In 1918, there was a scandal around Chicago’s classy hotels: employees were accused of using “Mickey Finn” powders to knock their wealthy customers out, so that they could be robbed. In the 1920s and 30s you heard the term used for knock-out drops given to boxers by people trying to fix fights. Around the same…
Author: adam
Frances Carrick, a Chicago Trans Woman Accused of Murder in 1923
This is the story of Frances Carrick, a transgender woman accused of murder in Chicago in 1923.
Monument Unveiling for William Randall, 29th USCT
A few months before release date, and my Graceland Cemetery book is already out of date – in the best way! Several of the stories in the book are about people whose plots have never been marked (invariably because no one ever bought a marker for the plot – there’s no conspiracy or anything here),…
Chicago’s “Legally” Haunted House
In 1991, a man in New York sued the previous owners of his house for not having disclosed that the house was haunted, and the court ruled in his favor. The judge didn’t comment on whether the ghosts might be real, but noted that the house had been written up as haunted in a national…
The Grave of Big Thunder: A Deep Dive
The exposed corpse of Big Thunder, which was an Illinois tourist trap in the 1830s. A deep dive into first hand accounts.
Minnie Wallace and the Ravenswood House of Mystery
When you’re 49 and talk a teenage girl into marrying you, and then she kills you and takes all your money… it’s kinda on you, bro. Minnie was only 16 when she left her home in New Orleans to marry 49 year old J.R. Walkup, the mayor of Emporia, Kansas. A month after the wedding…
Girl in Glass: The Inez Statue at Graceland Cemetery
Lots of new information on the history of Inez, Graceland Cemetery’s famous “Girl in Glass.”
When Illinois Packed Its Supreme Court
As of the 1830s, when Chicago was just rising up from its status as a mudhole on the prairie, the law in Illinois was that anyone could vote in the state as long as they’d lived here for sixth months (Well, provided that they were white, male, and over 21). This included people who weren’t…