John R. Schmidt

The heyday of the Chicago bowling alley

By: John R. Schmidt | Dec. 27, 2011

Dec. 27, 2011

Not so long ago, Chicago had more than a hundred bowling alleys. Now there are fewer than twenty. The most historic of these lost landmarks was Archer-35th Recreation, the home of the annual Petersen Classic.

In 1919 Louis Petersen opened his alleys on the second floor of a commercial building at 2057 W. 35th Street. Two years later he staged a tournament. The Petersen Classic paid $1,000 to the bowler who rolled the highest total for eight games. That was big money for a sporting event in 1921--the same year, first prize in the U.S. Open golf tournament was only $500.


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The 1893 World's Fair and the golden statue of Jackson Park

By: John R. Schmidt | Dec. 23, 2011

Dec. 23, 2011

I first stumbled on her in 1965, the night of my Senior Prom. The prom was at a downtown hotel. Afterward my date and I, along with two other couples, decided to go for a drive south on Lake Shore Drive.

We got to Jackson Park and turned down a side road, preparing to head back north. And there, in front of us in the darkness, illuminated by floodlights, was a towering golden statue of a Greek goddess. "What the hell is that?" we gasped.

If we'd been South Siders, we might have known. The statue is called The Republic, and is a souvenir of the 1893 World's Fair.

The 24-foot tall statue in the park is a replica. The original was nearly three times larger, a 65-foot colossa atop a 35-foot base. That version was made of plaster covered in gold leaf. Daniel Chester French, today best-known for his seated Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial, was the designer.

When the Fair was over, The Republic was scrapped. A smaller plaster model was retained.

The story resumes in 1918, the centennial year of Illinois statehood. By coincidence it was also the 25th anniversary of the Fair. Someone got the idea of restoring The Republic in Jackson Park.

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The day the Lake became 'open, clear and free'

By: John R. Schmidt | Dec. 21, 2011

Dec. 21, 2011

When Chicagoans want to show off the beauty of our town, we take visitors to the lakefront. Most cities don't have such a spectacular front yard. That makes December 21st an important date.

Back in 1836 Chicago was still a village. The commissioners who were building the nearby Illinois & Michigan Canal used their authority to make the lakefront public land. They ruled that it would be "a common to remain forever open, clear, and free of any buildings, or other obstruction whatever."

The lake came almost up to Michigan Avenue then. The order applied to the area east of the avenue, between Randolph and 12th Street (Roosevelt Road). In 1856 the Illinois Central Railroad built a trestle over the open water to a terminal at Randolph and Michigan.

After the 1871 fire, the city started dumping debris into the space between Michigan Avenue and the railroad trestle. This created a landfill known as Lake Park. Squatters' shacks sprang up, while the garbage mounds kept growing. For a few years the city's National League baseball team played their games on a corner the site.

By 1890 Lake Park was an eyesore. Mail-order tycoon Montgomery Ward had his office directly across from the park.

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The man who became Vice President

By: John R. Schmidt | Dec. 19, 2011

Dec. 19, 2011

"Once upon a time there were two brothers. One of them went to sea, and the other became Vice President of the United States. Neither of them was ever heard of again."

That's an old vaudeville joke, and it always got a laugh. It was true enough. Charles Gates Dawes was our 30th vice president, and he lived right here in Illinois. But unless you're from Evanston, you probably never heard of the guy.

Dawes was born in Ohio in 1865, became a lawyer, and practiced in Nebraska for a while. Then he got into banking and Republican politics. In 1909 he moved into the house at 225 Greenwood Street in Evanston.

During World War I, Dawes was a brigadier general in charge of procurement. He was called before a congressional committee investigating waste. The questions became heated, and he finally exploded. "Hell and Maria, we weren't keeping a set of books!" he yelled. "We were trying to win the war!" The newspapers loved it, and he became known as Hell-and-Maria Dawes.

(We will pause here to ponder what Dawes meant by "Hell and Maria." Does anybody cuss like that today?)

After the war Dawes went to work in the Harding Administration.

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The story of the Mickey Finn: Chicago's cocktail

By: John R. Schmidt | Dec. 16, 2011

Dec. 16, 2011

If you are a sophisticated drinker, you know about the Manhattan. Obviously, that cocktail was invented in New York City. Here in Chicago we can lay claim to devising our own famous mixed drink.

In 1903 on this December 16th, the city was learning about the Lone Star Saloon and Palm Garden. This was one of the dives of Whiskey Row, on State Street near 11th. A little gnome ex-pickpocket named Mickey Finn owned the place. Today one of Finn's barmaids--Gold Tooth Mary Thornton--was testifying before a special commission.

Gold Tooth Mary said there was a sign at the Lone Star inviting customers to "Try a Mickey Finn Special." The sign did not mention the ingredients, and for good reason. The Special was a mixture of raw alcohol, snuff-soaked water, and a white liquid supplied by a voodoo doctor.

Anybody who drank this cocktail was knocked out cold. The victim was then dragged into a side room, where he was stored until Mickey got around to robbing him. After that he was dumped in the alley.

Mary and her colleagues got a percentage of Mickey's take. That was just as well, since their customers weren't in any condition to give the ladies a tip.

Mickey had all the angles covered.

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The last First Ward Ball

By: John R. Schmidt | Dec. 14, 2011

Dec. 14, 2011

Chicago has never seen another political fundraiser like the annual First Ward Ball. The last one, in 1908, was the gaudiest.

The city's wards then had two aldermen each. The First Ward incumbents were a pair of colorful characters, "Bathhouse" John Coughlin and Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna. Their domain took in the Loop and the Near South Side down to 26th Street. That included the red-light district known as the Levee.

Coughlin & Kenna had held their first fundraising ball in an armory in 1896. Word on the street was that anyone who wanted a favor from the aldermen should buy a ticket--or better still, a book of fifty tickets. The Levee turned out in full force, and the sponsors cleared $25,000 (about $700,000 in today's money).

From there the First Ward Ball grew. The raffish crew of locals was joined by people from all parts of the city and all walks of life. Even the Gold Coast was represented--it was so thrilling to rub shoulders with the lowlifes, the gamblers and pickpockets and prostitutes! Coughlin & Kenna finally had to move their party to the Coliseum, the city's largest hall.

By 1908 the ball was drawing 20,000 people.

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The great escape

By: John R. Schmidt | Dec. 12, 2011

Dec. 12, 2011

The dignified old building hulking over Hubbard Street at Dearborn was once the Cook County Criminal Court. It also contained the county jail, and that's the setting for our story.

Tommy O'Connor was a young punk who specialized in armed robbery in the Maxwell Street area. In the spring of 1921 he killed a policeman who was trying to arrest him. O'Connor was caught, found guilty of murder, and sentenced to hang. The execution was set for December 15.

O'Connor was housed in the jail's fourth-floor cell block. Things were quiet there on Sunday, December 11. At 9:30 that morning the cells were open, and the prisoners were taking their exercise in the common area. A single guard was on duty.

Suddenly, O'Connor produced a gun. He took the guard's keys, bound and gagged the man, and locked him in a cell. Then O'Connor opened the gate to the cell block.

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The Magnificent Auditorium

By: John R. Schmidt | Dec. 9, 2011

Dec. 9, 2011

We take most of our old buildings for granted. Today the Auditorium is known as the home of Roosevelt University. But when it was dedicated on this date in 1889, the Auditorium was the largest building in the country. And the President of the United States came to Chicago to perform the ceremony.

In 1886 arts patron Ferdinand Peck organized a syndicate of like-minded rich men to give Chicago a grand opera hall. Since opera usually operated in the red, the idea was to locate the hall in a larger commercial building. That way, profits from the building would balance out the money lost by the opera.

The firm of Adler & Sullivan was hired to construct the Auditorium. They planned a ten-story masonry building on Congress Street, stretching from Michigan to Wabash, with a tower at the west end. In the center was the 4200-seat opera hall. The rest of the building would include stores, offices, and a hotel.

Many technical problems had to be solved. Construction stretched on over three years. In the summer of 1888 the Republican National Convention met in the half-finished building, with Benjamin Harrison nominated for president.

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