WBEZ 91.5 Chicago

Though he didn’t find his life’s mission until he was 50 years old, George Wellington Streeter has achieved a kind of immortality: One of Chicago’s swankiest neighborhoods carries his name, all because he originated a local version of the Occupy Movement.

Streeter was born in Michigan in 1837, one of 13 children. He had little formal education, and scuffled through different jobs — logger, miner, ice-cutter, carnival showman, mariner. In the summer of 1886 he got into a scheme to run guns to Honduras.

While trying out his little steamship in a Lake Michigan storm, Streeter ran up on a sandbar off Superior Street. He couldn’t move, so he decided to stay there.

Everything east of Michigan Avenue was then a swamp. Streeter convinced local builders to dump their debris near his ship.

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How well did you find your way around 1940 Chicago?

The older photo provides a number of location clues. The construction materials laying around indicate that Milwaukee Avenue is being prepared for subway excavation — when the street is dug up, the streetcars will run on temporary tracks along the side. The cross-street has the distinctive street lights that were used only on Park District thoroughfares (Augusta Boulevard, in this instance).

All the visible buildings on the east side of Milwaukee are gone. The building on the northwest corner of Augusta remains, as does the headquarters of the Polish Roman Catholic Union on the southwest corner. The other buildings closer to the camera were razed during expressway construction in the 1950s.

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On this June 26th in 1925, Chicagoans were talking secession. Maybe it was time the city broke off from the rest of Illinois and formed a new state.

The Illinois Constitution was being violated. Every ten years, following the federal census, the legislative districts were supposed to be redrawn. That hadn’t been done since 1901.

Downstaters controlled the state legislature. Letting Chicago have more seats would take away their power. So the legislature had simply refused to redistrict after the 1910 census. The same thing had happened after the 1920 census.

Probably not yet.

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The directors of the Columbian Exposition wanted to outdo the 1889 Paris World’s Fair. The hit of that fair had been Gustave Eiffel’s soaring iron tower.

On June 21^st in 1893, the world saw Chicago’s answer to the challenge: George Washington Ferris’s giant wheel.

Ferris was a young Pittsburgh engineer. He’d gotten his idea from that new fad, the bicycle. With boyish enthusiasm, he convinced investors to spend $400,000 (about $10 million in 2012 money) so he could build a 300-foot-high, spinning bicycle wheel.

So now, a month into the Exposition, it was ready. At four in the afternoon, a crowd of 2,000 people gathered at the base of the wheel. Overhead, in one of the 36 cars – which were more like sheds, and could each hold 60 passengers – a brass band pumped out patriotic tunes. Red, white and blue bunting was everywhere.

The speeches began. They followed the theme that American ingenuity had once again triumphed. One of the speakers, General Nelson Miles, said that Mr. Ferris’s wheel had surpassed the Seven Wonders of the World.

Finally, the man of the hour spoke. He thanked all those who’d been involved in the project.

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Even at its widest part, the Chicago River is not much of a river. You can walk across one of the downtown bridges in less than a minute. The water here is barely 20 feet deep. Calm, peaceful and not very dangerous.

July 24, 1915 was a Saturday. That morning the steamship Eastland was moored at the south bank of the river, just west of the Clark Street Bridge. The ship was scheduled to depart for a cruise to Michigan City. Most of the 2,500 passengers were employees at the Western Electric plant in Cicero, on their way to a company picnic.

Boarding began at 6:30 a.m. The ship began to list to starboard. This wasn’t unusual, and the crew took measures to balance it.  

Shortly before 7:30, the Eastland cast off. After an hour of sways and straightening, the ship was now listing toward port—in this case, away from the dock. During the next few minutes the list continued.

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“The Mayor of Chicago is one tough, ornery dude. You don’t mess with him.”

That’s what people were thinking when they heard the news from June 18^th—155 years ago.   

Long John Wentworth–all 6 feet 6 inches of him–had been elected mayor in the spring of 1857. He’d pledged to clean up the city. Today that would mean an attack on political corruption. In Long John’s time, he meant a literal clean up. Chicago looked like a junkyard.

The city’s sidewalks were still made of wooden planks. In the downtown area, many merchants had erected large signs and awnings over the public walk. They also set out display cases and piled up wooden boxes. People had to step into the muddy street to get around them.

There were laws against these obstructions. They had never been enforced. Maybe Long John had banged into an overhanging sign once too often. Whatever the reason, he decided to do something about it.

The textbook way would start with the police giving the merchant a ticket. Then there would be a court hearing, perhaps delayed by continuances for a few months.

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