This section of Michigan Avenue runs along the top of a ridge, and was originally a trail used by the native peoples. In the early 20th Century, the State Street streetcar line was extended via Michigan to 119th Street, and a shopping strip developed. That's a postwar PCC streetcar in the 1955 photo.
Gately's Peoples Store, long a fixture on the Michigan Avenue, closed during the 1980s. The streetcars have been replaced by buses, too.
In 1869 the West Side Park Board created three major parks. One of them, Central Park, was later renamed Garfield Park. The neighborhood immediately west of this park is Community Area 26–West Garfield Park (WGP).
Settlement here began in the 1840s, when a plank road was laid along the line of Lake Street. Chicago’s first railroad came through the area in 1848. The railroad became the Chicago & North Western, and later built train shops near today’s Keeler Avenue.
But it was the park that really got the community going. New construction sprang up in the area around it. There were single family homes and some large apartments, though two-flats were predominant. Graystone was popular.
A gentlemen’s trotting club operated along the east side of Crawford (Pulaski) south of Madison. Gambling kingpin Mike McDonald took over the track in 1888. The Garfield Park Race Track became the center of controversy, as neighbors feared for their property values.
Today's pictures are from the North Side Edgewater community. The 1948 photo is dominated by the Edgewater Beach Hotel. Before Lake Shore Drive was extended north in the 1950s, the hotel had direct access to the lake, and really did have its own beach.
The hotel closed in 1967 and was torn down a few years later. The double-deck buses are long gone, too.
When bowling was big and Chicago was the bowling capital of the world, the greatest bowler in Chicago was Paul Krumske. And there’s one story about Paul Krumske they always tell.
During one close match, Krumske suddenly keels over on the lane, grabbing his chest and gasping for breath. The match stops. Medical help is summoned, and Krumske is revived. He gamely declares that he will go on.
By now the opposition is totally unnerved–especially when Krumske rolls the next half-dozen strikes.
This incident happened during the famous match Krumske bowled against Ned Day . . . or in a team match in the Chicago Classic League . . . or in a tournament in Detroit . . .
We've had some fun here with "Then and Now" photos of Chicago. Sometimes the changes in a site have been striking. For today, let's look at a South Chicago location that looks dramatically different from its appearance a half-century ago.
The older photo shows 89th Street and Avenue O when the U.S. Steel South Works was still going strong. In 1956 this was the east terminal of the 95th Street bus line. By the way, the destination sign on the bus says it's headed for Evergreen Plaza--new then, but closed now.
In 2013 the only visible remnant of the plant is that one metal utility pole. But redevelopment is on the way, and I plan to come back in a few years to take another picture.
A new Lone Ranger movie is being released next month. That brings to mind the masked man’s Chicago connection.
The best-known Lone Ranger was Clayton Moore, a Chicagoan. Born in the city in 1914, he attended Hayt Elementary, then dropped out of Senn High School to become a circus acrobat. In 1938 Moore began working in movies as a stuntman and bit player. By the late ‘40s he’d become a familiar face in low-budget Hollywood epics.
In 1949 the Lone Ranger radio program was making the transition to TV. Moore was cast in the title role because he sounded like the actor who played the Ranger on the radio. The radio guy was considered too bulky to make a convincing action hero.
Clayton Moore made the Lone Ranger role his own. He appeared in 169 TV episodes and two feature films. After the show was cancelled in 1957 he continued to travel the country, making personal appearances.
Moore returned to his hometown for a series of shows in June 1976. He checked in at the Lincolnwood Hyatt. His van was too big for the regular lot, so he was told to park outside.
Mount Greenwood is the far Southwest corner of Chicago. Compared to the rest of the city, it looks fairly new.
The Internal Revenue Service is in the news lately. This is a good time to look at the case that solidified its reputation—a case involving a Chicagoan.
When the federal government tried to impose an income tax in the 1890s, the Supreme Court declared the tax unconstitutional. The only way around the decision was by constitutional amendment. In 1909 the proposed 16th Amendment—allowing a tax on incomes—was passed by Congress. Four years later, with three-fourths of the states having ratified, the amendment became part of the Constitution.
The feds then created an agency to collect the tax. In 1918 the agency became known as the Internal Revenue Service.
Herbert Hoover was inaugurated as President of the United States on March 4, 1929. This was barely three weeks after the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre had focused national attention on gang-ridden Chicago. Everybody suspected that Al Capone was behind those killings, and a lot more. Yet all the forces of law seemed powerless against him.
Hoover was a Republican, and Capone had used his muscle to help Republican Big Bill Thompson get elected Mayor of Chicago.
