Visit Historical Sites of Al Capone, John Dillinger, Roaring
20s, Panczko Gang, Sally Rand.
They're all here in Ken Schessler's Unusual Guide to
Chicago.
THE LOOP |
596 KILLED IN THEATER FIRE - On December
30, 1903, an overflow crowd of almost 2,000 people attended a special Christmas
Holiday matinee performance of the play "Mr. Bluebeard," here in the newly
completed fire-proof Iroquois Theater at 20 W. Randolph. School teachers, free
of school, had a whole row of seats, mothers brought their children from small
towns outside the city. |
At 3:15 p.m., a flash of flame spurted from an overhead electrical circuit
and ignited the flimsy drapery at the side of the stage. A stagehand tried to
lower the asbestos curtain but it snagged and only partially closed, the tunnel
formed from the curtain and the front of the stage acted as a suction tube and
swept a jet-like blast of fire out into the auditorium and up toward the
galleries and balconies. The theater went into a panic and people rushed for the
exits. |
The fire was out in less than half an hour. Bodies were piled five and six
feet high in front of the fire doors and exits that were locked or would not
open. 200 bodies were piled up in a balcony stairway where they trampled each
other attempting to get out. Others were still in their seats and sat
glassy-eyed in death where they had been scorched by the jets of flame from the
stage. Some were in sitting position, while others had fallen forward, with
their heads resting on the seat in front, as though in prayer. Most of the 596
dead were women and children. |
UPDATE - The archway of the theater was
an exact replica of monument that had been built in Paris, France to commemorate
the death of 150 victims of a flash fire in a theater there in 1857. The
Iroquois was reopened a year later as the Colonial Theater. The disaster was
recreated in the 1955 film "The Seven Little Foys," starring Bob Hope. Torn down
in 1924, the present Oriental Theater was built on the site in 1925. Closed in
1981, the Oriental was restored to its former splendor and reopened in
1998. |
|
TRIBUNE REPORTER GUNNED DOWN BY THE MOB -
In 1930, Alfred "Jake" Lingle, 39, was a police reporter for the Chicago
Tribune, and a good friend of Al Capone. About noon on Monday, June 9, 1930,
Lingle planned to catch the 1:30 train to Washington Park for a day at the
races. He entered the Illinois Central pedestrian underpass at the southwest
corner of Randolph and Michigan, and walked east toward the station. As he
approached the foot of the stairway at the east exit, a blond man came up behind
him and put a .38 Colt revolver behind his head and fired one shot. The bullet
went upward into Lingle's brain and came out his forehead. Dropping his gun, the
killer ran back to the stairway at the opposite end of the tunnel and escaped up
the stairs. |
UPDATE - It
was learned later that Lingle was a high lieutenant and a go-between for the
Capone Syndicate. On December 21, 1930, Leo "Buster" Brothers, 31, was arrested
in St. Louis and charged with Lingle's murder. After 14 years in prison, he was
released in 1940. In 1950, Brothers was murdered by an unidentified gunman.
Lingle was buried not far from Al Capone in Mt. Carmel Cemetery. The underpass
walkway and cast iron kiosk that Lingle entered on the southwest corner of
Randolph and Michigan was renovated in 1987. |
|
SALLY RAND AND FRANK SINATRA SET RECORDS
- Fan Dancer Sally Rand set attendance records here in 1934 at the
Chicago Theater. The record stood until the 1940s, when Frank Sinatra broke it.
The restored Chicago Theater is one of the world's most beautiful theaters. It's
interior is a miniature Palace of Versailles. 175 S. State Street. |
|
SON OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN DIES - Mary
Lincoln, widow of Abraham Lincoln and her son Tad, were living here in the
Clifton Hotel in 1971. In May, Tad became ill with a chest cold. The
accumulation of fluid in his lungs made it difficult for him to lie flat, so he
had to sleep sitting up in a chair. On the morning of July 15, Tad died of
"compression of the heart and dropsy of the chest. He was three months past his
18th birthday. |
UPDATE - The 250-room Clifton was located
at Monroe and Wabash, directly opposite the Palmer house. |
|
WICKEDIST RESORT IN THE COUNTRY - Roger
Plant's resort at the northeast corner of Wells and Monroe was one of the
wickedest vice resorts in the country in the 1860s. The police called it the
"Barracks" but Roger called it "Under the Willow" because of a lone willow tree
on the corner. There were about 60 rooms in the shacks that made up Roger's
resort, and in them was practiced virtually every sort of vice and criminality
known to man. There was a saloon, three brothels, and dens where young girls
were raped by a dozen men and then sold to bordello's. It was believed that a
tunnel ran from the brothel under Wells Street to the vice dens by the Chicago
River. One of the tenants here was Sammy Caldwell, a burglar who was said to
have been the first to gag and bind his victims with plaster and tape. |
UPDATE - Roger and his 250-pound wife,
closed the resort in 1868 and bought a house in the country. In 1894, Rogers son
and two daughters were operating three brothels on south Clark Street. |
|
MRS. ABRAHAM LINCOLN DECLARED INSANE -
The palatial Grand Pacific hotel stood at the corner of Jackson and Clark in
1970. After it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1871, it was rebuilt and
reopened in 1973. In 1875, Mrs. Abraham Lincoln was living here in the elegant
500-room Grand Pacific. While here she would roam about the hotel half-dressed
in her night clothes. She would sit by a wall and talk mumbo jumbo. At times she
thought that gas was the work of the devil and would use only candles in her
room. On April 1, she left her room half-dressed and headed for the elevator
that led to the lobby. Her son Robert, who was staying in the room next to her,
stopped her and put his arms around her to force her back into the hall, she
screamed "You are trying to murder me." Several days later she tried to kill
herself by taking laudanum. On May 20, 1875, Robert Lincoln had the courts
declare her insane and committed to the State Hospital at Bavaria. |
UPDATE - The Grand Pacific occupied the
entire block bounded by Clark, Jackson, La Salle, and Quincy. The Illinois Trust
and Savings Bank was later built on the site |
|
AL CAPONE SENTENCE TO PRISON - It was
here in 1931 in the U.S. Courthouse that Al Capone was sentenced to Alcatraz for
tax evasion. 219 S. Dearborn |
UPDATE - The building served as Chicago's
main post office until 1934. In 1851, part of this site was occupied by the
first Jewish house of worship built in Illinois. |
|
ORIGINAL CHINATOWN - The original
Chinatown was centered here at Clark and Van Buren before it was moved to its
present location in 1912. Every basement on Clark between Van Buren and Harrison
was a hop-joint. |
|
WHISKEY ROW - For more than thirty years
(from 1883 to 1913) "Whiskey Row" was centered on the west side of State Street
from Van Buren to Harrison. Every building was occupied by a saloon, a wine-room
with girls, a gambling house, or all three combined. The Tivoli Saloon on the
row was equipped with 8,000 mirrors. |
|
THE "MICKEY FINN" INVENTED - In 1896, a
terrible little man named Mickey Finn opened a bar here on South State Street
called the Lone Star Saloon and Palm Garden Restaurant. It was the lowest and
roughest of all the saloons on Whiskey Row. Only five-feet five inches tall and
one hundred and forty pounds, Mickey ran a school for young pickpockets here in
the saloon. The "garden" of the Palm Garden was a robbing den where his students
picked pockets and rolled drunks. It included a scrawny little palm tree in a
pot. |
One day, after he had been talking to a local Negro voodoo doctor, Mickey
invented a knockout drink which he called the "Mickey Finn Special." The house
girls were instructed to give it to the men they drank with. After the "Mickey
Finn" put them to sleep, they took them out into one of the two small back
rooms, stripped them of their clothes and money and threw them out into the back
alley. The saloon was located on the west side of State Street, between Harrison
and Congress, at the southern end of Whiskey row near Harrison. |
UPDATE - The police closed Mickey's
saloon down on December 16, 1903. The term "Slip him a Mickey" is still used
today. |
|
HELL'S HALF ACRE - In the 1870s and
1880s, "Hells Half Acre" was one of the roughest Parts of Chicago. Located on
the block bounded by state, Plymouth Court, and by Taylor and Polk, every
building was occupied by a groggery, a bordello, a saloon, a gambling den and
streetwalkers cribs. The police never entered the area except in pairs, and
seldom even then. The alley between State and Plymouth Court was called "Dead
Man's Alley," a 30-foot passage that ran from Polk to Taylor. The alley was used
by prostitutes and by robbers who held up their victims there. |
|
WORST VICE AREA IN THE U.S. - Next to
"Hell's Half Acre," and really part of it, was Custom House Place, (originally
Fourth Avenue and now Federal Street). Custom House Place ran from Harrison to
Twelfth (now Roosevelt Road) was probably the most renowned red-light district
in the U.S. in 1893. In the brothels here could be found every low and
demoralizing phase of life that the human mind could think of. Many of the women
in the houses were even lower than brutes. |
|
ORIGIN OF "WHITE SLAVERY" - In the 1890s,
Brothel madam Mary Hastings was not only one of the worst characters around
"Hell's Half Acre," she was one of the worst in the entire city. She boasted
than no man could imagine an act of perversion or degeneracy which she and her
prostitutes would not perform. The origin of "while slave" is associated with
Mary, who traveled the Midwest looking for young girls between the ages of 13
and 17 to work in her brothel.. Once inside her three-story brothel here, they
were stripped, locked in a top-floor room, and then turned over to professional
rapists to "break them in." |
UPDATE - Indicted in 1895, Mary fled to
Toledo, Ohio. She never returned to Chicago. In 1910, Congress passed the White
Slave (or Mann Act), making it unlawful to transport a woman across state lines
for immoral purposes. |
|
SATAN'S MILE - Satan's Mile extended
south on State Street from Harrison to Twenty Second Street. South of Taylor
Street was an area called Coon's Hollow where most of the citizens were Negroes.
There were several bordellos in Coon's Hollow where white women were kept for
the pleasure of Negro men. |
|
FINEST WHOREHOUSE IN LITTLE CHEYENNE -
Annie Stewart opened a brothel here in 1862, at 441 South Clark (now the 800
block) just a few doors south of Polk. When Annie left town in 1869, Carrie
Watson took over the brothel. In 1873, Carrie made improvements to the
three-story brownstone mansion. It had five parlors, over twenty bedrooms, a
billiard room, and a bowling alley in the basement. A three-piece orchestra
played music day and night. There were always twenty to thirty girls. For almost
25 years, the brothel enjoyed worldwide fame for its high prices, the loveliness
of the girls and the luxurious surroundings. It was the finest brothel in
Chicago. |
UPDATE - When Mayor Carter Harrison Jr.
cleaned up Clark Street and "Little Cheyenne" on November 25, 1895, Carrie sold
her mansion and retired to the suburbs. |
|
MRS. O'LEARY'S COW BURNS DOWN CHICAGO -
In 1871, Patrick O'Leary and his family lived in three rear rooms of a frame
cottage at 558 De Koven Street. The two front rooms of the cottage were occupied
by the family of Patrick McLaughlin. In the rear of the house was a two-story
shanty used by the O'Leary's as a barn in which Mrs. O'Leary kept a horse, a
calf and five cows. About 8:30 on the evening of Sunday, October 8, 1871, a fire
broke out in the barn, and within two hours the fire destroyed most of
Chicago. |
Legend has it that Mrs. O'Leary went into the barn to milk one of her cows,
and that the animal kicked over a kerosene lamp and set the barn on fire. But
both Mrs. O'Leary and her husband signed affidavits that no member of their
family had entered the barn after nightfall. |
Another story of the fire's origin was that it was started by some boys
smoking pipes and cigars in the hayloft of the barn. |
UPDATE - Although the O'Leary barn was
destroyed, their home was left untouched by the fire. The Chicago Fire
Department Training Academy is now located on the site. |