History of Chicago, Illinois, USA

The Chicago Board of Trade, located on West Jackson Street in Chicago, is a connection to agriculture that affects the everyday consumer of farm products. Since its beginning in 1848, the Chicago Board of Trade has grown to be one of the largest agriculture exchanges in the world.

Chicago, she-kau'go, the most populous and commercial city of Illinois, and seat of justice of Cook county, is situated on the south-western shore of Lake Michigan, and on both sides of Chicago river, 278 miles W. by S. from Detroit, 180 miles E. by S. from Galena, and 410 miles by water from St. Louis. This city, which appears destined to become the chief commercial emporium of the North west, in consequence of its commanding situation, was settled about the year 1831, previous to which it was a mere trading post amidst the wigwams of the Indian. It was incorporated in 1836; in 1840 it contained 4853 inhabitants; in 1850, 29,963, and in 1853, not less than 60,000; from which it may be perceived that the population has doubled itself about every four years.

The ground on which the city stands is an extremely level plain, sufficiently elevated to prevent inundation, and extending many miles towards the south and west. The adjacent country consists of beautiful and fer tile prairies, ...

William Rand opens a small printing shop in Chicago's Loop, forming the precursor of Rand McNally.

George M. Pullman (1831-1897) founds the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago, manufacturing railroad sleeping cars.

A company has been formed in Chicago, and will soon be in operation, for distilling alcohol and extracting soap grease from ordinary city garbage. It is estimated that each barrel of garbage will yield three pounds of soap grease and four gallons of proof spirits.

Chicago merchant Aaron Montgomery Ward (1844-1913) establishes the first large-scale mail order business. Ward, a young traveling salesman of dry goods, was concerned over the plight of many rural midwest Americans who he thought were overcharged and underserved by many of the smalltown retailers on whom they had to rely for their general merchandise.

...The most expensive and probably the most substantial of the structures that can be included in this year's list in the new office section is the ten-story building being erected at the northeast corner of La Salle and Adams streets, for the Home Fire-Insurance Company of New York, after plans drawn by Architect W. L. B. Jenney. It has a frontage of 138 feet on La Salle street and ninety-six feet on Adams street, with a twenty-two-foot wing running north to the alley. The basement and first story are of Maine gray granit, rock-faced, and above that the outside walls are of Trenton pressed brick, elaborately and ornately trimmed with McArthur brown-stone and terracotta. The structure is entirely fire-proof, no wood of any kind being used in interior construction, and it will be under roof in a few days.

A general strike begins in the United States, which escalates into the Haymarket Riot and eventually wins the eight-hour day for workers.

The number of wives recently shot by their husbands for supposed burglars would seem to indicate that revolvers should be kept in the garret instead of under the pillow. The fact is, the man who keeps a revolver handy, always invites a calamity to himself and his family. Nine times in every ten the handy revolver kills the wrong person.

The first game was played indoors, inside the Farragut Boat Club in Chicago. Someone found a boxing glove and threw it and someone else hit it with a stick. George Hancock shouted, "Let's play ball", and tied the boxing glove into the shape of a ball. The men chalked a diamond shape onto the floor and broke a broom handle to serve as a bat. This is credited as the first softball game which was played on Thanksgiving Day November 24, 1887 after a Harvard-Yale football game that had been followed by telegraph.

Janitor David Leonard Fatally Injured.

David Leonard, janitor of the county building and a member of the G.A.R., was fatally injured last night while lowering the flag from the top of the building. He went to the fourth floor and then climbed a ladder reaching to the flagstaff. In descending the ladder he missed his footing and fell to the basement. His head struck the electric light wires strung about ten feet from the bottom and almost severed the top of his skull.

FORTUNATELY NO ONE WAS KILLED, THOUGH A NUMBER WERE SERIOUSLY INJURED, AND IT IS FEARED ONE OF THEM MAY DIE - LIST OF THE VICTIMS.

Chicago, July 13. - While fifty workmen were engaged in tearing down a portion of the old fair building at 77, 79 and 81 Adams Street, Saturday evening, the roof collapsed with a crash and the men were carried to the basement in the ruins.

The structure was two stories high, and most of the laborers were on the roof at the time it gave way. Fortunately no one was killed, though a number were seriously injured, and it is feared one of them may die.

The injured are:
AL PATNO, carpenter, single, chest crushed and spine hurt; recovery doubtful.
RICHARD HUGHES, foreman of bricklayers, married, teeth knocked out, jaw broken and shoulder sprained.
ANDREW ANDERSON, ironworker, right side of head and face badly bruised.
JOSEPH MURPHY, bricklayer, bad cut on head, shoulders bruised.
I. ENGH, laborer, left hand crushed.
FRED LARKIN, laborer, arm...

World's Columbian Exposition is held in Chicago, commemorating the 400th anniversary of European exploratory voyages to the western hemisphere. www.e-referencedesk.com/ resources/ state-history-timeline/ illinois.html

May 1 – The 1893 World's Fair, also known as the World's Columbian Exposition, opens to the public in Chicago, USA. The first United States commemorative postage stamps are issued for the Exposition. wikipedia

The World’s Columbian Exposition was held in Chicago, Illinois in 1893. Jackson Park was selected as the site for the historic exposition. Smaller buildings and concessions were located on a small strip of land connecting Jackson Park to Washington Park. This 80-acre strip was known as the Midway Plaisance. Jackson Park has two miles of Lake Michigan frontage.

The Midway was the first separate entertainment area deliberately made as a self-contained entertainment district. The attraction was so successful that it defined the entertainment district. To this...

Special to the Record-Union.
Chicago, June 14. - One man was killed and five other people badly injured by an accident that occurred on the ice railway at Midway Plaisance this evening.
The dead are:
W. D. RICHMOND, Dulnap, Ill.
Injured:
H. JACOBS.
J. JACOBS.
D. F. SLATER.
MAY OAYERS.
CARL FRESCHE, all of Chicago.
The sleds on the railway were going at a high rate of speed around a curve, when one jumped the track and fell to the ground fifteen feet below. The fall injured people upon it, and RICHMOND lived only a short time after the accident. None of the injured are considered fatally hurt.

The Pullman Strike was a nationwide railroad strike in the United States in the summer of 1894. It pitted the American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman Company, the main railroads, and the federal government of the United States under President Grover Cleveland. The strike and boycott shut down much of the nation's freight and passenger traffic west of Detroit, Michigan. The conflict began in Pullman, Chicago, on May 11 when nearly 4,000 factory employees of the Pullman Company began a wildcat strike in response to recent reductions in wages.

Most factory workers who built Pullman cars lived in the "company town" of Pullman on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. The industrialist George Pullman had designed it ostensibly as a model community. When his company laid off workers and lowered wages, it did not reduce rents, and the workers called for a strike.

Founded in 1893 by Eugene V. Debs, the ARU was an organization of unskilled railroad workers. Debs brought in ARU...

THE FLAMES FANNED BY A FIERCE SOUTHWEST GALE.

Special to the Record-Union.
CHICAGO, July 5. - The World's Columbian Exposition is a billowy sea of fire. The administration building, the architectural crown of the White City, with its gilded and decorated dome, its supporting pavilions enriched with statuary; the majestic agricultural building, with decorated colonnades, with its beautiful statue of abundance, above which once wheeled St. Gaudens' beautiful figure Diana the Chaste; the beautiful hall of mechanical arts, with its lofty fluted Corinthian colonnades, its superb circular porched entrance and its figure-tipped spires; the light and airy electricity building, with its open roof, lanterns, its curvilear entrance, where erstwhile stood the statue of Benjamin Franklin on the south, and its graceful projecting bays on the north; the mammoth manufactures and liberal arts building, with large arches of steel inclosing a forty-acre lot, and its lofty triumphal cornice and...

Chicago, she-kah'go, the largest city of Illinois, and second in point of population in the United States, is situated at the mouth of Chicago River, on the southwestern bend of Lake Michigan. Lat. of city hall, 41° 53' 3" N.; lon. 87° 37' 30" W.

The name "Chicago" is of Indian origin, signifying the widely-varying titles of a king or deity, a skunk, and a wild onion. It was also applied to a valiant line of chiefs, and to the voice of the Great Manitou. The first Europeans Known to have visited the site were two French fur-traders in 1654. In August, 1673, the two explorers Louis Joliet and Father Jacques Marquette passed down the river to the lake, and for a time this region was in the possession of France. In 1795 the Indian residents ceded to the United States an area of six miles square, on which, in 1803, Fort Dearborn was erected. The first permanent white settler was John Kinzie, a Canadian, who came to Chicago in 1804. The fort was burned by the Indians in 1812, and most...

are in Chicago, Illinois. The combined plants represent and investment of over $10,000,000. The yards contain 20 miles of streets, 20 miles of water-troughs, 50 miles of feeding-troughs, and 75 miles of water and drainage troughs. The yards are capable of receiving and accommodating daily 20,000 cattle, 20,000 sheep and 120,000 hogs.

was exhibited at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The reflecting lens, 60 inches in diameter, weighs 800 pounds and is mounted in a brass ring which weighs 730 pounds. The reflected light from the great electric lamp is equal to that of 375,000,000 candles. A newspaper could be read by its light a hundred miles away.

The plotting of the site of Chicago was characteristic of the practical sentiment that has ever stimulated the city. No less a personage than Washington established the streets and boundaries of the national capital; religious romance presided at the founding of San Francisco; interesting legends cluster about the origin of other American communities; and in the old world demigods were supposed to have watched over the beginnings of ancient cities. Chicago, though neither hero nor fabled deity was present when its foundations were laid, had a start none the less imposing, for the genius of industry and trade fixed its metes and bounds. And in the growth of the city into perhaps the industrial capital of the continent there has been presented a supreme expression of that resourceful and triumphant ingenuity which has redeemed the American wilderness. The desolation upon which the plodding engineer planted his theodolite three score and ten years ago is a colossal hive of human...

A safety standard for theaters and public buildings rises from the ashes of the Iroquois Theater (in Chicago), where more than 600 people were killed... Henceforth, all theater exits had to be clearly marked and the doors rigged so that, even if they could not be pulled open from the outside, they could be pushed open from the inside.

Chicago, March 15. -- Three persons were killed and eight other employes were injured today by the explosion of toy pistol caps in the two-story brick manufacturing plant of the Chicago Toy Novelty company, at Western Avenue and West Eighteenth Street. The building was wrecked and the ruins caught fire immediately.

It is believed some others may have been killed, but until the debris can be cleared away this belief cannot be verified.

The known dead are:
HARRY JORDAN, foreman.
ALEXANDER J. WILNSKI, sixteen old.
JOSEPH BENDOWSKI, fourteen years old.

It is not known what caused the explosion and so far as can be learned the company had no permit from the city for the manufacture or storing of explosives.

In 1905 a Cubs fan named Samuel Scott was arrested in Chicago after catching a foul ball and refusing to hand it over to an usher. Cubs president James Hart personally confronted him and signed a larceny complaint, but the charges were dropped the next day when Scott, a member of the Board of Trade, threatened to sue for assault and false arrest.

Chicago is actually discussing the question of establishing a school for child wives, more than a score of wives under compulsory school age (fourteen years) having been found in one Italian district.

Chicago, Ill., Aug. 16. - Five persons were killed and eleven others were injured, three seriously, early today by the collapse of a two-story frame boarding house at 55 Fry Street. Four persons were instantly killed and the fifth died a few minutes after being taken to a hospital. The bodies of the dead were taken from the ruins by policemen and firemen, who risked their lives when compelled to crawl under the wrecked building to reach them.
The dead are:
MRS. ANNIE NOSAL, 35 years old.
Her two children - KATE, 6 years old, JOHN, 20 months old.
ALBERT STEHM, 33 years old, a boarder.
ANNIE MARWARANSKI, 22 years old.

Chicago, shl-ka'go or shi-kaw'go, a city, port of entry, and capital of Cook CO., Ill., situated near the S. extremity of Lake Michigan, on its W. shore, about 700 miles in a direct line W. by N. of New York. Lat (main business quarter) 41° 53' N. ; Lon. 87° 36' W. Elevation above the sea, 600 feet. The narrow Chicago River, connecting with Lake Michigan, with its North and South Branches, divides the city into the North, West, and South Sides. The municipal district extends along the lake for about 26 miles. Chicago is the second city in the United States in population, and likewise the second in the volume of its trade and in commercial activity. It is the centre of the railway system of the United States, and its position gives it a great share of the prodigious commerce by way of the Great Lakes. With the progress of canal construction, it is destined in the near future to be connected by lines of ocean-steamers with every quarter of the globe.

The city, which covers an area of ...

July 27 – The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 begins when a white man throws stones at a group of four black teens on a raft.

Chicago race riots leave thirty-eight dead and more than five hundred injured; a thousand residents are left homeless.

The Reds win the series 5 games to 3. The trial is dubbed the “Black Sox Scandal.”

Aviator Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974) begins daily mail delivery flights between Chicago and St. Louis.

Chicago, July 26. - (United Press) - Two circus trapeze performers, FRANK CROMWELL and his wife, MAUDE, were in a Chicago hospital today suffering from multiple bone fractures and internal injuries, the result of a 50-foot fall during a performance last night. Physicians today said they might recover.

The two were hurled to the ground when a trapeze upon which they were both sitting, broke. Twelve thousand spectators witnessed the accident.

Chicago, March 11 - (AP) - The ranks of engine companies numbers three and six were depleted late today when an explosion killed one fireman and seriously injured ten other, two probably fatally.

They had controlled a fire in the plant of the Daigger Chemical Company, just outside the downtown district, when a terrific explosion occurred and was followed by several of lesser degree.

The fireman killed was EDWARD HIRSCHHORN. THOMAS BENDER was so seriously burned that hope of recovery was abandoned. PATRICK KELLY inhaled flames and was burned about the hands, face and body.
All the other injured firemen suffered serious body burns when their clothing caught fire.

The firemen killed and injured were trapped in the basement. Fumes filled the air and the men, bruised shocked and burned, were brought out only after comrades had donned gas masks.

Five firemen collapsed at a street door they sought to escape from the gas-filled basement and were dragged to safety by...

Chicago, April 16 (UP) - A moonshiner's still is believed by police to be responsible for an explosion Saturday which killed eight persons, all but wiping out the families of two small shop keepers on Chicago's west side.

MAYME SOKOLSKY, 17, thought to have been in the building, spent last night with friends. She was found several hours after the blast had killed her father, and mother, a sister and a brother.

Police had been searching the debris of the blast for her body, believing she had certainly been killed.

The families of BARNETT LEVIN, a tailor, and HARRY SOKOLSKY, a store-keeper, lived in back of their shops in the one-story building wrecked by the explosion. A tin shop and grocery in the row were vacant when the explosion occurred, but the former is believed to have housed the still.

The explosion, according to witnesses, occurred on the inside of the store building, causing all the walls to collapse. The building was solidly constructed of brick. Falling debris...

Gunmen of Alphonse Capone (1899-1947) murder seven rival Chicago mobsters in the "St. Valentine's Day Massacre."

Anton "Tony" Joseph Cermak (May 9, 1873 – March 6, 1933) was an American politician of Czech origin who served as the mayor of Chicago, Illinois from 1931 until his assassination in 1933... While shaking hands with President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt at Bayfront Park in Miami, Florida, on February 15, 1933, Cermak was shot in the lung and seriously wounded when Giuseppe Zangara, who at the time was believed to have been engaged in an attempt to assassinate Roosevelt, hit Cermak instead.

Fire at Our Lady of Angels elementary school in Chicago claims the lives of ninety-two children and three nuns.

Civil disorder erupts during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago; police report 650 arrests.

Two Illinois Central commuter trains collide in Chicago; forty-five passengers are killed and more than two hundred are injured.

The Sears tower was constructed in 1974. It was the world's tallest building, eclipsing New York's twin-towered World Trade Center by 25 meters (83 ft). It would keep the title of tallest building in the world until the Petronas twin towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia were constructed in 1997.

It is also the wettest city in Illinois, averaging 92 days of precipitation each year.

No! It is likely in the top fifteen. These are the winners in terms of average wind speed:

Amarillo, Texas: 13.6 mph
Rochester, Minnesota: 12.6 mph
Lubbock, Texas: 12.4 mph
Boston, Massachusetts: 12.3 mph
Wichita, Kansas: 12.2 mph
Fargo, North Dakota: 12.2 mph
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: 12.2 mph
Corpus Christi, Texas: 12 mph
Abilene, Texas: 11.9 mph
Buffalo, New York: 11.8 mph

1. Millennium Park:
Millennium Park is an urban oasis in the heart of downtown Chicago. You can't visit the city without seeing the famous Cloud Gate sculpture, lovingly referred to as "The Bean." It's an iconic symbol of Chicago and a great spot for photos. The park also hosts free concerts, art installations, and events throughout the year.

2. Navy Pier:
Navy Pier is a bustling entertainment complex right on Lake Michigan. You can take a ride on the giant Ferris wheel for incredible views of the city skyline, enjoy the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, or explore the many restaurants, shops, and attractions.

3. Art Institute of Chicago:
If you're an art enthusiast, the Art Institute is a must-visit. It houses an extensive collection of artwork, including Grant Wood's "American Gothic" and Georges Seurat's "A Sunday on La Grande Jette." It's one of the oldest and largest art museums in the country.

4. Chicago Riverwalk:
Stroll along the Chicago Riverwalk and enjoy the scenic...