In 1880, the Calumet Club held their annual reunion of early Chicago settlers. Now approaching a population of a million, half a century before Chicago had been little more than… Read more »
The Democratic National Convention of 1864 was by most accounts a disaster. Meeting in Chicago to nominate General McClellan to oppose Lincoln, the party struggled with an unhealed rift between… Read more »
Listen in above or on iTunes or archive.org! I’ve been speaking about Captain George Wellington Streeter since my very first tours. Though I doubt very much that he really put a “curse” on… Read more »
Been a while since I had a new Holmes post up! But I spent the last year researching him in depth for my massive new book on him, and with… Read more »
Listen in above or on iTunes or archive.org! A few months ago I had to take a quick trip to Madison, WI and made a side trip along the way to Garden Prairie,… Read more »
(new podcast! Click above, or see archive.org or iTunes In 1888, a book of anecdotes about early Chicago retold a heck of a ghost story: one night on West Randolph, a… Read more »
A special post with the draft of a chapter for the Mysterious Chicago book, coming Oct 26 from Skyhorse! When John Lennon apologized for his infamous “Bigger than Jesus” remark… Read more »
There’s a scene in Citizen Kane when Kane is celebrating his wedding to his new bride, Susan Alexander, whom he’s promised to make into an opera star. “Charlie says if… Read more »