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As a Chicago historian, I’ve fielded all sorts of questions. Believe it or not, one of the most often asked questions has been—Why is Jefferson Street off by itself, instead of with the rest of the downtown president streets?

Thomas Jefferson was one of our greatest presidents. He wrote the Declaration of Independence. His face is on nickels, and on Mount Rushmore, and on the $2 bill. He has his own memorial in Washington. Our city certainly could have remembered him with a more prominent street.

I came up with various answers why Jefferson was so neglected. Truth is, I didn’t really know for sure until recently. Then I got my own copy of A.T. Andreas’s History of Chicago.

Andreas published his opus in the 1880s, and it’s unbelievable—three volumes, running a total of 2,000 pages of tiny type. It has just about anything you’d want to know about early Chicago, and even more things that you’d never image you wanted to know.

(One example of the latter—For Chicago’s first mayoral election in 1837, Andreas doesn't just present the totals.

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The New Deal is the collective name given to federal programs launched to fight the Great Depression of the 1930s. One of these was the Treasury Relief Arts Project (TRAP). The idea was to have established artists decorate existing public buildings.

George Melville Smith was an artist commissioned through TRAP. He painted murals in a number of buildings around the Chicago area, including the Schubert Elementary School in the city, and the post offices in Elmhurst and in Crown Point, Indiana. 

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We've been hearing much about Chicago's crime problems lately. Was it always so bad? Take a look at the Chicago Tribune from February 11— 107 years ago. 

In 1906 our city was already known for the biggest Stock Yards, the busiest street corner, and the most railroad trains. Now Chicago had earned another distinction. We had the most dangerous police district in the world.

The Tribune called it “Bloody Maxwell.” Then known as the 21st Precinct, it took in the area west of the river between Harrison and 16th, as far as Wood Street. Each year, within this single square mile, scores of people were murdered.

“Murderers, robbers, and thieves of the worst kind are born, reared, and grow to maturity in numbers that far exceed . . . any district on the face of the globe,” the paper reported. “Stealing is as natural as breathing. Property belongs to whoever can take and keep it.”

In some families, four generations were active criminals.

The area was filled with recent immigrants.

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If you listened to “The Afternoon Shift” yesterday, you know we talked about honorary streets. At last count Chicago had about 1400 of them. Dedicating an honorary street is a convenient way for politicians to keep voters happy, with little effort.

And yet . . . are there so many honorary streets that the gesture has become meaningless? I’m reminded of a friend who was thrilled to receive a flag that had been flown over the U.S. Capitol. Only later did he learn the secret.

(SPOILER ALERT--YOU MAY WISH TO SKIP THE NEXT PARAGRAPH!)

The Capitol has a special flagpole, on which flags are raised for a few seconds, then lowered. So each day, that results in hundreds of different flags that have been flown over the U.S. Capitol—technically.

But back to Chicago street names. Before the honorary street system caught on, the city sometimes changed actual street names. I do know at least four existing streets whose names were changed in 1979:

Bosak Avenue (10200 S.

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Paul Harvey had a long, distinguished career as a radio news commentator. Yet one mistake almost derailed that career before it got rolling.

In February 1951 Harvey was 32 years old. He’d recently begun broadcasting a daily program out of the Chicago office of the ABC radio network. Now he received a tip about security problems at the Argonne National Laboratory.

Argonne was a top-secret nuclear facility west of the city. The Korean War was on. Atomic spies were in the news. Harvey decided to see for himself whether Argonne’s security was lax.

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Brighton Park is a Southwest Side neighborhood located about seven miles from the Loop along Archer Avenue. It is officially designated as Chicago Community Area 58.

There are at least three different stories on how Brighton Park got its name. What’s agreed on is that settlement began in the 1830s, during construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal.

The land itself wasn’t very inviting. Much of the area was low-lying and marshy, with the occasional clay hole. Flooding was frequent. Still, a few truck farmers stuck it out.

Local businessman John McCaffery is called the Father of Brighton Park. Seeing possibilities where others saw swamp, he built a plank road along what is now Western Avenue and began subdividing the land to the west. In 1851 the Village of Brighton Park was incorporated.

Railroads entered soon afterward. Various industries were established. Brighton Park had a nail factory, a brickyard, a cotton mill, and even a stockyard.

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You can find a little bit of Chicago in the strangest places.

In 1945 the federal government transferred 1,080 acres of land near Mannheim and Higgins to the City of Chicago. The site was to be used for a new commercial airfield, the future O’Hare.

Though Chicago held title to the airport land, the site itself was a few miles beyond the city limits. That fact might cause legal complications--could the Chicago police even issue parking tickets? Early in 1956, the city council opened hearings on annexing unincorporated land between the city and the airport.

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