Anton (Tony) Joseph Cermák, Chicago Mayor, Biography, Assassination and Alternate Theory.

One of the most mysterious political assassinations ever took place occurred on February 15, 1933, when the Czech-born mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermak, was mortally wounded. Anton, or Tony Cermak as he was known, was the 34th Mayor of Chicago, in office from April 7, 1931, to March 6, 1933.

Mayor Anton Cermak is sworn into office on April 7, 1931.

Biography of Anton Cermak.
Anton Cermak was born in Kladno, Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic), on May 9, 1873. The following year his parents emigrated to the United States. After six years of formal schooling, Cermak joined his father as a coal miner in Braidwood, Illinois, at the age of twelve. 

Cermak developed a reputation for having strong views and was selected to be the miner's spokesman in a demand for higher wages. This resulted in him losing his job, and he decided to move to Chicago. He found work on the railways before starting his own business selling firewood. With his heavy-set physique and frightening temper, he was an imposing man with leadership qualities. 

Cermak became active in the Democratic Party and, in 1902, was elected to the state legislature. Seven years later, he became a Chicago City Council alderman. Cermak was able to use his inside knowledge of proposed government land purchases to speculate on real estate. He was also the founder of the Lawndale Building and Loan Association, director of the Lawndale National Bank, and a partner in a real estate company, Cermak and Serhant. 

Cermak became extremely wealthy and soon became the leader of the party in the city. His main opponent was William Hale Thompson, the leader of the Republican Party in Chicago and a man who was a close associate of Al Capone. Cermak maintained a reasonable relationship with Thompson, which allowed him to keep his patronage jobs and influence in the city. Even his enemies agreed that he was a hard-working politician who was "keenly aware of the most intricate details of the issues of the day."

In 1928 Cermak was selected as the Democrat candidate for the Senate. Although he ran a vigorous campaign, he was defeated. It was a good year for the Republicans, and Herbert Hoover had a landslide victory. Several states that had previously voted Democrat, such as Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia, voted Republican for the first time. Al Smith won 40.8% of the vote compared to Hoover's 58.2%.

The Wall Street Crash in 1929 changed the political direction of the country. Cermak created what became known as the "Chicago Democratic Machine." It is claimed that Cermak was probably the first politician to use statistical analysis to evaluate political performance and develop a strategy. Members of the different wards were encouraged to compete with each other and success was rewarded with patronage jobs. Paul M. Green has argued that "never before had Chicagoans seen a political party so organized for battle."

Anton Cermak campaigned in the final days of April 1931.

In 1931 Cermak challenged William Hale Thompson, the Republican mayor of Chicago. Cermak accused Thompson of being under the control of Al Capone and other gangsters in the city. He campaigned for social reform and an end to prohibition. Thompson responded by calling Cermak a low-class foreigner. This was a dangerous tactic as, at that time two out of every three Chicagoans were either foreign-born or the child of foreign-born immigrants. In one speech, Cermak commented:

"Of course, we couldn't all come over on the Mayflower... But I got here as soon as I could, and I never wanted to go back because, to me, it is a great privilege to be an American citizen."

On April 7, 1931, Cermak defeated Thompson by nearly 200,000 votes. This included winning 45 of the city's 50 wards, giving Cermak the largest victory in Chicago's history. During his time as mayor, Cermak spent most of his time dealing with the consequences of the Great Depression. This included cutting services, laying off thousands of workers, and taking away vacation and sick pay from those who remained. To defend his policies, Cermak conducted weekly radio talks that he called "Intimate Chats."

Cermak appointed James Allman as Chief of Police. He had been in the force for 30 years and enjoyed a reputation of being untainted by corruption being described as "clean as a whistle." The Chicago Crime Commission reported: "During the 12 years that the Chicago Crime Commission has been observing the Police Department, there has not come to the notice a single adverse word as to Captain Allman's integrity, ability, efficiency, or independence." Allman was a great success, and Chicago's murder rate actually dropped in 1931 and 1932, whereas most other major cities saw their rates rise.

The 1932 Presidential Election.
Cermak attended the 1932 Democratic National Convention, which was held to elect the presidential candidate. Cermak favored Al Smith mainly because he was opposed to Prohibition. This issue was a problem for Franklin D. Roosevelt because much of his support came from traditionally dry areas in the South and West. In contrast, most party members and the general public favored repeal. Roosevelt told his supporters to "vote as you wish" and that he would be happy to run on whatever platform the convention adopted. In the vote for repeal, 934-213. Arthur Krock reported that "the Democratic party went as wet as the seven seas."

The first ballot showed Roosevelt with 666 votes - more than three times as many as his nearest rival but 104 short of victory. Roosevelt's campaign manager, James Farley, approached Cermak, who controlled most of the Illinois delegation, about changing his vote. Cermak refused because he was aware that if he abandoned the Irish-Catholic candidate, he would have trouble with his supporters in Chicago.

Roosevelt won the nomination on the fourth ballot when he won 945 votes. William E. Leuchtenburg, the author of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal (1963), summed up the situation that the Democratic Party found itself in: "Liberal Democrats were somewhat uneasy about Roosevelt's reputation as a trimmer and disturbed by the vagueness of his formulas for recovery, but no other serious candidate had such good claims on progressive support. as governor of New York, he had created the first comprehensive system of unemployment relief, sponsored an extensive program for industrial welfare, and won western progressives by expanding the work Al Smith had begun in conservation and public power."

Anton Cermak

Anton Cermak campaigned vigorously for Roosevelt in the 1932 Presidential Election and delivered a 330,000-vote majority in Cook County. The turnout, almost 40 million, was the largest in American history. Roosevelt received 22,825,016 votes to Hoover's 15,758,397. With a 472-59 margin in the Electoral College, he captured every state south and west of Pennsylvania. Roosevelt carried more counties than a presidential candidate had ever won before, including 282 that had never gone Democratic. Of the forty states in Hoover's victory coalition four years before, the President held but six. Hoover received 6 million fewer votes than he had in 1928. The Democrats gained ninety seats in the House of Representatives to give them a large majority (310-117) and won control of the Senate (60-36).

Roosevelt was elected on November 8, 1932, but the inauguration was not until March 4, 1933. While he waited to take power, the economic situation became worse. Three years of depression had cut national income in half. Five thousand bank failures had wiped out 9 million savings accounts. By the end of 1932, 15 million workers had lost their jobs, one out of every three. When the Soviet Union's trade office in New York issued a call for 6,000 skilled workers to go to Russia, more than 100,000 applied.

The Traditional Assassination Story.
Cermak traveled to Miami on February 7th to have a meeting to discuss who was going to be appointed to Roosevelt's government. Cermak did not want a job for himself but was keen to get some of his followers to have good jobs. He also wanted to make sure Chicago got a share of Roosevelt's promised New Deal. Negotiations with James Farley went well, and Roosevelt arranged to meet with Cermak on February 15th at Bayfront Park. 

Anton Cermak went to the meeting with James Bowler, another senior politician from Chicago. He later recalled: "Mayor Cermak and I had gone to the park twenty minutes before the President-elect was due to arrive, and we sat in the bandshell together. When Mr. Roosevelt's car came along, the President-elect saw the mayor and called to him to come down. Mr. Cermak said he would wait until after Mr. Roosevelt made his speech. Then Roosevelt spoke, and he waited until the mayor came down from the platform to go to the side of the automobile."

Roosevelt explained how, after the speech, "I slid off the back of the car into my seat. Just then-Mayor Cermak came forward. I shook hands and talked with him for nearly a minute. Then he moved off around the back of the car. Bob Clark (one of the Secret Servicemen) was standing right behind him to the right. As he moved off, a man came forward with a telegram... and started telling me what it contained. While he was talking to me, I leaned forward to the car's left side."

At that moment, an Italian immigrant, Giuseppe Zangara, pointed his gun at Roosevelt. At the critical moment, an alert spectator, Lillian Cross, hit the assassin's arm with her handbag and spoiled his aim. Zangara fired five shots, and they all missed Roosevelt but did hit others. This included Cermak, who received a serious wound in the abdomen. Rex Schaeffer, a journalist working for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, reported: "I stood twenty feet behind the car of the President-elect. Suddenly - I had given my attention to Mr. Roosevelt - a pistol blasted over my shoulder... Four more shots were fired, and at the left of the car of Mr. Roosevelt, I saw Mr. Cermak slump down."

Zangara was attacked by the crowd. "He was seized by men and women, dragged between the rows of seats, and then a policeman rushed through the crowd and swung on him with his blackjack. The Sheriff of Dade County, Dan Hardie, was on the platform, and as the shots rang out, he plunged into the crowd after the shooter and, with the policeman, jerked him erect and threw him on the trunk rack of an automobile which was carrying one of the wounded out of the park." Another witness remembers shouts of "Kill that man!" and "Don't let him get away."

L.L. Lee was standing next to Cermak when he was shot. He claimed that his only words were, "The president! Get him away!" Lee and W.W. Wood, a Democratic county committee member, grabbed his arms and walked him towards the president's car." The chauffeur decided to get away from the scene as quickly as possible. Lee then heard Roosevelt shout, "For God's sake, a man has been shot," and the "car jerked to a sudden stop."

Roosevelt told the New York Times: "I called to the chauffeur to stop. He did - about fifteen feet from where we started. The Secret Service man shouted to him to get out of the crowd, and he started forward again. I stopped him a second time, this time at the corner of the bandstand, about thirty feet further on. I saw Mayor Cermak being carried."

Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak is helped after being shot in a Miami,
Florida park while talking to President-elect Franklin Roosevelt.

"I motioned to have him put in the back of the car... Cermak was half dragged across the few feet into the waiting car and pushed in next to Roosevelt. Mayor Cermak was alive, but I didn't think he was going to last. I put my left arm around him and my hand on his pulse, but I couldn't find any pulse... For three blocks, I believed his heart had stopped. I held him all the way to the hospital, and his pulse constantly improved."

After the shooting, Roosevelt remained at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami until Cermak was brought out of the emergency room. He spoke with him for several minutes and then visited the other shooting victims. According to the New York Tribune, an unnamed witness heard Cermak tell Roosevelt: "I'm glad it was me and not you, Mr. President."

On March 4th, Roosevelt was inaugurated. He called Cermak on the telephone immediately after the ceremony. “Tell Chicago I’ll pull through,” Cermak said from his hospital bed. “This is a tough old body of mine, and a mere bullet isn’t going to pull me down. I was elected to be World’s Fair mayor, and that’s what I’m going to be.”

Doctors thought the mayor would recover, but Cermak died at 5:57 a.m. Chicago time on March 6th, two days after Roosevelt took the first of his four oaths of office.

Giuseppe Zangara, an unemployed thirty-two-year-old bricklayer, claimed he acted alone. "I have always hated the rich and powerful. I do not hate Mr. Roosevelt personally. I hate all presidents, no matter from what country they come." After being found guilty was sentenced to death in the electric chair at the Florida State Penitentiary. When he heard his sentence he yelled at the judge, "You give me the electric chair. I no afraid of that chair! You're one of the capitalists. You is a crook man too. Put me in electric chair. I no care!" Guiseppe Zangara was executed on March 20, 1933.

The end came peacefully, the Tribune reported, with Cermak surrounded by members of his family, three daughters, their husbands, and children.

On March 6, 1933, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak died weeks after being shot during an assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The outpouring of public grief and respect in the following week was immense. Crowds met Cermak’s funeral train at stops all the way from Florida to Chicago. Back home, thousands solemnly marched through the Cermak home at 2348 South Millard Avenue to view the mayor’s body.

The scene inside the mayor's residence at 2348 South Millard Avenue as mourners file past the bronze casket holding Mayor Anton Cermak in March 1933. Thousands entered the home during the afternoon and evening.

Then tens of thousands waited in line for hours in the bitter cold to pay their respects while his body lay in state in City Hall. Many had to be turned away then as mourners escorted his coffin to a packed Chicago Stadium for the service.

Flowers marking a large cross shape on the floor of the Chicago Stadium during Mayor Anton J. Cermak's funeral, full view, including mourners in the seating area.

Two lines of soldiers standing on either side of Mayor Anton J. Cermak's coffin during his funeral at the Chicago Stadium, within a large cross shape made with flowers on the floor.

Then the final march began.

The horse-drawn wagon carrying Mayor Anton J. Cermak's coffin was accompanied by two police during his funeral procession.

About 30,000 joined a somber procession from the stadium to Bohemian National Cemetery at Foster Avenue and Crawford Avenue (now Pulaski Road) on the North Side of Chicago.

A crowd of 50,000 attended the burial services for Chicago Mayor Anton J. Cermak on May 10, 1933.

A crowd of 50,000 was estimated at the cemetery. The Tribune summed it up: “Mayor Anton J. Cermak was buried yesterday after the most spectacular funeral demonstration ever seen in Chicago.” He was buried in the Bohemian National Cemetery.

Five days later, the Chicago City Council voted to change the name of 22nd Street to Cermak Road. And less than a week after that, Zangara was executed in Florida’s electric chair.

Giuseppe Zangara sitting in court in 1933, was charged with the assassination of Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak and the attempted assassination of President Roosevelt.

Zangara told officials: "I want to kill the President because I no like the capitalists. I have the gun in my hand. I kill kings and presidents first and next, all capitalists."

But another version of the story says that the Al Capone mob orchestrated the plot to assassinate Cermak (not Roosevelt) because he was trying to kick out the Capone gang.

The Crime Syndicate Theory.
Giuseppe Zangara deliberately fired wildly over FDR’s head to distract security guards while another hitman got in close and fatally wounded the mayor. The bullets that struck Cermak came from a .45-caliber weapon whereas the gun taken from Zangara was a .38-caliber pistol.

Assassin Giuseppe Zangara, an Italian immigrant with a ferocious hatred for politicians, strikes a defiant pose in a Miami jail. He was executed two weeks after the death of Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, who he killed intending to shoot Franklin Roosevelt.

Zangara was executed in Florida’s electric chair five weeks after the shooting. 

Giuseppe Zangara is in custody at Dade County Jail in Florida. When strapped in the electric chair at Florida's Raiford prison, he was asked by Sheriff Dan Hardie if he had any last words, Zangara replied, "Viva Italia! Goodbye to all poor peoples everywhere!... Pusha da button!"

But what about the other weapon and the other shooter?

It’s been said that Zangara allowed himself to be used as a decoy in Cermak’s murder because he was dying of cancer and wanted to provide for his family after his death. Supposedly the Capone gang cut a deal saying if Zangara would take the rap, the mob would take care of his family after his death.

Al Capone

Zangara insisted to the end that he wasn’t shooting at Cermak. But the rumors continued that it was Cermak, and not Roosevelt, who had been the intended target.

Cermak’s promise to clean up Chicago’s rampant lawlessness seriously threatened Al Capone and the Chicago organized crime syndicate. One of the first people to suggest the organized crime theory was reporter Walter Winchell, who also happened to be in Miami on the evening of the shooting.

Both Alphonse Capone and Anton Cermak came from families of the Old World. Capone, the son of a barber born in Sicily, and Cermak, the son of a coal miner from Bohemia. Both men were reared on the tough streets of big cities: Capone, the Five Points of New York, and Cermak, the southwest side of Chicago.

There the similarities ended, despite their common origins. Capone chose a life of crime, learning from and serving mentors that regarded all persons as expendable to their desires, while Cermak became a soul of industry and public service.

If Al Capone was a devil, Anton Cermak was certainly no angel, but assumed and affirmed an ideal that Capone would scoff at; there were solutions to problems that would not be found by a physical threat or the point of a gun.

Some political commentators, such as Walter Winchell, believed that Cermak was the real target. It was argued that Al Capone or William Hale Thompson had hired Zangara to assassinate Cermak. However, Blaise Picchi, the author of "The Five Weeks of Giuseppe Zangara: The Man Who Would Assassinate FDR" (2003) argued: "Federal agents conducted an exhaustive investigation of the shooting and could not find a link between Zangara and the Chicago mob."

Cermak's biographer, Alex Gottfried, is also convinced that Zangara was not a hired gunman: "What actually seems to be the case is that, regardless of what connections might have existed between Cermak and Chicago gangs, the shooting was neither planned nor executed by gangsters. The one-way ride, machine gun tattoo, and shotgun blast are customary and foolproof methods. No plot similar to this shooting is recorded in the annals of gang murders."

Did the Mob Order the Hit on Cermak?
In his book Frank Nitti: The True Story of Chicago’s Notorious Enforcer, Humble contends that Cermak was as corrupt as Thompson and that the Chicago Outfit hired Zangara to kill Cermak in retaliation for Cermak’s attempt to murder Frank Nitti.

Frank “The Enforcer” Nitti is arguably the most glamorized gangster in history. He was an infamous Chicago wise guy who eventually rose to command the city’s premier underworld organization, The Outfit. Though he has been widely mentioned in fictional works, Humble’s is the first book to document Nitti’s real-life criminal career alongside his pop-culture persona, with special chapters devoted to the many television shows, movies, and songs featuring Nitti. Author Ronald Humble chronicles The Enforcer’s beginnings in New York’s Navy Street Boys to his position as Al Capone’s second-in-command and eventual leadership of the outfit, with bodies piling up along the way.

Was it Nitti versus Cermak? Humble seems to believe so.

There are a lot of conflicting stories and testimonials, and over the decades, there has been much speculation, misinformation, and even outright fabrication regarding the shooting of Anton Cermak. Several of the versions included statements from President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, L.L. Lee, Miami City Manager, Chicago Alderman James Bowler, Mrs. Walter Wright, and Reporter Rex Schaeffer.

Gunshot Wound, Injury, and Complications.
Cermak died on March 6, partly because of his wounds. On March 30, however, his personal physician, Dr. Karl A. Meyer, said that Cermak’s primary cause of death was ulcerative colitis, commenting, “The mayor would have recovered from the bullet wound had it not been for the complication of colitis.” The autopsy disclosed the wound had healed, adding, “the other complications were not directly due to the bullet wound.”

Half a million people stood along the streets in near zero-degree temperatures to watch Cermak’s body pass on its way to the old Chicago Stadium. Never in the city's history has a funeral procession been so grand. The service in the stadium was non-partisan and non-religious. 

Tributes came from around the country.

Chicago committeeman T.J. Bowler described Cermak as “the greatest leader the Democratic Party ever had,” and World Fair President D.F. Kelly stated, “Chicago has never had a man whose passing will be felt in so many directions.”

In the end, Mayor Cermak’s legacy was felt most intimately on the streets of the city he had devoted his life to and the place he loved the most, Chicago. In this truly American city, Cermak was a true American. An immigrant, a worker, and a leader. Upon his death, his city remembered him as their greatest benefactor, a champion of public service and civic pride.

In 1950 J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, was asked to report on the original investigation into the case: "The Secret Service files reflected that there were many allegations, most of which were in the form of anonymous letters, that the attempted assassination was planned by gangsters or some organized criminal group, and that Zangara had been sent to Miami expressly for that purpose. Subsequent investigation, however, indicated that he had been in Miami for several months prior to the incident. There is no indication that Zangara had any knowledge of the identity of Mayor Cermak of Chicago. There was no evidence that Zangara had been in Chicago nor had any relatives or associates in the city."

“I work from the same desk that Mayor Cermak sat at over eighty years ago. And a day does not go by that I don’t think about Tony Cermak’s legacy and what he did for his city.” – Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Chicago's Grant Park Band Shell history.

The city of Chicago officially designated the land east of Michigan Boulevard as a park in 1844, calling it Lake Park. The city had promised its people that the park would remain public land, vacant, with no buildings. This promise, though tested, would hold, with the exception of the Art Institute being built in 1892.

Looking north on Michigan Boulevard in 1868, with the homes of prosperous businessmen on the left. Lake Park was nothing more than a marsh-filled lagoon, with rail lines on the right, between Lake Michigan and the lagoon-like area. The estimated vantage point of this photo is from where Congress Avenue is now located.

This is an 1890s view of the Lake Park area looking north, showing how cluttered it was with rail yards and tents. Civil War veterans camped in the park in 1890. Troops camped in Grant Park in 1894 during the Pullman strike and a reunion.

In 1901 the park was renamed Grant Park in honor of U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Museum Campus was added to the park with more landfill, featuring the Adler Planetarium, Field Museum of Natural History, and Shedd Aquarium. In 2004, the northwest corner of the park was renovated and renamed Millennium Park, featuring several famous art installations.

In 1915, the South Park Commission located a temporary wooden bandshell in Grant Park near Michigan and Congress Avenues. It hosted large events as well as band performances and remained in place for five or six years. 

In 1931, Mayor Anton Cermak (assassinated on February 15, 1933) suggested free concerts to lift the spirits of Chicagoans during the Great Depression. The Depression and the proliferation of new technological innovations such as records, radios and "talkies" (films with sound) led to a declining demand for live music and a shrinking job market for musicians. That year, as buildings were being built for the 1933 Century of Progress International Exposition, the Chicago Concert Band Association offered to organize a seventy-person concert band to give free summer concerts if the park commissioners would build a band shell that had electric lighting and dressing rooms. Construction on the wood and fiber E. V. Buchsbaum design began on a budget of $12,500, and the opening of free concerts commenced on August 24, 1931. Construction was completed in three weeks.

The original Grant Park Band Shell was completed in 3 weeks. (1931)

At the height of the Great Depression, Chicagoans began attending free concerts in a new Grant Park facility: the Grant Park Band Shell was located in Hutchinson Field and modeled after the original Hollywood Bowl from Los Angeles, California. It was a classic Chicago two-fer: a cultural asset that also could deliver a few jobs.

Grant Park and Chicago Skyline. (Circa 1931)

The Petrillo Band Shell was originally located at the south end of Grant Park in Hutchinson Field. It was modeled after the original Hollywood Bowl.

On July 1, 1935, James Petrillo oversaw the beginning of free concerts in Grant Park at the original bandshell located on the south end of the park across Lake Shore Drive from the Field Museum of Natural History and south of the Buckingham Fountain, as seen in the above photograph.

The original Grant Park Band Shell at the south end of Grant Park looking north during anti-war demonstrations, Chicago. (1968)

By the 1970s, the original bandshell had deteriorated to the point where "stagehands, performers and even a grand piano had fallen through the stage floor." Amid the catastrophes, the musicians joked about the need for hard hats. 

In 1975, the music shell was renamed to honor James C. Petrillo, president of the Chicago Federation of Musicians from 1922 to 1962 and President of the American Federation of Musicians from 1940 to 1958, who created a free concert series in Grant Park in 1935. Petrillo was a commissioner of the Chicago Park District from 1934 to 1945.

Despite $77,000 in 1977 repair expenditures by the city, the performers were considering canceling the 1978 season.

In 1972, plans were advanced to build a large new concrete-and-fiberglass band shell atop a new underground parking garage, but community groups defended the Montgomery Ward restrictions[1].

A compromise produced the inexpensive, staff-designed, demountable band shell at Grant Park's Butler Field, which opened in 1978.

The new Petrillo Bandshell, Grant Park, Chicago.

The "semi-permanent" designation skirted the Montgomery Ward prohibitions[1], and the new structure cost only $3 million. With an official street address at 235 S. Columbus Drive, the music shell encompasses the entire block bounded by Lake Shore Drive to the east, Columbus Drive to the west, East Monroe Drive to the north and East Jackson Drive to the south. This places it a block east of the Art Institute of Chicago, a block north of Buckingham Fountain, and southeast of Millennium Park. The amphitheater and paved surface for public seating is in the southwest corner of the block, facing Butler Field. 

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

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[1] Deed restrictions dating from the city's early history generally forbid any buildings in Grant Park between Randolph Drive and 11th Place. As the result of a series of Illinois Supreme Court rulings, Grant Park has been "forever open, clear and free" since 1836, which was a year before the city of Chicago was incorporated. In 1839, United States Secretary of War Joel Roberts Poinsett declared the land between Randolph Street and Madison Street east of Michigan Boulevard "Public Ground, forever to remain vacant of buildings. Aaron Montgomery Ward, known both as the inventor of mail order and the protector of Grant Park, twice sued the city of Chicago to force it to remove buildings and structures from Grant Park and keep it from building new ones. As a result, the city has what are termed the Montgomery Ward height restrictions on buildings and structures in Grant Park.

Lost Towns of Illinois - Illinoistown

The human settlement of the American Bottom region goes back to ancient Native Americans and their settlement in Cahokia. Europeans beginning with the Spaniard, Hernando de Soto first traveled through the region in the sixteenth century. This European contact was transitory and it was not until the seventeenth century that the French explored the region with the intention of settlement.

French Cahokia, founded in 1699, was not the first French outpost, but it was the earliest settlement that survived more than a few years. Kaskaskia was the next place French settlers built and it was followed by a series of east bank towns at Prairie du Pont and Fort Vincennes on the Wabash River. Settlements by the French on the east bank of the Mississippi included the Village of Nouvelle Chartres & Fort de Chartres and included New Madrid (then known as Anise de la Graise or "Greasy Bend") and St. Genevieve on the west bank of the Mississippi. These were followed by St. Louis, St. Charles, Carondelet (in 1767), St. Ferdinand (now Florissant) and Portage des Sioux. Settlement increased after the late eighteenth century and the end of the American Revolution.

As settlers reached the American Bottom there were those who established homes within the Mississippi River's flood plain, on the eastern shore. At the time, the area was swampy and prone to flooding. Most settlers preferred the higher and better draining Missouri side of the river. We know the identity of only a few of the first Illinois settlers. The historical record begins in detail with the forceful presence of a single man, Captain James Piggott, who, while instrumental to the region's development, certainly benefited from the help of his family and the other settlers of the area.

James Piggott took the long view regarding the development of Illinois territory. Born in Connecticut, his fortunes took him further west throughout his life. He served in the Revolutionary War as a member of the Eighth Pennsylvania Regiment. After his military service, he joined George Rogers Clark recruiting families to live in the proposed town of Clarksville, close to present-day Wickliffe, Kentucky. Chickasaw Native Americans forced the abandonment of this endeavor in 1782 and Piggott moved with seventeen families to Illinois territory.

In 1790 Illinois territorial Governor Arthur St. Clair made Piggott a territorial judge. He settled in Cahokia and soon began the business of providing ferry service crossing the Mississippi to the more developed St. Louis side. The ferry operation continued long after Piggott's death in 1799, later being operated by his sons and eventually absorbed into the Wiggins Ferry monopoly.

In 1808 Illinois City is established. The town's name changed to Illinoistown in 1817.

PIGGOTT'S FERRY
James Piggott, a late eighteenth-century pioneer and a territorial judge for Illinois, settled in the American Bottom Region of Illinois after migrating from the Eastern United States. Once settled in Cahokia, Piggott and his family built a log and mud road from that settlement to a point on Cahokia Creek opposite St. Louis in 1792. During that time the area that is present-day East St. Louis was swampy and uninhabited. Goods crossing the river from the Illinois side had to travel from Cahokia, upstream to St. Louis. Piggott's road allowed him to move goods onto Cahokia Creek, into the Mississippi, and across the river to St. Louis. This access was more direct than shipping from Cahokia and Piggott soon had a growing business providing access to St. Louis.

Once established Piggott refurbished the route to Cahokia Creek with a sturdy road consisting of rocks buttressed with logs through the swampy region. Cahokia Creek, not wide or deep enough for regular use, quickly became an obstacle to Piggott. He spanned a 150-foot wooden bridge over the creek to the riverfront where he built two log cabins. Piggott's Ferry became a central point for travelers and soon the area further inland began to be developed.

After James Piggott died in 1799, Piggott's Ferry remained in business. The growth of St. Louis in the early nineteenth century encouraged further development of the Illinois side of the Mississippi River through the increased demand for transportation across the river. Soon the Piggott family had a number of neighbors and their business faced competition from other entrepreneurs interested in capturing some of the ferry business.

ILLINOISTOWN - A CENTRAL RIVER CROSSING
When James Piggott established his ferry service in 1795, the closest settlement on the Illinois bank was south of the ferry in Cahokia. However, Piggott was soon transporting both people and goods to St. Louis and the ferry landing was a natural place for commerce to develop. Between 1805 and 1809 a wealthy French Canadian, Etienne Pinsoneau, purchased land behind the ferry landing and built a two-story brick tavern. He called the area Jacksonville. In subsequent years Pinsoneau sold some of the lands and in 1815 Moses Scott built a general store. The McKnight-Brady operation bought out Pinsoneau at the same time it invested in Piggott's ferry. Brady and McKnight platted the land behind the Piggott ferry in 1818 and called it Illinoistown. A traveler in 1821 described the settlement as one consisting of roughly twenty or thirty houses and one hundred inhabitants.

WIGGINS' FERRY
In 1819, Samuel Wiggins, a politician, and businessman bought an interest in the Piggott family's ferry operation and began to compete with the McKnight-Brady ferry and other ferry services. Soon after he began operations Wiggins used his political clout to persuade the Illinois General Assembly to grant him a charter with exclusive rights to two miles of Illinois riverfront opposite St. Louis and the right to establish a toll road leading to his landing. The act went further and allowed no new ferry operations to be created within a mile on either side of Wiggins' landing. Wiggins later bought out the McNight-Brady interest in Piggott's Ferry. To further his control of the Illinois side of the river he went into partnership with a prominent businessman who owned substantial portions of land in Illinoistown.

An Undated St. Louis & Illinois Team Boat Ferry 50 Cents - Ticket № 193. Circa 1819-21

The Wiggins operation marks a watershed for the area that would become East St. Louis. Through Wiggins' political power in Illinois, he established a stronghold on river transportation to St. Louis and the west. This concentration of power was temporary, but lasted long enough to make Illinoistown and later East St. Louis a central crossing point for goods and people heading west. One of the first steamboats to ply the Mississippi stopped at St. Louis and the McKnight-Brady landing in 1817. The new technology promised new economic potential for the Illinois side of the river and Samuel Wiggins capitalized on this future.

In the early years of Illinoistown it is clear that Samuel Wiggins, a politician, and Illinois businessman, was an influential presence. The Reverend John Mason Peck described the town as a small one of about a dozen families with a post office, hotel, livery, and store. The post office was called Wiggins Ferry and Samuel was the postmaster.

Although a flood in 1826 (only one of many to damage the area) may have set back the growth of Illinoistown, Wiggins' concentrated ferry business helped spawn economic growth throughout the 1820s and 1830s. According to a study by the National Park Service, by 1841 Illinoistown had become a bustling place with numerous groceries [EXPLANATION], general stores, two bakeries, a clothier, a cooper, blacksmiths, and hotels. There were more than one hundred homes and a newspaper, "The American Bottom Reporter."

Samuel Wiggins was apparently not a person to have others do his work. He was involved in the lives of the people living in and around Illinoistown as an excerpt from William Wells Brown's narrative proves.

The first thirty years of the nineteenth century marked a period of regular growth along either side of the Mississippi. St. Louis was established as the largest city in the region and a central starting point for people heading west. The community on the Illinois side was growing as well, providing passage to St. Louis.

Steamboats brought Illinoistown and St. Louis a variety of new ventures. Steamboats needed fueling stations and a means of transporting their goods once ashore. The local ferry operations were a natural fit, developing shore facilities for steamboats and already possessing the ability to quickly move goods across the river at low cost.

An example of a time-period wood-burning steamboat ferry on the Mississippi.

By 1828 the Wiggins operation had converted its ferries to steam, taking advantage of its renovated facilities and the fairly low cost of constructing a steamboat.

Illinoistown becomes East Saint Louis, Illinois in 1861.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.