Check out the Alfred Scharf collection at chicago History Museum for maps of chicago area Indian Villages...your " necklace" soulda been withs for a fishing net...
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Chicago doesn't get too excited about Bi centennial events...nobody memorialized the building of Ft Dearborn!
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There were many Chicago places that offered blues entertainment in the last 70 years that only locals knew about. The Fat Black Pussy Cat, the I Spy Lounge...etc. Got any that you know about that "aren't in the books"?
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In 1630 when Connecticut's charter was in effect only the northern 20% of Lake Michigan was known...Nicolet was in Green Bay in 1634 thinking he might be in China, aome 30 years later a Frenman nicknamed "the Surgeon" was somewhere near Chicago. Maquette's map of 1672(ish) was the first map to show all of Lake Michigan albeit distorted.Once Ft. St. Joseph im South Bend was estabished in
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When the British colonies on the east coast were granted their royal charters the King didn't know the geography of North America. Nobody did. Many (not all) were given a "sea to sea" charter that included landall the way to the Pacific Ocean! So anyone in the Chicago area in the 1950's would've been a part of Connecticut! Connecticuts land claim extended roughly from Evanston south to M
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I like meandering through the topics here on FC 'cause it jogs my memory and I just thought of something. Those poor SOBs who had to draw the line east and west from the southern tip of Lake Michigan (TSTOLM) had to mark their line ...so did the guys who slogged through the ice to do the southern Inidan Boundary Line (SIBL) during the winter of 1818/19...there's a boulder along the old SIBL (north
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The original Treaty language calls for the point of beginning of the South IBL to be, like its northern cousin "10 miles" from the mouth of the chicago River...that would've put it at about 79th street but SOMEBODY decided to keep walking a few miles further along the beach and begin the line at the mouth of the Little Calumet River at 92nd Street, a very recognizable landmark for sure,
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In my neck of the woods the oldest houses are along 103rd Place west of Michigan Avenue. 116th street east of Indiana in the Kensington neighborhood, along Vermont Ave west of Racine in Cal Park, and again along Vermont west of Greenwood in Blue Island. The old buildings along canalport may also be of this vintage, also in that old neighborhood around 19th and Jefferson. I always look on back lots
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Why not? The nouses can be had for a song, don't wigh much to move, maybe a Cook County Forest Preserve site? But they're going quickly! Who's got a sponsor in mind?
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The Chesterton one is really old and dates from 1787 when they were first thinking about how to divide up the newly created NorthWest Territory into states. Thomas "TJ" Jefferson envisioned E/W states like Tennessee and Kentucky and started by drawing an E/W line through the southern tip of Lake Michigan (TSTOLM for short). Both Indiana and Illinois rejected this notion, Indiana first ca
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John Drury Daily News columnist in the 20's-40's and had a column and published a map of Goose Island once.
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Yes the lines do not intersect. And everybody on FC ought to go out and buy a copy of Growth Of A Metropolis. It is the bible!
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Great restaurant posts!It turns out that our man Drury's papers are at the Newberry and WBEZ did a program on Dining In Chicago a couple years ago.
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page 201 "In our estimation Clark Street in the vicinity of Madison provides the greatest array of typical American quick-lunch restaurants. This section of clark Stereet is sometimes called "Toothpick Row" because of the many lunchers standing along the curb in front of the restaurants at high noon on a summer's day, busily and unabashedly manipulating toothpicks. The restaurants h
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Jaeggers Creek used to drain the east side of the Stewart ridge spit (as geologists sometimes refer to it) until Brayton bought the old Jaegger farm (the farmhouse was on state near 125th) If you follow Brayton west from State it makes a jog to the SW as it hits the IBL, just past the old creekbed. To the SW it goes across Wentworth Avenue, but is abandonned as it passes diagonally behind an old g
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And that restaurant is "El Puerto De Vera Cruz @ 811 S. Halsted..."Consuls and consular attaches from Latin American countries, Mexican caricture artists, Spanish tenors from the Civic Opera, residents of Hull House, newspaper men, sightseeing students from the universities and gormets-all these indulge their fondness for "hot" dishes in this restaurant directly across from Jan
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With its forward by Carl Sandburg, Drury's (no, not THAT John Drury of TV fame!) book on chowing down in style in Chi is one of my favorite books. At the age of 29 he joined the Chicago Daily News as a reporter and covered "many gang murders" and later wrote "Old Chicago Houses"(a must for FC-ers), but here is a compendium of his favorite food spots. Sandburg writes "There
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Nicely done...has anyone extended this into the suburbs? Oh also the remark about our south IBL only showing up as one street (thats Brayton just east of wentworth @ about 126th) is innaccurate. The southern IBL became the route for Harbor Avenue, South chicago's main street when it was first laid out after Col. James H. Bowen got Federal monies to "do" the harbor in 1869. The southern I
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The southern IBL passes through South Chicago, crosses Lake calumet (there was once a marker for the IBL just west of the Lake at 119th) interrupts propert west of St5ate and turns into Brayton Avenue near Wentworth...it finally becomes a frontage road on the north side of I-57 where it wass known as the George Brennan Highway, named for the Roseland historian/educator.
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There has long been a transportation corridor SW from Lake Michigan to the Illinois River. Through a combination of portage-ing (schlepping) and canoeing people and goods could make the (mostly) water trip from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River. The Chicago Portage route was one. Another Portage Route went between Stoney Creek (Blue Island) and the Saganashkee Slough. Various tribes like th
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Houses and churches of that period were often built with a substantial center beam making moving 'em that much more practical. "Those old houses weighed about as much as a Volkswagen" an older architect once told me.
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No the fence is not from the 1850's the hedges are! Maybe the Buhl's barn was between the house and the hedge? Before the Buhl's had the property it belonged to a Mr. Smith, an englishman who thought he'd raise some sheep on the grassy lands just west of Lake Calumet. He bought some land from David Andrews in 1841 or so (he was the original owne)and bought himself some sheep. But for some reason A
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It's the alley behind an empty lot at the NE corner of 120th and Michigan, it would be 11951 Michigan, or the alley behind 12001 Michigan.
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The remains of the hedges are along the west side of the alley on both sides of 120th east of Michigan Avenue. e mail me at paulpetraitis@comcast.net...oh and we called those osage oranges "brains" cause they looked like "Mars Attacks"!!
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Near 90 for sure. Born in Oklahoma came to chicago ran a cab service then got into entertainment when he followed one of his fares into a swank club in the early '50's. He explained the difference between cabs and jitneys as well.
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Buhl's house @ 11950 Michigan was there in 1849 when the Roseland Hollanders arrived in July 1849 so he put some up in his big barn (where? maybe east of the house?)apparently the Fishers owned it by 1858 when they homeschooled the neighborhoods English speaking kids (the Hollanders learned in their native tongue at the local church under the tutelage of "Meester" Kuyperwho lived @ 103rd
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W@e worked together on many projects while I was at Chicago Historical in the 70s and 80s. Talked to him this last spring, still digging through collections looking for the good stuff!
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Perry Duis, the dean of chicago historians in his intro to The Gem Of The Prairie sites Liebling's book as the source as well and I never argue with Professor Duis!
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Cornell wanted an industrial park at some distance from his new residential area (Hyde Park) and chose the Grand Crossing area. The Cornell Watchworks is arguably the start of the South Sides indstrial legacy. Watch manufacturing is also the earliest "assembly line" business as well as the first "hi tech" factory. The business moved to Japan (shades of the future?)after a few y
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Welcome to my neighborhood! The 123/124/Michigan Ave/Indiana block has been a conundrum for me since I first started sorting out my neighborhood's early history. In the 1830's when the first pioneers began homesteading (just as the US Land Office on Lake St was opening-theSpring 1835)the area around 123rd and Michigan was William Andrew's turf. The brother of david Andrews, these two Pennsylvania
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