The History of the Farragut Boat Club, Chicago. (1886-1952)

The Farragut Boat Club was organized in 1872, and, as its name indicates, for the purpose of promoting the interests of boating. Beginning with a limited number of members, and a small boathouse at the foot of Twelfth Street (Twelfth '12th' Street was renamed Roosevelt Road on May 25, 1919), it had gradually increased until it had reached the pictured flourishing condition. 

Supplement to the Scientific American-Architects and Builders Edition - February 1887

The clubhouse was located at 413-415 Lake View Avenue (3016-18 Lake Park Avenue today). It was completed in the spring of 1886 by Robert Rae Jr.[1], a leading Chicago architect in the 1890s. It was a handsome two-story brick building with a basement and stone trimmings.

Club Officers: Charles S. Downs, President; F.G. Whiting, V.P.; C.F. Bryant, Secretary; F.M. Staples, Treasurer; Charles De V. Hoard, Chairman Board of Admissions; George A. McClellan, Captain; Everett C. Brown, Commander; Ed S. Hunter, Lieut. Commander; and George W. Hancock, Ensign. —1890 Chicago Blue Book

In the basement, there was a bowling alley, a pool room, a gymnasium, and the lavatories. The first floor contained parlors, a reception room, a billiard room, a card room, and a library. The second floor was devoted to the dancing hall and a richly appointed theatre, with a full stock of scenery and props (theatrical property) and a seating capacity of four hundred. A series of entertainments were given there each winter, and the Farragut Boat Club Theatricals had become renowned at a level rarely obtained by amateur thespians. 

Note the enclosed front balconies.

The boathouse was a one-story brick building at the foot of Thirty-third Street. The Club owned about twenty-five boats, including an eight-oared barge, four-oared shells, four-oared gigs, single and double shells, single and double training boats, and pleasure boats of all descriptions. The initiation fee to the Farragut Boat Club was $50 ($1,450 today), and yearly dues were $24 ($700 today).

Fact: The first softball game was invented and played on Thanksgiving Day in 1887 inside of the basement gym at Farragut Boat Club. The location is now an empty lot. The clubhouse, what was left of it, was razed in 1952.

There was a monument at the site but had been moved.

This photo was taken around 1995 outside the "16-Inch Softball Hall of Fame" was the stone and brass "Farragut Boathouse Monument," which commemorates the birth of softball in Chicago in 1887. It was originally placed at 31st Street and Lake Park Avenue in Chicago but is currently in storage with the city. A new 16-inch Softball Hall of Fame opened in Forest Park in 2009.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

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[1] Robert Rae Jr. (c.1853-1920) was born in Philadelphia and came to Chicago with his parents in 1860. The son of a prominent lawyer, he was educated in the public schools of Chicago and entered the office of architect Henry Lord Gay in about 1872. Two years later, he was appointed assistant chief engineer of the Chicago & South Atlantic Railroad, a position he held for a number of years before he started his own architectural office in Chicago in about 1880. Rae's practice focused on small-scale commercial buildings and residences in eclectic historical styles.

Electric Streetcars, Trolley Buses, and the move to gas-powered buses in Chicago.

An electric streetcar is tied to tracks drawing power from a pair of wires strung over the street. A trolley bus, also an electric vehicle but run on rubber tires, making it more maneuverable. Still, the buses have to keep its trolley poles in contact with those overhead wires for power.

All the big cities in the U.S. once had electric streetcar systems. When it was time to modernize, many of those transit companies bought trolley bus, after all, they already had a heavy investment in electric generating plants. The early gasoline-fueled buses were small and unreliable.

In 1930 the first Chicago trolley buses began running on Diversey Avenue. Other lines followed. Many of them were extensions of existing streetcar routes. Laying of track for through-routing of streetcars was supposed to come later.

That never happened. The Depression came, then World War II. 

In 1947 a new government agency, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), bought the Chicago Surface Lines and the ‘L’ and were consolidated as the CTA. The CTA planned to replace streetcars with buses.

At first the CTA converted some of the streetcar lines to trolley buses. The electric bus fleet grew to over 700 vehicles, running on 16 routes. 

The Chicago and Westown changeover from streetcars to buses on Lake Street in Oak Park in April of 1948.

The last Chicago streetcar click-clacked down Vincennes Avenue on June 21, 1958. There are still lasting vestiges of the streetcar system in Chicago. Many of today’s CTA bus routes and route numbers are the same as they were in the days of streetcars. And as for the tracks – a few of the streets had the tracks pulled up, but most were covered with asphalt and are still in the streets under pavement along with the "Chicago Street Paver Bricks." 

Once the streetcars were gone, clinging to electric buses seemed to make little sense. Oil was cheap. The new diesel buses cost less to operate than trolley buses. The Blizzard of 1967 decided the matter. Tied to the wires for power, trolleybuses couldn’t get around all the stalled cars.

The CTA began a determined program to replace all-electric buses with diesel vehicles. The conversion took six years. The final three trolley bus lines, Cicero, Pulaski, and North Avenue, went diesel after March 24, 1973. There was no fanfare. When their last runs were over, the trolley buses simply pulled into the North-Cicero barn, and that was it.

The Last CTA Trolley Bus at Irving Park Road and Pulaski, Saturday, March 24, 1973.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.