Newspaper writers of the early 20th century found lots of amusing euphemisms for LGBT couples – enough that one sees references to a young woman and her “aide” and it’s tempting, at least, to wonder if they were more than… (READ MORE)
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 a mud-hole, where, one settler remembered, a typical sunday consisted… (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 delegats who wanted to crush the Confederacy in one big blow… (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 the landfill he created – and declared to be his… (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 a couple of Holmes bus tours coming, I thought today… (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, IL, searching for the grave of Daniel Stott, which lies… (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 woman heard ghostly footsteps up and down the stairs, then… (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 at the Astor Tower Hotel, it’s quite likely that he… (READ MORE)