Calamity Destroyed all the Bridges over the Chicago River.

A year after the Illinois and Michigan Canal joined the Chicago River to the Illinois River in 1848, an event occurred that must have caused some questioning of the wisdom of that engineering feat.

The 1849 Chicago River Flood - A Daguerreotype Photograph.

It had been a snowy winter, followed by a rapid thaw and three days of rain. The interior of Illinois was waterlogged, and the rivers and streams ran over their banks. On March 12, 1849, at about 10:00 o'clock in the morning, a massive ice dam on the south branch of the Chicago River broke free with devastating results.

There were at least ninety vessels of various sizes on the river, and most were torn from their moorings, hurled them against bridges, and decimated many of the wharves.

As the mass of ice, water, and entangled ships was swept along, a small boy was crushed to death at the Randolph Street bridge. A little girl meets her death as a ship's mast falls into a group of onlookers. A number of men are reported lost upon canal boats that have been sunk.

From the History of Chicago, by Alfred Theodore Andreas:
"It was then that some bold fellows, armed with axes, sprang upon the vessels thus jammed together, and in danger of destruction. "Among the foremost and most fearless were: R. C. Bristol, of the forwarding house of Bristol & Porter; Alvin Calhoun, a builder, brother to John Calhoun, founder of the Chicago Democrat newspaper, and father of Mrs. Joseph K. C. Forrest; Cyrus P. Bradley, subsequently Sheriff and Chief of Police, and Darius Knights, still an employee of the city. These gentlemen, at the risk of their lives, succeeded in detaching the vessels at the eastern end of the gorge, one by one, from the wreck, until finally some ten or twelve large ships, relieved from their dangerous positions, floated out into the lake, their preservers proudly standing on their decks and returning, with salutes, the cheers of the crowd onshore. Once in the lake, the vessels were secured, in some cases by dropping the anchors, and in others by being brought up at the piers by the aid of hawsers (a thick rope or cable for mooring or towing a ship."

Late in the afternoon, a man was spotted waving a handkerchief from a canal boat a few miles offshore, but no undamaged boats were sent to his rescue. Forty vessels were completely wrecked, and dozens were carried into the lake as debris. The lock at Bridgeport[1] was totally destroyed, the Madison, Randolph, and Wells Street bridges were swept away, resulting in no bridges spanning the Chicago River.

The loss by the flood was estimated at:

• Damage to the city $15,000
• To vessels $58,000
• To canal boats $30,000
• Wharves $5,000

Totaling a whopping $108,000 ($3,295,000 today) in damages. The figures given are lower than what the actual loss really was. 

The city went to work with a will to repair the great damage. In the meantime, the river was crossed by several ferries. Besides the boat at Randolph Street, a canal boat lay across the river, upon which people were allowed to cross on payment of 1¢ each. The ferry at the Lake House Hotel fronting Pine, Kinzie, and Rush Streets, the safest and the most pleasant on the river, was free. The schooner at Clark Street charged a 1¢ fare. Mr. Scranton’s old ferry was running at State Street. The fare was the same as the others were charging. 

Other temporary appliances were brought into use to bridge over the inconveniences of the next few months. These ferries were generally overcrowded with passengers who, in their eagerness to cross the Chicago river, sometimes rushed aboard recklessly, and it is a wonder that fatal results did not follow.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

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[1] The first bridge built in Bridgeport was a small bridge (unknown type) over the South Fork of the South Branch of the Chicago River, which may have been for the crossing of a road that had come before Archer Road was built. When the canal opened in 1848, the first bridge over the canal (at the lock) was washed away by the Flood of 1849 but was rebuilt. The street leading to the lock site bridge was called Post street, eventually, which connected to Lisle Street (also known as Reuben Street) -- and later renamed Ashland Avenue.

The History of Chicagoland Art Colonies.

There is a long tradition of artist colonies in Chicago and summer outposts some distance from the city. The most famous artist colony, at 57th Street and Stony Island Avenue in Hyde Park, was located in a pair of one-story frame buildings that had been constructed to house concessions for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Among the few buildings not demolished after the fair, the complex soon became a haven for artists, literary figures, including Sherwood Anderson, and related businesses such as used bookstores.

Old Town, Chicago, Art Fair, 1954.

The 57th Street Artist Colony had two nearby satellites. Cable Court, located a few blocks northwest, was a narrow, dark street surrounded by three- and four-story tenement buildings occupied by artists and fellow travelers. Further west, at Kenwood Avenue, a third cluster occupied several buildings centered on 1328 East 57th Street, where John Dewey founded the Laboratory School of the University of Chicago in 1896. In the 1940s, the first floor housed the Little Gallery owned by Mary Louise Womer, who, with others, founded the 57th Street Art Fair in 1948, the first of Chicago's community art fairs. Among the artists displaying their work was Gertrude Abercrombie, with her surreal paintings propped up against her ancient Rolls Royce automobile parked at the curb.

Old Town, Chicago, Art Fair on Menomonee Street, the 1950s.

In 1898, Lorado Taft and a small group established the Eagle's Nest artist colony overlooking the Rock River near Oregon, Illinois, 80 miles west of Chicago. The summer facility originally had tents and, later, cottages and studios. The Eagle's Nest activities included visual arts and historical pageants in elaborate costumes. Regular visitors included Harriet Monroe.

Ox-Bow, in Saugatuck, Michigan, was founded as a summer artist colony in 1910 under the auspices of the Art Institute of Chicago Alumni Association; it remains active as an outpost of the School of the Art Institute. Faculty members have included Ed Paschke, architect Thomas Tallmadge, and Alphonso Iannelli. Also located in Michigan, John Wilson's Lakeside Center for the Arts thrived in the 1970s and 1980s with artists such as Richard Hunt and Roger Brown. It had an outpost of the Landfall Press of Chicago, a well-known printmaker.

The Hyde Park artist colonies were among the casualties of urban renewal around 1960. In addition, the gentrification of Hyde Park pushed artists to the North Side, especially Old Town, which still has its own art fair each year. Artists also clustered elsewhere, including the Near North Side's Tree Studios, restored and commercialized in 2002, and Italian Court, formerly on Michigan Avenue. In the closing decades of the twentieth century, skyrocketing real-estate values in Old Town and Lincoln Park drove artists further west to neighborhoods such as Wicker Park and Bucktown.

Since the 1950s, juried art fairs, organized by community volunteers and nonprofit groups in neighborhoods in and around Chicago, have enabled local artists to exhibit, market, and sell their artwork directly to the public, free of the gallery system. Informal and family-oriented, these events allow artists to showcase their work to the public with complete control of how it is installed and represented. Art Chicago and SOFA, the annual art expositions held at Navy Pier, are examples of commercial enterprises that invite galleries and art dealers worldwide to market and sell the work of artists they represent. While these events are often called art fairs, they differ from neighborhood fairs because they do not directly relate to local communities or Chicago artists.

Two of the oldest juried art fairs in Chicago are the 57th Street Art Fair and the Old Town Art Fair. In 1948 Mary Louise Womer, a Hyde Park gallery owner, conceived the idea of the 57th Street Art Fair as an opportunity for local artists to meet one another and to sell their art directly to the community. With local sponsorship, the first fair consisted of 50 artists, many of them students from the School of the Art Institute and the Institute of Design. Since 1950, a volunteer committee has organized and sponsored the fair with a juried panel of professional artists to select the participants. Exhibitors have included Richard Hunt, Leon Golub, Claes Oldenburg, Margaret Burroughs, and Gertrude Abercrombie. In 1950 the first Old Town Art Fair was organized along a couple blocks in Lincoln Park West. Because the fair was open to public participation, the art ranged from amateur craft objects to masterfully executed paintings and sculptures. In 1958, a small committee was formed to establish regulations, and a jury of established artists was implemented to create a more balanced display of media and improve the art's quality. By the end of the twentieth century, each of these fairs annually showcased more than 300 artists.

Highland Park, Illinois, Festival of Fine Arts.

The art fair system has developed into an important Chicago tradition linking amateur and professional artists to Chicago communities. Based on the 57th Street and Old Town Art Fairs models, neighborhood art fairs have been established in Barrington, Evanston, Hinsdale, Homewood, Naperville, Oakbrook, Peoria, Park Forest, Rockford, Skokie, Wilmette, Buffalo Grove, Woodstock, and other outlying areas.

Buffalo Grove, Illinois,  Art Festival.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The Snow and Ice Railway on the Midway Plaisance at Chicago's 1893 World's Fair.

In historical accounts of the World's Columbian Exposition, the story of the Ferris wheel has eclipsed that of another unusual mechanical and quite successful Midway attraction: Thomas Rankin's Snow and Ice Railway.

Essentially a roller coaster running on an ice paved track, it was among the earliest coasters constructed in the United States. It was built on a tract of land 60 by 400 feet upon the southern portion of the Midway Plaisance near Lexington Avenue (later renamed South University Avenue) and consisted of a loop with one high point of elevation at twenty-five feet. The ice was manufactured by machinery on site. There were two trains, each of which was made up of four connected bobsleds with six seats apiece.

The trains would be drawn to the high point by a cable, then freed and allowed to slide down the inclines and around the loop. The track width was 44.5 inches and fitted on both sides with rubber wheels, insuring a smooth, steady ride. The entrance and exit platform also included a restaurant.

10¢ for two consecutive trips.

The concession was granted to J.C. De La Vergue and T. L. Rankin. The application was originally made to use it as a means of transportation from the south end of Horticultural building to the north end of the Liberal Arts building, the railway passing over the Wooded Island and the East Lagoon. Drawings were submitted showing beautiful wire rope suspension bridges located eighty feet apart, making each way a trip, loading and unloading at either end. There having been no bridge within one-quarter of a mile of this point on the East Lagoon, there is no doubt that the Fair Company and the projectors would have both done well financially had the concession been let-in that form, especially considering that in the location the concession actually had, nineteen thousand people rode on the railway in a single day, and yet the main structure of the concession was hidden from view by other buildings erected immediately in front of it. 

The Snow and Ice Railway can be seen in the Foreground.

The Ice Railway was built under patents belonging to Thomas L. Rankin, of Sacketts Harbor, New York, who received the same Bronze St. Gaudens Medal and the diploma awarded by the Exposition for all contest participants who reached an 80% score or higher in their category.

At the close of the Exposition, the Snow and Ice Railway was moved to Coney Island in Brooklyn but direct sunlight and insufficient refrigeration quickly closed the ride. As Robert Cartwell wrote in his book, The Incredible Scream Machine: A History of the Roller Coaster, "It was not the first idea to be duplicated from Chicago at Coney Island. It would seem that if certain entrepreneurs had their way, the complete Midway Plaisance would have been moved to Brooklyn." 

This is but one example of the influence the 1893 Columbian Exposition had on future expositions, amusement parks and American cultural life, generally. 

World's Columbian Exposition Illustrated, December 1893
Edited by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Fractional Penny Sales Tax Tokens In Illinois.

Sales tax tokens were fractional cent devices used to pay sales tax on very small purchases in many American states during the years of the Great Depression. Tax tokens were created as a means for consumers to avoid being "overcharged" by having to pay a full penny tax on purchases of 5¢ or 10¢. Issued by private firms, by municipalities, and by twelve state governments, sales tax tokens were generally issued in multiples of 1 mill (1/10¢).

Say you bought a dozen eggs for 10¢ and the sales tax was 3%. That would be three-tenths of a penny. So you paid a dime and three 1-mill tokens.

The twelve states that issued these sales tax tokens were Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Washington. Tax tokens were issued in a variety of materials, including cardboard, brass, bronze, aluminum, pressed cotton fiber, and plastic.

Sales tax tokens were generally regarded as a nuisance by consumers and were replaced in fairly short order by the bracket system of sales tax collection, which averaged out the tax on small sales.

By the end of the 1930s, token use was eliminated in most of the issuing states, with sales tax tokens lingering in Missouri until late in the 1940s.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

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Sales Tax Tokens to Stay in Circulation. 
Article: Urbana Daily Courier, July 25, 1935

SPRINGFIELD... Sales tax tokens issued by the Illinois department of finance to enable merchants to make change in charging the tax will remain in circulation until the United States treasury issues substitutes, Director K. L. Ames of the state department, said here today. Ames said that he had been informed by Atty. Gen. Otto Kerner that the federal treasury is seeking congressional permission to mint coins of one-half cent and one mill denominations.

Action on the part of the federal treasury, Ames said, will be taken to meet the demands of Illinois and other states having a sales tax law. It will solve the Illinois problem, he said, involving the question of the legality of the aluminum tokens issued by the state department. Several hundred thousands of the state tokens are now in circulation throughout Illinois, according to Ames, and they will continue to circulate pending action by the government toward minting coins of the needed denomination.

Electric Park Amusements, Chicago, Illinois (1895-1901)

Mammoth Dedicatory Festival and 10-Day Carnival.

Electric Park Amusement Association on the corner of Elston, Belmont and California Avenues. The largest and best arranged amusement gardens in the world - fifty acres under 100 Arc Lights.

Electric Park, containing 50 acres of beautiful lawns and charming groves, will be dedicated to Concerts, Amusements, Athletics, etc., on Saturday August 3, 1895. Promptly at 2 o'clock Saturday afternoon the flags will be run to the peak. Company "D" Illinois National Guard will fire a military salute and the gates of Electric Park will be opened to the public for the first time.

Electric Park is only 30 minutes ride from State and Madison Streets. To reach Electric Park take any line of cars running north from center of city, transfer to Belmont Avenue electric and you will be landed at Electric Park...

• or take Milwaukee Avenue cable to Armitage Avenue, transfer at Armitage Avenue to Milwaukee Avenue electric and you will be carried to Electric Park...

• or take Elston Avenue and you will be taken to Electric Park - or take Clybourn Avenue cars and you will ride to within 2 blocks of Electric Park...

• or take C. & N. W. R. R. at Wells Street station to Avondale, leave train at Avondale station and you will be 2 blocks from Electric Park...

• or take Metropolitan 'L' alight at California Avenue station and take Milwaukee Avenue electric, close at hand, and you will reach Electric Park...

• or Belmont Avenue and Elston Avenue electric take you direct to Electric Park.

Single Admission 25¢, Season Tickets, transferable and good for ten admissions $2, for sale at the Grand Entrance on California Avenue.

A Royal Barbeque - An ox will be roasted bodily and served to visitors gratis.

Military Drill - There will be a Military Drill on Electric Park Court.

Bicycle Races - On Electric Park Bicycle Oval. The track measures three laps to the mile and is thirty feet wide. Management has donated $40 in prizes ($1,170 in 2017) and the Clarendon Wheelman will race the opening day. The events are: Quarter mile scratch, half mile scratch, one mile lap race, three mile handicap and five mile handicap races.

Baseball Games - On Electric Park Baseball Grounds.

Football Games - On Electric Park Football Common.

Artistic Dancing - On Electric Park dancing pavilion, the largest dancing pavilion, with one exception, in America.

A Dream of the Civil War - On the evening of the opening day there will be presented the realistic military drama, "A Dream of the Civil War," with nature for a stage.

During the progress of the Carnival there will be a series of Dramas and Tableaux given, included in the series are the following: Camp Lincoln in Repose; The Scottish Chieftain; Ireland As It Is; Doom of the Traitor (Military Execution); An English Pastoral Scene, etc.

Dance of all Nations - A typical dance of all nations will take place on the Electric Park pavilion during the festival.

Fireworks - There will be a magnificent display of fireworks every night during the carnival and good music all the time.

The most gigantic entertainment since the World's Fair. Rivaling the bygone Midway in mirth and jollity.

The Electric Park was foreclosed on December 22, 1901 and portions of the land were auctioned off.