Municipal Restaurant & Luncheonette, Southeast Corner of 63rd Street and Cicero Avenue, Chicago. June, 29, 1934

We are at the southeast corner of the airport property, the northwest corner of 63rd Street and Cicero Avenue. We are looking northwest.
The Municipal Restaurant & Luncheonette is on the Southeast Corner of the airport property. See Map.

Note the airplane on the south side (left) of the restaurant at the Chicago Municipal Airport.

Municipal Restaurant & Luncheonette, Southeast Corner of 63rd Street and Cicero Avenue, Chicago.

Originally named Chicago Air Park, Midway Airport was built on a 320-acre plot in 1923 with one cinder runway mainly for airmail flights. In 1926 the city leased the airport and named it Chicago Municipal Airport on December 12, 1927. By 1928, the airport had twelve hangars and four lighted runways for night operations.

A major early morning fire on June 25, 1930, destroyed two hangars and 27 aircraft, "12 of them tri-motor passenger planes." The loss was estimated at more than two million dollars. The hangars destroyed were of Universal Air Lines, Inc., and Grey Goose Airlines, the latter under lease to Stout Air Lines. The fire followed an explosion of undetermined cause in the Universal hangar.

In 1931 a new passenger terminal opened at 62nd Street. The following year the airport claimed to be the "World's Busiest," with over 100,846 passengers on 60,947 flights. More construction was funded in part by $1 million from the Works Progress Administration; the airport expanded to fill the square mile in 1938–41 after a court ordered the Chicago and Western Indiana Railroad to reroute tracks that had crossed the square along the northern edge of the older field. 

In the 1940s, the Trivic Airport Pines Restaurant was at 55th Street and Cicero Avenue, at the Northeast corner of Midway.

In July 1949, the airport was renamed Chicago Midway International Airport after the Battle of Midway. In 2002 Midway welcomed the return of international service after a 40-year absence with the opening of the new Federal Inspection Service facility in Concourse A.

Today, Midway has 5 runways and 43 gates in three concourses; Concourse A has 19 gates, Concourse B has 26 gates, and Concourse C has 3 gates.

Additional Reading:

Marshall Field & Company, Cloud Room Restaurant in the Chicago Municipal Airport (Midway).

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

History of the Hotel Galt, (Miami Hotel) Sterling, Illinois.

The Hotel Galt in Sterling, Illinois, was completed in 1890. It was also called the Miami Hotel because it housed the Miami cocktail lounge. The Miami Lounge was a popular mob hangout. The building burned down in December 1971.

The Hotel Galt in 1890.

The Hotel Galt in the 1940s.

Firefighter Arlyn Oetting recounted the day he got the alarm call:

The 1971 fire that destroyed the former Miami Hotel of Sterling was one of his most memorable fires. The hotel was across the street from the former Sears building downtown.

As the captain turned the corner, all he said was, “Get some help!” Oetting recalled.

“The fire was coming out the front doors of the hotel, as far out as the parking meters on the sidewalk,” he said. “When they got there, they laid a big hose line and started attacking that fire. My lieutenant and I dropped some hoses in front of the door and went down and hooked up to a hydrant there.”

Because the hotel had been remodeled numerous times, he said, the ceilings had been dropped. “The fire got into hidden spots and just ran rampant,” he said. “It went up and it started spreading.”

Oetting was stationed there most of the night and into the next day. Twenty-seven departments responded, he said. They fought the fire for more than 24 hours.

Amazingly, no one was injured.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.