David Berg & Company had developed a following of customers fond of their signature, kosher-style hot dogs beginning in 1860. David Berg hot dogs were sold at the 1860 Republican National Convention held in Chicago. This Convention is where Abraham Lincoln was nominated as the Republican presidential candidate. Since Lincoln, following tradition, did not attend the Convention, he would not have eaten a David Berg hot dog.
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I'm guessing (or joking) that the concessions at the Republican National Convention did not have ketchup, and that's where the ritual of "No Ketchup on Chicago Hot Dogs" originated.
David Berg was a pioneer who introduced the "hot dog" at a professional baseball stadium. That happened in 1901; it was the Chicago White Stocking's first season as a major league team and their second season in Chicago playing ball at South Side Park, located at 38th Place and South Princeton Avenue, in Chicago.
The Chicago White Stockings first played ball at South Side Park.
When Vienna Beef set up shop in 1893, one of the few great sausage companies around was David Berg & Company.
In 1992, almost a hundred years later, David Berg joined the Vienna Beef Products family.
Vienna Beef carried on David Berg's taste and tradition by honoring their unique spice blend. Vienna Beef bought David Berg & Company and sells them online.
In 1978, David Berg made a six-foot, 681-pound premium beef hot dog in a 100-pound poppy seed bun covered with two gallons of mustard.
The average hot dog is consumed in 6 bites.
At one point in modern times, more hot dogs were sold at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport than at any other location on the planet.
Ambler’s Texaco Gasoline Station, also known as Vernon’s Texaco Station and Becker’s Marathon Gas Station, is located along historic Illinois Route 66 in the Village of Dwight. The station gets its name from longtime manager Basil “Tubby” Ambler, who operated it from 1938 to 1966.
The original 1933 building Jack Shore built consisted of an office with wood clapboard siding, an arched roof with asphalt shingles, and residential windows adorned with shutters and flower boxes. Extending out from the office over three Texaco gas pumps was a sheltering canopy supported by two tapered columns. Mr. Shore also constructed an ice house located on the property.
The station’s design, with its cottage look, may strike the contemporary traveler as quaint--or perhaps even odd. Why, after all, shouldn’t a gas station look like a gas station? But this domestic style, common along Route 66, had a distinct purpose and stems from a time in the early 20th century when gas stations were just beginning to seriously intrude upon the suburban landscape of America. The oil companies wisely opted to tread lightly on this new, non-commercial territory.
Gas stations were consciously styled to be homey and inviting to customers, as well as inconspicuous in their new residential, suburban surroundings. In the early 1940s, following a national trend that saw gas stations evolve to full service garages, Mr. Ambler added a service bay of simple concrete block to the north side of the original building. Although he left the station in 1966, the station continued servicing motorists until nearly the turn of the 21st century, making it one of the oldest continually operated service stations along the Mother Road.
Over the years, the station naturally underwent a number of changes. Windows were removed and added, fresh paint applied, and new roofing laid down. The tall, elegant red pumps of the 1930s gave way to the squat dispensers of the 1960s; and Marathon Oil eventually superseded the Texaco Fire Chief brand. The station operated as a gas station for 66 years until 1999 and was an auto repair shop until 2002, when the owner Phillip Becker generously donated the station to the Village of Dwight.
With the help of a $10,400 matching grant from the National Park Service’s Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program, the Village of Dwight painstakingly restored the station to its former glory, taking the main office and canopy area back to the 1930s and the service bay area back to its 1940s appearance. Today, the station serves as a visitor’s center for the Village of Dwight. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2001 and received a Cost-Share Grant from the National Park Service Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program in 2002. Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. — BOD, Route 66 Association of Illinois, 2013-2015
Disco Demolition Night was a promotional event that took place on Thursday, July 12, 1979, at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Illinois, during which a crate filled with disco records was blown up on the field. It was held during the twi-night doubleheader baseball game between the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers. During the climax of the event, rowdy fans surged onto the field, and a near-riot ensued. It ultimately proved to be one of the most notable promotional ideas and one of the most infamous The event has been characterized as the "emblematic moment" of the anti-disco "crusade" and "the night disco died."
NEWS COVERAGE
The tale of two goof-ball WLUP Radio Station DJs behind the Disco Demolition Night. Steve Dahl and Garry Meier. In the 9th grade, Dahl began hanging around a local underground radio station, KPCC-FM... Okay... I'll just start in the middle! Steve Dahl began at WDAI Chicago on February 23, 1978, with his solo "Steve Dahl's Rude Awakening" show but it never achieved solid ratings despite media attention. Ten months later, on Christmas Eve, 1978, WDAI changed formats from rock to disco and fired Dahl. In March 1979, after a few months without a job, Dahl was hired to do a morning show at WLUP where he met overnight DJ Garry Meier (who was then broadcasting under the pseudonym of "Matthew Meier"). Shortly thereafter, the two began a cross-talk that eventually led to Meier being teamed up with Dahl as both sidekick and newsman. Dahl effectively forced Meier to use his actual name by calling him "Garry" on-air accidentally. After openly discussing the subject, again, on-air, Meier officially dropped his pseudonym. In response to Dahl's firing from WDAI, Dahl and Meier mocked and claimed to hate disco music and the radio station WDAI; He called it "Disco-D.I.E." mocking the station's slogan, "Disco-D.A.I," on the air. Dahl even recorded and started playing a parody of Rod Stewart's "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" which he called "Do You Think I'm Disco?" The song managed to crack the national charts to peak at #58 on the Billboard Hot 100 and received airplay across the country.
SONG: Do You Think I'm Disco?
During this same time period, Dahl and Meier, along with both Mike Veeck (son of the Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck), and Jeff Schwartz of WLUP promotions, came up with a radio promotion and tie-in to the White Sox called Disco Demolition Night which took place on Thursday, July 12, 1979.
The concept was to create an event to "end disco once and for all" in the center field of Comiskey Park that night by allowing people to get tickets at the box office if they brought 98¢ (referring to WLUP-FM's 97.9 location on the FM dial) and at least one disco record. The records were collected, piled up on the field and blown up.
Hundreds of rowdy fans stormed the field, refusing to leave, resulting in the second game of the doubleheader being postponed. American League President, Lee MacPhail, later declared the second game of the doubleheader a forfeit victory for the visiting Detroit Tigers. Six people reported minor injuries, and thirty-nine were arrested for disorderly conduct.
After the Disco Demolition Night promotion, disco began to lose its popularity. As a result of Disco Demolition Night, Dahl attained national recognition and his popularity increased significantly. He established a syndicate and the Steve and Garry show began airing in Detroit and Milwaukee, where it performed well. However, in February 1981, WLUP fired Dahl, citing "continued assaults on community standards." "It was going on in El Paso and Los Angeles, like, on Monday, and on Friday they fired me," Dahl later said. Meier was offered the opportunity to continue the show by himself, but he refused. Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.
