Medusa-Challenger; the Chicago River Bridge Killer.

On June 1, 1969, what was perhaps the most ill-fated ship ever to navigate the Chicago River struck one more time as the Medusa-Challenger tied up traffic between Wabash and Wells Streets for over three hours. The Wells Street bridge refused to open as the 562-foot steamship approached, leaving the powdered cement carrier’s stern beneath the LaSalle Street bridge. Minutes before the Wabash Street bridge had been put out of operation by a power failure after it was raised to allow the ship through. City electricians took close to three hours to get the bridges back in operation again.

The Medusa-Challenger headed west on the Chicago River.

At that point, the Medusa-Challenger had been carrying freight for 63 years after being launched on February 7, 1906, by the Great Lakes Engineering Works in Ecorse, Michigan. She was named the "William P. Snyder" back then, bound for work carrying iron ore from Minnesota to the steel mills that lined the Great Lakes.

William P. Snyder at Ecorse, Michigan in 1906.

The William P. Snyder was renamed "Elton Hoyt II" following her acquisition by Stewart Furnace Co., Cleveland, on June 26, 1926. Retaining her new name, the vessel was acquired by Youngstown Steamship Co., Cleveland, in 1929. Ownership passed to Interlake Steamship Co., Cleveland,  in 1930. The vessel was repowered in 1950. The Elton Hoyt II was involved in a head-on collision with the Enders M. Voorhees during a snowstorm in the Straits of Mackinac in the fall of 1950 causing major bow damage to both vessels. The vessel was renamed "Alex D. Chisholm" in 1952 following the launch into the Interlake fleet of a new hull christened Elton Hoyt II. Alex D. Chisholm continued sailing for the Interlake fleet into the 1960s before being laid up in Erie, Pa. as surplus tonnage. In 1966, she was purchased by Medusa Portland Cement for conversion to a cement carrier. 

She gained her reputation in Chicago as the "Medusa-Challenger" because, through no fault of her own, bridges ceased to function regularly whenever she entered or left the Chicago River. 

On May 31, 1968 traffic was halted on Clark, Dearborn and State streets as the Clark Street bridge refused to open and the other two bridges could not be closed because the ship was beneath them. The Chicago Tribune reported that one gentleman, exasperated by the wait of over an hour, shouted, “You know what they should do with this river?  They should have it paved.” 

Traffic on Lake Shore Drive backs up while freighter Medusa Challenger passes through the S-Turn bridge. Motorists sat for 40 minutes because the bridge jammed. 1969

On April 2, 1969, the big ship kept Chicagoans waiting for another hour as the LaSalle Street bridge tender was able to raise only one leaf of the bridge. That kept the Clark Street bridge open, too, since the ship’s stern was beneath it. “Electricians were summoned and went feverishly to work, while the ship’s crew and onlookers stared at one another and a traffic jam began to form on both sides of the bridge,” The Tribune reported.

The Medusa headed east toward Lake Michigan.

It happened again less than a week later when the ship, outbound, was halted at the mouth of the river when the massive Lake Shore Drive span refused to budge. After 45 minutes the bridge was raised, and the Medusa steamed into the lake. Then the fun began. A fuse blew, electricians worked frantically, and traffic was rerouted before the bridge was finally placed back in operation an hour after it had been raised.  The Tribune observed, “The ship’s crew members, who are getting used to staring at the Chicago River, took it all stoically. The city’s bridge tenders, however, are becoming convinced that the Medusa is a jinx.”

There was a relative period of calm until September 22, 1970, when the Lake Shore Drive bridge jammed six feet away from the closed position after the Medusa passed beneath it. Disgusted motorists made U-turns and drove against approaching traffic as police worked to bring some sense of order to the scene, rerouting traffic onto Ohio and Randolph Streets. Many impatient pedestrians walked to the middle of the bridge and jumped the gap between the two spans as the bridge tender shouted, “Get off my bridge!  It’s not safe!  Get off!”

The freighter Medusa Challenger travels the Chicago River. The ship waited over six hours because the Michigan Avenue bridge wouldn't open. 1972

On October 19, 1972, a new bridge became rattled at the Medusa’s approach. A blown electrical fuse kept the Michigan Avenue bridge in the upraised position while workers struggled to discover the source of the problem. The Tribune reported that some motorists saw the Medusa and went out of their way to avoid the bridge even before it was raised. One taxi driver said, “There’s going to be trouble. The Medusa’s back.”

The LaSalle Street bridge jammed on December 3, 1972, after being raised for the ship and beyond that, the Lake Street bridge was closed to traffic for 40 minutes because the gates barring auto traffic from entering the bridge would not open. It took work crews five hours, working in near zero-degree weather, to free the Michigan Avenue bridge a little more than two weeks later as the Medusa waited. “The workers didn’t use any magic words as they went about their business,” wrote the Tribune. “just your common, every-day, four-letter variety.”

The Medusa steams past 330 North Wabash, heading upriver.

The ship’s ill-fated encounters with city bridges were so frequent that the Tribune actually ran a story on July 14, 1973, when the Medusa moved from the lake to Goose Island and nothing happened. The steamer had tempted fate the day before by entering the river on Friday the Thirteenth, but except for a brief problem with the traffic gates at Lake Shore Drive, the slow procession up the river was uneventful.

The good ship couldn’t catch a break. On August 11, 1976 the Medusa’s owners, “perhaps hoping to erase the... animosities harbored by many Chicago motorists”  had the vessel tied up at Twenty-Second Street in front of McCormick Place for a University of Chicago Foundation fundraiser. The event was poorly publicized, the night was unseasonably cold and gusty, and out of a thousand guests that were expected to attend, a generous estimate placed the actual headcount at about 250. One volunteer at the event said, “We’re going to have to drink a lot of martinis to keep warm tonight.”

The freighter Medusa Challenger travels the Chicago River. The 562-foot cement carrier sat dead in the ice water while trying to head downstream. At least three times, the longship hove because bridges wouldn't go up. One delay was four hours as the ship sat under the raised Well Street bridge while tenders tried to open the Franklin Street span. The problems were attributed in part to the weather. 1979

By the end of the 1970s, the Medusa-Challenger’s visits to Chicago were over, but before the reign of bad luck came to an end the ship became a movie star, giving its name to the first film in which Joe Mantegna appeared, a 25-minute short film that is in the permanent collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art.

In 1998, Medusa Portland Cement was acquired by Southdown Inc., resulting in the vessel being renamed Southdown Challenger. On April 28, 2005, the name and registration of the Southdown Challenger was changed to "St. Marys Challenger."

Renamed the St. Mary's Challenger, toward the end of her life.

The classic steamer completed a full season of sailing, laying up on December 11, 2006, at South Chicago, Illinois, after having spent most of her centennial year plying her trade on Lake Michigan.

The St. Marys Challenger’s final season saw her employed just as she had been the past few years, carrying cargo from the St. Marys Cement Co.’s elevator at Charlevoix, Mich., to ports such as South Chicago, Milwaukee, Manitowoc, and Grand Haven, all on Lake Michigan. Much to the delight of boat watchers, she also made two trips to Owen Sound, Ontario in 2013 and one to Detroit.

The vessel arrived at Bay Shipbuilding Co. in the afternoon of November 11, 2013, blowing salutes on her steam whistle and flying a white flag, indicating surrender – however reluctantly – to her fate. Crowds of boat watchers with cameras documented the event as she negotiated the gauntlet of bridges on the Calumet River after her last delivery to Chicago, on her way out to the lake she was laid up for more than two hours. A railroad bridge over the Calumet River refused to lift. She arrived in Sturgeon Bay for the last time.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Ravinia Amusement Park, Highland Park, Illinois (1904-1910)

Ravinia was originally created as an Amusement Park on land purchased by Albert C. Frost, it was conceived as a year-round amusement park with swings, a skating rink, a slide, pavilion, casino, spectator stadium, and a small hotel. 

A 1907 Postcard of the Entrance to Ravinia Park.

Railroad President Frost's goal was to stimulate business for his railroad, the Chicago and Milwaukee Electric Railroad, but unfortunately, it was unsuccessful and by 1910 the railroad failed and the property went into receivership.

When it opened in August of 1904, the 40-acre park included a stadium for baseball and football games and a few carnival-type rides. During the winter, the playing field was transformed into a hockey and ice-skating rink by flooding the field.

Described by one 1904 reviewer as a ‘majestic grandstand’ and dubbed ‘The Stadium’ by Ravinia Park owner Chicago &  Milwaukee Electric Railroad, the Ravinia Park Stadium sat 2,500 visitors and could be viewed from passing trains.

Park buildings were designed by architect Peter J. Weber and included a 24 room hotel (located west of the railroad tracks), a theater building, a casino containing a restaurant and ballroom, a dance pavilion, and a baseball stadium.

Old Sanborn Fire map of Ravinia Amusement Park, Highland Park, IL. c.1905

The theater offered “refined and high-class vaudeville” every day except Sunday. In 1907, the park was forced into receivership. Fearing that it would be purchased by a cheap amusement company, a group of prominent Chicago and North Shore residents organized to raise the $15,000 needed to save it.

In 1911, Ravinia Park once again faced financial difficulty. A group of North Shore residents, led by Frank R. McMullin of Highland Park saw the potential in Ravinia Park and started the Ravinia Company raised $75,000 to purchase the park. The park reopened on June 21, 1911, as a summer venue for classical music under the leadership of Louis Eckstein. Opera was added to the venue in 1912. Ravinia gained a reputation as "America's summer opera capital."

 

The prairie-style Martin Theatre (then named Ravinia Theatre) is the only building on the grounds that dates back to the original construction.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

How did land from Niles, Illinois become a small subdivision of Chicago on Touhy Avenue? Thank George Wittbold.

Northwest Side, where winding cul de sacs hit the strip malls of Touhy Avenue and the subdivisions bear the name of the natural features they tore down to make the subdivisions, there’s a little blip of Chicago carved out of Niles, Illinois.

There are no markers that say the blip is still Chicago. On the south side of the street and down a touch there’s a small sign that welcomes people to the North Edgebrook neighborhood of Chicago’s Forest Glen community, but on the north side of Touhy the blip is nondescriptive from the suburbs.

There’s charming older homes there. It’s a single subdivision, about 600 feet east-to-west and 1,300 north-to-south. It’s Niles to the north, east and west, but it’s legally Chicago. There’s no reason it should be Chicago, or at least not a reason that doesn’t trace to a 1920s land boom and an empire of flowers.

Heading north on Meade Avenue past the storage locker business on Touhy brings you to a subdivision that’s what subdivisions were meant to be. No megamansions that scream of status, just rows of small, single-family houses. It’s relaxing there, as Meade curves into Sherwin and then McVicker. It’s comfortable. The neighborhood feels friendly and welcoming.

The blip entered into Chicago on July 7, 1928 along with the neighborhoods of North Edgebrook and Wildwood, according to the map below.

1930 Chicago Annexation Map.

In 1928, florist Louis Wittbold wanted to turn his family’s massive properties of nurseries, orchards and greenhouses into real estate, assembling a tract of 165 acres from landowners including himself, his brother Otto Wittbold and a man named Herman Wagner.

In “what is called a record for simultaneous approval of a subdivision by county, city and regional planning authorities,” according to the Chicago Tribune, the prominent landowner pushed the deal through in March 1928. In May of that year, the land was annexed to Chicago. The homes are post-war, according to the Cook County Assessor’s Office. That’s a gap of more than two decades between homes and the land deal. 

The Wittbold family story is fascinating in its own right. Louis and Otto’s father George Wittbold, former gardener to the King of Hanover's estate, came to Chicago in 1857. He set up shop in Lakeview, soon owning huge greenhouses at School, and Halsted streets in modern-day Boystown neighborhood.

American Florest Advertisement, August 15, 1889.

As the area developed, George got in on the game, turning his Lakeview land into apartments and moving his nurseries and greenhouse operations to the north of Chicago’s Edgebrook neighborhood, which had been part of the city since 1889.

Greenhouses of the George Wittbold Company in Edgebrook, Chicago, Illinois. 

Nursery and Greenhouses of the George Wittbold Company.

Packing House and Employees of the George Wittbold Company.

Interior of a George Wittbold Company Greenhouse.

The George Wittbold Company did the original landscaping for Wrigley Field in 1914 when it was called Weeghman Park, and bragged about it in advertisements. (No, they didn’t plant the ivy, which was added in 1937.)

And in the 1920s, his son Louis pushed a massive land deal through local appoval.

The Wittbold Reality Company at 134 North LaSalle Street, Chicago, purchased the last bit of land before the deal was completed was 17 acres from Herman Wagner — “the Kellen tract.” The blip isn’t quite 17 acres and it’s a little west of the Touhy and Austin address the Tribune gave for the sale.

The tract of land was known as Wittbold's New Indian Boundary Park subdivision № 2. The entire tract of 173 acres was annexed to the City of Chicago. The property was surounded by three golf courses and the Edgebrook forest preserves.

The whole tract of land is said to have cost Wittbold approximately $750,000. The property extends from the right-of-way of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific, westward along Touhy avenue for a mile.

The land itself is of historical interest, being a part of an old grant made by the United States Government to Billy Caldwell, son of a British army officer. Billy's mother was a member of the Sauganash Indian tribe.

So why is there a blip of Chicago carved out of Niles? Because that’s the land Louis Wittbold owned. Why did he own a little blip just north of his family’s massive growing yards and acres of greenhouse? We may never know. Maybe it was offices, an extra greenhouse or just part of the 17 acres he picked up when Herman Wagner wanted in on the subdivision game. Whatever the reason, the long-dead florist lives on in the boundaries of Chicago.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.