Pinners is a Chicagoland Baseball Game Played by Children Living in Congested Neighborhoods.

Pinners is a Chicagoland neighborhood game played on the front-stoop or against walls with angled trim-work (brick or stone) which can be used to pop the ball up in the air.

There are references to the game of Pinners beginning around 1949 or earlier. 

The batter would throw a rubber or tennis ball at the edge of the step or angled wall brick, and the fielder(s) would try to catch the ball as it bounces back.

The Preferred Pinners Ball.
A Spalding "Pinkie"

The scoring rules are similar to baseball, but with runs being virtually determined by where the ball lands. A single, double, triple or home run would be predetermined landmarks (i.e. sidewalk, trees, cars, street, curb/sidewalk lines) from the batting area. A catch is an out, and a one-handed catch could be used for a "rushie." 

As with most neighborhood games, rules varied by the groups playing, and house rules would be determined at the start of the game, including the base locations. The game utilizes traditional Chicago neighborhood row house architecture (Chicago bungalows), with most houses having a front stoop or stairs that lead from the front door to the sidewalk that can be used. Many of the schools built in Chicago also have a "perfect" angled section of brick which can be used for the game, and often neighborhood kids would paint a box with an X marking the angled sections.

Chicago Public School exterior wall with a ledge used to play Pinners.

Some kids called the game "Ledge," "Bounce Out," or "3-Outs" but those were determined by the school they attended. The universal name for the game throughout the city was "Pinners."

Terminology

Double Play; A play in which the fielder catches the ball creating an out, the fielder may throw or lob the ball so that it bounces once on a step that is parallel to the ground. The fielder may move to catch the ball after the throw. The fielder who did not catch the ball for the original out may move before the ball has been thrown in order to catch the ball for another out. The throw to the step may hit the part of the step that is parallel to the ground once but may hit a part of the step that is perpendicular to the ground as well, the ball, however, is a dead-ball if on the throw it bounces of a backstop before being caught again.

Rush Hour; A play in which the ball is out of play, either by foul ball, home run, or a misplay by the fielder, the fielder must throw the ball to the batter from where he stands or the batter may call stalling if the fielder is walking before he has thrown it in.

Rushies: A one-handed catch, leading to an automatic three outs. The player catching the ball with one hand is allowed to run towards the batter's box and throw the ball while the opposing team is in transition from offense to defense.

Stalling; When called the batting team is awarded a single without the batter, who would be up, having to sacrifice their turn in the order. 

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The Lunchtime Theater - Illinois Railway Museum's Railroad Crossing Signals.

THE DIGITAL RESEARCH LIBRARY OF ILLINOIS HISTORY JOURNAL™ PRESENTS

THE LUNCHTIME THEATER.

Illinois Railway Museum's Railroad Crossing Signals.

The 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition Observation (Ferris) Wheel.

The original Ferris Wheel, sometimes called the Observation Wheel or the Chicago Wheel, was designed and constructed by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. and was the centerpiece of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. 

Both Ferris and his associate W. F. Gronau recognized the engineering marvel the wheel represented: a giant wheel that would turn slowly and smoothly without structural failure had never before been attempted.

For its inaugural run, no cars had yet been attached. The workmen, however, climbed the structure and settled themselves on the spokes to the accompaniment of cheers from an audience of fair employees who had gathered to watch the momentous event. After the wheel had completed its first rotation, Gronau deemed the test a success. "I could have yelled out loud for joy."

Ferris himself had not been able to attend the launching of his invention. I received a telegram that evening: "The last coupling and final adjustment were made, and the steam turned on at six o’clock this evening. One complete revolution of the big wheel made everything work satisfactorily. Twenty minutes were taken for the revolution ─ I congratulate you upon its complete success midway is wildly enthusiastic."

The Ferris Wheel's statistics begin with the two 250-foot Wheels with 36 enclosed passenger cars hanging between them. The size of streetcars ─ 27 feet long, 13 feet wide, and 9 feet high ─ with large observation windows barred by iron safety gratings, each car was fitted with 40 swivel chairs and had room for 20 more standing passengers for 60 passengers. 

The Wheel rotated on a 142,351 pound (71 tons), 45½ foot axle comprising what was, at that time, the world's largest 'hollow forged' axle weighing 89,320 pounds, together with two 16-foot-diameter cast-iron spiders, for the spokes, weighing in at 53,031 pounds.

Each car weighed 26,000 pounds (13 tons). Stepped platforms at the Wheel's base enabled six cars to be loaded and unloaded at a time. Fully loaded, the Wheel's maximum capacity was an astounding 2,160 passengers. Each car carried a World's Fair employee to monitor the passengers' health and well-being.

The Ferris Wheel took 20 minutes to make two revolutions (your ride), the first involving six stops to allow passengers to exit and enter and the second a nine-minute non-stop rotation, for which the ticket holder paid 50¢... the exact cost as the entrance fee to the World's Fair.

Steps to the platform to enter and exit the Ferris wheel, six cars at a time.

Note the American Banners draped under the Ferris wheel car's windows. 

It was instantly hailed as the "Eighth Wonder of the World."

In 1893, skyscrapers were in their infancy. The 264-foot-high Ferris Wheel stood just a bit shorter than the tallest building in North America then, Chicago's Masonic Temple, completed in 1892, which was 302 feet high (demolished in 1939).

The Wheel was outlined at night by 1,400 light bulbs and reportedly could be seen from 50 miles away.

The wheel closed in April 1894 and was then dismantled and stored until the following year, when it was rebuilt for the opening of Ferris Wheel Park in 1896. Ferris Wheel Park was located in Chicago's Park West neighborhood of the Lincoln Park community at 1288 North Clark Street (today: 2600 block of North Clark Street).

ACTUAL FILM FOOTAGE

A Lumière Film: Chicago. Grande Roue (1896)

The Ferris Wheel at Ferris Wheel Park.

Next, it was dismantled and rebuilt for a third and final time for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. It was demolished there in 1906 and is rumored to have been blown up and buried in Forest Park in the City of St. Louis.

The 1893 Ferris Wheel axle's burial site was finally found in 2007 at the St. Louis 1904 World's Fair Grounds.

By Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

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For an in-depth history of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition's Midway Plaisance (the birth of the amusement park), where the Ferris wheel was the main attraction, check out my book "The Midway Plaisance at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago."

My Digital Research Library of Illinois History® is the most extensive collection of 1893 World's Fair antique books, documents, and research papers online at the 1893 World's Fair  Library.

The Lunchtime Theater - Chicago Memorial Day Massacre of 1937, in two parts.

THE DIGITAL RESEARCH LIBRARY OF ILLINOIS HISTORY JOURNAL™ PRESENTS

THE LUNCHTIME THEATER.

Chicago Memorial Day Massacre of 1937 - part 1

Chicago Memorial Day Massacre of 1937 - part 2

In the Memorial Day massacre of 1937, the Chicago Police Department shot and killed ten unarmed demonstrators in Chicago, on May 30, 1937. The incident took place during the "Little Steel Strike" in the United States. The incident arose after U.S. Steel signed a union contract but smaller steel manufacturers (called 'Little Steel'), including Republic Steel, refused to do so. In protest, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) called a strike.

On Memorial Day, hundreds of sympathizers gathered at Sam's Place, headquarters of the SWOC. As the crowd marched across the prairie towards the Republic Steel mill, a line of Chicago policemen blocked their path. The foremost protesters argued their right to continue. The police, feeling threatened, fired on the crowd. As the crowd fled, police bullets killed 10 people and injured 30. Nine people were permanently disabled and another 28 had serious head injuries from police clubbing plus another 100 others were badly beaten with clubs.

Years later, one of the protesters, Mollie West, recalled a policeman yelling to her that day, "Get off the field or I'll put a bullet in your back." No policemen were ever prosecuted.

A Coroner's Jury declared the killings to be "justifiable homicide". The press often called it a labor or red riot. President Roosevelt responded to a union plea, "The majority of people are saying just one thing, {A plague on both your houses}." In the wake of the massacre, the newsreel of the event was suppressed for fear of creating, in the words of an official at Paramount News agency, "mass hysteria."

Today, on the site of Sam's Place stands the union hall of the United Steelworkers and a memorial to the 10 people who died in 1937.

Lost Towns of Illinois - The Village of Forksville, Illinois.

Originally named the Forks before any houses were built. Sometime later it was officially named Forksville for its location at the fork of the McHenry-Chicago and Little Fort (Waukegan) roads, in Lake County, Illinois. At the beginning of the Village's settlement, there were about 150 people living there.

Huson & Booth owned the only general store in Forksville. F. Gale owned the hotel which had a handful of rooms. There were three lime kilns that burn over 3,000 bushels a year. The village had two boot and shoe makers that were owned by J. M. Delaree and David Lewis. Forksville had one cooper shop which was also owned by D. Lewis, and one blacksmith shop. Dr. Malindy was the physician and S. S. Hamilton, Esq, was an attorney. Considerable winter wheat was raised in the village.

The Forksville post office was established on March 24, 1848 with David Lewis being appointed the first postmaster. Forksville was surveyed and laid out October 12, 1849. 

David Lewis served as postmaster until May 12, 1851. The post office was renamed to Volo on November 27, 1868 (possibly at the suggestion of Greek immigrants who named it for the town of Volo (Volos) in eastern Greece. There were a total of thirteen postmaster appointments until the post office was discontinued on June 14, 1904, and the mail was ordered to be sent to Round Lake.

The June 7, 1851, Gazette announced that the road was planked to Hainesville, and that it was planned to go on six miles further to Forksville. Seven hundred thousand feet of planks were on hand for the extension.

Before 1868 the Forksville log school-house gave way to a frame one which was in use until about 1915.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

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In historical writing and analysis, PRESENTISM introduces present-day ideas and perspectives into depictions or interpretations of the past. Presentism is a form of cultural bias that creates a distorted understanding of the subject matter. Reading modern notions of morality into the past is committing the error of presentism. Historical accounts are written by people and can be slanted, so I try my hardest to present fact-based and well-researched articles.

Facts don't require one's approval or acceptance.

I present [PG-13] articles without regard to race, color, political party, or religious beliefs, including Atheism, national origin, citizenship status, gender, LGBTQ+ status, disability, military status, or educational level. What I present are facts — NOT Alternative Facts — about the subject. You won't find articles or readers' comments that spread rumors, lies, hateful statements, and people instigating arguments or fights.

FOR HISTORICAL CLARITY

When I write about the INDIGENOUS PEOPLE, I follow this historical terminology:

• The use of old commonly used terms, disrespectful today, i.e., REDMAN or REDMEN, SAVAGES, and HALF-BREED are explained in this article.

Writing about AFRICAN-AMERICAN history, I follow these race terms:

• "NEGRO" was the term used until the mid-1960s.
• "BLACK" started being used in the mid-1960s.
• "AFRICAN-AMERICAN" [Afro-American] began usage in the late 1980s.

— PLEASE PRACTICE HISTORICISM —

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE PAST IN ITS OWN CONTEXT.

 

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Gwendolyn Brooks was a highly regarded, much-honored poet, with the distinction of being the first black author to win the Pulitzer Prize. She was also a poetry consultant to the Library of Congress ─ the first black Woman to hold that position ─ and named poet laureate of the State of Illinois in 1968.

A 32-year-old housewife and part-time secretary has won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her second book of poetry "Annie Allen," published in 1949, a ballad of Chicago Negro life. The first Woman to capture one of the famed awards, she is the mother of a 9-year-old boy and the wife of Henry Blakely, a partner in an auto repair shop.

Many of Brook's works display a political consciousness, especially those from the 1960s and later, with several of her poems reflecting the civil rights activism of that period. Her body of work gave her, according to Dictionary of Literary Biography contributor George E. Kent, "a unique position in American letters. Not only has she combined a strong commitment to racial identity and equality with a mastery of poetic techniques, but she has also managed to bridge the gap between the academic poets of her generation in the 1940s and the young black militant writers of the 1960s."

Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas, but her family moved to Chicago when she was young. Her father was a janitor who had hoped to become a doctor; her mother was a schoolteacher and classically trained pianist. They were supportive of their daughter's passion for reading and writing. Brooks was thirteen when her first poem, "Eventide," appeared in American Childhood; by the time she was seventeen, she published poems frequently in the Chicago Defender, a newspaper serving Chicago's black population. After such formative experiences as attending junior college and working for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, she developed her craft in poetry workshops and began writing the poems, focusing on urban blacks, that would be published in her first collection, "A Street in Bronzeville."

Brooks taught extensively around the country and held posts at Columbia College Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago State University, Elmhurst College, Columbia University, City College of New York, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Legacy and Honors Partial Listing

• 1968, appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois.
• 1985, selected as the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, an honorary one-year position whose title changed the following year to Poet Laureate. 
• 1988, inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. 
• 1994, chosen as the National Endowment for the Humanities Jefferson Lecturer, one of the highest honors in American literature and the highest award in the humanities given by the federal government. 
• 1995, presented with the National Medal of Arts. 
• 1995, honored as the first Woman of the Year chosen by the Harvard Black Men's Forum. 

Awards Brooks Received:

• The Frost Medal
• The Shelley Memorial Award
• An American Academy of Arts and Letters Award.

Illinois Schools Named For Gwendolyn Brooks:

• Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy High School at 250 E 111th Street , Chicago, IL.
• Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School at 325 S Kenilworth Avenue, Oak Park, IL. 
• Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School at 14741 Wallace Street, Harvey, IL.
• Gwendolyn Brooks Elementary School at 2700 Stonebridge Boulevard, Aurora, IL.
• Gwendolyn Brooks Elementary School at 3225 Sangamon Rd, DeKalb, IL.
  
  
• Brooks also received more than seventy-five honorary degrees from Universities Worldwide. 

Kitchenette Building

We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan, Grayed in and gray. "Dream" mate, a giddy sound, not strong like "Rent," "Feeding a Wife," and "Satisfying a Man."

But could a dream sent up through onion fumes Its white and violet, fight with fried potatoes And yesterday's garbage ripening in the hall, Flutter, or sing an aria down these rooms,

Even if we were willing to let it in, had time to warm it, keep it very clean, anticipate a message, and let it begin?

We wonder. But not well! Not for a minute! Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now, We think of lukewarm water and hope to get in it. 

                                                                               Gwendolyn Brooks

Brooks died of cancer at the age of 83 on December 3, 2000, at her home on Chicago's South Side. She is buried at Lincoln Cemetery in Blue Island, Illinois. 

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The Lunchtime Theater - The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 - "YOU ARE THERE"

THE DIGITAL RESEARCH LIBRARY OF ILLINOIS HISTORY JOURNAL™ PRESENTS

THE LUNCHTIME THEATER.

The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 - "YOU ARE THERE"

[runtime 15:38]

This film, narrated by Walter Cronkite, takes you through the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 as if it was a news broadcast from the beginning years of Television. A wonderful way to "experience" what it might have looked like through the TV camera and perhaps what it could have been like to live through the Great Chicago Fire.

BURNT AREA FIRE MAP

CLICK MAP TO ENLARGE

The Lunchtime Theater - "Around Chicago" from 1941 to 1960.

THE DIGITAL RESEARCH LIBRARY OF ILLINOIS HISTORY JOURNAL™ PRESENTS

THE LUNCHTIME THEATER.

"Around Chicago" 1941-1960

"Around Chicago" 1941-1960, 16mm, Color, Silent Film. From the Marion Kudlick Collection.
A Chicago Film Archives Video.

The History of John Wayne Gacy - Serial Killer. (1942-1994)

John Wayne Gacy was a serial killer who was found guilty of killing 33 boys and young men.

The notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy was born on March 17, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois. The son of Danish and Polish parents, Gacy and his siblings grew up with a drunken father who would beat the children with a razor strap if they were perceived to have misbehaved; the man physically assaulted Gacy's mother as well. Gacy's sister Karen would later say that the siblings learned to toughen up against the beatings and that John would not cry. John Wayne Gacy faced an abusive childhood and conflict over his sexuality.

The boy suffered further alienation at school, unable to play with other children due to a congenital heart condition that was looked upon by his father as another failing. Gacy later realized he was attracted to men, and experienced great turmoil over his sexuality.

Gacy worked as a fast-food chain manager during the 1960s and became a self-made building contractor and Democratic precinct captain in Chicago's Norwood Park Community in the 1970s.

The white area is unincorporated Norwood Park Township.

A note about the Gacy address and what community it was, and, is still in. The address was 8213 West Summerdale Avenue, Chicago, IL, until the house was razed and a new house was built on the same property with the front door moved to a different spot, making the new address a little different than the old one.

The 8213 address and the new house with the address of 8215 West Summerdale Avenue, Chicago, IL which is still located in unincorporated Norwood Park Township, and hence, in unincorporated Cook County. The Chicago street address is due to the USPS using a Chicago Zip Code. You can tell by the street sign colors what areas are unincorporated meaning that they do not have their own emergency services. Chicago street signs are Green with White letters, while unincorporated Norwood Park Township street signs are Blue with White letters.

The Cook County Assessor's Office is taxing the house across the street at 8218 West Summerdale Avenue in the Norwood Park Township as a Chicago property.

So, what does an unincorporated town mean? 

Each state has its own definition of what unincorporated means. Incorporated communities are officially labeled and demarcated (demarcation is the border that separates two townships, counties, or countries) via a municipality—such as a city or a town. Unincorporated communities are not officially considered to be municipal areas of their own accord. They often act as a part of a larger municipality, such as a township, county, or city. Being unincorporated, there is no official town government in place, the area doesn't have its own police, fire, ambulance, or street maintenance services. Nearby incorporated towns provide services for a cost.

Well-liked in his community and a clown performer at children's parties, Gacy also organized cultural gatherings. He was married and divorced twice and had biological children and stepchildren.

Yet Gacy had a highly disturbing history. He was convicted in 1968 and given a 10-year prison term in relation to the sexual assault of two teen boys. He was released on parole in the summer of 1970 but was arrested the following year again after another teen accused Gacy of sexual assault; the charges were dropped when the boy didn't appear during the trial. By the middle of the decade, two more young males accused Gacy of rape, and he would be questioned by police about the disappearances of others.

It was later discovered that he had committed his first known killing in 1972, taking the life of Timothy McCoy after luring the teen to his home.

In 1978, 15-year-old Robert Piest went missing. It was reported to police that the boy had last been seen by his mother as he was headed to Gacy's in relation to a potential job. On December 21, a police search of Gacy's house at 8213 West Summerdale Avenue, Chicago, Illinois[1], uncovered evidence of his involvement in numerous horrific acts, including murder. It would later be determined that Gacy had killed 33 boys and young men, the majority of whom had been buried under his house and garage, while others would be recovered from the nearby Des Plaines River. The Des Plaines police were responsible for solving the murders.

Gacy lured his victims to his home with the promise of construction work and then captured, sexually assaulted, and eventually strangled most of them with rope. When he killed, he sometimes dressed as his alter ego, either “Pogo” or “Patches” the Clown.

Gacy's trial began on February 6, 1980, with a prosecution team headed by William Kunkle. With Gacy having confessed to the crimes, the arguments were focused on whether he could be declared insane and thus remitted to a state mental facility. Gacy had told police that the murders had been committed by an alternate personality, while mental health professionals testified for both sides about Gacy's mental state.

Ultimately found guilty of committing 33 murders after a short jury deliberation, Gacy became known as one of the most vicious serial killers in U.S. history. He was sentenced to serve 12 death sentences and 21 natural life sentences. He was imprisoned at the Menard Correctional Center for almost a decade and a half, appealing the sentence and offering contradictory statements on the murders in interviews. Though he had confessed, Gacy later denied being guilty of the charges and had a 900 number set up with a 12-minute recorded statement of his innocence. He took up visual art as well, and his paintings were shown to the public via an exhibition at a Chicago gallery.

He was found guilty in 1980 and given multiple death penalty and life sentences. With both anti-death penalty forces and those in favor of the execution making their opinions known, John Wayne Gacy died by lethal injection on May 10, 1994, at the Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois.

John Wayne Gacy's Official Death Certificate - May 10, 1994
CLICK FOR FULL-SIZE IMAGE

There have been lingering concerns that Gacy may have responsible for the deaths of others whose bodies have yet to be found, with the Cook County sheriff's office pushing to search a Chicago apartment building where Gacy once worked as a maintenance employee.

Six victims of John Wayne Gacy are still unidentified.

The house was razed in April 1979 and a new house built in its place in 1988. It was given a new address of 8215 West Summerdale Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.

VIDEO

John Wayne Gacy - Documentary

A SERIAL KILLER

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GACY'S ART IS TORCHED AMID CHEERS
By Jan Ferris, Staff Writer, Chicago Tribune
Sunday, June 19, 1994

With a flick of a match, more than a dozen paintings by executed serial killer John Wayne Gacy went up in smoke Saturday evening as his victims' relatives tossed the artwork onto a bonfire.

The scene at James Quick Auctioneers near Naperville was part macabre, part cathartic, as paintings bearing such titles as "Skull Clown" and "Death Wish" were thrown into the flames about 6 p.m.

Relatives of seven of Gacy's victims were among the 100 people present. Many in the crowd cheered and chanted as the fire was lighted.

"I wish it was (Gacy), but it's a piece of him," said Milica Marino of Chicago, whose brother Michael Marino was one of Gacy's 33 known victims. "It doesn't bring my brother back... but it makes it better."

The bonfire was the brainchild of Joseph Roth, a Naperville truck parts supplier, and Walter Knoebel of Builders Concrete Co. near Naperville. The two men spent more than $10,000 on the artwork, two figurines, and other Gacy items at an auction in May.

Although the purchase drew jeers from horrified onlookers-many there to buy furniture and other unrelated estate sale objects-Roth quickly made it known they planned to burn their purchases.

The auction was held five days after Gacy was put to death at Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet. Roughly 40 paintings were up for bid that day, garnering $200 to $800 each.

Roth described the action as a quasi-public service, designed to teach children to be alert to strangers and to underscore the need for parents to keep better tabs on their young.

Kari Cohoon, whose teenage brother was killed by Gacy in 1976, called Saturday's bonfire "good therapy" for herself and other victims' relatives. Members of a dozen families had been expected to show up.

On Friday, a Will County coroner's jury ruled in a state-required inquest that Gacy died by lethal injection and that his death was a "justifiable homicide."

Coroner Patrick O'Neil also read an autopsy report by Dr. James Bryant, which noted that Gacy died of heart failure caused by lethal levels of potassium chloride, a drug used to stop the heart.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

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[1] Norwood Park is one of 77 Chicago community areas. It encompasses the smaller neighborhoods of Big Oaks, Norwood Park East, Norwood Park West, Old Norwood Park, Oriole Park, and Union Ridge.

Originally organized in 1872 from adjacent townships (Jefferson, Leyden, and Niles) as a village, and named after Henry Ward Beecher's novel Norwood, or Village Life in New England (1868), Norwood Park was annexed to the City of Chicago in 1893. Some parts of Norwood Park are in Unincorporated Norwood Park Township, noted by the different colored street signs.

GOOGLE MAPS SEARCH: 8213 West Summerdale Avenue, Norridge, Illinois, and see for yourself.

7 Vintage Illinois Tollway Films from 1959.

   Mary MacToll - 1

   Mary MacToll - 2

   Keep Cool

   Help is Close By

   Help is Always Available

   Tension-Free Driving

   Calm Driving

Chicago Surface Lines Streetcar Service Photograph Gallery. 1859-1950

Streetcar service started in 1859 with horse-drawn cars. The first cable car in Chicago ran on State Street at 2:30 PM on January 28, 1882, with the last cable car arriving at a powerhouse at 21st Street on October 21, 1906. Cable cars were being replaced by electric-powered trolleys starting in 1890. Due to the enormous investment in cable car systems and opposition to overhead electrical wires, Chicago clung tenaciously to its increasingly derided cable cars until 1906, nearly a quarter-century after opening its inaugural line.

By the mid-1930s, 3,742 streetcars were running on tracks laid along 529 miles of streets in a grid that provided Chicagoans a streetcar stop within a few blocks of where they lived, worked, or shopped.

When trolleys traveled the city's streets, Chicagoans looked down the tracks with a mix of emotions: frustration on cold nights when it seemed a streetcar would never come, the anticipation of a jostling ride in a crush of strap holders, anger at the streetcar company which, having greased politicians' palms, wasn't concerned with riders' comfort. But when the final trolley ran on the last route in 1958, those feelings dissolved into a golden afterglow of nostalgia.

Chicago's first one-horse-drawn streetcar ran along State Street from Randolph Street to 12th Street in 1859. The car was called a "Bobtail," having no rear platform.

A horse-drawn streetcar operated by the North Chicago City Railway Co., circa 1870-1875.

A horse-drawn streetcar at Grand Avenue and Leavitt Street, circa 1886.

An 1892 Chicago cable streetcar, which replaced horse-drawn cars, was powered by a cable running underground between the tracks. The car and its conductors are at Wells and Clark Streets.

One of the first electric trolleys was installed on 61st Street and used during the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

Chicago Jackson Park cable car. Undated.

The Englewood portion of the north-south 'L' -  The 63rd and Halsted Streets ' L' station. People run to catch the streetcar. (circa 1920)

The last streetcar in the barn during a streetcar strike, August 3, 1922.

During a streetcar strike, streetcars parked in the Howard Avenue open-air barns on August 3, 1922.

Parked streetcars during a strike, August 1922. You can see the "Third Rail" for the new electric street cars on the curved track in the foreground.

New Streetcar, October 3, 1929.

The interior of a newly designed Chicago streetcar in 1934 shows more passenger seats.

The new streetcar, on the right, and the old fashioned, horse-drawn street car on the left, April 23, 1934.

New Chicago streetcars, November 14, 1936.

A boy hops a ride on a streetcar on 51st Street near Western Avenue. The photo was taken from the window of a passing auto on June 6, 1937.

During World War II, Majorettes helped sell war bonds and stamps in red, white, and blue streetcars. The car went into regular service on Broadway in July of 1942.

The rear platform of the Milwaukee Avenue streetcar is so crowded at North Avenue that women are stuck in the door as the conductor tried to close it on January 20, 1950.

The CTA burned old streetcars on their property at 78th Street and Vincennes Avenue on January 14, 1949. Some of the streetcars were 40 years old.

Chicago Tribune Historical Photographs; CTA 

A 1930s Chicago Surface Lines Safety Film.

Safe Highways ─ Chicago Surface Lines Trolleys. circa 1930s

This silent film from the 1930s was produced to educate citizens about the safety and avoidance of accidents when around Streetcars in Chicago. Shown are accidents involving Streetcars with automobiles, multiple motor vehicles, and pedestrian safety exiting Streetcars.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Michigan Boulevard Photographs from the Lake Michigan Breakwater. 1865

Notice how the lake came directly up to Michigan Ave. This was before the expansion of the shoreline landfill from the debris of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

Michigan Boulevard from breakwater between Congress and Van Buren Streets. Terrace Row is on the left and Trinity Church can be seen also. (1865)

Looking west from the breakwater at Michigan Boulevard and Madison Street, Chicago, (1865)