residential building to go up on the Illinois Central Railroad property between Randolph and Wacker Drive on the south and north and Michigan Avenue and Lake Shore Drive on the west and east.  The 47-story building will contain 552 studio and one- and two-bedroom apartments. Five buildings have already been erected on the 83-acre site since development began in 1969, but they are all commercial or hotel buildings.  Two residential buildings have been completed east of Lake Shore Drive in this time period, the Outer Drive East condominium and Harbor Point; today they can be found to the west of the reconstructed Lake Shore Drive.  The tower is the product of the architectural firm of Fujikawa Conterato Lohan and Associates.



August 7, 1973 – Following the third murder of a woman in Grant Park in less than a year, the Chicago Tribune editorializes about “Our Unsafe City.”  [Chicago Tribune, August 7, 1973] “That women should be killed in the front yard of downtown Chicago,” the editorial states, “is shocking and shameful.  That the murders remain unsolved compounds the shame.”  The Tribune offers three areas that should be considered immediately.  “The facts call for more than hand wringing.  They call for more rigorous police work in the future than in the past,” the editorial states.  Along with that, “The facts call also for constant concern on the part of everyone for the safety of both oneself and of others.  Public awareness of risk needs to be heightened, tho of course short of panic or neurosis.” And, finally, “… prudence suggests staying away from wooded areas without sight lines to passers-by, even when those areas are in heavily used public parks … Broad daylight is not sufficient protection.”  The editorial concludes, “It is shameful that, more and more, people have reason to become wary like antelopes among predators.  The harsh fact is that vicious crime in public places is an ever present possibility in cities, including Chicago.  Heightened vigilance by both police and public offers the best—tho an imperfect—defense.”

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August 7, 1968 – For the second night in a row electrical malfunctions at the Chicago River lock trap sight-seeing boats and pleasure craft inside the lock in stifling summer heat.  For more than two hours passengers fume as boats bob up and down, trapped between lake and river.  Passengers on board the Sea King finally decide they have had enough and demand to get off, “clambering onto the sea wall looking strangely like a platoon of middle aged marines in mufti making an invasion landing.”  [Chicago Tribune, August 8, 1968].  Passengers in boats already out on the lake get a far longer ride than the one for which they paid as the boats sail up and down the lakefront, waiting to get back to their river docks.  The owner of Mercury Sightseeing Boats, Art Agra, greets the suggestion from a reporter that river passengers got a nice ride with, “Let’s face it – the river is junk, and this whole affair is a pain in the neck.”  Navy Pier in 1968 is circled in the distance of the top photo.  The area has changed considerably as can be seen in the second photo. 


August 7, 1910:  The Chicago Daily Tribune once again editorializes about the evil of the Illinois Central Railroad, writing, “Yesterday was a perfect day in Chicago.  The sky was cloudless and the lake a blue turquoise, save along the eastern edge of the south side.  There the vile smoke from a hundred coughing locomotives of the Illinois Central railroad made it seem the gateway to the inferno.  All along one-half of what should be the most magnificent city water front of the world went the disfiguring trains drawn by engines, the stacks of which belched forth clouds of smoke and showers of embers.  The public library, the Art institute, the hotels, the business blocks, and miles and miles of private residences are all begrimed and polluted by this nuisance.  Books, pictures, and furniture are discolored by it, health is endangered, and a property loss of millions constantly increased.” The paper presents only one viable alternative:  electrification.  Yet, it is pessimistic about such a remedy ever occurring.  “A corporation like the Illinois Central never improves its service until the balance goes against it,” the editorial ends.  “Or until a municipality takes it by the back of its corporate neck and squeezes it into compliance with a popular and imperative demand.”  At this point the Illinois Central operated over 300 steam trains into and out of Chicago.  It would take 16 more years before the commuter tracks were electrified from downtown to Matteson.
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Monday, August 3, 2020

August 3, 1978 -- State of Illinois Office Tower to Anchor Massive Redevelopment Project

Chicago Tribune Graphic
August 3, 1978 – The Chicago Tribune reports that Illinois governor James Thompson has approved $15 million in state funds to proceed with land acquisition and design of a new Chicago-based state office complex.  The new building, expected to replace an office facility at 160 North La Salle Street, will contain 1.3 million square feet of space and employ 4,000 state workers.  The governor also announces the formation of a committee that will advise the state on the best ways to finance the new structure.  On the same day that this announcement is made, developer Arthur Rubloff announces a two-block long project that will insert a shopping mall, hotel, apartments and a commercial tower in an area bounded by Wacker Drive on the north, State Street on the east, Washington Boulevard on the south, and Clark Street on the west.  Rubloff says, “This will be the foremost development ever undertaken in any city in the nation.  When completed in about five years, it will make the Loop the foremost downtown in the country.”  [Chicago Tribune, August 3, 1978]  According to Rubloff’s scheme every building except the 222 North Dearborn building and the Reliance building on State Street in a seven-block area will be demolished to make way for the new mixed-use complex.   Most of the area was eventually re-developed although it took decades for the process to unfold, and it ended up with a completely different vision, depicted in the above graphic, than Rubloff proposed in 1978. 


August 3, 1999 –Destruction of the Chicago Amphitheatre at 4220 South Halsted begins.  The huge exhibition arena opened in 1934 as a venue to exhibit and showcase the sheep, cattle and hogs that came through the Union Stock Yards.  The building was a miracle of construction.  When a disastrous fire, fed by 60-mile-per-hour winds, destroyed six square blocks around the stockyards on April 18, 1934, architect Abraham Epstein and his staff were asked to have another building in place by December 1 of the same year.  Using 11 solid steel arched trusses, at the time the largest in the world, the team had the building finished, complete with air conditioning and press and broadcast media facilities, just seven months after the disastrous fire. When the stockyards closed in 1971, the livestock shows moved south, and the aging building lost bookings to other, more modern – and far less pungent – facilities.  Over the years, though, events went far beyond livestock exhibitions.  The 1952 Republican National Convention chose General Dwight D. Eisenhower as its presidential nominee in the building.  That same year the Democratic Party chose Adlai Stevenson to oppose Eisenhower and repeated the decision in the Amphitheatre in 1956. The Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus brought its act to the arena for 18 years.  Musical acts from Roy Rogers and Dale Evans to The Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead entertained crowds there.  The Beatles played at the arena on September 5, 1964 and returned to the big barn to perform before 13,000 fans on August 12, 1966. In May of 1999 the city announced that it had acquired the 12-acre-lot on which the building sits and would be using the space to expand the Stockyard Industrial Corridor, stretching from Ashland Avenue to Halsted Street and from Pershing Road to Forty-Seventh Street. The International Amphitheatre’s chief engineer for 31 years, 65-year-old Dutch Trentz, said, “I’ve had a lot of deaths in my family. But when they tear that place down, that one’s really going to hit me.  It’s history to you, but that’s life to me.” [Chicago Tribune, August 3, 1999]



August 3, 1906:  The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that at a recent meeting the trustees of the Art Institute of Chicago approved the purchase of El Greco’s “Assumption of the Virgin” for the price of $40,000.  The canvas, measuring 13 feet by two inches high and seven feet by six inches wide, will be the largest painting on display at the Art Institute.  It was commissioned by Don Diego de Castilla in 1577 as an altar piece for the convent church of San Domingo El Antiguo in Toledo, Spain.   The Art Institute today describes the priceless work in this way, “The artist’s use of flickering, high-keyed colors and broad brushwork further lend the work an ecstatic feeling sought after by Catholic Church patrons during the Counter-Reformation.  El Greco used such bold colors and figural arrangements to arouse a spiritual fervor in the viewer and impart the deep sense of faith he himself felt.”  The work may be found In Gallery 211 in the European Painting and Sculpture section.


August 3, 1884 – The Chicago Daily Tribune prints a letter from a Professor J. H. Long in which he describes the results of an “elaborate examination” [Chicago Daily Tribune, August 3, 1884] of the city’s drinking water.  “Our water is bad enough,” writes Professor Long, “but it might be a great deal worse.  Any one interested in the subject will find in Bridgeport eight large pumps at work night and day drawing water from the river and throwing it into the Illinois and Michigan Canal at the rate of 60,000 cubic feet per minute. By this means a current is created which carries the sewage of the south and main branches of the river away from the lake and into the canal running toward the Mississippi.”  The professor says that chemists usually consider three parts of “free” ammonia and five parts of “albuminoid” per hundred million parts of water “as limits beyond which the nitrogenous matter should not go” in water that is to be used for consumption.  At the State Street bridge a test found seven parts per million of free ammonia and seventy parts per million of albuminoid.  At the Bridgeport pumps there were found 200 parts per million of ammonia and 100 parts per million of albuminoid. The area that came to be known as Bubbly Creek yielded 500 parts per million of ammonia and 140 parts per million of alubuminoid. At this site the analysis revealed “a great variety of specimens of lower animal and vegetable life. The north side was not exempt. At the Fullerton Avenue bridge there were found 240 parts of free ammonia per million parts of water and 84 of albuminoid per million. “From whatever standpoint we take,” the professor writes, the North Branch appears to be an evil.” The conclusion of the study suggests that boiling and then filtration of water should be undertaken to ensure the health of the city’s populace.

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August 3, 1879 – The Chicago Daily Tribune provides details of the tremendous growth that is occurring in the area around the Union Stock-Yards, first opened 14 years earlier.  The paper calls the population that has gravitated to the area “the largest industrial population gathered in any single industry in any one square mile in the world.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, August 3, 1879]. The three major producers in the Stock-Yards – Armour, Hutchinson, and Fowler – each employ more than 2,000 people working at 32 packing houses.  As many as 20,000 workers are employed as laborers, clerks, bookkeepers, and managers at the sprawling facility, some of these workers traveling four miles to get to the job.  Two new streets have been opened up and sidewalks and water distribution lines have been added to Paulina, Laflin, Loomis, Forty-Eighth and Forty-Ninth Streets.  A new church has been built at the corner of Laflin and Loomis, and a new brick school is going up four blocks north of the church.  Houses can be purchased for around $500 … the area lies outside the fire zone established after the 1871 fire, so the new homes are built of wood and are designed to be inexpensive. Lots sell for between $150 and $170 with most of the property and homes built with a workers’ available cash, free from any loans.  “The development of this industrial army,” the Tribune reports, “is the growth of Chicago in only one direction, and for only thirteen years.”  The above photo shows a typical neighborhood near the stockyards at the time of the Tribune article.
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Sunday, August 2, 2020

August 2, 1978 -- Michigan Avenue Bridge Honored as National Engineering Landmark


August 2, 1978 –The American Society of Civil Engineers unveils a plaque at the Michigan Avenue bridge that celebrates the reversal of the Chicago River as a national engineering landmark. David Novick, the president of the society, says, “This monumental engineering feat contributed to the health and growth of Chicago, enabling it to develop into the great metropolitan area it is today.” [Chicago Tribune, August 3, 1978] Both Novick and Nicholas J. Melas, the president of the Metropolitan Sanitary District, accept the plaque on behalf of the district and the city. The ceremony takes place on the Ninety-Third anniversary of a rain storm that forced the sewage borne by the river far out into the lake, threatening the city’s fresh water intake cribs. 
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August 2, 1967 – The Second City opens its new playhouse on at 1616 North Wells Street with a revue of past successes, entitled “From the Second City.” It was December of 1959 when The Second City opened its doors for the first time just up the street at 1942 North Wells.  Bernie Sahlins, a genius in the field of improvisational theater, tells the story of the terra cotta portrait heads and arches that grace the front entrance of the theater in his book, Days and Nights at the Second City.  He wrote, “We were building a new theater and they were tearing down the Garrick.  I happened to wander over and saw the building being demolished.  I saw the heads over the second floor balcony of the building and was interested in them.  I spoke to the foreman and told him, ‘I wanted four heads and I didn’t care which four.’  He referred me to his boss and I negotiated the deal.”  It cost Sahlins $1,500 for the front entrance to a theater that would become legendary.  To read a really, really exhaustive piece on a quest to identify the individuals that are depicted in the four terra cotta pieces at the entryway, you can check this out. It’s fascinating.

August 2, 1934:  Led by Chief Investigator John O’Donnell, a police squad raids six villages at the Century of Progress World’s Fair and closes down two performances judged to be risqué.  Gambling wheels are confiscated at the exhibitions of Paris, Tunis, Ireland, Mexico and Spain and in a section called the Bowery.  At the last site an exhibition called “The Red Light Girls” is closed and a fan dancer, Faith Bacon, is forced to put on pants for her final appearance.   The general manager of the fair, Major Lenox R. Lohr, unleashes the police on the concessions after giving them a warning to clean up their act.  After allowing the sale of liquor at lunch counters within the grounds, agreeing to more signage within the grounds promoting attractions, and reducing the charges for electricity and garbage removal at venues, Lohr warns the vendors, “We’ll give you all the help within reason and more money will be spent by A Century of Progress during the month of August than has been spent in any month in 1934 or 1933 . . . but the lid is not off.”
JBartholomew Photo
August 2, 1891 – The Chicago Daily Tribune provides an update on the improvements that are ongoing at the new United States Army base at Fort Sheridan. The new barracks east of the water tower are being constructed in order to house two companies of the Fifteenth Regiment of infantry along with two companies of cavalry and two of artillery.  The cost of the new quarters will be $200,000, about $5,170,000 in today’s dollars.  Two “magnificent stables” are being built at a cost of $22,000 apiece or $569,000 in 2017 dollars.  Each stable will house 80 horses.  A main dining hall is also being built with room for 1,000 soldiers.  The cost of the building will be $48,000 or $1,242,000 in today’s dollars.  Four captains’ homes will be built near the lake at a cost of $9,000 or $235,000 for each in today’s dollars.  Finally, a 300-yard long Officers’ Club will be erected with separate quarters for a dozen officers.  This will cost $70,000 or $1,812,250 in 2017 dollars.  The land for the new garrison was purchased in 1887, and the Chicago architectural firm of Holabird and Roche selected to design the buildings.  One of the stables at the fort is shown in the above photo, these days a re-purposed residential building.
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Sunday, February 23, 2020

February 23, 1978 -- Chicago Fire Department Saves 50 in Elm Street Fire

Chicago Tribune Photo
February 23, 1978 – At least 20 fire trucks and 100 firefighters converge on 10 West Elm Street as a late-night fire traps over 50 residents on upper floors, causing injuries to 15 people.  People who evacuated the building stand in 27-degree cold in their night clothes as firefighters rescue people from the 110-unit apartment building.  Firemen use ladders to evacuate people leaning out of windows while others enter the smoke-filled building to bring people down two outside fire escapes. A resident on the sixteenth floor of the building says he was leaning out of his window for air when firefighters appeared and led him down a fire escape.  “Five or ten more minutes and I would be dead,” he says.  It is believed that a man caught running from the building as the building’s lobby burst into flames was the arsonist responsible for the 3-11 alarm fire.

February 23, 1955 -- A bid that tops Carson Pirie Scott & Co.'s offer for the 12-story building at the corner of State and Madison Streets is submitted in federal district court. The bid tops Carson's offer of $7,250,000 by over $350,000. The courts become involved because the building's owner, the Otto Young estate, had previously specified that the property could not be sold until ten years after the death of the youngest daughter in the family, who, at 77, is still very much alive. However, three weeks earlier a judge ruled that the courts had the right to authorize the sale. The building in question, now a Target store, is perhaps the one building in Chicago that best represents the genius of architect Louis Sullivan.


February 23, 1905 – A. C. Banker, the first chauffeur to be arrested for failure to display a license, is taken from his vehicle in front of the Auditorium Annex.  Soon after detectives F. J. Shields and John Fitzpatrick arrest four more chauffeurs who are “speeding along the streets without numbers.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, February 24, 1905] All five pay a ten-dollar cash bond and are released.  In the evening the draft of an automobile law is approved at a meeting of the Chicago Automobile Club with a plan to send it to Springfield within the week.  It proposes a maximum of ten miles-per-hour on busy city streets and 14 miles-per-hour in “less settled districts.”  Out in the country motorists may speed along at 20 miles-per-hour.  There is a clause mandating the registration of vehicles with a fine of $50 for a third infraction and revocation of a motorist’s driver’s license for six months.  Farmers “who drive leisurely along the country road and refuse to get out of the way for fast automobiles” will pay a fine of $25.  In a 2013 auction the Chicago license plate shown above sold for $1,100.


February 23, 1859 – The Chicago Press and Tribune prints an exquisitely detailed broadsheet that reveals the extent of the railroad industry that serves Chicago, the largest railroad center in the world.  Despite a rough year in 1858 the article observes, “They have had the worst year they will ever have; for the development of the West, it is believed, will receive no check for many years in the future, and when the next revulsion shall come, our rich prairies will be teeming with an intelligent, energetic people, whose numbers will be told by millions, and their actual necessities will always force a large and lucrative traffic upon the railways of the West.  [Chicago Press and Tribune, February 23, 1859] Following are highlights of the article’s summary of railroads in and around Chicago …

The Chicago and Milwaukee Railroad, an 85-mile railroad connecting Milwaukee and Chicago, moving 154,219 passengers north and south with receipts for passengers and freight of $204,186.15 in 1858.
The Chicago, St. Paul and Fond du Lac Railway, with 90 miles completed from Chicago to Janesville, Wisconsin and 47 miles from La Crosse Junction to Oshkosh and a land grant of close to 2,000,000 acres, allowing a projected run to Marquette on Lake Superior, a total of 393 miles.  Carried 122,252 passengers in 1858 with receipts of $290,818.68 for passengers and freight in 1858.
Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, with 121 miles of track from Chicago to Freeport.  Connecting with the Illinois Central it forms a direct line to the Mississippi River at Dunleith.  Carried 394,733 passengers with receipts of $1,547,361.23 for passengers and freight in 1858.
Galena (Fulton) Air Line and the Chicago, Iowa and Nebraska Railway, the Galena running from Chicago to Fulton on the Mississippi, a total of 136 miles, connecting with the C.I. and N., completed from the Mississippi to Lisbon, Iowa, a total of 64 miles.  The C. I. and N. is projected to run north to St. Paul, Minnesota from Cedar Rapids, a total of 311 miles.  Carried 31,235 passengers with revenue for freight and passengers of $50,851.23 in 1858. 
Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, connecting Chicago with Burlington, Iowa, a total of 210 miles.  Carrying 319,018 passengers with receipts of $1,500,709.64 for freight, mail and passengers in 1858.
Chicago and Rock Island Railway, connecting Chicago with Rock Island, where the only railway bridge over the Mississippi River connects it with the Mississippi and Missouri Railroad.  Carried 306,920 passengers with revenues of $961,780.00 for passengers and freight in 1858.
Chicago, Alton and St. Louis Railroad, connecting Chicago with Alton and St. Louis, a total of 284 miles, one of the city’s most important railroad lines.  Strictly a freight line, the railroad earned $867,238.53 for freight and mail in 1858.
Illinois Central Railway, extending from Chicago to Cairo, Illinois and from Centralia, 112 miles north of Cairo to Dunleith on the Upper Mississippi, a total of 704 miles.  Carried 468,679 passengers with receipts of $1,976,576.52 for freight, mail and passengers in 1858.
Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad, completed to Chicago on December 25, 1858 and connecting at Pittsburgh with the Pennsylvania Central and other roads on the Atlantic seaboard, a total of 467 miles. Carried 435,946 passengers, east and west with receipts of $1,567,780.18 for freight, passengers and mail in 1858.
Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad, connecting Chicago by way of Cleveland, Toledo and other eastern roads, with all eastern seaboard cities, a total of 242 miles.  Carried 511,928 passengers with receipts of $3,089,345.97 in 1858.
Michigan Central Railway, connecting Chicago with Detroit, a total of 282 miles, connecting from Detroit by way of the Canada Great Western, the Grand Trunk, the New York Central and a number of other roads with all the Atlantic coast cities.  Carried 367,919 passengers with $2,016,155.83 in revenue from passengers, freight and mail in 1858.

These lines constitute the major railroads, using Chicago as their base of operations.  There were somewhere around 105 trains leaving the city every day of the week in 1858.  There are a dozen or more other railroads that connect with these lines at various points in the Midwest.  The previous year saw a severe downturn in the national economy, but there were still 516 miles of new railroad track added to the roads serving Chicago.  It is estimated that 2,775 miles of railroad track now exist in Illinois.  Eight years earlier there were 95 miles in the entire state.  The estimated revenue for all railroads calling Chicago their home during 1858 was $16,197,153.95.  (That's the equivalent of over a half-billion dollars of revenue in today's dollars.)
Posted by Chicago Old and New at 2:30 AM 0 comments
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