Joy and sorrow dominated Chicago headlines 100 years ago.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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