Newsletters 1994
Volume 16, Number 1 March, 1994
All the Dead Young Men: Camp Douglas and Oak Woods Cemetery
l,y Jim Stronks
We arc very grateful, to Jim, HPHS Board Member,jormer English Professor, and great History Rmarrherjor this though!ful rejlection 011 earlier years and wars.
Mass graves arc always dr::nnatic. One of the world's biggest is in our neighborhood, where 4357 Confederate soldiers lie, without headstones, under the silent grass at Oak Woods Cemetery. Alive, the 4357 would make up J small army themselves, but they died one-by-one at Camp Douglas, the union army's Civil War prison on the lakefront between 31st and 33rd Streets.
Our bird's-eye picture of the camp from Harper's Weekly in 1862 is fairly accurate. The view is southward, toward Hyde Park, with Lake Michigan on the left and suburban prairie all around. Camp Douglas was both an induction center, where some 30,000 recruits were sworn in, and, walled off separate from it, a military prison holding from 500 to 12,000 POWs at any one time.
The first large contingent of Confederates at CampDouglas were surrendered at the battle of Fort Donelsonon February16, 1862, after three days of assaultinbitter weather by a force under Ulysses S. Grant. When theCSAcommander,withtheromantic name of Simon Bolivar Buckner, asked for terms, Grant's curt reply was "unconditional surren der," giving new meaning to his initials. Buckner, calling the terms "ungenerous and unchivalrous," which may reveal a faulty mind-set in what was a modern war, sur rendered his 13,000 to 15,000 hungry, half-frozen men at once. Grant hustled them aboard boats on the Cumberland River and sent them down to Cairo, Illinois, where 4500 were sent on to Chicago, many on the Illinois Central. Rolling through Hyde Park on Thursday, February 20th, they unloaded at the Central Station yards and were marched two miles through the streets to Camp Douglas, 3200 arriving on the 20th and
:mother 1259 on the 21st, for a total of 4459. Prison camps were often not prepared for an influx on this scale, and neither were the banacks at Can;ip Douglas.
I will speak of this first large group in some detail, as typical of others, but with the caveat that prison camp statistics and dates arc highly unreliable. The best sources disagree with each other in details, and some times even with themselves, so my numbers will be edu cated approximations. I also suspect from my reading of the day-by-day Tribune coverage of "Affairs at Camp Douglas" (always on page 4, column 2) that it too must be taken with a grain of salt, for its tone and coloring appear to me to be slanted in favor of the camp's administrators. It figures.
Chicagoans were thrilled by Fort Donelson, the first major victory for the North, and the Tribune said the camp was "besieged by thousands of citizens, anxious to obtain a sight of the secessionists." Visitors could ride the horsecar to 32nd Street ( the stop there was called Cottage Grove), and if they could not wangle entree into the camp itself, as many did in the first days, could pay I O\t to look over the fence from a tower atop the hotel opposite the main entrance (discernible in our bird's-eye view).
A Tribune reporter who did get in to mingle with the prisoners found them "haggard and war-worn" and still hungry and cold. The sickest had gone into the camp hospital, but the merely sick lay in the crowded barracks, infecting others. Some Mississippians and "sharp-shooters from Central Texas" were "pale and actually had attacks of ague chills" (malaria) as they stood shivering
:imid the alien snow in the prison yard. "It may have been from exposure and low diet," said the Tribune, "but they were all sallow-faced, sunken-eyed, and apparently famishing." Their lightweight southern uniforms were "just no uniforms :it all." Few had overcoats-this in a Chicago February-and "supply their pbcc with horse blanket , pieces of carpet, coffee sacks, etc." (See our sketch of "Rebel Prisoners.") Undoubtedly, many of the Confederates who would die in Camp Douglas were in poor condition when they arrived. It hardly need be added that there were no hot show ers and blow dryers. There was exactly one cold-water hydrant for the whole 7000 men in camp at this time, and observers invariably said the men were "crawling with vermin." Scurvy (vitamin C deficiency), diarrhea, and influenza were everywhere. Pneumonia, dysentery, typhus, cholera, and smallpox, not all at the same time,
were common. In the camp hospital, no matter how
well-intended, the medical science was that of I 862. The results were inevitable. In seven months, February to September, 800 southern soldiers died at Camp Douglas.
In April 1862 a new trainload of POW s had aJTived from Shiloh, among chem a 21-year-old who had enlist ed in the dashing Dixie Greys in Little Rock. He was Henry Morgan Stanley, who nine years later in Africa would say, "Doctor Livingstone, I presume?" Late in Life, Stanley wrote about Camp Douglas in his autobiog raphy. The prisoner's clothes were "rotten and ragged, and swarming with vermin," but worse were the men's "ash-colored faces," their "emaciated condition," and their chronic dejection amid the mud of the great yard. They were "sunk in gloomy introspection, staring blankly, with heads between knees, at nothing; weighed down by a surfeit of misery, internal pain furrowing their faces hopeless."
Stanley's words are vivid and dramatic, so they have been quoted and taken at face value by seemingly every writer on Camp Douglas, probably unaware that Stanley's own biographer has lately pronounced him to be paranoid and given to self-pity and lying. Yet he sure ly spoke for many of his comrades when he charged that the camp authorities "rigidly excluded every medical, pious, musical, or literary charity that might have allevi ated our sufferings .... Wewere soon in a fair state of rotting while yet alive." Not himself, however, for the turncoat Stanley, an operator, and a survivor, rather promptly renounced the CSA, joined the union army on June 4, was discharged with dysentery on June 22, later joined the U.S. Navy, and deserted it too. In contrast, some Mississippians, when the Tribune asked their opin ion of Camp Douglas, "said that they would wait till they 'got well out of this scrape' before they said any thing about it- their air and bearing, though courteous, betokening that they were ready to continue the fight and carry it to the bitter end."
Winter was bad at Camp Douglas, but summer could
beworse.OnJune9theupbeatTribune claimedchat"The location of the camp itself is very healthy." Onthecontrary, a later photograph shows standing water inthegreat yard, and the trouble was precisely the lakeside site:lowmarshylandimpossibleofproperdrainage.Thatmonth the Post Surgeonwarned that "The surface of thegroundisbecomingsaturatedwithfilch
and slop from the privies, kitchens, and [barracks] and must produce serious results to health as soon as the hot weather sets in." The president of the Sanitary Commission, a civilian watchdog organization, wrote the commandant that "nothing but a spe cial providence .... can prevent it from becoming a source of pestilence before another month." He cited overcrowding, and soil reeking from unspeakable latrines.
Actually the Confederates from Fort Donelson and Shiloh were comparatively fortunate, by Civil War prison standards, for in September 1862 all 7800 men in camp except those in the hospital were "exchanged" back to the South in a 1:1 swap for union soldiers held by the CSA. The Tribune ( and it sounds as if a new
reporter was on the beat) expressed th humane view that, "It is only a wonder the whole 8000 filthy hogs did not go home in pine boxes instead of on their feet."
The shocking mortality rate is the nub of the Camp Douglas story. Item: when 3800 new prisoners taken in Arkansas arrived in
January 1863 they may have brought smallpox with
them. But whatever the cause, of 3884 men in camp, 387 died
in February alone. This was IO%
in four weeks, nearly l 4 every day for
a month. Hundreds more jammed the camp hospital. In early April the Tribune said 700 had died in ten weeks.
As the war ground on, the quality of Camp Douglas administrators improved, too slowly. More fresh-water hydrants were added, too lace, and in July 1863 (the time of Gettysburg and Vicksburg) a proper sewer was dug, too lace. But there was official bitterness too. When the commandant requested improvements in the camp buildings, the War Department replied chat the Secretary of War (the vindictive Stanton) "is not dis posed at this time, in view of the treatment our prisoners arc receiving at the hands of the enemy, to erect fine establishments for their prisoners in our hands." Lacer, when the horrors of Andersonville in Georgia became known, the president of the Chicago Board of Trade actually urged Lincoln to retaliate by setting up an equally brutal prison in the North.
The population at Camp Douglas constantly fluctuat ed between empty and overcrowded. There was excite ment in November 1863 when much of the post burned down, the Confederates cheering like mad. The camp's layout was changed, from the quadrangles shown in our 1862 bird's-eye view to parallel streets of barracks run ning east and west, as seen in our photograph showing a
throng of prisoners in the yard. The wooden fence was made stronger and raised to twelve feet, for there were escape attempts of every known kind, some extremely ingenious and some successful. In three years, about 320 Confederates made it over or under, or out the front gate itself, if only briefly. There were eight tunnel
escapes in all, the soft sandy soil cooperating, once by
nearly 100 of John Hunt Morgan's cavalrymen, most of whom were soon corralled. (I like the sound of that out fit because they circulated a newspaper in camp, "The Prisoner's Vidette," four pages, handwritten.)
A more sinister threat came in November 1864 with the "Chicago Conspiracy," when it was believed that southern sympathizers and "imported thugs" would attempt release of the 7500 prisoners in a massive jail break. The plot was neutralized by the arrest of leading suspects on the outside, to the especial relief of citizens living near the camp. Ir was about chis time ( the fall of Atlanta) chat the camp's population touched 12,082, its highest point.
Such a number is numbing. Look instead at our photo of twelve prisoners who sat for their picture one day. Herc are the actual men themselves, and they bring con c rcrc particulars to my general
account of the camp: in their ragged pants, their thin cigars, their individual ways of wearing their hats, the deadly
sober faces. Young men hanging out together.
Not one smiling.
After Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox in April 1865, Camp Douglas soon emptied and was torn down (except for one building which is said to have sur vived as lace as l 940). A purifying fire would have been best. More Confederates had died there, in our midst, than in any other northern prison, because Douglas was the largest and longest-running. In rough figures, about
4500 men died at Camp Douglas in 31/2 years, out of a
transient total of nearly 30,000, for a mortality rate of 15%.
Throughout the war, dead prisoners were carried to
the city cemetery at the southwestern corner of what is today Lincoln Park. When that burial ground was removed they were brought to Oak Woods Cemetery in April 1867 and reinterred in concentric circles in a two acre plot purchased by the U.S. government. Also brought in at chat time were those who had died of smallpox and been buried in a special plot near Camp Douglas.
In 189 l an association of ex-Confederates in Chicago raised money for a monument, a 40-foot column of Georgia granite erected in July l 893, during our Columbian Exposition, and dedicated in May 1895 with President Cleveland and cabinet members present. Congress later decreed that graves must show each sol dier's name, so huge metal plates were affixed to the base of the column and today we can read the names (99.9% British), the CSA army unit, and the home state of 4357 of the 4500 who died at Camp Douglas, from Ezekiel Able to J.L. Zollicoffer.
According to the War Department Register at Oak Woods there are 32 nameless "unknowns," a few sailors, a black man, not one officer, and l 43 instances in which bodies were "removed" and "sent home" (virtually all to Kentucky addresses). Every southern state is represented, the cast coast the least; Tennessee, Mississippi, and Texas the most. Today, hundreds of southerners visit the Confederate Mound every year.
For each name and number lying at Oak Woods there was also a desolated southern home where he was son or husband, father or brother. He joined up, and as a soldier followed the flag-and could never have conceived that he would die in Chicago.
In 1992 the Confederate Mound was nominated for local landmark status for its importance in Chicago his tory. The proposal became politically untouchable in the city council when an alderman called it, according to the S11n-Times, "very offensive to thousands of black people in this city." To grant landmark status would, in his view, show official approval of the dead Confederates' attempt "to continue slavery for millions of blacks."
Meanwhile, the mass grave in our neighborhood, and the dreadful prison stockade it reminds us of, remain terrific facts in Chicago's past, unique, intensely suggestive to the historical imagination.
DOUGLAS ANDERSON TO SPEAK AT HPHS ANNUAL DINNER MEETING
Doug Anderson, expert on Jackson Park, its history (including its 189 3 glory days), its flora and fauna, guide for the Chicago Architecture Foundation, and charter member of our Historical Society, will speak to the Society's Annual Dinner Meeting on Saturday, February 26, 1994, at the Quadrangle Club. His topic will be: The Columbian Exposition in Retrospect. He is pictured here with HPHS members at the site of the 1893 Fair as he led them through the Fairgrounds during a lecture and walking tour which he graciously gave for us last October.
Confederate Mound is easily reached by Hyde Parkers in automobiles by entering Oak Woods Cemetery at its south west comer, Cottage Grove at 7 I st Street, and driving straight east, Parallel to 7 I st, for about a block. Gates close at 4:30. The HPHS has con ducted guided tours of Oak Woods in the past and will do so again if memb rs express interest. The grounds are most beautiful in early sumn1er. Among the notable persons buried there are Paul Cornell ( the first secretary of the cemetery association), "Cap" Anson, Walter Eckersall, Clarence Darrow, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Enrico
Ferrn.i, Jesse Owens, Harold Washington,andothers.
Monument to Stephen A Douglas near the site of Camp Douglas, prison for captured Confederate soldiers
Volume 16, Number 2 July, 1994
Notes from the Archives
by Stephen A. Tnjjma11, HPHS Archivist
From time to time letters arc received by the Hyde Park Historical Society from persons asking for information about individuals, families or institutions that have some connection to Hyde Park. Recently, we received a request which provided an unusual opportunity for us to xplore some of the early social history of our communi ty. The following is an edited example of that exchange,
elaborated considerably for the benefit of our readers.
Dear Sir.·
My h1da11d and I are are involved in research 011 the life ef Lt. Cd Richard Swain Thompson. Born i11 Cape May Co11rt House, Nnv Jersey, he served i11 the Army ef the Potomac during the Cillil
Wiir. After thr war, he ,111d Ins wifr C1theri11e moved to Hyde Park, thrn a rn/,11 r/1 ef Chirngo, ,111d built a house there at Chest1111t and Park A1•e11111'S. The address was later rha11ged to 5--106 East End
Avm11e.
He practiffd law i11 Chirngo, al/ended St. Paul's Episcopal Church, and was a member ef The Union League and The Kmwood Cl11l,. He was presidmt ef the faller orga11i::atio11Jor l 89 l-92.
He, his wife and cme daughter arc buried i11 Oak Woods Cemetery. l ha\le /,een searrhi11gfo1· i1iformatio11 011 the Kmwood Cl11l1 but
soJar have Jo11nd 11othi11g. My q11estio11s are:
l. What type ef rh,l, was the Kenwood:> Political, social or other?
2. When was the cl11bjou11ded and by whom?
3. Is it still in existence?
--f. Do yo11 have a11y other i1iformation a/,0111 the Thompso11Ja111ily?
Mrs. G. Poriss, Williamsburg, Virginia
Our Response:
The Kenwood Club is said to have been informally organized in the 1870s but its own directories note February 27, 1884 as the date of its incorporation. Its
Kenwood Club House, 1886
founders were accomplished and well-to-do men ( most, if not all, of them Protestants like Thompson) who had settled in or near Kenwood, then part of the larger Village of Hyde Park. Its first president after the club received a state charter was Edwi.n Potter, a banker and manufacturer, who lived at 4832 Madison (now Dorchester) Avenue. The club obtained a large frame house for its members' use on 47th Street near Lake
( now Lake Park) Avenue in 1884 and made substantial
:idditions to it in 1886. Later the club purchased title to the adjacent full corner lot where it expanded the club house with a large brick addition.
Abowling alley, diningroomandkitchenwere locatedinthebasement.Theentryhall, office,receptionroomsandballroomwereonthe first floor and, onthesecondfloor,were cardrooms,billiardroom, readingroom, smokingroom, library,andthe ladies'and gentlemens' dressi.ngrooms. Adjoini.ngthe clubhouse,fourtennis courtswerebuilt andtournamentsandparties ofall kinds wereheld there. Privilegeswere extendedtothefamiliesofmembers andtheirwives and daughtersorga-nizeddrama,literaryandmusical programs. In 1893 E. Burton Holmes I870s, became the controlling stockholder in the I880s presented one of his famous travelogues there. Gambling of one of Chicago's early professional baseball teams, the and the use of alcoholic beverages on the premises were White Stockings, from which, under other ownership, prohibited by the club. the Chicago Cubs evolved. He was a major force behind
The club's by-laws initially allowed a maximum of the establishment of professional baseball's National 400 resident members but that figure was raised to 450 League and was elected, posthumously, to the Baseball
in the early I900s. In actuality, however, its resident Hall of Fame in 1939. His personal wealth derived from membership never reached those levels, certainly for the the famous sporting goods company he founded with first twenty-five years of its history. his brother. Like Thompson, Spalding and several other
The membership fee in 1892 was $100 and annual Kenwood Club members also maintained membership in dues were $40, then among the highest charged by simi- the Union League Club.
lar clubs in Chicago. Hyde Park organizations were The Kenwood Club and its clubhouse arc long gone. allowed to use portions of the Kenwood Clubhouse at The club dtsappe:i.rs from city directories in the mid- specified times. Individual membership in the club, how- I 920s when it apparently ceased to operJte as a club. ever, was obtained by written application and sponsor- The lists of deceased members' names as well JS those of ship by two resident members who were required to members living outside of Kenwood or Hyde Park had send the governing board a written statement including grown longer with each successive edition of the club's the name of the proposed member, his occupation and annual publication. By the end of the first decade of the his home address which was then assigned to a three new century the so-called "non-resident members" could man membership committee for consideration. The already be found at addresses not only elsewhere in names of the proposed member and his spon- Chicago but in such outlying suburbs as
sors were then displayed on the club's bu!- Highland Park, Kenilworth, Flossmoor, letin board for at least ten days. OaPkark, Glencoe. and Winnetka as Membership was ultimately ?ecided by well. The clubhouse itself apparently
the club's board, made up ot eight was not razed until the 1950s, during directors and the clubs five, later four, the era of urban renewal. On the site
officers. Negative votes by any two of . these men resulted in denial of the - application. Early directories listing today stands the Lake Village East
Apartments, a high-rise apartment building constructed in the I970s. Kenwood members of the club and their residences remains one of the more beautiful communities in Chicago. Many of the homes Historical Society.
may be found at the library of the Chicago built there during the latter part of the I800s and on Richard Thompson was a charter member of the through the l 920s remain and have been carefully Kenwood Club, and he remained a member of the club restored. One of chem, an early Frank Lloyd Wright
until his death in I 9 I 4. Another early member of the design built in 1892, stands at 4858 Kenwood; it Kenwood Club was Paul Cornell, the founder of Hyde belonged to George Blossom, a Kenwood Club member Park and one of the organizers of the cemetery where who joined in I 895 and later became one of its officers. the Thompson family is buried. Cornell lived four Reflecting population growth and increasing social blocks south of the club, at the Hyde Park Hotel which complexity of the community, there were at least six
he built and owned. The Village Foods shopping plaza other primarily men's social or sports clubs formed in is now located there. Richard R. Donnelly and his son. Hyde Park and Kenwood during the I880s and 1890s. Reuben, principals of the famous printing establishment, The Kenwood Club outlasted all but one of them.
belonged to the club and provided it with printing ser- The Kenwood Country Club, located on the west side vices. Richard lived at 4609 Woodlawn and Reuben at of Ellis Avenue between 47th and 48th Streets, was 4746 Kenwood. John G. Shedd, the man who later formed for the promotion of sports and, in particular, endowed Chicago's lakefront aquarium, and after whom tennis. It was chartered in 1895 and, while there appears it is named, joined the club in 1896 and, at the time, to have been a considerable overlap of membership with lived at 4628 El1is. Another member with whom the Kenwood Club, Thompson's name is not found Thompson would have been acquainted was A.G. among them. The club's grounds consisted of a club- Spalding, who lived at 4926 Woodlawn. Spalding, a house and at least ten grass tennis courts. A photograph highly regarded professional baseball pitcher in the of it suggests that it must have covered most of one side of the block, making it the largest in area of any of the clubs in the community. Its membership procedures were the same as those of the Kenwood Club. Widows of members could retain membership after the deaths of their husbands.
There were at least two earlier groups formed around sporting interests elsewhere in the comrnunity. One, the Hyde Park Boat Club, is said to have had 87 members and 25 boats in 1889 and was located on the northwest corner of what is now Harold Washington P:1rk. The other, the Kenwood Equestrian Club, was organized
November 2 I. l 885 at the residence of A.G. Spalding
and is reputed co have had over 200 members within a few years of its founding. Much local travel then was by carriage and, as a result, there were many horses stabled in the community and blacksmith's shops were not unco1nmon.
A fourth group was the Hyde Park Suburban Club, a men's social club housed at the northwest corner of Dorchester Avenue and 5 Isc Street, the site now of the Madison Park Apartments. Although the dace of its actu:il formation is uncertain, its members built and ded icated their clubhouse in 1890. Among its directors in
1892 was William Kerr, one of the two aldermen elect ed to represent the community in the first election after the annexation of the Village of Hyde Park to Chicago. He and his wife lived at 4906 Lake Avenue, lacer the site of the Bryson Hotel and now a grass lot about a half block south of the Blackstone Library.
The fifth, the Park (or Sou ch Park) Club of Hyde Park, was organized in 1886 as a family club. It occu pied a four-story building bordered by verandas and, within, contained an assembly hall, billiard and pool
r oms, card rooms, bowling alleys, and a cafe. Built at a cost of$ I 5,000, ic was located on the southeast corner of 57th Street and Jefferson (Harper) Avenue across from the Rosalie Music Hall. Paul Cornell and his son were counted among its members, as was William H. Ray, for whom one of our community's public schools is named. The clubhouse later became a hotel and was eventually razed. Powell's Bookstore is now situated at chat location.
Thesixth andlase ofthese groups,the QuadrangleClub,foundedin1896, was originally locatedat whatisnowthe siteofChicagoTheological Seminaryat 5757UniversityAvenue.In1922itmovedto a new structure at the southeast corner of 57th Street and University Avenue. Ir is the only one of the clubs from that earlier era to have survived to the present, due in large p;m to its relationship with the University of Chicago.
As for Thompson's house, Rasher's Arias of Hyde
Park for the year 1890 shows an outline of it at the 5406 address and it appears to have been a two and a half story frame house set back on the southwest corner of the intersection. The evolution of the street name of their address was as follows: Chestnut Street ( the cast west street) did become 54th Street but Park Street, the north-south street (also called Park or Hyde Park Avenue), was changed first to East End Avenue and then, finally, to Hyde Park Boulevard. There appear to have been no houses on the cast side of Hyde Park Boulev:1rd in 1890. As a result, except for Jack Sulliv;:in's creamery or milk depot loc;:ircd on the corner at what is now 533 7-45 South Hyde Park Boulevard diagonally across the street from his house, Thompson and his family would have had an unobstructed view of Lake Michigan, then only a block cast from where they lived. Over the years that shoreline has been extended into the lake with landfill to create its present configuration of bkefront buildings, parks and roadways.
The lot on which Thompson's house stood is now covered by a modern five story multi-family residential
structure, the Hedgerow Condominium at 5400 South Hyde Park Boulevard. Ir spans some five lots south along Hyde Park Boulevard and is one of the more prominent buildings in the community. In 1902, Thompson built a new home for his family down the street at 5450 South Hyde Park Boulevard. The large two and a half story red brick house still stands at that address. Its architects were George Borst and John T. Tetherington.
Richard Thompson was born in New Jersey on December 27, 1837 and died in Chicago on June 5,
19 I 4. He was a descendant of families which had settled in New Jersey in the mid-I 700s and his father, elected
to that state's legislature in 1837, had extensive land holdings in South Jersey. Thompson's education includ ed the study of law at Harvard College. In August of 1862, Thompson, then 24 years old, organized a regiment in Philadelphia for .ervice in the Union Army, le,1ding it with distinction in at least seventeen major engagements, including the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. He was mustered out in February, 1865 afrer having been severely wounded at Ream's Station, Virginia. He moved to Illinois where he met and mar ried atherine Stoval on June 7, 1865, after which they moved to Chicago and, by 1869, serried in the Hyde Park-Kenwood area. A Republican, he was elected an Illinois State Senator representing the Second Senatorial District, which included Hyde Park and Kenwood, from 1872 to I 8 76. He was also the attorney for the Village of Hyde Park for the years 1869 through 1875 and for the South Park Commission from 1875 to l 880, a time when p;irklands around Hyde Park were still being accu mubted. According to Oak Woods Cemetery records, Thompson's wife, Catherine, died in 1926 and their daughter, Mary Thompson Sage in 1959. The Thompson f.1mily plot lies in the same cemetery where arc buried the bodies of those thousands of Confederate soldiers who died at Camp Douglas, the Civil War pris
oner-of-war camp in Chicago which was so movingly described by James Scronks in the last issue of chis newsletter.
We arc rarely able to respond to an inquiry to quite this extent. In this case, howc\'cr, finding reasonably accessible material allowed us to draw together in one place information about persons and institutions in our community's early social history that expanded upon the
base that Jean Block previously established in her Hyde Park Houses (Chicago, 1978). Sources were found in the holdings of the Chicago Historical Society, The University of Chicago's Regcnstcin Library. and in our own Society's library and archives. Readers who have further information about these early dubs or about the Thompson family arc invited to share it with the Society and chis newsletter.
The Society was saddmed to hear of the death of Muriel Beadle.
Her vision a11d enthusiasm were essential to the founding of the Hyde Park Historical Society. We are grateful to Clyde Watkins, a fellow fou11der,for this remembrance.
Muriel Beadle -
Our First President
I believe I first met Muriel Beadle on the day I gradu ated from U-High in 1962. George Beadle was rhc pres ident of the University, and that meant rh:1r Muriel was on the scene as well. From the beginning she w 1s a University citizen of the first order. Ir w:_is pretty excit ing for us as high school students to meet chem both after he spoke at our gr:1duation ceremonies. I w:_is espe cially enthusiastic because I was entering the U. f C. as a freshman (make chat "first year student''.) the follow lllg autumn.
Needless to say, while an undcrgr:1du:1tc I was almost totally oblivious to the entire :idministration, wirh rhe possible exception of the dean of students. who refused to Ice me enjoy my well deserved obscurity. Ir w;1sn'r until after George's retirement and my own graduation and subsel1ucnt return to the university as an employee, that I really became consciou of Muriel's continued activity in - and impact upon - Hyde Park.
Surprisingly, perhaps, I had to read about it. My par ents gave me a copy of Where Has All the Ivy Gone, Muriel's charming memoir of their years as the University's first couple. (I would be willing to bet almost anything that he who inadvertently referred to Muriel Beadle as "First Lady" received an instantaneous look which carried permanent affect.) This was about the same time I myself began to get involved in commu nity activities. Suddenly it was as if she were everywhere, or at least that's how people talked. Any time Muriel got involved in anything she made her presence known immediately.
Muriel was more than a catalyst, which is the most chat some of us can aspire to. I don't know chat she actually pursued many personal ambitions beyond her writing and the general well-being of her community, however she chose to define that at the time. People used to try to recruit her because they knew that any thing she said she would take on would receive her total concentration and effort. So once you got her to say yes, all you had to do was to get out of the w:iy and do as your were told!
This is pretty much how the Hyde Park Historical Society got started. A few of us couldn't understand how a community as important, interesting, and self-deter mined as ours had never gone about chronicling and
George and Muriel Beadle
promoting its history. Our own local historical society seemed to be an obvious nced.. Indced ir w:_is as if it was already there, cnc1scd in the block of marble. All clue was 1n1uircd was a Michelangelo, perhaps with a touch of John Henry thrown in. Jean Block and I. having drawn the short straws, were elected to meet with Muriel
,ind gain her support.
Somebody must have tipped her off because ir was ;is if she knew we were coming. W c were greeted with her characteristic good humor and that ever-knowing twin kle in her eye. She agm:d in about three minutes and then set about correcting all the planning errors we had already m:idc. (I hasten to add chat she was right, of coursc.) In an hour she sent us on our way feeling a curious mixture of triumph, gratitude :ind relief!
Now chat I have lived elsewhere for a decade, and have at least a small bit of perspective on Hyde Park and its mystical hold on its inhabitants, I can sec how smart we were to go after Muriel for this important bit of his torical sculpting. One of the most exciting - yet frustr:it ing - characteristics of Hyde Park is chat everybody, and I mean everyone, has an opinion on every subject.
Further, they have to let you know where they stand. Somctimcs you can sit in a meeting and feel with ccr tainry chat you will grow old and die before anything gets resolved.
Muriel Bc;.idlc didn't let that happen to us. We all sounded off, to be sure, and she Ice us, then she cold us what we were going to do and made it happen. Two years later we had a membership, a headquarters, a newsletter and a regular ongoing series of programs. I don't believe anyone else could have done chat for us. Thank God for Muriel Beadle, who was already a piece of Hyde Park history before we had a society to cele brate her. May there be othcrs like her lying in w:iit. I doubt it don't you?
University Colony Club History
The Hyde Park Historical Society is collecting information on the history of the University Colony Club. Persons, whether or not they were actually members of the club, with memories of the Colony Club's
activities, knowledge of its history or thoughts on the role it has played in the school or community are invited to share their recollections. Respondents may send a written statement or, if they wish, submit their names for a possible interview. Information provided about the club will be treated with discretion but may be used in an article on the Club's history that will appear in a future edition of our Society's newsletter. Submissions should be sent to the Hyde Park Historical Society, in care of the archivist, 5529 S. Lake Park Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637. Messages may also be left on the Society's answering machine at 493-1893. Those responding should note their years of club membership or, if they were not members, the time period during which they were familiar with the club's activities.
Social Note
From the Chicago Tribune, August 17, 1902:
"After a luncheon given to the Grand Duke Boris and his party by Baron Schleppenbach, Arthur Caton drove the visitors, the Baron, and Dr. W.R. Harper about in his tallyho. The university was visited, as well as Jackson Park. After the drive, Mr. Caton entertained at the
Washington Park Club."
When "Chicago Day" Came to Hyde Park (What the Books Don)t Tell You) By Jamcs Stronks
It is astounding but true that 761, 942 people flooded into Jackson Park and the Midway on "Chicago Day" at the World's Columbian Exposition. It was October 9, !893, and the 22nd anniversary of the Chicago Fire.
The anniversary fell on a Monday, but the proud city declared it a major holiday. They closed the stores and offices and schools, left saloons open, and half the town set out for the Fair.
Hyde Parkers, who could easily walk over to the p:u-k, may have stayed home to avoid the crush. Chicago Day was going to be historic, a once-in-a-lifetime event, but they had been visiting the Fair all summer. They could read about the crush in the Tribune the next day:
The Xerxes claim was vintage Windy City brag. But the accountants' final total of 761, 942 is a solid fact, recorded in the Report of the President to the Board of Directors (1898), page 407. The New York Ti111es the next day (after explaining that Chicago means "Where the skunk dwells") conceded it to be "the largest concourse of people ever known."
The 761, 942 people at the Fair that day were more than lived in Boston, or Baltimore, or St. Louis. Indeed, the U.S. Census of l 890 proves that the Chicago Day crowd was greater than the combined populations of Albany, Rochester, Toledo, Nashville, St. Paul, Kansas City, and Indianapolis - all compressed within the fences of the fairgrounds.
What was the impact of this human ti-:fal wave along Stony Island and Cottage Grove, and what did it mean for Hyde Park?
The answers are not to be found in the published literature of the World's Columbian Exposition, though it is enormous. The official records and histories are excellent in their way, and we will draw on them here for some statistics. But they arc institutional, limited to the precinct of the fairground, with formal photos of white facades amid deserted spaces, described in idealized generalities.
This present paper, on the contra1y, is interested mainly in people, and specifics, whether in or outside of the fairgrounds, especially people on the streets of Hyde Park, a place the insu lar, whitewashed histories do not know exists. Our informa tion here will com.e from the lively newspapers of October, 1893, with due care and discrrrion in using such fallible sources: the Trib1111e, the lnter-Ocea11, the Times, the Herald, rhc Record and Daily News, the Evmi11gjoumal, the Evmi11g Post, the scruffy Mail, and the exposition's own Daily Columbian.
Actually it was not the reporters on these dailies but their editors who wrote most extravagantly about Chicago Day. The Tribu11r op/ cd page said the Fair showed "carping critics and envious rivals" (i.e., the New York Times) that Chicago's rebuilding after the Fire, and irs maturing ever since, were a triumph nor merely commer cial, for the new Chicago could also "out-do the old artistic
centers of Europe on their own ground." In all probability, boasted the Trib, the next twenty-five years will sec "the removal of the National Capital from Washington to this, the
real center of influence and power."
Meanwhile the Chicago Times ( owned by Mayor Carter HaITison and edited by his son) was indulging rich language of its own: "With imperial mien and gracious courtesy," Chicago "has received the undivided homage of the globe," and the fairgoing multitude has "tendered its spontaneous allegiance to the imperial city of the western continent."
Chicago day was only one of many "days" at the Fair - promotions to stimulate attendance. Their pull reached well into the into the hinterland. Some 25,000 had' come to Wisconsin Day, and 60,000 to Iowa Day. Now, on rhc eve of Chicago Day, the city was swollen with out-of-towncrs:
CHICAGO DAY OVERTAXES CAPACITY OF ALL HOTELS.
Railroad Trains from All Directions Are Overloaded.
HOTELS ARE PACKED TO THE DOORS.
Why would non-Chicagoans (among them a reported 20,000 from St. Louis) flock to Chicago Day on more than 350 trains, some trains in as many as 12 separate sections, in the 24 hours previous? The answer was simple economics. The railroads had withheld low round-trip fares to Chicago all summer, and the financial panic of 1893 had caused many visitors to delay coming to the Fair. But now the exposition was nearing its close, and Chicago's twenty railroads smelled a bonanza. They cut their prices:
ROADS ALL SWAMPED.
Paralyzed by the Influx of People for Chicago Day.
Excursionists Taking Advantage of Very Low Rates.
Several newspapers said trains were bringing 400,000 or 500,000 people, but let us not believe everything we read in the papers. It is a fact, however, that thousands were unable to get Loop hotel rooms and gravitated hopefully toward Jackson Park. The histories and coffee table books have no idea what Hyde Park/Woodlawn looked like the evening before Chicago Day, so we are fortunate thar a breezy Times reporter preserved the scene for us.
To his eye, and it
was a point made in many papers, usually with
a tinge of mockery, these tourists were "in large measure bucolic; every farm and hamlet within a radius of 200 miles must be deserted." The Illinois Central, he went on,
dumped them by hundreds al eve,y stalio11 between 53rd a11d 67th Streets. In droves the people surged toward the nearest hotels; they crowded the lobbies and demanded beds and food. I'hey go/ 11either.
From the swell hotels dow11 to the big bamlike world's fair hotels it was the same story. Way down at 5ls1 Street the Hyde Pa,·k Hotel had 4 50 g1-1esls in 1he house a11d had turned away 50 by l 0 o'clock. Across the way the Chicago Beach Ho1el had 900 gues/s in the ho11se and was tumi11g away people willing to pay any price.
There and al the Hyde Park cots had been p11t in every corridor. At the World's Inn (60th at Dorchester) there were l 250 people
Thoma11ds wandered aboHt the streets hr the vicinity of Jackson Park until 111id11ight, unable to find a place to sleep. They thronged the restaurants during the early part of the e ening a11d ate the hours away. They went to Bi!lfalo Bill's (wild west show, a block west of Stony Island between 62nd and 63rd) and he tu med away a good l0,000. They went against everyflim1lamgame, shooting gallery, a11d variety pe,jorma11ce 011 Stony Isla11d Avenue, 63rd Street, and Cottage Grove Avenue. They filled the Midway and made the after oriental's heart rejoice and his pocketbook fat. By l l o'clock the fakirs along Stony Island Avenue had fumed their shooting and book shops into sleeping places.
The Inter-Ocean said thousands did not go to bed at all but slept in doorways or, sleepless, "lived on nervous excitement," the Dai News adding that "tricksters fleecing World's Fair visi tors" supplied some of that, for example in crooked gambling games in rents near Ease 63rd Street. Probably many cud find rooms in the 220 "world's £-ur hotels" between Kenwood and South Shore listed in Donnelley's IAkeside Direaory for 1893, even if some of these 220 may have been merely lodging house .
Chicago Day dawned cloudless, "a crystalline day of diaphanous atmosphere," sang the Evening Post, the Tribune adding that the lake was sapphire and amethyst and turquoise. Over th.is spark.Lng sea, which was surely the loveliest way to go to the Fair, a dozen passenger boats (steering wide of the Hyde Park Sands at 49th Street) shuttled back and forth all day and half the night, carrying an estimated 40,000 from the Van Buren Street dock to Casino Pier at 63rd Street and back again.
Ocl1ers rode to the Fair in the 500 to 600 ca.tTiages, bug gies, wagons, even one haycack, "anything which would carry people," which the Times claimed were parked all day on Dorchester, Kenwood, ;md Kimbark, each with its patient horses waiting to go home.
But most of the Chicago Day crowd, well over half a mil lion people. came to Hyde Park/Woodlawn on the Illinois Central and on streetcars. The ICRR ran 35 non-stop steam trains to Jackson Park, departing at 5-minute intervals, while a ciry-widc swarm of streetcars (horse, cable, md electric) bore down on Hyde Park from eve1y cLrcction except cl1e east.
Seventy additional gripmen had been brought in from Kansas City to help operate cable cars ilirough what was cer tain to be a long day of bumper-to-bumper stop-and-go, wicl1 cars sometimes only a few feet apart, free-loaders clinging to cl1e outside and perched on cl1e roo( The Cottage Grove line was prepared to carry 138,890 people in "cable trains" (3 cars each) to the west entrance of me Midway, a major "gateway". an enchanted White City as in a utopian vision, found it difficult to stroll at all. Many were unable to get into the wondcrfol buildings because the buildings were already packed with human bodies, and people inside couldn't get out because of the tens of thousands waiting to get in.
"To add to the general discomfort," said one reporter, "nearly everyone carried a huge valise or picnic basket of some sort."
In Daniel Burnham's massive Final Qfficial Report, the offi cers of the Columbian Guard reported chat some doors were broken off their hinges and d1ain fences torn up. bur they called the fairgoers individually cooperative. Collectively, however, chis "human avalanche" was another kind of animal: "Eve1y avenue was filled with what looked a solid mass of people," wrote the captains of the Guard, and "anyone who desired to change his position simply had to let the tide drift him along toward his destination." (It was a good line, but they stoic it verbatim from the Inter-Ocean of October 10th.)
With 761,942 people on the grounds, problems abound ed, little and big. How far upwind could you hear the band play "The Chicago Day Waltz"? (Not very far.) If you were penned immobile while a fountain rained on you steadily, what could you do? (Nothing.) How many arre ts of all kinds were there? (57) Did pickpockets score big? (No, the crowd was too chick.) Of the 33,139 children on the grounds, how many got turned in to Lost & Found? (73. and according to two papers, who gave plausible-sounding derails, 19 of these hadn't been picked up yet by 9 o'clock the next morning, but isn't our leg being pulled?) Did the scores of restaurants run out of food? (Of course.) Did the 3116 water closets prove adequate? (What do you chink?) Some people gave up and
started home as early as 3 P.M.
Two grand parades had been advertised. The evening affa_ir would be a gorgeous procession of electrically illuminated six horse floats making a long loop through the grounds, each float an allegorical tableau or an aspect of Chicago's rise from Indian village to world-class metropolis. A map in the papers had shown the parade route so that a family could stake out a fine vantage point. But it did not work out chat way.
As the parade came north up Stony Island, some 5000 people waited in the street to sec it enter the fairgrounds at the 62nd Su-cct gate. Inside rhc park. the multitude there began to surge through the parade's route, halting its progress, first for twenty minutes, then at the Woman's Building for two hours. Reaching the lakcshorc, cast of the Manufactures Building, where by now hundreds of thousands of people had planted themselves to sec the fireworks. only 4 of the 21 floats could get through. The other 17, engulfed, were abandoned, their lights turned off. the horses taken out. The parade was wonderful, but untold thousands saw little of it.
By now dusk had come and with it the advertised climax: GRAND FIREWORKS. PIECES FOR CHICAGO DAY
OF UNRIVALED MAGNIFICENCE. One would sec a marvellous show from any point on the grounds - and happily this proved true. One had only to look up.
The highest, loudest aerial blasting came along the lakcshore, from the deck of the U.S. Illinois and from the cast end of Casino Pier. Ir shook rhc Hyde Park heavens and woke babies from 47th Street to 63d (and killed a fireworks man). Simultaneously the vast sea of people in the Court of Honor watched their own splendid pyrotechnics, while over their heads "a slender figure in red tights walked across a trembling wire" stretched between the Music Hall and the Casino.
On the Wooded Island, which the Times had called "char pretty little place," but now "black with people" and ankle deep in picnic litter, a total of 500 pounds of magnesium "turned night to day" and"15,000 fairy lamps outlined the walks and flower beds." In the lagoons around the isfand, said the T n'b1111e, "3000 aquatic novelties burned in every form- geysers, torpedoes, fiery dolphins, flying fish, and fairy foun rains--onr mass ofliving, writhing fire."
Gerting 761,942 people to the fair had amounted to a monster popuLnion shift spread over eighr hours. But the thought of getting them out again all at the same time, afrer the fireworks, was a mind-boggling logistical prospect.
Fortunately some had already gone home. As early as 6 PM
:ill departing trains were full--hang the parade '.md fireworks. The T crminal Station with its multiple platforms was pre
pared to send off 80 loaded trains per hour and to run all night
if necessary. IC trains, 8 to 12 cars long, departed Hyde Park at 5-minute intervals. Others left the Alley L Station, by the Transportation Building, where the crowd on the stairs was tightest, most emotional and dangerous, at 2-minute intervals. Our on the Hyde Park/Woodlawn streets, cable cars filled instantly and rumbled away less than a minute apart, while Cottage Grove cars were said to have run only IS seconds apart.
The Trib1111c had compured char trains, streetcars. and boats could carry away only 367,208 people between 9:00 P.M. and 12:00, but in fact only about a thousand were left in the fairgrounds and midway at midnight, some of chem well lubricated witl1 Budweiser.
An epic exodus transpired in Hyde Park chat night. On the
morning after, the Chicago papers filled page after page with a niagara of reportage about packed masses of people waiting, tired, hung1y. disheveled, many fainting, as they inched toward jammed exits, with every Hyde Park intersection a swarn1ing crossroad.
Inevitably it was dangerous. City-wide, said the newspa pers, in column after column describing accidents, at least 22 people were seriously injured in Chicago Day traffic, many of chem out-of-towners involved with moving cable cars. Five people were killed, two on the fairgrounds. Some papers reported chat Mrs. John Tucker of Red Bud, lliinois, had a baby at the 60th Street critrance, but I could not verify this
In Cook County's bureau of Vital Statistics, so we must regretfully disregard it.
In the end, the main thing about "Chicago Day" was not the World's Columbian Exposition. The Chicago Times put it best: 'The story of the day was the crowd."
But how can we comprehend or visualize chis ocean of 761,942 people? How imagine their physical mass? Let us try:
Consider chat a man in his shirtsleeves measures 18 inches acros his chest, from shoulder seam to shoulder seam. Stand him next to another man, their shoulders touching, and together they arc 36 inches wide, or one yard. There arc 1760 yards in a mile, thus 3520 men per mile. Now line up the whole Chicago Day host in chis fashion, shoulder-to-shoulder, and you have an unbroken wall of warm bodies for 216 miles, or the distance (as the crow flies) from Hyde Park to a point well beyond Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Or to Toledo, Ohio. Or from New York to Washington. Or from London to Paris.
It is a haunting image, a fantastic Christo dream, chis con
tinuous wall of humankind undulating over hill and dale west ward for 2 I6 miles, clear across lliinois, across the Mississippi, and well into the cornfields beyond.
Now red in chis 216 miles of bodies and pack chem together inside the fairground fences - and no wonder Hyde Parkers probably stayed home to avoid chat crush. It was a perfect Indian Summer day. They could rake leaves.
Wr are very grateful to Sam hair who previous has shared his mother's recollections with us. Hm he takes us back to Hyde Park in the l880s -
this time with his father, Thomas J. Hair.
A Reminiscence by
Thomas J. Hair
from a hol.ograph copy in pencil
I started in the first grade at the old Marquette School on West Congress Street, about two blocks from our home.
After about a year, Dad sold our Congress St. house and we occupied Uncle John's house in Lawndale, then a distant sub urb of Chicago, reached by street-car and a long walk, for a few months while they were at Harbor Point, Michigan, their summer home. In the meantime, Dad had bought a lot and started building a three-story house on Lake Avenue - now Lake Park) in the suburb of Hyde Park, south of Chicago and adjacent to it, where we soon moved. We three children then entered the Greenwood Avenue School where I was placed in the second grade.
Hyde Park was almost a rural community at that time (1886). The streets were not all paved, and d1e vacant property across from our home was forested with enticing trees and play spots. In the rear of the property, Dad and a few neighbors built a toboggan slide which in the Chicago climate was a boon to children. I still remember the importance attached to the right make of toboggan, and later still to the right make of skates.
The Greenwood Avenue School was outside of the Chicago school district. Its principal was Miss Phillips, called familiarly "Miss Floppy", no doubt partly on account of her figure, a dynamic person. Our teacher was Miss Agnes Ehnendorf. who came from Bellows Falls, Vermont, and taught for seven years in our sd1ool, moving up wid1 d1e orig inal second grade to the third and fourth grades. She was unique in personality and never to be forgotten. A devour Episcopalian, she occasionally invited one or more of her pupils to attend the Episcopal Church with her for Sunday worship. I remember going wirh her to a church loc.itcd on the old Am1our Institute grounds around 33rd Street and Cartage Grove Avenue, where lacer was located the Illinois Institute of Technology. She once took us as a class, also, to
suburb of Hyde Park was annexed to the City of Chicago, separation of city and church took effect, and prayer was abolished. However, Agnes Elmendorf devoted our first ses sion each morning to the singing period, thereby working in a song-prayer as a part of the music hour.
One morning a week, proverbs were called for, and in regu lar order a few pupils each day gave their choices. Herc is where I first heard, "Lost, yesterday between sunrise and sun set, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes.
No reward offered, for they arc gone forever." The quotation remains with the picture of lovely little Helen Leland, who later lost her life in a New York hotel fire. Her father owned and operated the Leland Hotel in Chicago for many years, and where Helen gave a supper and party to Miss
Elmendorf s class. With Helen, I led the grand march of the class, and I a shy boy!
The Leland home was on Drexel Blvd. and 47th Sc. Helen
was proud and amused :it the figure of Diana on the roof of the gazebo atop the house. She laughed with us about it. Her funeral was held from that house, which I attended long after our boy and girl friendship had become a fond memory.
Another feature of the unique Elmendorf class was its classroom. Each desk was covered with thin oilcloth cut to fit the desk top, with a hole cut out over the inkwell. The oil cloth was furnished by classmate Arthur Tobin at a cost to each of us of 10\t - quite ::t financial operation. Later in Lfe, Arthur became head of a merchandising firm in Chicago, and we were friends until his death many years ago.
For each desk, the pupil brought a small basket which he or she tied to the side of the desk for waste paper, thus avoid ing the constant traveling to the large basket in front and at the side of the teacher's desk.
Below each desk was a strip of carpet to deaden the scuff ing of active feet. These pieces of carpet represented the left overs of carpet in the homes of class members - a motley assortment. Once a week the honor of cleaning the carpets went to two of the boys who collected them, took them to the school yard, and be:it them against a tree. These were the days of student help!
On Friday afternoons we held ::t spell-downs. This was ;111 important feature, for at the end of the year a prize was awarded to the one who remained at the head of the line the longest ,md most often. One of my prized possessions now is the Museum in downtown Chicago over the the silvcr quarter with :i ribbon attached, and won by my hard famous Gruenther Candy Store.
Miss Ehnendorf s room was different from any other class room I have known. It had a room motto done in colors by the mother of one of the boys, Marshall Hayes, whose house was just across 46th Street from the school. I remember the group of eight boys who formed the Washington's Birthday celebration, and who rehearsed in W cllington Park just next to Marshal.l's house on the east. A few of these were Marshall Hayes, John Neems, Gordon Sibley, and myself
Miss Ehnend01f opened the class each morning with a short prayer - quite unique even in our school. When the effort in spelling contests.
Through the year each morning Miss Elmendorf c:11.lcd for a show of handkerchiefs, and forty hands waved in the air, ead1 clutching a purportedly fresh handkerchief I will never forget d1e occasion when one resourceful boy held aloft a crushed piece of paper as a substitute for a handkerchief Our class conscience was so clean that the other members feared that he would come to a bad end Many years later, he became a prominent real estate developer of Chicago suburban property.
Later,inupperarithmeticclasses,welearnedhowtopaperaroom.Forexample,aroomis20ftby12ft,andIOfthigh
with two doors each 3 by 7 ft, and three windows each 2 by 5 ft. The wallpaper is 24 inches wide, and comes in rolls of 20ft. How many rolls arc required?
One song that we sang with feeling in Miss Elmendorf s daily music half-hour was on Memorial Day:
"Gn'm War has smoothed his wrink&d front, And through our land 110 more
Is heard the sound of his alarms And cannon's awful roar.
B11tjarjro111 home and kindred On this Me111orial Day
Arr !Jing many loved OllfS
vflho died in Wars array."
For this was only a score of years since rhe end of the Civil
Wa1:.
On the wide window-sill in Room 9 was a saucer of water and another of seeds - feed for the crow which had become the room's pct, and whose keeper was one of the pupils who had won this coveted post by superior scholarship in some particular study at the third grade level...
Volume 16, Number 4 Winter, 1994-1995
This wonderful photo which HPHS Archivist Steve Treffrnan has just acquired from the Chicago Historical Society for our headquarters was taken on November 6, 1915. lL shows Lhe LC. Sta Lion at 57th Street; the tracks just behind it r:1ised :is Lhey are Loday.
Jean Block, in her book Hyde Park Houses, describes the opening of the first station (Hyde Park al 53rd Street in 1856 and the second (Kenwood at 47th SLreeL) in 1859. She continues. ''A third railroad station was opened at 57th Street. initially known as Woodville, because thal was where the train refueled. later it was called South Park."
After its years of service as ;1 depot. including the ;11Tival and departure of thousands s of visitors to the 1893 World's Fair, this enormous station (consider Loday' skimpy pldlform shclLers!l was for , time home to the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club! Sec Eleanor Campbell's article on the next page.
Eleanor Campbell l1as been associated with the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club since 1944 when she became staff as a group 1mrhcr. lfltcrsl,c1ms cmc of11i11c clw,trr members 0Ft/1r Business and Professional Auxiliary in existence for37 t;ew before it disbanded. Sl1e is a long-ti1 1c board n1rmbrrhaui11g sc,vcd as clwinna11 of several committees m1d as president.
C11rre11tly sl1e is a professional gc11rnlogist and family l1isto1ia11 1citli a11 i11tcrnatio11af clic11trle.
The hyde Park Neighborhood Club
by Eleanor Campbell
The Hyde Park Neighborhood Club has served the south side of Chicago since its founding in December 1909.
Created ;is a settlement house and a neighborhood center. it continues today as a multi-program soci,d se1vice agency in our economic1lly diverse and rncially mixed community.
ln its formative years the Club operated its programs out of an abandoned railroad depot. originally huill Lo accommodate the thousands of visitors arriving at the 18g3 World's Columbian Exposition. lnter the Club made use of unoccupied store fronts, empty second floor rooms over businesses. and ;111 old fire station. lL varied its activities with the space available and the needs in the community. Originally designed "to promote Lhe physical and moral welfare of Lhe children in the area" its programs have always included ,adult activities.
From 1931 to 1g48 the Club rented the buildings at 56th and Dorchester, which had been the University Congregational Church sanctuary. its Fellowship hall. and parsonage, for $1 a year with the congregation maintaining the outside of the buildings; the Club kept up the interior. The church had merged with Hyde Park Presbyterians and worshiped in their building at 53rd and Blackstone Ave. This much larger space allowed the Club to expand its programs for the first time in its history.
During the Depression years, the Club's ,activities took on a different dimension. There were family fun nights, a soup kitchen and activities which assisted the entire fomily. An annual "human" circus was held every spring ;:is ,1 culmination of months of preparing paper mache' animal costumes. complete with a bandind a circus parade. When a large apartment building went up in flames the Club was there to provide temporary housing and meals with the assistance of the Red Cross. With the aniv;:il of the Second World War, women came to the Club to roll bandages and learn first-aid procedures. These buildings were alive throughout the d,1y ;:ind into the evenings with activities for children and ,adults.
When the church buildings were sold in 1948 the Club operated decentralized programs for six years in local schools. churches, empty store fronts and with its offices localed in the local police station, which was just of- 53rd St and Lake Park Avenue. Owing Lhal time the directors of the Club had to decide if the agency would continue. When one of them offered Lo buy some property. which was ,1v,1ibble in Lhe center of the community. their future was secured.
ln 1953. a one story structure was erected al 55th and Kenwood, in which is now Nichols Park. Liter addition since the have included more meeting rooms. ,1 shop. a post-war quonseL-sLyle gym--replaced in 1888 with high school sized gymnasium and expanded meeting ,and activity rooms. This Liter space w;1s m,1de possible by renovating the old gym into sun-filled room which can be divid into smaller ;areas by closing folding doors. The present totals 25,&o square feet.
Over the years the importance of the Club's work in the community has been evident in is willingness Lo sec new needs and lo make the changes necessary programs accordingly. Today this community house offers programs and services lo ;1l1 age groups including a pre school indoor Tol Lal and ;1 full-day activities and Lu Luring for element,1ry age children before and after 11001. a growing youlh program for ages 11-17. a drop-in center and Golden Oinerc; noon for seniors. and an Older Adult 0,1y center for more fragile adult_. There is also a job placement program for those over fifty and adult classes. Programs run all year with summer full-day camp included.
ln order to Furnish improved se1vices for the more than 2CXX) people aided by the Club. ils staff of 12 full time and 28 part-Lime workers is headed by Mrs.
JureIlene Rigsby, M.S.Ed., Executive Director since September 1994. As Child Service Director of Community Services South for 14 years she managed a variety of programs including day care, counseling, parent empowerment. group homes. foster care. and emergency shelters. She has a strong youth OiientaLion and is familiar with the Chicago network of social service agencies and funding sources.
A community board of three dozen men and women manage the affairs of the Club, now in its 86th year. The budget of $888.B&J come from individual, corporate, and foundation money. T11e United Way, government funds, program fees ,and rentals.
Volunteers are also pa1t of the support staff of the agency is and has been, a communitypartner.developinganddeliveringse1vicesinresponseloidenlifiedcommunilyneeds
Paul Cornell Awards
1994
by Tom Pavelec. Vice President HPHS
The Paul Cornell Award is presented yearly by Lhe Hyde Park Historical Society to honor individuals or groups who foster and preserve Hyde Park hislory. Over Lhe years we have given a variely of these awards. c,ich well deserved in its own way.
The Society presented three ;1wards at ils Fehrtwry 26, rgg4 annual dinner meeting.
The firsl was presented Lo Lhe managing truslces of the Promontory Apartments at 5530-32 Soulh Shore D1ivc. This building. designed hy Mies van der Rohe in 1947. h;1s recently undergone some 111,)jor structuralwork. As you pass this building you probably won't secondly change in the exterior. And is exactly why they received th is award.
The Truslees forced some hard decisions when Loki of Lhe repairs necessary Lo the structure. While Lhc basic integrity of the structure was al tisk. Lhey could reconstruct Lhe foundation, windows and apron suLTOLlllding the building exactly as 01iginally designed, at considerable cost. or take the less expensive route and change the facade dramatically.
Th Promontory owners felt that they were more than property owners, but rather custodians of architectural history. They chose to take the more expensive route that 111;1inlained the integliLy of Lhe original design. We applaud their foresight and thank Lhem for preserving this design.
The Managing Trustees are Don Norlon. Alan Shefner and William McGhee.
The blocks of 57th to 59th on Harper Avenue are known as Rosalie Court ;md the residences as Rosalie Vi lbs. ;1 significanl ,md hisL01i slreet in Hyde Park.
Ln Jenn Block's r978 book Hyde Park Houses she talks about the 1885 planned development along Harper Avenue. To quote from Jean's book, ··Many of these houses have since been remodeled. but the one al 5736 Harper is unaltered."
Our second award was presented to Tom Jones and Steve Weiner for the restoration, preservation and reconstruction of their home at 5736 Harper.
Tom and Steve have taken this "unaltered" beauty and with great care and sensitivity have enhanced its original beauty into a pure delighL thc1t even architects of the late r&:lo's would have admired.
Ln addition to exterior and interior restoration of this Queen Anne home. they have constructed a rear addition that blends with the original design perfectly, leaving one to wonder where the original ends and the new begins.
They endeavored to maintain the original design by removing the entire brick facade, adding a three story addition, and Lh n reconstructing the original facade. They accomplished their mission. ln addition, they scoured the city to find door and window hardware Lhal exactly matched the original wherever it had been replaced by previous owners.
Exterior paint chips were analyzed to determine original colors and all missing wood members replaced. They researched landscaping of the era and have duplicated it as closely .:is possible.
Kudo Lo Tom and Steve for a job well done and our thanks for their determination to reconstruct history.
The final HPHS award, but no less significant, was presented to students and faculty of the William H. Ray School for fostering and encouraging the history of Hyde Park.
The HisL01ical Society believes that the study of history must be encouraged in young minds and hearts. Last year. the Ray School's 100th anniversary, Lhcir students were challenged to find out 1d10 was William H. Ray?
lt was an interesting exercise for Ray School students, giving them a sense of the history of Hyde Park. They learned and grew from the expelience, exploring the path from past to present.
You should Know About...
The on-going exhibit at HPHS Headquarters:
University Church Celebrates 100 Years
This interesting exhibit was prepared by Eleanor Campbell. Church member and historian who recently has published 1 book on the Church's long years here in Hyde Park. The exhibit features a roo year Limc-linl'
;:-is well as photos. documents. and m,rny ol<jecls rebting lo the church's history. Don't miss it!
The upcoming exhibit and program:Forty Years of Urban Renewal
Be watching for notice of our HPHS Spring Focus commemorating the 40th anniversary of Urh;in Renewal in Hyde Park. We plan to h1ing together memo,ies. photographs. maps. elc. Lo document and presc,ve that strategic moment in our recent hi Lory. LF you have any m,1leri,1ls or memo,ies you would like to shme, please call Program Chairman Alice Schlessingcr.
The Annual Meeting of the Hyde Park Historical Society
Saturday, February 18, 1995 The Cliff Dwellers Club
Orchestra Hall 220 S. Michigan Ave.
HPHS Exhibit The White City As
It Was Wins Award for Excellence
This wonderful exhibit of exceplioml 18g3 half-tone photos hy Willi,1111 Henry Jackson ;is well ac; m;I11y items of inlercsl - from poslctrds ,111d Lickcts to souvenir chin;1 plates - w,Is mounted hy HPH members Ed Cimphell ;111d Steve Treffm:111 to commcmor:1Le 1893 Columbian Exhibition World’s Fair. He received an Award tor Excellence from the Association of Illinois Museums and Historical Societies statewide awards. HPH S won two!
Recollections of Ted Anderson
l Firsl mel Ted Anderson when I was ;1 small hoy
:md my bmily were cuslomers of his slore ;:iL 1444 E;1sl 55Lh Street. lL was a large. old fashioned hardware store .jusl the sort of place a boy who liked to work with his hands loved to hang mound. 1i1e store was delighLl·ully messy. wiLh hundreds of boxes and hins full of misc llaneous pmls and g;1dgeLs. nothing like the bland. s,mitized horne ccnler slores of Laday. where everyLhing is in plasLic hags. ln tho_c days Hyde P,irk h.td ;1 half dozen or so good hmdwarc slores. on 57Lh
Lreel. especi,tlly 55Lh. ;md 53rd SLreel.
1i1c only one who knew where cvcryLhing was in his
<,Lore. of course, was Ted. ;ind Lhe cnlirc operalion revolved ,trl)Und him. He knew mosl of Lhe cuslomcrs by 11;1mc. ,md :dmosl everyone who c1me in Lo Lhe '>Lore soughL him out tor ;idvicP on whal merch,mdise Lo buy. or how to do ;1 p,1rlicubr repair. The slorc w;1s
,d<,o ;1 g;1Lhering poinl forjanitors in Lhc are,1. who
<,Lood ;iround Lhe nickel Coke machine Lo sw;1p slories ahoul Lheir Len;inls. m;:iny of whom were studenl<; or professors. who did1i'L h;ive enough "common scn<,p" nol Lo pul gm1se down Lhc sink. or Lo lock themselves oul ot Lhcir ;ip,irlmenls.
Yc;irs Liter. when l goL Lo know Ted much heller. ill' hr;igged Lo me Lh;it he h:id only one joh hi'> enlire life. He w;1s horn in Hyde Park in 1908. .inc.I allenc.lec.l R;1y School ,ind Hyde P,irk High School. where he loved Lo work in Lhe shops Lh;iL were i.tl('r moved oul when
hit ;1go Voc,tion;il High School w;i<., huilL. When he w;is 10 ye;1rc; old. in Lhe Fourlh gr;1de. he h,,d a friend whose Lither owned Lhe Im.ti h,1rdwarc slore. Thl' hoy Loki Ted Lh,1t his bLhcr needed ,1delivery hoy. ,md he gol Lhc joh. Eighteen ye;irs J;1Lcr he houghL the slure. hy Llwn owned by the W;igner 13roLhcrs. ,md renamed il
A.T. Anderson Hardware.
During the Depression Ted kepl Lhe sLore going hy purch;1sing Lhe slock of olher South Side h;irdw,1re '>lore<; LiwL were going oul of business. and by buying dislresscd merchandise from wholes,1lcr<; al bargain p1ices. For ex;1mple. he once boughL 75 broken wooden ironing bo;irds for Lwe11Ly-five cenls e;ich. horn which he
was ;1blc Lo rep.iir 50 or oo of Lhem. Lo sell for $5.cx) a piece.
The wood slove in the he;idquarlers w;1s purchased by Ted ;1L ;1 b,mkruplcy sale and sal in his g;ir.ige for alrnosl 50 years before being used for Lhe firsl Lime. ln order Lo mike ends meel. Ted also did ;1 loL of repai1ing of small appli,mces ;1L Lhe slore. and he was ;i m;1sler locksmilh.
Ted and his wife Lillian raised Lheir three children in Lhe large frame house al 5627 Kenwood. He could oflen be <;een smoking his cigars on the front porch. because his wife didn't like him Lo do it in the house. He was extremely active in the Hyde Park Methodist Church. which was late torn down. and The congregation merged wilh Lhe United Church of Hyde Park on 53rd Street. He loved music and often led singing al the church. He and his family could usually he seen ealing Sunday dinner. afler church. at the Tropical Hut restaurant on 57Lh Street
Ted spent an enormous amount of Lime involved in various volunleer activities in the communily. He w;:is a member of Lhe local DrafL Board for 20 years. a matter of no small inlere L lo me and my m;:ile contemporaries. since we were of draft age during the Vietnamwar. He was also active in and usually chairman of. a virtual "wh0’s who" of Hyde Park organizations, including Lhe YMCA. Kiwanis Club, 5Lh Ward Citizens Committee. Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference, Southeast Chicago Commission. 55the street Businessmen's Association.
Hyde Park Neighborhood Club, Mason's. and Schrincr's.
When the Hislorirnl Sociely was formed he w,1s in charge of elling 100 Charler Memberships ;1L $100 each. which provided Lhc nucellus of funds to rehabiliLale Lhe headquarlers. We worked very closely Logelher on Lh;il projecl.
In Lhe I.iLe t95o·s, Ted's 01iginal store w;is slated for demoliLion ;,s p;1rl of Lhc urhan renewal pb111. He moved Lo ;1much smaller inlcrim localion. ;it 1215 Easl 55Lh Slreel. helween Kimb;irk and Woodlawn. where he wa lornLed for 8 years. 1i1e ,iclual move was made by a p.tmde ot volunleers c1nying Lhe merchandise from one sLore Lo another in ho1Towed Co-op Food Store shopping rnrls. Evenlu;illy he and olher merchanls. '>uch ,1<; "Mr. G... built Lhe 53rd Street and Kimbark Shopping Plaza where his store was recolated. A few years later he retired after 55 years in the hardware business. The dean of Hyde Park merch,mls.1i1e store Lh1ives Locby. of course. now known as Anderson's Ace Hardware. enlarged ;md owned by his protege George Alguire. George recently himself celehrated 50 years in the hardware business.
ln rg8o. afler his wife died. Ted moved Lo Hawaii where his son Ronald is an engineer. He shipped his (·urnilurc. belongings and Lools in an enormous conL.1iner. Lh,1L ,ilso included his beloved Mercedes Benz ,1ulomobile. H' died in Haiwaii on J;:inuary 18, 1994. ,md a mcmo1i,1l sc,vice was held for him nt the Actually. the Quadrangle Club had a number of homes before what is now Ingleside H,111 was constructed. as Ed conectly notes. on the southeast comer of Fifty-eighth and Univer ity. the site now of Lhc Oriental Institute. O1iginally. the club was orgm1ized by and for University of Chicago male b ulty in 18g3 at the old Del Prado Hotel. than called the Barry Hotel. where many of the club's early members lived. lnlernalion;1I House st;mcls there now. The club was incorporated in 1895 ;111d ;1 three story red brick lub house was built on th,1L Fihy-eighth ;md University
c-orner ;111d opened on June 19. 18g6. ln r8g7, however, il experienced three successive fires. li1e third. on December 25. 1897. caused such extensive damage that lll,)jor reconstruction w,1s m,1de necess;iry while, a well. ,11lowing expansion of the old building. For
approximalely six months thereafter the club mentioned temporary quarters at a building once stood at what is now 1358-136o East Fifty-eighth. On July 26. 18g8, the new club house. now twice the size of its predecessor hut retaining the original focade. w,1s onc,e1gain opened lo its members. The brger quarters were needed because of an increase in the club's membership whicl1 occured when a change in requirements allowed men to join who were not University of Chicago faculty. By 18g7. these "community" men made up almost half of the club" Quadrangle Club