John Stone was the first murderer hanged in Chicago – and suggested the murder wasn’t his first. An “oral history” of his Chicago crime.
Tag: podcast
Burnham’s “Make No Little Plans” Quote: Apocryphal No More!
Locating and reprinting the original speech in which Daniel Burnham told city planners to “make no little plans.” Reprinted for the first time since 1910!
The Cop Who Cried Wolf
Listen above, on archive.org, or iTunes. Or see more podcasts! Pictured above is Officer Curran. In 1925, he was working the desk at the County Building, where gangsters John Scalisi and Albert Anselmi had just been brought in . They’d been arrested after a chaotic day in which they’d gone out with Mike Genna to…
Podcast: She Dreamed of a Skeleton
Listen above, at archive.org or check out the podcast on iTunes! In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Chicago papers published a number of articles about how many ghost stories there were on Sheridan Road. One of them came up just a bit in my HH Holmes research – the legend of a…
Podcast: Searching for the Grave of Cap Streeter
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 own country – his story is a uniquely Chicago sort of tale, a story that…
Podcast: Thomas Neill Cream – Antique Serial Killer
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 in a quiet little graveyard surrounded by farmland. Most of the gravestones there are faded…
Podcast: The Bloody Handprint of West Randolph
(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 saw a disembodied hand shoving her apartment door shut. She ran away, then came back…
The Fool Killer Submarine: 100th Anniversary Podcast and New Theories!
Subscribe on iTunes This month, January of 1916, marks the 100th anniversary of the day they found bones in the wreck of the Fool Killer, the mysterious submarine found in the Chicago River in November, 1915. It’s one of my favorite Chicago mysteries, and the first one that really sent me down a rabbit hole….