The homicide figures do not include killings that occurred in self-defense or in other circumstances not measured in Chicago police statistics. Homicide data from the Illinois State Police, which patrols the city’s expressways, also is not included here.

After a two-year spike during the pandemic and national outrage over police accountability, Chicago began to see a decline in homicides in 2022. Homicide and nonfatal shooting totals fell again in 2023, but the city was roiled by robbery and carjacking crews responsible for an overall uptick in violence.

Data, which is updated on this page weekly, is through June 8, 2024.

The number of people slain so far in 2024: 213.

That’s 45 fewer people killed when compared with 2023.

Austin leads all community areas with the most homicides so far in 2024 — 20.

Where each homicide has occurred so far in 2024 (through June 8)

Sources: City of Chicago, Tribune reporting

Chicago’s homicide victims in 2024 are often young, Black and male.

Most homicide victims in Chicago died as the result of gunshot wounds.

Sources: City of Chicago; Tribune reporting and archives

The genesis of the Field Museum 130 years ago may seem today like a mishmash of items — animals in skeleton and taxidermied forms; precious gemstones, minerals and jewels; insects and invertebrate collections; fossils and meteorites from dig sites near and far and a smattering of other rarely seen curiosities — but it soon became a leading institution dedicated to scientific exploration and educational experiences for visitors about the people, creatures, habits and habitats that have shaped our planet.

Here’s a look back at highlights in the museum’s continuing evolution.

‘We need people power:’ How visitors to the Field Museum are helping with scientific research

May 31, 1890: Chicago’s World’s Fair — ‘perfect ethnolographical exhibition of the past and present peoples of America’

Frederic Ward Putnam, one of America’s first anthropologists and professor and curator of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, suggested Chicago look to Paris for a key element to incorporate into its 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition — “the study of man.”

“The reproduction of the habitations of man, showing the development of architecture from the primitive shelters of savages to the elaborate dwellings of barbaric times, and finally to the early classical architecture, was a grand conception and count but impress upon the mind the trials and struggles through which the civilization of today has been attained,” Putname wrote in the Tribune.

The fair’s organizers agreed and put Putnam on their payroll. Just a few days after commissioners for the World’s Columbian Exposition settled on Jackson Park as the site for the event, Putnam recommended the fair dedicate $300,000 (or roughly about $10 million in today’s dollars) for archaeological expeditions — from Greenland to Patagonia — to collect artifacts which would then be housed in a large, permanent ethnological museum on the grounds.

Inside the Field Museum’s hidden flesh-eating beetle room

But the Tribune’s Editorial Board scoffed at the potential cost — calling it “prehistoric crankery” — for the cash-strapped undertaking.

“If the archaeological enthusiasts think that the public has a wild, yearning desire to see skeletons from the glacial gravels or detritus from the cave floors and shell heaps, let them spend their own money,” they wrote. “The directors have no money to waste on the man of the ice sheet or stone monstrosities from serpent mounds. … All that is necessary can be supplied by the Smithsonian Institution, and if Mexico, Greenland, or Peru pride themselves on this prehistoric stuff they can easily be induced to send it.

Putnam, given $100,000, hired two young assistants who would go on to become legends in anthropological history, German-trained Franz Boas and George Dorsey, Putnam’s prize graduate student at Harvard who in 1894 earned the first anthropology doctorate degree granted in the U.S.

The three men selected 100 men — graduate students, soldiers, sailors, diplomats and missionaries — to fan out through 50 countries to seek out and bring home outstanding artifacts for display in the 157,000 square foot Anthropology Building.

Each of the collectors was given detailed instructions on how to properly excavate and scientifically record a prehistoric ruin. If the expedition was visiting living tribal cultures, collectors were told what sorts of items to acquire:

“Particular attention should be paid to the fact that the most important things to be collected are those of genuine native manufacture, and especially those objects connected with the olden times. Objects traded to the natives by whites are of no importance, and are not desired.”

It was an unprecedented undertaking for its time, not exacting or professional by today’s standards, but more scientifically rigorous than other expeditions of that period.

May 1, 1893: Ethnic village opens with the exhibition — but without Putnam’s guidance

Beyond boxes of artifacts, many of the expeditions returned with groups of people they had studied, along with whole houses and portions of their villages to be displayed at the fair — a practice that would horrify today’s anthropologists. Among the 3,000 indigenous peoples were Laplanders, Alaskan Eskimos, North and South American Indians, Melanesians, Maoris, Javanese, Sri Lankans, Africans, Arabs and Egyptians. Putnam planned to install “a dignified and decorous ethnological display” on an 80-acre strip of land called the Midway Plaisance.

Vintage Chicago Tribune: World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893 and Century of Progress, 1933-1934

Fair directors, however, were looking for ways to recover the millions of dollars in Chicago money invested in the fair. They took control of the Midway away from Putnam and gave it to Sol Bloom, a young protege of showman P.T. Barnum.

Under Bloom, who sold concessions to entertainment vendors, the “native” villages were tucked among beer halls and restaurants featuring food and music from around the world, a huge circus of performing wild animals, Buffalo Bill Cody’s internationally famous “Wild West Show,” and notorious entertainers, including belly-dancing “hoochie-coochie” girls. The area became an instant hit with visitors and the salvation of investors — but did not at all represent Putnam’s “dignified” plan.

Oct. 27, 1893: A home for the rare — and the odds and ends — gets a major influx of cash

Discussions began in late August 1893, on what to do with all the artifacts that had been assembled in Chicago for the exposition after it closed. A committee of trustees for the project began to solicit financial requests to establish a permanent museum that would memorialize the exposition. Originally dubbed the Columbian Museum of Chicago, the collection was set to occupy the exposition’s Palace of Fine Arts.

Marshall Field, founder of his namesake department store, heeded the call by giving the largest donation — $1 million (or more than $30 million in today’s dollars). The Tribune reported Field’s generosity was made “with as little ceremony as he would pay an admission fee to Jackson Park.” It was lumberman Edward E. Ayer who persuaded Field to make the generous contribution — and proposed the museum be named after Field.

Soon, wealthy Chicagoans rushed to support the project. George Pullman promised $100,000.  Ayer, who would become the museum’s first director, donated his extensive collection of Native American artifacts and purchased the museum’s original collection of Egyptian artifacts.

Off display: As new rules about Native American artifacts go into effect, the Field Museum and others in Illinois must comply

Yet, the common man who attended the exposition also looked to donate his items to the museum out of frugality, “It gets their names in the papers and saves the expense of packing and carting away,” the Tribune reported.

Among the museum’s earliest acquisitions were the following items from the exposition: Ward’s Natural Science Establishment collection of fossil invertebrates, the entire Tiffany & Co. gem display, a collection of pre-Columbian gold ornaments and musical instruments from Samoa and Java.

June 2, 1894: Field Museum opens

Six thousand people gathered to view the museum’s collections after a simple ceremony featured “a prayer, two speeches, a single word spoken to a man holding a lanyard, a colored streamer rose to masthead, throwing a fluttering shadow downward, and the Field Columbian Museum was given to the people,” the Tribune reported.

Visitors who entered the building’s rotunda could walk along the evolution of the earth before man’s appearance — baked vegetation covered with lichen, then a cross section of a California redwood tree that was nearly 6 feet in diameter, followed by animal including a mastodon, mammoth and a whale.

May 2, 1921: Antiquities get a new home

The museum quickly outgrew its Jackson Park home, which also needed major repairs. (It reopened as the Museum of Science and Industry on July 1, 1933, as part of the Century of Progress exposition.) Construction began in July 1915, on the museum’s current site at Roosevelt Road near Northerly Island and was expected to take two to three years. Costs were estimated at $5 million (or roughly $156 million in today’s dollars).

One year prior to its opening, the museum’s exhibits were carefully removed from their first home and transported about 6 miles north to their new home.

Why the Field Museum wasn’t built on Chicago’s lakefront

More than 8,000 visitors braved a “biting wind and drizzly rain” to enter what the Tribune called “the greatest natural history museum in the west, and one of the finest examples of Ionic architecture in this country.” For the first time they could view the the exhibits — including prehistoric animals, skeletons, Egyptian relics and mummies and Native American handcrafted works — in spacious accommodations.

Then, just as now, the museum was open every day except Thanksgiving and Christmas.

1924: Lions of Tsavo land in Chicago

In 1898, two “devil” lions inexplicably began attacking laborers constructing the Uganda Railway near the Kenyan city of Tsavo. Before the beasts’ nine-month reign of terror was over, an estimated 135 men (though that total was later challenged) were slaughtered and the progress of the monumental project was halted.

Field Museum scientists use X-rays to examine infamous man-eating lions to settle skull mystery

Col. J.H. Patterson, an engineer, had to subdue the animals before construction could continue, and the British empire could expand its colonial reach. He wrote a book titled “The Man-Eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures,” about the experience, which was later adapted into the 1996 film “The Ghost and the Darkness.”

Nearly three decades later, in 1924, Patterson would journey to Chicago to lecture on the incident.

The museum’s chairman of the board, Stanley Field, asked his friend if he knew what had become of the lions. Patterson told him they were serving as rugs in his home.

LEGENDARY LIONS

Field offered to purchase the bullet-riddled skins — and the cats’ skulls — for $5,000. The deal struck, taxidermist Julius Friesser was given the task of getting them in shape for display.

Other talented men who have worked with the institution’s animal displays include “Father of Modern Taxidermy” Carl Akeley, Carl Cotton and Sinclair Clark.

1951: Bushman — ‘the most famous animal to ever call Chicago home’

Bushman, a gorilla born in Cameroon then brought to Chicago by American missionaries, was the highlight of a visit to the Lincoln Park Zoo. In the 1930s and 1940s he so firmly embedded himself into the hearts and minds of our citizenry that by 1950, Time magazine could accurately write that he was “the best known and most popular civic feature in Chicago.” During his lifetime, Bushman was seen by an estimated 100 million people.

Bushman, Lincoln Park Zoo gorilla (1928-1951)

After his death on New Year’s Day 1951, the massive 6-foot-2, 550-pound gorilla was brought to the Field Museum where its expert taxidermists carefully preserved and encased in glass the beloved animal who greets visitors at the museum’s East Entrance.

Another monumental animal who lived in Chicago is tucked away in a back corner on the museum’s main level. Su-Lin was the first live panda brought to the United States from China.

April 15, 1977: King Tut’s tomb treasures attract thousands

The Field Museum was one of six institutions in the United States chosen to host 55 objects that once belonged to the young King Tutankhamun. The exhibit idea was formed during the administration of President Richard Nixon, who wanted the American people to associate Egypt with something more than oil and water, according to the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Unlike his possessions, King Tut didn’t make the trip to Chicago — his mummy remained in the Valley of the Kings outside Luxor, Egypt. Chicago was the second stop of “The Treasures of Tutankhamun” tour, which remained incredibly popular during its four months at the Field Museum. Long lines of eager visitors regularly snaked outside the museum and down its front entrance steps. Once inside, each paid the $1.50 admission then waited for TV monitors announcing when they could enter the Tut exhibit.

More than 1.3 million people — at a rate of more than 1,000 per hour — viewed the King Tut exhibit.

May 17, 2000: Here’s looking at Sue

After years of hype and hullabaloo, dinosaur fans finally got to see the biggest, most complete and the most expensive at the time ($8.36 million) Tyrannosaurus rex fossil ever found — on permanent display in Chicago.

The dinosaur’s skeleton was discovered in 1990 near Faith, S.D., by Black Hills Institute of Geology worker Sue Hendrickson — earning it the nickname “Sue.” Federal authorities seized the fossil in 1992, claiming it was illegally removed from a Sioux ranch held in trust by the government. The government chose to sell the fossil at auction — the first T.rex to be sold in this way — in New York on Oct. 4, 1997.

The Field Museum, with McDonald’s and Walt Disney corporations helping bankroll the purchase, bought the specimen during the dramatic, high-stakes auction hosted by Sotheby’s. The money went to the rancher. The Black Hills Institute, left with nothing, claimed trademark and licensing rights to the Sue name. When the institute and the Field Museum could not come to an agreement on the use of the name, the museum dropped the Sue name in January 1998, announcing a contest for elementary-school children to find a new name (who chose the name “Dakota”). A few weeks later, however, the institute agreed to drop all claims on the name Sue.

Sue is no longer the priciest T. rex ever, but is it still the best specimen? Let’s go to the tape

Many paleontologists feared that if the 65-million-year-old fossil were purchased by a private buyer, then it would not be made available for scientific study. But they celebrated the specimen’s arrival at the museum, where it has undergone a variety of CAT scans and other technological tests that continue today.

Originally Sue occupied a prime position in Stanley Field Hall, the institution’s grand entrance. Since December 2018, Sue has lived in a second-floor gallery on the path through the “Evolving Planet” exhibit.

May 2022: ‘Native Truths’ exhibit shifts the narrative where it belongs — straight to Indigenous people

From the 1950s until 2019, the Field Museum’s Native North America Hall was a haphazard collection of everyday Indigenous American items. Vague, terse descriptions rendered the artifacts as faceless as the mannequins on display. Field anthropologists had hastily collected the items in the late 19th century, assuming, chillingly, that the cultures of their origin wouldn’t last.

‘Apsáalooke Women and Warriors’ is Field Museum’s first major show curated by a Native American scholar

“Native Truths: Our Voices, Our Stories,” was a long-awaited corrective. A four-year project, the permanent exhibit replaced the former Native North America displays bringing the history of Native American life in dialogue with its kaleidoscopic present.

The exhibit’s writer-curators — representing about 100 of the 574 federally recognized Native American tribes in the U.S. — contextualize items from the Field’s holdings through first-person descriptions, mostly relayed via touch screen. Fifty of the 400-plus items on display were commissioned by contemporary Native artists specifically for the exhibit, where they’re juxtaposed with historical artworks and artifacts.

May 2024: Archaeopteryx arrives

The museum’s most important fossil acquisition since Sue the T. rex has feathers, hollow bones, a long tail and 50 teeth — and is the earliest known avian dinosaur, a link between dinosaurs and modern birds.

Field Museum welcomes world’s largest predatory dinosaur

The fossil is accompanied by a hologram-like projection showing how the Archaeopteryx would have looked in life. It’s one of two Archaeopteryx specimens in the United States — and only a dozen others have been found.

Want more vintage Chicago?

• Become a Tribune subscriber: It’s just $12 for a 1-year digital subscription
• Follow us on Instagram: @vintagetribune
• And, catch me Monday mornings on WLS-AM’s “The Steve Cochran Show” for a look at “This week in Chicago history”

Thanks for reading!

Join our Chicagoland history Facebook group and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago’s past.

Have an idea for Vintage Chicago Tribune? Share it with Ron Grossman and Marianne Mather at rgrossman@chicagotribune.com and mmather@chicagotribune.com

None would reach their destinations.

Just a few minutes after 3 p.m., the DC-10 carrying them and 13 members of the San Diego-based crew lost its left engine, which broke away and vaulted over the aircraft’s wing. The plane continued to rise, its wings level, despite the nearly 13,500 pounds suddenly missing from its left side. But as it reached 300 feet, the plane slowed and rolled left until it began to overturn, its nose tipping down. The aircraft crashed just 31 seconds into its flight. The 271 people aboard the plane and two more on the ground were killed. In an instant several immediate families were gone.

Forty-five years later, Flight 191 remains the deadliest passenger airline accident on U.S. soil.

The victims were a cross-section of America — smart, funny, kind, brave, loving and hardworking. That’s how their family and friends remember them. Each year they gather to celebrate their lost loved ones whose names are inscribed on bricks in a special Flight 191 Memorial at Lake Park in Des Plaines — just down the road from the crash site. A special ceremony will take place there starting at 2 p.m. May 25.

Here are a few of their stories with many more available on the Tribune’s virtual memorial.

Vintage Chicago Tribune: Remembering the 273 victims of American Airlines Flight 191

Kathleen Adduci

Michael Adduci is the brother of Kathleen Adduci, a nursing student from Homewood who was taking a vacation to Hawaii after calling off her wedding. He was 20 when the crash happened, and now lives in Camden, Michigan, after retiring from Metra:

Kathy was supposed to get married and the date was set for June 2 of that year, but it was called off. To take her mind off the wedding, my mom talked her into going to Hawaii with two other friends. They were Gail DeCastro and Rhonda DeYoung, who also perished. We ended up in church on the 2nd of June for Kathy — for her funeral.

She was a sweet and beautiful sister who had many friends. She was studying to be a nurse at South Suburban College at the time of the accident and needed a break from school and the heartbreak of the wedding being called off. I remember she had just bought a new Pontiac Firebird and I went with her to sign the papers and bring it home. She was so proud of it.

The devastation of the accident affected my family way beyond 1979. My mom was in remission from breast cancer and three months after the accident her cancer came back and she passed away in 1981. My father was heartbroken over losing two loved ones and committed suicide in 1997.

What I didn’t realize until the (memorial’s) dedication was there were families there who lost up to five family members at once. Now, that’s devastation, isn’t it?

Bill and Corrine Borchers

Kim Jockl and Melody Smith are the daughters of Bill and Corrine Borchers, a North Side couple who were traveling to Hawaii for a vacation. Jockl and Smith, who were 23 and 32 at the time of the crash, later helped to create the memorial in Des Plaines:

JOCKL: I was living at home, and I left the day before (Flight 191) for Acapulco because I was graduating from Northeastern Illinois University. United was on strike, so flights kept getting canceled and moved. My parents ended up getting tickets through a travel agency, Tartan Travel.

‘Everyone who died was a hero’: 40 years after American Airlines Flight 191 crashed near O’Hare, families reflect on those lost

My mom said, “There’s been too many changes. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” And we were like, “Go! It’s going to be great.”

SMITH: My husband stopped in a grocery store and heard on the TV that there was a crash. When we walked in our house, the phone was ringing. It was my mother-in-law asking what time my parents got on the flight. I didn’t think it was American Airlines. The last I heard, it was Braniff. I called the airline, and they just took my name.

Then I remembered Tartan Travel. I got hold of someone walking out the door. He called me about five minutes later and said, yes, they were scheduled for that flight.

Ping Chun

The 26-year-old left his graduate work at the Illinois Institute of Technology to take a job as a computer technologist. He was traveling from Illinois to California to interview with Hughes Aircraft Co. These memories are from his sister, Yen Chun:

He was brilliant beyond his years, but one would have never guessed given how humble he was. His kindness made him everyone’s favorite person and he never let life’s setbacks stop him from achieving his dream. If he had more years with us, there’s no doubt he would have been a brilliant leader in cutting-edge technology.

Ping was born in Beijing, China, in 1952, to American parents from Hawaii. At age 1.5, Ping contracted polio, which permanently impacted both of his legs. While the polio created challenges for him — forced him to walk with crutches and braces his whole life, pushed him back two years in school, prevented him from playing with other children — he always found the silver lining in every situation. When we all played outdoors, he would stay inside and read books or take apart clocks or radios. He enrolled in my school and became friends with all my friends. He couldn’t use his legs so instead he became an archer, a diver and a swimmer. But perhaps most importantly, I don’t ever remember him complaining about his disability once.

Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Griego

The 22-year-old Marine had been serving as an embassy guard in the Congo but was on his way home to surprise his family. Cathy Griego, his sister, shares these recollections:

I’ll never forget the day when the first news report came on TV reporting the crash in Chicago. My first thought was my brother Raymond, but I then realized he was on the other side of the world guarding an embassy. We had no idea he was on his way home.

He loved his country and served with honor. He loved his family and friends deeply. He was a very popular young man in his community.

I haven’t been able to make the trip to the memorial site. I have a real fear of flying and haven’t flown anywhere since my brother’s tragic accident.

Elaine Howell

Nancy Howell, daughter of Elaine Howell, learned of the crash on her car radio in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she was attending graduate school at the University of Tennessee. The previous day she received a letter from her mother with details of her trip:

My mother, Elaine E. Howell, was manager of a successful bookstore in Charleston, West Virginia. Like many others on the flight, she was en route to the American Booksellers Association annual meeting in Los Angeles.

The ABA convention was always one of my mother’s favorite activities as she met authors, learned about new books and spent time with colleagues from across the country. She had helped establish the local city library when I was a child. She loved books and the bookstore business. Her small bookstore in Charleston brought in an amazing array of authors — including Julia Child, Pearl Buck and other well-known authors of the time. One of her specialty areas was keeping a diverse inventory of books by Appalachian authors, including her good friend Jesse Stuart.

When I was younger, mother began taking courses at a local college, working full time and attending school part time for many years. She finally completed her bachelor’s degree in 1974 — the very day I graduated college.

As my brother went to our local dentist to collect records and fly to Chicago to deliver them, we knew we would need to plan a memorial. Shortly before the designated memorial, a small comfort — her body had been identified and was being sent home in time for the service.

John “Jack” Moncrieff

Kevin Moncrieff is the son of John “Jack” Moncrieff, an engineer for Bell Telephone who helped develop underground telecommunication cables and who was headed home to Sacramento, California, after a week of training in the Chicago area. Moncrieff was 7 when his father died and now works as a pilot for United Airlines, based out of O’Hare.

I remember him being gone quite a bit. My dad worked really hard, long hours. He was on the board of directors for the local credit union and was in a Scottish pipe and drum band. That took his time as well. But I do have memories of going on trips in a 1976 gold Chevy van that he was really proud of. And I also remember him coming home every day. I would scream “Daddy, daddy!” and run to the front door and give him a hug.

I was probably in second grade. I came home from school on the bus, walked in the front door and there were five people in the family room with my mom. That’s when she broke the news and said, “There’s been an accident. It doesn’t look like Dad’s coming home.”

It’s definitely the hardest news I’ve ever had. I just remember putting my face in my mom’s lap and crying.

Paul, Zaida, Marjorie and Zaida Louise Schade

Ivelisse Rios-Lopez, niece of Zaida Schade, shared her recollections of her aunt and family:

I remember being 14 years old and getting the announcement that something terrible happened to my aunt and uncle. They were originally supposed to go by themselves but ended up bringing their two daughters at the last moment.

My Aunt Zaida was born in Utuado, Puerto Rico, on Sept. 6, 1941, to parents Pedro Rios and Luisa Gonzalez. She was the youngest of six and the only baby girl of the family. She and her brothers were very close and had a loving bond with each other. She had married my Uncle Paul and moved up to Naperville and had their two lovely girls there.

Zaida and my cousins were always so fun loving and very caring. She always would worry about her older brothers and would make sure to visit her family in Puerto Rico whenever she could. Even though I can’t remember too much about my Uncle Paul, I do know that he was a kind man who very much loved his family and served in the U.S. Navy.

Stephen, Carolyn, Colin and Christopher Sutton

Stephen, a 38-year-old senior editor for Rand McNally’s adult nonfiction books, was taking his family, wife Carolyn, 38, and sons Colin, 9, and Christopher, 7, to California for Memorial Day weekend. First, he would attend the American Booksellers Association convention, then they would see his wife’s parents, who were also in California visiting her brother, and wrap up with a visit to Disneyland. The family left their dog, Charlie, in the care of neighbors.

Stephen and Carolyn were among the 30 whose bodies were never identified. These victims’ names became known by a process of elimination and were buried side by side at Green Hills Memorial Park in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Narda Vetor

Newana Cesarone, sister of Narda Vetor, said she was going to Los Angeles for a friend’s wedding:

Narda was a daughter, wife, mother, sister, sister-in-law, aunt, niece, cousin and friend. I listed each title because each person that fell under the individual categories truly believed they were special to her. She was the captain of the cheerleading squad at East Detroit High School, Michigan (now East Pointe), loved sports, a certified soccer referee and a resident of Clinton Township, Michigan.

She encouraged her then-young boys to play soccer and baseball. She was always present in her three children’s lives.

Narda was becoming politically active in her community by working on her neighbor’s run for treasurer in Clinton Township. There was even talk of her running for the township board. We always wondered what she could have achieved had she lived beyond her 31 years. We will never know but we know it would have been something truly special just like her.

The Clinton Township recreation department named an award after her that summer. As far as we know, it is still in existence.

258 passengers, 13 crew members: Here’s what we know about them

Those are the statistics, but we wanted to learn more about the people whose lives were lost that day. That’s why we asked family members and friends to share their recollections. We also combed the Tribune and Newspapers.com archives for details.

Want more vintage Chicago?

• Become a Tribune subscriber: It’s just $12 for a 1-year digital subscription
• Follow us on Instagram: @vintagetribune
• And, catch me Monday mornings on WLS-AM’s “The Steve Cochran Show” for a look at “This week in Chicago history”

Thanks for reading!

Join our Chicagoland history Facebook group and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago’s past.

Have an idea for Vintage Chicago Tribune? Share it with Ron Grossman and Marianne Mather at rgrossman@chicagotribune.com and mmather@chicagotribune.com

But the two brilliant masterminds behind the crime simply referred to it as a “perfect murder” — for which they believed they could outsmart the authorities and would never stand trial.

Friends Nathan “Babe” Leopold Jr., 19, and Richard “Dickie” Loeb, 18, were the pampered sons of prominent Kenwood families.

The wealth in Leopold’s family stemmed from both his parents. His father, Nathan F. Leopold Sr., was a paper box manufacturer. His mother Florence, heir to a banking fortune, died several years earlier. A law student at the University of Chicago, Leopold claimed to be familiar with 15 languages, an atheist and a student of ornithology.

The ‘Crime of the Century,’ 100 years later

Eighteen-year-old Loeb made headlines in 1923 after becoming the youngest student to graduate from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. His father Albert, who had been an attorney and vice president of Sears, Roebuck and Co., rewarded his son’s collegiate success by constructing a miniature nine-hole golf course in the family’s backyard at 5017 Ellis Ave.

Both had access to the best education and material things money could buy in the 1920s — impeccable clothing, flashy automobiles and even fine wines and spirits during Prohibition. Yet their affluence would also lead to their downfalls.

Their crime inspired not only copycats but also dramatic adaptations including the 1929 play “Rope,” the 1948 Hitchcock film of the same name, Chicago-born author and reporter Meyer Levin’s 1956 novel “Compulsion” and its 1959 film version starring Orson Welles, Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman, and John Logan’s 1988 play “Never the Sinner.”

Other “crimes of the century” have come and gone, but Leopold and Loeb’s case continues to fascinate and infuriate generations of Chicagoans.

May 21-22, 1924: Relative becomes victim in ‘perfect murder’

Robert “Bobby” Franks, a student at the Harvard School for Boys at 4731 S. Ellis Ave., hesitated when a gray Winton car pulled alongside him and he was offered a ride home from school. The 14-year-old, however, had reason to believe it was OK to accept the offer — he was related to one of the car’s occupants. Franks was Loeb’s second cousin who lived just across the street. They often played tennis on the Loeb estate’s court.

“He said, no, he would just as soon walk, so I told him I would like to talk to him about a tennis racket, so he got in the car,” Loeb later said.

When Franks got into the car, Loeb subsequently recalled: “Leopold reached his arm around young Franks, grabbed his mouth and hit him with a chisel. He began to bleed and wasn’t entirely unconscious. He was moaning.”

In the hours that followed, Franks’ father got a $10,000 demand in a typewritten ransom letter and his mother answered a mysterious phone call from a man who identified himself as “Mr. Johnson.” The family had the funds — Jacob Franks had earned his fortune through businesses including a pawn shop, watch companies and in real estate. The newspapers quickly ballyhooed the boy’s death as “The Crime of the Century.”

“The English in the threatening letter was so good that it must have been written by a man of more than ordinary education,” the Tribune reported. Police began to suspect maybe an instructor at Franks’ school was responsible for his death. The letter also echoed themes that appeared in a story called “The Kidnaping Syndicate” in a recent edition of Detective Story Magazine.

Was Franks the intended target?

Armand Deutsch, a Chicago-born film producer, believed he was the intended target in the 1924 case. He claimed the men “cruised around the Harvard School looking for me or another acceptable candidate.”

“It was no mystery why Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold had singled me out as a prime prospect for their heinous crime,” Deutsch wrote in 1996 for the Chicago Tribune Magazine. “My grandfather, Julius Rosenwald, was the chairman of the board of Sears, Roebuck and Co. His prominence made me an ideal choice.”

Armand Deutsch

“In addition,” he wrote, “Loeb’s father was a Sears vice president. Our families were friends. … So I knew and trusted both older boys, a great plus as they formulated their plans for what would become the first ‘crime of the century.’”

Instead of himself, Deutsch wrote, they “found my 14-year-old schoolmate Robert Franks. Like me, Bobby knew and trusted both of them.”

“How had I avoided certain death?” Deutsch wrote in the Tribune. “My daily routine was to walk home from school. Had I followed it on May 21, I surely would have accepted (the) invitation for a ride. Instead, I was picked up by the family chauffeur for a dental appointment.”

May 21-22, 1924: Body disposed of then discovered — with an interesting clue

Leopold and Loeb drove Franks’ body to the Edgar Woods Forest Preserve near 118th Street and adjacent to Wolf Lake. En route they stopped at a restaurant and bought a pair of hot dogs and root beers.

After dark, they pulled off the road near the Pennsylvania Railroad’s tracks and a culvert.

“We dragged the body out of the car, put the body in the road and carried it over to the culvert,” Loeb later recalled. “Leopold carried the feet, I carried the head. We deposited the body near the culvert, and undressed the body completely.”

RESCUED FROM OBSCURITY: 11,439 STORIES OF LIFE AND DEATH IN CHICAGO

The morning after Franks’ murder, Tony Minke, a pump operator at the nearby American Maize Co., discovered a body at about the same time Franks’ father received the ransom letter. No connection was made between the disappearance of Franks and the body, however, until that evening. Despite the blows to his head, doctors believed Franks died from suffocation — but not without a struggle.

One clue was found at the scene — a pair of horn-rimmed eyeglasses. Though the spectacles were the right size for Franks, his father said the child never wore glasses.

May 30-31, 1924: With alibi shaken, Leopold and Loeb confess

A week after Franks’ murder, investigators were still trying to piece together who might be responsible for the crime. Tribune reporter Maurine Watkins, who would later write the play that became the Broadway hit “Chicago,” followed the Franks family as they said goodbye to their son in Rosehill Cemetery.

Then, a slip of the tongue pointed all eyes on Leopold. He admitted to owning a similar pair of the rare, expensive glasses as those discovered near Franks’ body — and losing them at the same spot while birdwatching a few days earlier. Further questioning connected him as owner of the typewriter on which the ransom letter was typed. When Leopold could not produce either item, he became a suspect. His friend Loeb was also questioned by police.

Both men claimed they took a Leopold family car for a joyride that night, but their alibi fell apart when the family’s chauffeur said the vehicle was in the garage the day of Franks’ murder.

The “perfect murder” Leopold and Loeb thought they had constructed actually left investigators with no other suspects but them. With the retrieval of Leopold’s typewriter from a harbor in Jackson Park, the chain of evidence that connected the two young men to the crime was complete. Both confessed to killing Franks.

July 21, 1924: Darrow’s defense — ‘I am pleading for the future’

Some figured Leopold and Loeb’s trial would hinge on an insanity defense. In Illinois, the legal definition of insanity was a defendant’s inability to understand the charges he faces. Acting or talking crazy didn’t count, and Cook County State’s Attorney Robert E. Crowe said his psychiatrists would testify that Leopold and Loeb were in full possession of their mental faculties.

Clarence Darrow was hired by the confessed killers’ families for their defense. He made a surprise tactical move as the trial began.

“We withdraw our plea of not guilty and enter a plea of guilty,” Darrow told Judge John Caverly.

By entering guilty pleas, Darrow didn’t have to persuade 12 jurors to spare his clients the hangman’s noose. In a trial’s sentencing phase, the judge has the ultimate say.

Clarence Darrow’s words, if not his ghost, still linger in Jackson Park

After the evidence had been presented, Darrow addressed the judge, speaking for 12 hours over two days.

“Your honor stands between the past and the future. You may hang these boys; you may hang them by the neck till they are dead. But in doing it you will turn your face toward the past,” Darrow said. “I am pleading for the future.”

Darrow’s eloquent plea had the desired effect. Leopold and Loeb were sentenced to life in prison.

Sept. 11, 1924: Off to prison

A caravan of vehicles transported Leopold and Loeb to Joliet where they would become convicts No. 9305 and No. 9306 in Illinois’ penal system.

The pair were greeted by a mob of reporters, photographers, guards armed with rifles and spectators just outside the penitentiary’s gates.

Would you buy Leopold and Loeb’s fingerprints? A famous murder weapon? Chicago museums sometimes face similar questions.

“The great lock in the center door clanked as the key was turned,” the Tribune reported. “The iron barricade separating the 1,500 convicts from the great outside swung slowly on its hinges.”

Reporters hoping for a last word before the men entered the prison got this statement from Leopold:

“It’s 1924 now; it will probably be 1957 when we get out, and I’ll have a beard so long,” he said.

Jan. 28, 1936: Loeb slain in Stateville

James Day, a Chicagoan who was serving a prison term of up to 10 years for grand larceny, confessed to slashing Loeb 56 times with a razor in a shower room at the prison in Joliet. Day, who claimed the act was in self-defense after Loeb had tormented him for months, was acquitted by a jury for Loeb’s death on June 4, 1936.

Loeb’s death sparked a statewide investigation of conditions in Illinois prisons, which lampooned every facet of the penal and parole system and preferential treatment for inmates — like Loeb — with unlimited funds. Leopold and three other Stateville prisoners were questioned as part of the inquiry, but didn’t provide details about what led to Loeb’s death.

Feb. 20, 1958: Leopold granted parole

In his parole appeal, Leopold said he was “an intelligent savage” at the time of Franks’ murder, which he claimed Loeb had led him into. Leopold said his lack of moral sense was due to his accelerated intellectual development — at the sacrifice of a normal teenage experience. When asked by the parole board why he joined in the murder, Leopold said that Loeb was his best friend — but also his worst enemy — though he immediately noted that he was equally guilty for the crime.

“I literally lived and died in his approval and disapproval,” he said. “I would have done anything he asked. He wanted very badly to do this terrible thing. He had spent years reading detective stories. I had no desire to do it. On the contrary, the idea was repugnant to me. Loeb made sure we would actually do it. I couldn’t back out of the plan without being a quitter — forfeit Loeb’s friendship.”

Despite Pulitzer Prize-winning Abraham Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg’s speaking on behalf of his release, Leopold vowed to avoid all publicity and reject radio and television offers if granted freedom (though Doubleday did release his autobiography, “Life plus 99 Years,” which Sandburg endorsed as a Christmas gift suggestion).

“All I want is to get out of the spotlight,” he said. “Gentlemen, you see before you today not the conceited smart-alecky kid of 34 years ago. I’m an old man, a broken old man who humbly pleads for your forgiveness.”

Leopold was released from Stateville on March 13, 1958 — the 20th anniversary of Darrow’s death — and driven back to Chicago. But it wasn’t an easy commute. Leopold, who had suffered from car sickness since he was a child, had to pause several times during the road trip because he was “violently ill,” the Tribune reported.

The next day he departed for Puerto Rico, where he would earn $10 per month working as a laboratory and X-ray technician at a mission hospital. He married Trudi Garcia de Quevedo, a flower shop owner, on Feb. 7, 1961, and earned a master’s degree in social work a few months later. He was discharged from parole on March 13, 1963, and spent part of that summer visiting Israel, Greece and Europe with his wife before returning to Chicago to attend a conference on tropical medicine. He also visited his collection of birds, bugs and fish at a museum in Elgin. In the only interview given during his stay, Leopold told reporters he was against capital punishment, favored penal reform and considered himself a pacifist.

Leopold died in Puerto Rico on Aug. 29, 1971, at the age of 66.

October 1985: ‘We thought the file had been stolen’

The long lost file of the Leopold and Loeb case was unearthed in a box in a dusty corner of the records center kept by Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Morgan M. Finley.

PAPER TRAIL LEADS DEEP INTO HISTORY

Finley discovered the box while reorganizing the office’s 25 million files, which occupied 41 miles of shelves in a building at 23d Street and Rockwell Avenue, and placed it next to the Haymarket Square riot documents and the Black Sox case in his office.

“We thought the file had been stolen by souvenir hunters when they were filming the movie ‘Compulsion,’ ” a source told the Tribune.

July 17, 2018: ‘One of America’s Most Infamous Crimes’ captured in book

Archivist Kevin Leonard also discovered a trove of Leopold and Loeb case files — including the ransom note written by the pair, their confessions and court transcripts — in the basement of Northwestern University’s Law School in 1988. The collection was catalogued then exhibited in 2009, to an enthusiastic crowd of local history buffs and true crime aficionados.

Vaulted reputations

The exhibition’s success prompted its curator and author Nina Barrett to compile photos and ephemera into a bound edition — “The Leopold and Loeb Files: An Intimate Look at One of America’s Most Infamous Crimes.”

There was a bit of legal wrangling involved in getting the book to press, however, Tribune columnist Rick Kogan wrote in 2018: “That began in 2014 when NU initiated the federal suit against Barrett, who had been employed by the university, claiming she took an unfinished manuscript and related files after she quit her job and had refused to respond to its demands to return those files. After more than a year, Northwestern and Barrett agreed to share ownership of the copyright.”

Want more vintage Chicago?

• Become a Tribune subscriber: It’s just $12 for a 1-year digital subscription
• Follow us on Instagram: @vintagetribune
• And, catch me Monday mornings on WLS-AM’s “The Steve Cochran Show” for a look at “This week in Chicago history”

Thanks for reading!

Join our Chicagoland history Facebook group and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago’s past.

Have an idea for Vintage Chicago Tribune? Share it with Ron Grossman and Marianne Mather at rgrossman@chicagotribune.com and mmather@chicagotribune.com

Chicago lost about 82,000 people, or 3% of its population, from April 2020 to July 2023, giving the city a total of 2,664,452 residents, according to the census. But the city’s rate of population decline has sharply slowed, falling to just 0.3% — or 8,208 people — last year.

Cook County as a whole from 2020-2023 lost 188,000 people, or 3.6%, leaving the current population at slightly more than 5 million residents. Most of the departures occurred outside the city.

Census 2023 population estimates for the Chicago area: Did your city, town or village gain or lose residents?

Western suburbs like Cicero, Berwyn and Riverside lost about 5%, while south and southwest suburbs, including Summit, Oak Lawn, Dolton, Calumet City, Hazel Crest, Markham, Country Club Hills, Alsip and Palos Heights, lost 4.5% or more.

Meanwhile, far southwest suburbs including Yorkville, Plainfield and Oswego showed the most growth, with Yorkville growing by more than 3,000, or nearly 15%.

Statewide, Illinois lost an estimated 263,780 in the same three years, or 2%, to 12,549,689.

The losses reflect larger demographic changes in recent times, including a shift in population from the Midwest to the South and West; Black migration from the Chicago area; and a lack of in-migration, demographics analyst Rob Paral said.

While the 2020 census counted responses from household surveys, the annual estimates between the 10-year counts are based in part on counting births, deaths, and moves in and out, using the number of tax returns and Medicare filings.

The numbers do not reflect the recent influx of 41,000 migrants bused and flown to Chicago since August 2022. Census methodology does not account for migrant arrivals. Immigrants are typically hard to count because they may be transient, may not speak English and may want to stay under the radar, researchers said.

Oak Lawn Mayor Terry Vorderer, for one, didn’t buy the new estimates, noting that his town has added new townhomes while not losing housing stock.

“I’m shocked,” he said. “I am skeptical of the numbers. I think our population is stable if not increasing. The town is very viable, new businesses are coming in all the time. Younger families are moving in and the schools are full.”

One force that may be at work, census researchers said, is the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the height of the pandemic, many people were working remotely and moving out from cities and suburbs to outlying areas. That phenomenon is cooling but still has an effect, researchers said.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office also threw water on the results, highlighting past faulty counts made by the Census Bureau.

“For the last decade, the narrative that Illinois is losing population was fed, by what turned out to be, inaccurate annual preliminary estimates,” Pritzker spokesperson Alex Gough said in a statement. “Illinois remains one of the most populous states in the nation and is on the rise.”

International migration — which has risen nationwide — has nearly tripled in Illinois since 2021, Gough said. The state is in the process of challenging census data to ensure it receives adequate federal funding for programs like Medicare, affordable housing and homeland security, he added.

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration did not challenge the results, but instead linked population loss to decades of insufficient support for parts of the city. A lack of affordable housing, job losses and closed schools and mental health clinics have disproportionately hurt Black Chicagoans in particular, Johnson spokesperson Ronnie Reese said.

“The underlying causes of population loss in Chicago remain deeply rooted in historic disinvestment,” Reese said. “So when you ask questions related to population loss, you need to look at the resources in communities that traditionally keep residents tethered, and if there are none, therein lies the problem.”

Reese highlighted “investing in people” through Johnson’s new $1.25 billion borrowing plan earmarked for housing and workforce development as efforts to help people stay in Chicago.

Rising real estate prices have prompted some people in inner suburbs to sell and seek cheaper, larger housing farther out, said Matt Wilson, associate director of the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Crime and high taxes can also motivate people to move, and families in particular may seek safe communities with good schools.

“Most broadly, I think the quality of life that neighborhoods of the south side and south suburbs have to offer for the prices people have to pay to live in those areas has made people decide to leave,” Wilson wrote in an email to the Tribune. “Population decline and economic decline (are) mutually reinforcing and I think those areas are on trajectories of disinvestment and decline.”

In Oswego, 20-year-old resident Sam Terry just moved from Utah last month. He’s part of a team of about 40 workers who moved to a rented house to work installing solar panels for Sunrun.

“I love Oswego so far,” he said. “It’s a nice little area. You’ve got everything you need five minutes away. Everybody’s super cool, and it’s safe. We accidentally left the door open all day, and it was all good.”

Ray Hanania, a spokesman for Cicero, Bridgeview and Lyons, said the census typically misses undocumented immigrants. He blamed fear of crime for driving some people away.

Chicago remained the third largest city in the United States, behind New York and Los Angeles. It also lost the third most people, behind New York and Philadelphia.

While the nation’s fastest-growing cities continue to be in Sun Belt states, the new estimates show that some of the top gainers nationally are on the outskirts of metropolitan areas or in rural areas.

Chicago lost 81,900 people, or 3% of its population, during the same time frame. The city’s population as of July 1, 2023, was estimated at 2,664,452, with changes calculated from the estimated base of April 1, 2020.

Despite the decline, Chicago retained its position as the nation’s third most populous city, after New York and Los Angeles, in 2023. Houston was ranked fourth.

Suburban Cook County biggest area population loser in recent years, census estimates show

Cook County as a whole lost 188,000 people, or 3.6%, to slightly more than 5 million, with most of those coming from outside the city. Meanwhile collar counties including Grundy, McHenry and Will counties gained residents. Kendall County saw the largest increase in the state — more than 8,100 people have moved there since 2020, which is a 6.1% increase in population.

How did things change in your area? Here’s a look at 2023 population estimates for cities, towns and villages in Cook County and other Chicago-area counties.

Sources: U.S. Census; Tribune reporting

That’s what our friend Paul Durica, director of exhibitions for the Chicago History Museum, discovered as he continues to wade daily through pages of the Chicago Tribune from 1924.

We’re sharing a few of his finds from April of that year here, but many more can be found on his website, pocketguidetohell.com.

Have you enjoyed his dispatches? Durica is also a knowledgeable tour guide and if you’d like to meet him, he’s giving a walking tour called “Crime of the Century: Leopold, Loeb and the Murder of Bobby Franks.”

Vintage Chicago Tribune: Murder, mayhem and ‘all that jazz’ — the real women who inspired Oscar winner ‘Chicago’

April 1, 1924: Ballots — and bullets — fly in Cicero

Capone brothers Al and Frank set their eyes on Cicero with a desire to build gambling houses and speakeasies. There was just one problem — city officials needed to be shaken up in order to abide with these plans.

Frank Capone began establishing Capone-approved candidates for various positions. On election day in 1924, the Capones beat, kidnapped and intimidated voters who were planning on casting ballots for anti-Capone candidates. Things got so bad in Cicero that Chicago police were summoned to restore order to the community.

One of the first things police saw as they pulled into town was a dapper Frank Capone walking down the main street. As their cars headed toward him, Frank pulled his gun for fear it was rival gangsters. The officers, fearing any Capone with a gun, pumped Frank’s body with a still-undisclosed number of bullets.

The death of Frank meant a lot to Al’s career. It showed that a gangster can’t be too careful when in public. Al was the top man in the Capone family and next in line to succeed Johnny Torrio, ruler of Chicago’s underworld. As a result, Capone began traveling with a fleet of bodyguards whenever he was out.

Cicero remained Capone’s capital until 1931 — when he was sent to prison on tax evasion charges.

April 3, 1924: ‘I’ve shot a man, Albert’

Beulah Annan — a young, liquored-up woman (remember this was during Prohibition) — shot her equally inebriated lover to death in the Chicago apartment she shared with her husband.

She sat with the body for hours as her phonograph wailed the jazzy tune “Hula Lou” repeatedly. Ironically, the first phone call Annan made was to her husband: “I’ve shot a man, Albert. He tried to make love to me.”

Vintage Chicago Tribune: ‘Prettiest woman ever accused of murder in Chicago’

Another young woman named Maurine Dallas Watkins reported Annan’s expedited travails through Cook County’s legal system — from inquest to trial — for the Tribune.

Annan’s exploits became the framework for Watkins’ three-act play “Chicago,” which was staged for the first time in 1926. Roxie Hart, the protagonist, was surrounded by a cast whose words, actions and emotions were pulled directly from the headlines — including many of Watkins’ own.

April 8, 1924: Len Small — perhaps the dirtiest Illinois governor of them all — wins primary election

Small, a Kankakee farmer, former state senator and two-time former state treasurer, was elected governor in 1920. Just seven months after taking office, he was indicted on charges of embezzling millions of dollars while treasurer but was acquitted. Over the next few years, eight of the jurors who acquitted Small ended up with state jobs. Other people associated with the case also landed on public payrolls, including the presiding judge’s brothers.

Before the primary election on April 8, 1924, one reader with initials R.H.L. wrote in the Tribune’s “A Line O’ Type Or Two”: “If Len Small wins the race there’s no end to our disgrace.”

Still, Small was renominated and reelected, despite a Tribune editorial declaring him the “worst governor the state ever had.”

In 1928, voters finally said they had had enough. Small lost in the GOP primary to longtime Illinois Secretary of State Louis Emmerson in what was seen as a mandate for reform.

April 14, 1924: Who’s more ‘American’ than Johnny Weissmuller?

Illinois congressman Henry Rathbone — whose father Maj. Henry Rathbone was a guest in President Abraham Lincoln’s box at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., the night Lincoln was assassinated — didn’t question Chicago swimmer Johnny Weissmuller’s athletic prowess. But he did question the natator’s nationality — was he American? It was a valid question considering Weissmuller — who had broken multiple world records since he began competing with the Illinois Athletic Club in 1921 — was set to compete in his first Olympics that summer. Rathbone knew Weissmuller’s parents moved to the United States from Austria-Hungary (now part of Romania) and had not become naturalized citizens.

When asked where he was born, Weissmuller said Chicago and added that he had no intention of ever being anything but an American citizen. Weissmuller produced a birth certificate that corroborated these statements. And why hadn’t his father become a U.S. citizen? Weissmuller said his father tried, but was rejected by naturalization authorities for his inability to speak English.

The swimmer went on to win three gold medals and a bronze in water polo in the 1924 Paris Olympics then two more gold medals in 1928, before starring in “Tarzan” films.

Weissmuller’s Romanian birthplace was not revealed until after his death in 1984 at age 79, according to the United States Olympic & Paralympic Museum. That’s when Weissmuller’s son first learned of his father’s well-kept secret. Apparently Weissmuller used his brother’s birth certificate in order to compete with the American team overseas.

April 24, 1924: ‘Brainiest woman’ turns gun on her lover’s wife

Chicago’s youngest and first female assistant U.S. district attorney was a brilliant Polish immigrant named Wanda Stopa. She had been one of only two women to graduate from John Marshall Law School in 1921. But just three years after graduation, Stopa left her career, married a Russian count then fell in love with a rich, married advertising executive, Y. Kenley Smith, who paid for her to live in New York.

When Smith refused to leave his wife Genevieve, nicknamed Doodles, Stopa showed up at their Palos Park home on April 24, 1924, intending to kill Smith’s wife. She took a shot, but it hit the couple’s elderly caretaker, Henry Manning, killing him. Stopa went on the run, killing herself by swallowing poison in a Detroit hotel room.

Approximately 10,000 Chicagoans turned out for her wake and funeral.

Want more vintage Chicago?

• Become a Tribune subscriber: It’s just $12 for a 1-year digital subscription
• Follow us on Instagram: @vintagetribune
• And, catch me Monday mornings on WLS-AM’s “The Steve Cochran Show” for a look at “This week in Chicago history”

Thanks for reading!

Join our Chicagoland history Facebook group and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago’s past.

Have an idea for Vintage Chicago Tribune? Share it with Ron Grossman and Marianne Mather at rgrossman@chicagotribune.com and mmather@chicagotribune.com

Vintage Chicago Tribune: Leopold and Loeb

That’s what our friend Paul Durica, director of exhibitions for the Chicago History Museum, discovered as he continues to wade daily through page after page of the Chicago Tribune from back then.

Durica is also an expert tour guide known for his engrossing walking tours. He recently gave CBS News correspondent Erin Moriarty an overview of sites that played a role in the “perfect murder” of Bobby Franks by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb.

But Leopold and Loeb weren’t the only local names making headlines in May 1924. Here’s a look back at a few of the fascinating stories Durica rediscovered. Many more can be found on his website, pocketguidetohell.com.

Commemorating the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion

May 4, 1924: Duchess drops dead

The beloved East Indian elephant, purchased by Lincoln Park Zoo in June 1888 for a undisclosed sum along with a menagerie of other animals from the visiting circus led by J.A. Bailey and P.T. Barnum, collapsed and died while eating. Estimated to be 35 to 90 years of age, Duchess had been suffering from inflammation of the intestines for 10 days, the Tribune reported. Her hide was presented to the Field Museum and local Boy Scouts began the search to find a young replacement.

In 1892, the female pachyderm escaped from her handler outside her enclosure and went on the run, demolishing the door of a saloon on North Avenue, smashing in the window of another and walking through the fence around a vacant lot. She was captured and led back to her stall by noon, according to an Oct. 19, 1892, Chicago Tribune story.

May 8, 1924: ‘Al Brown’ disappears

Thirty minutes after the bullet-riddled body of beer runner and burglar Joseph L. Howard was discovered in front of the cigar counter inside a saloon owned by Hymie Jacobs at 2300 Wabash Ave., police began to search for Four Deuces owner “Al Brown” — who was really Al Capone. An underworld tipster said the man who shot Howard was Brown.

But with no one willing to talk about the incident, authorities were forced to drop the case.

May 11, 1924: Mundelein returns from Rome as Chicago’s first cardinal

More than a million Chicagoans welcomed Cardinal Mundelein back to the city on Mother’s Day, the Tribune reported.

He had traveled to Vatican City in March — just weeks after receiving notice to sail for Rome at once. Mundelein and Archbishop Patrick J. Hayes of New York became “princes of the church” during an elaborate ceremony in Vatican City on March 24, 1924, where their skull caps were exchanged for crimson-colored wide-brimmed hats denoting their promotions.

Vintage Chicago Tribune: What to know about Mundelein, a century after his elevation as Chicago’s first Cardinal

His first act was to bestow blessings on the city’s young people.

“On returning from a long, long journey, it is but fitting that the first to welcome the first cardinal of the west should be the little ones,” Mundelein told the crowd. “One could have no more enthusiastic nor radiant welcome than the one given to your archbishop when he returns home from your Holy Father.”

May 17, 1924: Final curtain falls on former Iroquois Theatre stage

After serving as home for the Ziegfield Follies, the Music Box review and musicals “The Merry Widow” and “The Pink Lady,” the Colonial Theater at 26 W. Randolph St. closed its doors forever. All of its assets were sold at a public auction and the building was prepared for demolition.

But the site was better known by its previous name — the Iroquois Theatre. Fire swept through it on Dec. 30, 1903, during a matinee performance of the comedy “Mr. Bluebeard” starring America’s favorite comedian, Eddie Foy. An estimated 1,700 people were in attendance when the fire began and they rushed to the exits, many of which were locked. Some people died from the fire itself, while others were trampled and smothered to death. More than 600 were killed, hundreds more injured. The Iroquois fire was and remains the deadliest theater fire and the deadliest single-building fire in U.S. history.

Today the site is occupied by the James M. Nederlander Theatre.

May 28, 1924: ‘Terrible’ Tommy O’Connor captured?

Minneapolis police announced they were holding a man who admitted he was the notorious gunman who escaped from a Chicago jail on Dec. 11, 1921 — a few nights before he was to be hanged for murder. It became the basis for the Broadway hit “The Front Page” and later movies. O’Connor had been convicted here of murdering one person — a police officer — and likely shot dead at least two more, including his best friend.

That’s why they called him “Terrible” Tommy.

Vintage Chicago Tribune: Jailbreak!!!

But O’Connor got away with it. One star witness was kidnapped days before a murder trial. Another escaped from prison before an armed robbery trial.

That’s why they called him “Lucky” Tommy.

O’Connor never would make it back to jail in Chicago. His longest-lasting gift to the city, other than his saga, was the gallows from which he never swung. The court ordered the county to keep the gallows — which was originally built to hang those charged in a deadly bombing during the May 4, 1886, Haymarket Square riot — until he was caught. When the Criminal Courts building activity was moved to 26th and California, the old gallows and scaffolding were left behind. It was purchased by Mike Donley, who owned a small-town museum of Chicago artifacts in Union called Donley’s Wild West Town, in 1977. The gallows were won at auction by Ripley’s Believe it or Not! Museums in December 2006 — outbidding the Chicago History Museum.

Want more vintage Chicago?

• Become a Tribune subscriber: It’s just $12 for a 1-year digital subscription
• Follow us on Instagram: @vintagetribune
• And, catch me Monday mornings on WLS-AM’s “The Steve Cochran Show” for a look at “This week in Chicago history”

Thanks for reading!

Join our Chicagoland history Facebook group and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago’s past.

Have an idea for Vintage Chicago Tribune? Share it with Ron Grossman and Marianne Mather at rgrossman@chicagotribune.com and mmather@chicagotribune.com

Three species of periodical cicadas, known as Brood XIII, are expected to emerge this month from their underground habitats. The nymphs, which began as tiny eggs laid inside tree branches, have remained buried in soil nibbling on tree sap since 2007 — the same year the iPhone was introduced.

Illinois will soon be cicada central when 2 broods converge on state in historic emergence

What makes these creatures different from the cicadas that we see every summer? This brood only sees the light of day once every 17 years. And they have different features. These insects have black and brown bodies and red eyes. Our annual cicadas are green with a blue-tinted Art Deco-design on their thorax, or back.

Just as Illinois was the place to be in April to observe a rare total solar eclipse, it’s also hosting an event this summer that’s even more infrequent — one big cicada family reunion.

Brood XIX — four species that appear every 13 years in the Southeast — will also get a one-way ticket above ground this summer. It will be the first time in 221 years that these two specific broods come above ground at the same time and in such proximity. The last time this happened was in 1803 when Thomas Jefferson was president, and Illinois had yet to become a state. The broods will not necessarily overlap but emerge adjacent to each other in the Springfield and Urbana-Champaign metropolitan areas.

So, how did locals handle 17-year cicada invasions of years past? Here’s a look at what we found in the Tribune archives.

Illinois cicadas, loud but harmless, expected to make historic emergence in mid- to late May

June 1922: Fighting the pests with sticks

A cicada symphony “issued loud, piercing notes” around the Fox River.

“Humming of the bugs (which the paper erroneously called “locusts”) was so pronounced that a shout could not be heard across the street,” the Tribune reported June 9, 1922.

Hundreds of people in Aurora and Joliet armed themselves with long sticks to knock the hordes of insects out of trees.

But suburbanites had no real reason to be alarmed, Tribune reporter Frank Ridgway wrote. “The cicadas do not damage field crops and the only trouble they cause is where they become abundant and injure fruit trees by egg punctures made in the twigs.

Instead, state entomologist W.P. Flint suggested cheesecloth be used to screen and protect small, valuable trees from the swarms. (Chicago Botanic Garden suggests using tulle).

May 1939: Could invasion of ‘noisy troops’ predict war?

“In earlier times, the cicada was often thought to be poisonous,” the Tribune reported as the 17-year brood began to emerge from its underground burrows. “And the small ‘W’ which appears on its wings is to many superstitious persons a warning of war.”

World War II began on Sept. 1, 1939, though the United States didn’t enter the conflict until Dec. 8, 1941 — the day after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

June 1956: ‘Animals can’t live on cicadas alone’

Researchers had trouble finding cicada specimens in forest preserves and relied on citizen scientists for reports of their discovery in their backyards.

Rupert Wenzel, Field Museum’s curator of insects, blamed cold weather for the brood’s belated arrival. He told the Tribune the bugs become sluggish when cold and apparently have a warming mechanism that prevents them from coming out in weather which may interfere with breeding, which is their main purpose in their short lives.

Just days later, however, their presence was felt.

“The ground is walking with them,” Forest Preserves of Cook County Superintendent Roland Eisenbeis told the Tribune.

One noticeably planted itself on the back of conductor Eugene Ormandy during Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s performance with guest soloist Marian Anderson to open Ravinia Festival’s 21st season.

A woman in Lombard observed a mockingbird mimicking the whine of a cicada.

Brookfield Zoo asked locals to round up the insects — and regretted doing so.

“We’ve got so many of them that we’ve had to put most of them in the freezer,” said Karl Plath, curator of birds. “The supply will last all of next winter. I feed them to the birds, and the zoo’s snakes, lizards, and some monkeys also consider the cicadas tasty. But animals can’t live on cicadas alone. They’re merely an added treat, like hors d’oeuvres.”

June 1973: ‘That was the month everything went sour for me’

White Sox knuckleballer Wilbur Wood posted four straight seasons with 20 or more victories (1971-1974). In the two seasons prior to 1973, Wood started an amazing 93 times and won 46 games.

The Massachusetts native began June 1973 with a 13-3 record and a 1.71 earned run average. He also made the cover of Sports Illustrated. Rain at the Indianapolis 500 forced the need for a substitute story and Wood’s was it. (The situation was known for decades by insiders at the magazine as a “Wilbur Wood.”)

But just months after he became the first White Sox pitcher to be paid in six figures for a single season, Wood’s struggles began with the emergence of the cicadas. He posted a 1-8 record in June 1973 — ending the month with six consecutive losses.

“The next time the whirring creatures descend on us in 1990, don’t blame Wood if he thinks back 17 years and remarks, ‘That was the month when everything went sour for me,'” Tribune reporter Richard Dozer wrote.

Wood’s troubles continued into July. He missed the All-Star game to be with his son Derron, who was recovering from adenoid removal surgery. Then on July 20, 1973, Wood became the first pitcher in more than a half century to lose both ends of a doubleheader to the Yankees, 12-2 and 7-0.

During June, July and August combined, Wood won 10 games and lost 17. Yet he still managed to compile a 24-20 record — leading the American League in wins and placing second in losses. Wood — who pitched a total of 359.1 innings that season — was sent home by the team to rest in mid-September after it became clear the White Sox would not make the postseason.

In his 12 seasons with the White Sox, Wood had a 163-148 record and a 3.18 ERA.

May 1990: Suburbs abuzz — and afraid

To calm fears about the pending cicada arrival, a psychiatrist at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood recommended locals adopt a isn’t-that-interesting attitude and read about the insects in their encyclopedia.

“It’s not Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds,'” Domeena Renshaw said. “People should remember these are organisms with a brief (life span).”

April 2007: When you can’t beat them — eat them

The Tribune published a recipe for soft-shelled cicadas, courtesy of the University of Maryland.

As for the taste? A little like crickets.

Want more vintage Chicago?

• Become a Tribune subscriber: It’s just $12 for a 1-year digital subscription
• Follow us on Instagram: @vintagetribune
• And, catch me Monday mornings on WLS-AM’s “The Steve Cochran Show” for a look at “This week in Chicago history”

Thanks for reading!

Join our Chicagoland history Facebook group and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago’s past.

Have an idea for Vintage Chicago Tribune? Share it with Ron Grossman and Marianne Mather at rgrossman@chicagotribune.com and mmather@chicagotribune.com

Here’s what some of the Bears’ first-round draft picks from the past six decades have said when they started their careers in Chicago.

Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze fearlessly vow to raise expectations for the Chicago Bears: ‘What’s the reason to duck?’

Mike Ditka (Dec. 27, 1960)

Pick: No. 5

After winning a coin toss to draft ahead of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Bears selected Pittsburgh’s All-American end Mike Ditka with their top pick.

Ranking the 100 best Bears players ever: No. 11, Mike Ditka

After weeks of weighing his offers, Ditka signed with the Bears shortly after returning home from the Hula Bowl in Hawaii. If Ditka made any comments about the decision, then they were not recorded in the Tribune. The announcement of Ditka’s signing was rescheduled to avoid a conflict with the Cubs’ annual winter press luncheon.

Bears owner George Halas, however, told reporters: “Ditka fits well into our plan for more offensive football next fall. He is rugged enough to take those important first down passes over the line in heavy traffic and from all we have seen, he is strong enough to clear the way for our backs.”

Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers (Nov. 28, 1964)

Pick: No. 3 and 4

The selection of Butkus and Sayers in the first round of the 1965 NFL draft remains the only time a team has selected two future Hall of Fame players in the first round of one draft.

The Bears acquired the No. 3 pick from the Steelers and used it on Butkus, a Chicagoan and a wildly popular choice whose name remains synonymous with Bears folklore. Yet, the All-American center and linebacker from Illinois was conflicted — and there was a tug-of-war for him between the Bears and the American Football League’s Denver Broncos.

“I hate to make a decision — you see, I don’t want to hurt anybody,” Butkus said. “Chicago’s my home and all things being equal, I probably would prefer to play with the Bears, but there are other things to be considered.”

Days later, Butkus signed with the Bears.

“I didn’t really like Denver’s approach. There’s more to it than just money and that’s all Denver wanted to talk about,” he said. “The only thing really on my mind right now is that I want to get back and get caught up with my schooling. I’ve been missing out too much.” (Butkus was a physical education major.)

Ranking the 100 best Bears players ever: No. 2, Dick Butkus

Sayers, who was drafted fourth, also had been in doubt about signing with the Bears. He was also picked by Kansas City, which was owned by the rival AFL.

“I’m happy to be a Bear,” Sayers told reporters after signing a contract with Halas. “I just got back from New York, where I was invited over to (Kansas City team owner Lamar) Hunt’s hotel. When millionaires start opening the door for me, I get suspicious.”

Ranking the 100 best Bears players ever: No. 4, Gale Sayers

Neither Hall of Famer expressed any jealousy or animosity toward the other.

“I met him early on in the All-Star games before we even got to the Bears,” Butkus said. “And I like to think we are good friends ever since. So there was never any animosity between offense and defense.”

In his autobiography, Sayers said of Butkus: “We remain great friends and have so many shared memories.”

Walter Payton (Jan. 28, 1975)

Pick: No. 4

When the Bears drafted Walter Payton in 1975, they landed a player who would leave the game as the NFL’s career-rushing leader. And in fact, they got much, much more: the standard against which all future Bears would be measured.

Payton became the prototype of what the Bears would seek in a player, particularly a high draft choice. He would give rise to a phrase that has now become commonplace, even if the ideal it represented was not.

“I used the term all the time, ‘the total package,’ ” said Bill Tobin, the team’s former vice president of player personnel. “I used him as the example for all our people, our scouts, other owners, everyone I talked to about hiring the total package — ability, intelligence, grace, compassion.

Ranking the 100 best Bears players ever: No. 1, Walter Payton

“He was the whole package, not just on the field. It was how he conducted his personal life, how he practiced, how he cared about the people around him, how he put the team first. Walter always put the team first, always.”

Tobin, who scouted Payton while on the Green Bay Packers staff, was hired by then-Bears GM Jim Finks as the team’s director of pro scouting in January 1975. He was involved shortly thereafter in drafting Payton.

Payton, a 5-foot-10 1/4-inch, 200-pound halfback from Jackson State, was the best college runner in the country.

“When I get through with Chicago, they’ll be loving me,” he said. “I’m glad I went that high in the draft. I hadn’t really given much thought about who I was going with. I know Chicago is a nice place. … I know it’s cold in Chicago.”

Payton was supposed to be in Chicago for the draft, but he didn’t make his plane out of Jackson, Miss. He reportedly got on the plane five minutes before takeoff, but got off at the last minute, the Tribune reported.

Dan Hampton (May 3, 1979)

Pick: No. 4

The Bears knew they drafted a good tackle out of Arkansas, but did they know they also acquired a humorist?

Ranking the 100 best Bears players ever: No. 9, Dan Hampton

Here’s how he got reporters’ attention when he was introduced:

“Fayetteville is just a little bitty town. You don’t really buy tickets on the local airline. You buy chances.”

“I used to drink a gallon of milk a day. Not the pasteurized stuff. Right out of the cow.”

“My mother is a real dear lady. She gave me two pigs for Christmas. I still have one of them. The other was killed when a buddy of mine ran over it in a car. He apologized to Mom. He thought she would be all broken up. He asked her if she wanted him to bury it. She said, ‘No, I think I’ll go skin it out. Dan will be hungry tonight and he’ll want some ribs.'”

Jim McMahon (April 27, 1982)

Pick: No. 5

McMahon was the first quarterback taken by the Bears with their top pick since Bob Williams in 1951. He had been the top-rated quarterback in the draft that year even though McMahon was drafted after the Baltimore Colts chose Ohio State’s Art Schlichter.

Ranking the 100 best Bears players ever: No. 56, Jim McMahon

When introduced, McMahon made it clear he wouldn’t take a back seat to current Bears starting quarterback Vince Evans.

“All the other teams have established quarterbacks. I’d say my chance to start with the Bears are pretty good,” he told reporters. “I have no feelings toward Vince Evans. I don’t feel at this time that I’m better than he is. I have seen Evans play, and I don’t know about his consistency. He is terrific one game and the next game he doesn’t do well.

“Consistency has never been one of my problems. I have never had too many bad games, times I played terrible.

“I wanted to be known as the best college quarterback ever, and now I want to be known as the best quarterback who ever played in the NFL.”

Jimbo Covert (April 26, 1983)

Pick: No. 6

The Pitt tackle was not originally among coach Ditka’s top three offensive linemen or even his first choice at the position (that was Northwestern’s Chris Hinton, but he was drafted by Denver). Yet Covert was expected to fill a dire need at left tackle, or “a hole through which 33 pass-rushers sped last season; sacking (McMahon),” Tribune columnist John Husar wrote.

Chicago Bears great Jimbo Covert’s long journey to the Hall of Fame leaves him overwhelmed with gratitude: ‘Biggest and best part — going through this with family and friends’

Amid all the chaos was Covert, who came to Chicago from his home in Conway, Pa., across the river from Aliquippa, which was Ditka’s old stomping grounds.

Covert was so motivated to play for the NFL that he refused to hear offers from the United States Football League, whose Chicago Blitz scooped up Notre Dame All-America lineman Tom Thayer in the fourth round.

“They’d have to come up with an incredible offer for me just to listen to them,” Covert told reporters.

Mark Carrier (April 22, 1990)

Pick: No. 6

When Baylor linebacker James Francis and North Carolina State defensive tackle Ray Agnew both refused contract proposals from the Bears prior to the draft, then-USC safety Mark Carrier became their top pick. (He may also have been the only one willing to accept the Bears’ take-it-or-leave-it offer).

By signing Carrier as they drafted him, the Bears were assured he would not miss training camp like previous draftees of the team did.

Ranking the 100 best Bears players ever: No. 61, Mark Carrier

“It was Bill Tobin’s (idea) and Mike McCaskey gave the OK,” Ditka said. “Training camp is where you really get the gut check and conditioning.”

Carrier said even he was surprised to be drafted so early in the first round.

“Going by the projections from what you just read about, anywhere between 10 and 20 in the first round, maybe the second,” he said of pre-draft expectations.

Curtis Enis (1998)

Pick: No. 5

The Bears didn’t draft troubled but talented Marshall wide receiver Randy Moss. They didn’t trade for the defensive players they liked.

“Football’s most competitive division made the biggest splash in Saturday’s NFL draft, leaving the last-place Bears with as many challenges as they had going in,” Tribune reporter Don Pierson wrote.

Instead, they brushed off offers from other teams and selected Penn State running back Enis with the No. 5 pick.

Enis told reporters he takes a cold-water-and-ice bath the night before games. He said it helped him focus and prepare for the pain to come on game day. He wanted to be drafted by a cold-weather team.

“When you see a snowflake coming down and the snot coming out of your nose, it’s just a feeling where … you don’t wear sleeves under your uniform and you are playing football the way it was meant to be played,” Enis said.

That throwback player mentality was partly why he was so thrilled to be picked by the Bears.

“I’m excited to go out on the field and hear the ghosts of Walter Payton and Gale Sayers,” he said.

Brian Urlacher (April 15, 2000)

Pick: No. 9

Faced with the prospect of deciding between Urlacher, a late bloomer in high school who almost wasn’t recruited before becoming a college All-American, and Michigan State receiver Plaxico Burress, regarded throughout the NFL as gifted but immature, the Bears did not have to choose.

Pittsburgh selected Burress with the No. 8 pick, so the Bears were left with their “other” first choice and took the 6-foot-3-inch, 248-pounder Urlacher.

Bears great Brian Urlacher a first ballot Pro Football Hall of Famer

Urlacher was signed by the Bears in June 2000, after attending the team’s minicamp where he told reporters he already felt “a little heavier and a lot stronger” than when he was a college player.

“The biggest thing is that mentally, I’m better prepared,” he said. “I was kind of scared after minicamp, but I’m definitely a lot more confident now. I’m going where I’m supposed to go when I’m supposed to go there.”

Cedric Benson (April 23, 2005)

Pick: No. 4

Benson was one of the most prolific rushers in NCAA history and a Texas high school legend at Midland Lee, the archrival of Odessa Permian, the school featured in “Friday Night Lights.”

The nation watched as Benson cried after the Bears chose him. In his introductory news conference at Halas Hall, Benson said those were tears of relief after being grilled by NFL teams over two arrests during his college years.

“Imagine growing up and you live in a West Texas football town, and you’re watching the Barry Sanderses and the Emmitt Smiths and Troy Aikmans and Michael Irvins, and you’ve seen some of the Walter Paytons and the Super Bowls,” Benson said. “Imagine seeing that year after year after year after year after year after year, and all you can think about is being there. I want to be Barry Sanders or Michael Irvin. It’s a dream come true and it’s a long road to get here.”

Kevin White (April 30, 2015)

Pick: No. 7

Chicago hosted the first NFL draft conducted outside of New York City in 50 years. Boos showered Commissioner Roger Goodell but morphed into cheers shortly before 8 p.m. when “The Chicago Bears are on the clock” was announced throughout the Auditorium Theatre.

The crowd rose to its feet when West Virginia wide receiver Kevin White’s name was announced. Fans sang along as “Bear Down, Chicago Bears” was played over the sound system.

The cruel and empty odyssey of Kevin White

White told reporters at his Halas Hall introduction that his on-field tenacity comes from rivalries with his brothers and dad that stoked his fire and gave him a cutthroat edge. No competition was too trivial.

“Chess, basketball, video games,” White said. “Who can do the most pushups? Who lifts the most weights? It goes on and on.”

So, too, did White’s confidence.

“You have to feel like you’re the only one who can do what you can do,” he said. “I don’t practice it or anything, it just comes natural.”

Leonard Floyd (April 28, 2016)

Pick: No. 9

The Bears, for the first time in 20 years, traded up for a first-round pick. With it, the team selected Floyd, an outside linebacker at Georgia.

Floyd, who didn’t begin playing organized football until high school, was enthusiastic during his introductory news conference at Halas Hall on April 29, 2016.

When asked how he eventually found his permanent niche on defense, he replied: “Shoot, guys who sack the quarterbacks get paid the most. I stuck with that.”

Mitch Trubisky (April 27, 2017)

Pick: No. 2

“Ten years from now, every Bears fan will still be talking about Thursday night and that jaw-dropping moment this football-crazed city will never forget,” Tribune reporter Dan Wiederer wrote.

The Bears traded away a massive amount of draft currency, sending the 49ers a four-pack of picks — Nos. 3, 67 and 111 in that year’s draft plus a 2018 third-rounder — to slide up one peg to No. 2 on the draft board to draft Trubisky, a quarterback at North Carolina.

Why did the Bears draft Mitch Trubisky over Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson?

“I’m just going to do the right things like I’ve always done,” Trubisky said when introduced at Halas Hall the next day. “Stay true to myself, and you’ve got to be a leader. You’ve got to be the first one in the door and last one out. You’ve got to be the hardest-working guy. You’ve got to be the most knowledgeable, and you’ve got to be competitive. I don’t think anyone wants to win more than I do. Hopefully I can bring that to this organization.”

That vow to stay true apparently meant sticking with his old car for a while longer.

“There are some hub caps that are missing, and the thing is just kind of falling apart,” then GM-Ryan Pace told reporters. “We joked at that moment. Like, ‘Hey, you need to bring this car to Chicago. Don’t change.’ And he’s like, ‘I don’t know if it’s going to make it to Chicago.’ And I said, ‘I don’t care if you have to change the engine, but you have to bring the shell.’ So hopefully he brings it.”

Roquan Smith (April 26, 2018)

Pick: No. 8

Pace drafted Smith over, among others, Alabama safety Minkah Fitzpatrick (No. 11 to the Dolphins), Virginia Tech inside linebacker Tremaine Edmunds (No. 16 to Bills) and Florida State safety Derwin James (No. 17 to Chargers). Notre Dame offensive tackle Mike McGlinchey went at No. 9 to the 49ers.

Pace and his scouts were attracted to Smith’s instincts, play speed and physicality.

As they say in Bears draft pick’s hometown: ‘There’s only one Roquan Smith’

“The Bears, the organization and the fans are getting a relentless player,” Smith said at Halas Hall the next day. “Tremendous leader on and off the field. High-character guy. Do things the right way. Extremely rangy. I feel like on the field (they’re getting) my sideline-to-sideline and my striking ability.”

Among the other nuggets Smith shared: it was only the second time he had been in the Chicago area. The first was the Georgia native’s pre-draft visit to Halas Hall a few weeks earlier.

“I have a lot of students who I went to school with, a lot of my peers, that end up moving to Chicago, and they tell me what a great place it is,” Smith said.

Justin Fields (April 29, 2021)

Pick: No. 11

“The combination of the Bears quarterback depth chart, the team’s dismal history at the position and pressure on (Pace) and coach Matt Nagy to boost the fortunes of the franchise made it overwhelmingly clear the team had to make a move in the first round of the NFL draft,” Tribune reporter Brad Biggs wrote about the team’s maneuvering up to select Ohio State’s Fields.

How the Chicago Bears found the perfect opening to snag QB Justin Fields in the 1st round: ‘We knew there was going to be a sweet spot for us’

It marked the fourth time Pace traded up for the headliner of his draft class.

On a video call with reporters, Fields was asked if he understood the Bears’ troubled history at quarterback and how the resulting impatience and expectations might affect his journey.

“I don’t think there’s pressure on me at all,” Fields said, “because I expect myself to be a franchise quarterback. … I came from a big program at Ohio State where the fan base is very passionate. So there’s definitely no added pressure.”

Darnell Wright (April 27, 2023)

Pick: No. 10

New Bears offensive tackle Darnell Wright was in the middle of a three-hour stretch of interviews with local sports radio personalities, TV broadcasters and sports writers on April 28, 20023, at Halas Hall when he was asked about the expectations he faces in his new home.

After months of buildup, the Bears selected Wright at No. 10 as the likely starter at right tackle going into his rookie season. As the Bears try to build up their offense around Fields, general manager Ryan Poles and his staff believed Wright could be a tone-setter on the line.

Wright, who started 42 games over four seasons at Tennessee, didn’t back away from those hopes.

“I embrace expectations upon myself,” he said. “I have expectations upon myself bigger than just football. I have expectations to take care of my family. I don’t know what my role for the team is, but whatever that role is I’m going to take it full on and do the best I can.”

Wright was the first pick of a key draft for Poles in his second offseason rebuilding the roster.

Caleb Williams (April 26, 2024)

Pick: No. 11

Williams arrived at Halas Hall confident. “His ambition is spoken by design. And his undeniable presence is, quite frankly, striking,” Tribune reporter Dan Wiederer wrote.

Williams was asked why he hasn’t tried to temper the expectations, why he hasn’t looked over his shoulder at the pressure and criticism that will forever be stalking him, why, in an attempt to just find a little extra personal calm, he doesn’t give into the human-nature urge to duck all this scrutiny and hype?

“What’s the reason to duck?” Williams said. “It’s here. There’s no reason to duck. I’m here.”

Williams quickly went on to name-drop his new receiver, fellow first-round pick Rome Odunze, and his oldest receiver, Keenan Allen. Williams referenced the Bears’ talent-stocked and improving defense. He did what Bears general manager Ryan Poles has been pushing for his entire team to do and expressed an optimism in himself and teammates that was backed by belief and not just hope.

“We’re here,” Williams said. “I’m excited. I know everybody is excited. The Bears fans are excited from what I’ve heard and seen. And there’s no reason to duck. Attack it headfirst and go get it.”

Note: The Bears did not have a first-round pick in 1970, 1978, 1997, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2019, 2020 and 2022.

Sources: Tribune archives and reporting; NFL; Pro Football Reference; Chicago Bears

Subscribe to the free Vintage Chicago Tribune newsletter, join our Chicagoland history Facebook group and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago’s past.