Today in Chicago History: City's first aquarium at Lincoln Park Zoo — and Shedd Aquarium, its second — opens
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
Chicago White Sox pitchers have thrown 20 no-hitters since 1902 — including 3 perfect games. Relive them all here.1914: Joe Benz had the first of three Chicago White Sox no-hitters in which the opponent scored. White Sox pitchers have thrown more no-hitters than any other American League team.
1923: Chicago's first aquarium opened at Lincoln Park Zoo. The 150,000-square-foot building was designed to house 86 tanks and up to 400,000 gallons of water. 'We will experiment with every known kind of freshwater fish,' said Alfred E. Parker, director of the zoo.
When planning for the Shedd Aquarium began a few years later, the building was repurposed as a reptile house. Following a more than $4 million renovation, the building was converted into the 500-seat Park Place Cafe.
1930: The $3 million Shedd Aquarium, named in honor of its benefactor John G. Shedd, the former Marshall Field & Co. president unofficially opened with just one of its six galleries available to visitors. But what they saw — nurse sharks, sea turtles, a sting ray and tropical fish — 'was a bewildering display, both grotesque and beautiful specimens,' the Tribune reported.
The building, designed by architects Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, was completed Dec. 21, 1929, when reporters got a glimpse of its rotunda.
1936: A Transcontinental & Western Air plane carrying 15 people — 12 passengers and three crew members — hit a tree and a house at 6045 S. Kilbourn Ave. but managed to land in an empty lot near Chicago Municipal Airport (now Midway). All 15 survived.
'Why, the plane is almost an exact fit for that lot,' an observer told the Tribune. 'A lot of terrible things could have happened and didn't.'
2019: 14th Ward Ald. Edward Burke was indicted on 14 counts, including racketeering, federal program bribery, attempted extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion and using interstate commerce to facilitate an unlawful activity.
The Dishonor Roll: Meet the public officials who helped build Illinois' culture of corruptionBurke remained the 14th Ward alderman for more than half a century. He not only claimed the record as the longest-serving City Council member in the history of Chicago, but he also became one of the most powerful until he was convicted on 13 of 14 counts in a landmark federal corruption trial in December 2023.
2024: The Blommer Chocolate factory, famous for sending an unmistakable chocolate smell throughout the Fulton River District, closed. In 2020, the Blommer Outlet Store closed after almost 30 years to make room for updates and enhancements to the local chocolate factory. But improvements to the plant were delayed because of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a filing. Blommer is the largest cocoa processor and ingredient chocolate supplier in North America.
Subscribe to the free Vintage Chicago Tribune newsletter, join our Chicagoland history Facebook group, stay current with Today in Chicago History and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago's past.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Chicago Tribune
20 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Today in Chicago History: Douglas Aircraft Co. builds assembly plant near Orchard Place
Here's a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on July 25, according to the Tribune's archives. Is an important event missing from this date? Email us. Walter Payton: The life, career of the Chicago Bears Hall of Famer better known as 'Sweetness'Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago) 1889: Nineteen sea lions arrived at Lincoln Park Zoo from Santa Barbara, California. They were captured by Capt. Cyrus Alvah Eastman, who hand-fed the sea lions fish throughout their weeklong train journey to Chicago. 'They get used to a man quickly, ' he told a Tribune reporter. 'I've no doubt they will eat from the keeper's hand in a short time.' Months later, zoo neighbors complained to commissioners about the noise created by these animals: ' … during the long watches of the night most of them, having no place to rest, swim back and forth in the pond and bark incessantly to express their disapproval of their cramped quarters,' the Tribune reported on Oct. 22, 1889. O'Hare International Airport: From farm to global terminal1942: After the Douglas Aircraft Co. announced plans to construct an assembly plant on 1,347 acres at Orchard Place, near the intersection of Mannheim and Higgins roads south of Des Plaines, work began to demolish homes, level land and create a spur line of the North Western Railroad at the site. The site later became O'Hare International Airport. Subscribe to the free Vintage Chicago Tribune newsletter, join our Chicagoland history Facebook group, stay current with Today in Chicago History and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago's past.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Reviving a town with traditional building skills
Young people in a quiet corner of southern Scotland are restoring the area's crumbling buildings by learning traditional craft skills. Their latest project tackled a centuries-old property on Whithorn's High Street which lay roofless and derelict for decades. Building Futures Galloway (BFG) teaches at-risk skills like stone masonry while providing employment for young people from rural communities. The scheme emerged after the Covid pandemic when traditional industries like restaurants were still recovering. Behind the scaffolding and stonework are 10 young people gaining hands-on experience. Adam Molyneux, 22, has been with the team since the start. He was on universal credit and struggling to find permanent work when he joined BFG. "I hadn't had a real job before, to be honest," he said. Adam said the craft role has built both his confidence and practical skills, all while earning the real living wage. "I have ADHD, so I'm not very good with doing the same repetitive task all day long," he said. Instead the variety of hands-on work, fixing walls and building roofs keeps Adam focused and engaged. He added that locals stop by with a smile to look at the building. "I think everybody's quite happy with what we're doing," he said. "It does kind of feel like my own village and nice to think that we're helping the town come back to what it used be." BFG has seen 20 trainees through its ranks but the team has also trained more than 120 pupils from the nearby Douglas Ewart High School in Newton Stewart since 2021. Volunteer Julia Muir Watt said the project "joins up the dots" linking young people who need opportunities with buildings that are in dire need of repair. "There is often a skill shortage in rural areas when it comes to 'heritage skills'," she said. "That area is really needing new young recruits." Lead skills trainer Shaun Thomson agrees. He lives in Whithorn and said the area had a particular need due to the high number of listed buildings. "You struggle to get a tradesperson who can use traditional skills to make the correct choices in the repair and the maintenance of the building," he said. "It's very important for the area, the buildings, to look after them, but also to pass on the skills because there'll be a time where you won't have anybody who can pass them on." Historic Environment Scotland - which provided funding for building restoration in Whithorn - has previously highlighted the need for endangered traditional skills. "Scotland needs to scale up its training opportunities in heritage skills as demand is rising rapidly due to the need to repair and retrofit traditional buildings," it said in March. "Around 71% of traditionally-built housing in Scotland is in need of critical repair." It estimates 10,000 new jobs are needed over the next decade to do that work. One of those buildings in need of critical repair was 9 High Street. It had no roof, no back wall, wobbly chimneys, even a tree growing from the roof. "From our point of view it offered every single skill that you could wish for if you're going to train in traditional buildings," said Julia. The project recycled material on site and used traditional materials like lime and local greywacke sandstone. The roof was made from local timber and squared using "medieval axe techniques". "There are only about 360 traditional masons left in Scotland, which is a tiny number when you think of our vast numbers of stone buildings," Julia said. Work is already under way on the team's next project repairing Whithorn's old town hall. Hazel Smith, a chartered architect and a 20-year Whithorn resident, called the repairs fantastic. "It was such an eyesore on the streetscape and I know the neighbours had a terrible time with the water ingress into their house," she said. "I think people are just delighted to see these old buildings being cared for and nurtured in the right manner with knowing that they've got the skilled workforce working on them and that they've got a future." Positive impact All of which, Julia said, provided a "good example of how young people can be seen positively rather than negatively in a local community". In return, they get meaningful work which encourages them to stay and help revive a rural area. "I think I'd just like to keep going along with it and I think we also want to start trying to train other young people to keep these crafts going," said Adam. "The long-term goal of this project is to keep these traditional crafts alive." More stories like this Breaking down walls in the world of bricklaying
Chicago Tribune
a day ago
- Chicago Tribune
Vintage Chicago Tribune: Eastland disaster and its aftermath
On this day 110 years ago, a ship in the Chicago River between LaSalle Drive and Clark Street was loaded with more than 2,500 passengers — many of them Western Electric Co. employees and their families — ready to embark on a day trip to Michigan City, Indiana. The SS Eastland had been known as the 'Greyhound of the Great Lakes.' The vessel, however, was built to serve as a freighter — not an excursion vessel. 'It was owned by a couple of rich guys who had no business being in the boat business,' Tribune columnist Rick Kogan wrote in 2019. 'It was a disaster waiting to happen.' Here's a look back at what's become known as the Eastland Disaster and its aftermath. When the Eastland swayed then suddenly rolled onto its side, hundreds of passengers became trapped inside the vessel — just feet from the dock — as water poured in. George Halas was supposed to be on the SS Eastland the day it capsized in the Chicago River, killing 844 peopleA total of 844 people died, making it one of the worst maritime events in United States history and the deadliest single day event in the city's history (about 300 died in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and 602 were died in a fire at the Iroquois Theatre in 1903). Bodies of the dead were taken to the 2nd Regiment Armory, which later became the site of Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studios. Bodies were laid out in rows of 85, and after seven days, all had been identified. Photographers with the city's eight daily newspapers raced to the scene on that summer Saturday morning as word of the Eastland quickly spread to newsrooms. Lyman Atwell of the Herald, Robert Hollihan Sr. of the American and Godfrey Lundberg and Fred C. Eckhardt of the Tribune also took photos that day. Another photographer was Jun Fujita, a 25-year-old Japanese immigrant who had been taking pictures in Chicago for about a year. Fujita ended up capturing one of the iconic photos of the day, a picture of a firefighter with an anguished look on his face holding a dead boy. Fujita also took photos of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and the city's 1919 race riots, before he took to writing poetry. The Tribune printed five pages of obituaries about the Eastland's known victims. Campaigns were started to reimburse victims' families. The Red Cross distributed a total of $170,000 (or roughly $5.4 million in today's dollars) to families in the form of 540 checks. After settling into several feet of mud, the ship was lifted to an angle of 70 degrees, and finally righted by the Favorite, a tug boat. William 'Frenchy' Deneau had been considered a hero for recovering hundreds of victims' bodies following the disaster. The experienced diver was back in the river months later laying cable when he hit metal. Deneau believed he had found a submarine owned by Peter Nissen, an adventurer who garnered front-page headlines for his successful navigation of Niagara River rapids along the U.S.-Canada border. He worked with the federal government to secure ownership of the vessel and raise it. Starting in February 1916, visitors to the Rector Building on State Street could tour the 'tragic and historic relic.' Deneau, now calling himself a captain, placed a full-page advertisement in the Tribune for 'the most intensely interesting exhibit ever shown in Chicago.' The Tribune had no further mention of Deneau's prized artifact. The boat's connection to Nissen is confounding and its whereabouts today are unknown. Six men had been indicted for operating an unsafe ship and for criminal negligence. They were: A trial was held in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that featured famed attorney Clarence Darrow, who represented Erickson. A judge ruled the prosecution failed to make a case against the men. The Eastland was salvaged and sold to the U.S. Navy. Many Chicagoans gathered to boo the vessel as it left the Chicago River to undergo restorations and some modifications, that would convert it into a gunboat. Its name changed to the USS Wilmette, and it functioned mostly as a training ship on the Great Lakes. The Wilmette riddled a German submarine with cannon fire in 1921, sending it to the bottom of Lake Michigan about 20 miles east of Highland Park. After World War II, the Wilmette was sold for scrap. Students at Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora had researched the tragedy and were shocked to find no details about it in school textbooks. That's why they worked to erect a plaque at Clark Street and Wacker Drive. Eastland survivor Libby Hruby told those assembled for the dedication of the marker that she was plucked from the water by her sister. After it disappeared in 2000, the plaque was replaced and rededicated in 2003. A collection of nearly 100 black-and-white glass-plate negatives — many of them never published — were discovered in the basement of Tribune Tower. The images from the Tribune archives were found inside two cardboard boxes in the newspaper's dimly lit, temperature-controlled basement archives five floors below Michigan Avenue. Marianne Mather, a photo editor at the Tribune, discovered the Eastland images as she searched for other images. Vintage Chicago Tribune: Our Top 4 most unexpected finds in the Chicago Tribune's archivesThe photographs capture the aftermath of one of Chicago's worst disasters: rows of sheet-covered bodies inside a temporary morgue, two women crying while clutching a baby in a blanket, a Coast Guard crew hauling a woman out of the river, the Eastland flopped over in the water like a plastic toy in a bathtub, dozens of people atop its side, awaiting rescue. Several hundred people gathered on the Chicago Riverwalk — many of them descendants of the Eastland's victims and survivors — to mark a century after the tragic event. Others visited Bohemian National Cemetery at Pulaski Road and Foster Avenue on the Northwest Side, which has 143 Eastland victims buried in its plots — the most of any cemetery in the Chicago area. Of the 22 families wiped out by the disaster, four are buried at Bohemian. Some, including those of Czech ancestry, include a short line — 'obet Eastlandu,' or 'victim of the Eastland.' Flashback: Touring the Bohemian National Cemetery grounds with 'Cemetery Lady' Helen SclairA memorial was unveiled just prior to the major anniversary. It features a black plaque that describes the disaster on one side and gives details of the Eastland gravesites on the other. A granite slab with a steamship's steering wheel juts out of a granite slab with carved ripples that represent the sinking of the ship and its raising following the incident. Thanks for reading! Subscribe to the free Vintage Chicago Tribune newsletter, join our Chicagoland history Facebook group, stay current with Today in Chicago History and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago's past.
