Headline News Oct. 9th

Chicago Historical Society Burgled!

Important Artifacts stolen or destroyed

Mr. Thomas Martin the head curator reports that the place was broken into and many pieces were stolen or destroyed. Some of the pieces stolen according to Mr. Martin was pieces of the old fort Dearborn, a spear and headdress of a Potawtomi chieftain, and it would seem our thieves have an alcohol desire because 2 bottles of vintage wine from the USS Wilmette was also taken. Mr. Martin hasn't done a complete walkthrough yet to see if other important relics were taken but insists that this is a most grievous crime.

"I was stolen from...the people of Chicago were stolen from! I would urge anyone with news of this atrocity come forth at once and turn yourselves in," says Mr. Martin, "The Society will give 100 dollars to any news that helps apprehend these criminals and additional 400 dollars if we get the artifacts back in one piece."

Not a Happy Encore

October 8th, 1935

Bronzeville Vaudeville Theatre:

After talking to Mr. Chalky White at the Historical Society, the crew headed over to the theater in Bronzeville the next evening around 8 pm. This old vaudeville theater was abandoned and boarded up. It definitely has seen better days. The 6 of you head in and walk down the right aisle way towards the stage. You see a bright flood light behind a man sitting in a chair. As you all approach cautiously thinking of ambush Cis Watkins assures the group that he senses no danger as he was the first to enter the dilapidated building.

The group goes up the side stairs onto the stage and get a closer look at the man sitting on the chair. It was Mr. White with his eyes and tongue taken out. He was dressed in all white with blood running down his white vest. As you are taking in the grotesque site you hear a barrage of bullets ringing out from the back and left side of the room. IT'S A TRAP!

Over 50 bullets in less than 6 seconds tear through the gang and the ratty moth ridden curtain behind you. Your new contact, Levi goes down quick. Mortimer and Cis get shot up real bad as well after the initial attack. Mortimer, out of instinct gets a quick fire off with his pistol and blows one of the mobsters brains into the john came out of. 1 down 4 to go.

The next round Vincent drops down on the left side of the stage and causes a shimmering reflection of himself to go at lightning speed towards one of the gangsters...it flies straight through him and he goes down like a lead balloon. 2 down 3 to go.

In that same instance, Cecil and Faye drag their fallen companion back behind the curtain...to try to staunch the bleeding. Mortimer not wasting anytime jumps down of the front of the stage and goes into the first few rows of seats to get some cover and fires. He was not so lucky this time and misses damn blood got in his eyes and messed up his vision. Cis Watkins fires off his Tommy gun and tries to spray the remaining three. He managed to take down one of them. 3 down 2 to go.

The remaining two open up on Mortimer and their bullets shred through the seats where Mortimer was hiding. He yells out in pain has one hits his leg and rips a tendon. His eyelids go heavy and goes down unconscious. Things are looking grim for the gang. Just in time, Anne-Marie hears the gun fire and comes busting through the door and quickly takes cover and gets a shot off but misses! Uh-oh...she got the gunman's attention.

Vincent runs down to the end of the theater to the last row and casts his shimmering psychic magic again at one of the attackers. He starts to convulse and scream in agony as he drops his Tommy Gun and dies on the spot. 4 down 1 to go.

The last gunman sees his partner go down with the weird magic coming from the wild haired freak of nature and loses his cool and makes a break for it. Anne-Marie was ready to pistol whip him but thought better of it and let him go as she goes straight for Mortimer to try to save him. To her surprise he sees him laying their moaning but in stable condition. It would seem all that liquor he consumes gives him constitution.

Meanwhile behind the curtain Cecil and Faye stabilize Levi and bandage him up with some of the old, faded stage curtain. The gang yet survives another ordeal...weather they are in New Orleans or Chicago...it would seem danger follows them around like stink on a hooker.

Local News

Oct. 7, 1935

• Glidden Plant explosion kills 11
• 1845 N. Laramie Ave in the North Austin neighborhood was so powerful that it leveled the five story factory building, destroyed nearby storage buildings, flattened automobiles and rail cars, shattered windows in 200 houses and apartments. The blast killed 11 employees and injured 43 other people.
• Speculation it was caused by a chemical  used in the process of extracting oil from soybeans. But the fire department expert thinks their might be other nefarious reasons it blew up....more to come.
• Chicago Cubs lose World Series again
• Gabby Hartnett-led Cubs went on a 21-game winning streak in Sept. to overtake the hated St. Louis Cardinals and win the pennant. You would think that would have made the Cubbies the toast of the town, but the Cubs were Series regulars, having played for it all in 1929 and 1932, and their awful showings of 4-1 and 4-0 losses. Now the North Siders lose again to the Tigers 4-2.
• Milk Wars!
• independent dairy farmers want a better price for their milk. Consumers paid 10 cents per quart, of which the farmer gets 3.76 cents. They want a penny and a half more. The distributors argues that the public wouldn't pay more. The three unions in the city represents more than 15,000 dairy farmers around the Chicago Milk Shed. They are picketing and dumping milk...and worse yet a large group broke the seals on five tanker cars and dumped 27,500 gallons.

Places of Interest

North Side

• Dill Pickle Club

• Centerpiece of Tower Town bohemian scene
• Dive serves as tearoom, lecture hall, speakeasy, theater of poets, artists, hobos, social workers, writers, mobsters, radicals, and anarchists.
• Talk of the this part of town is Mr. Electrico and Kid Montenga
• You saw a brutal murder here of John Collins, a mobster affiliated with Bugs Moran. Claude Maddox was the man who beat John to death in front of Cecil and Anne-Marie

• Marigold Hotel 

• This is where you are staying while in Chicago. Located 815 W. Grace street.
• The penthouse suite is owned by Ted Newbury, a capo for Bugs Moran. Gorilla is his 7'2" body guard. Big man with a little hat.

• Lions Den

• Underneath the Marigold Hotel is one of the classiest Speakeasies you saw so far. The alcohol keeps flowing all night long here. It has 3 stories with plenty of seating and has a giant cage with a well fed male lion in it. The bellhop must be "tipped" to attend this joint.

• Water Tower

• While visiting one of the many newspaper outlets, Cecil discovered a bit of a mystery at the old Water Tower located on 806 N. Michigan. It is a weird, medieval-looking limestone tower. It survived the Great Chicago Fire. It holds a 135 foot tall standpipe that helps pressurize and pump drinking and firefighting water. Legend has it a ghost of a hanged man appears off and on in the water tower.

• Chicago Historical Society
• Another place that Mr. Lazlo found about when researching the paranormal happenings in the city. This neo-Romanesque pile of red granite looks like a magnificent cross between a castle and a pyramid. It holds artifacts and relics of Chicago and American history, form Columbus anchor to Lincoln's death bed. The Gilpin Library has 75,000 books, plus newspaper volumes, records, and maps. Another Legend says one or more ghosts haunt this building.
• You spent the night and not only did the dead haunt you but the living. Mr. White paid you a visit and was very upset about the kidnapping of Rube Foster. He mentioned to you to visit him later that next night at an old theater in Bronzeville just south of the Loop.

People of Interest you met or heard of in Chicago

Chalky White (dead?)

Bossman of Bronzeville?
Mysterious black man who dresses well. Uses some sort of smoke and mirrors and other parlor tricks that you witnessed. He is displeased with the crew because of kidnapping Rube Foster of the American Giants. Talks about misfortune if "Bugs" Moran gets what he wants. Did not go into detail. Has a Jamaican accent.

Al "Scarface" Capone

Head of Capone's Outfit, King of South Side
All you know about him is what you read in the newspapers...he is the man probably behind most of the bootlegging in Chicago. He owns many establishments in the South Side. He is loved by the commoners of Chicago.

~“Some call it bootlegging. Some call it racketeering. I call it a business.”

Andrew "Rube" Foster

Pitcher for the Chicago American Giants
Star Player for their team. Bugs Moran wants him for something and you guys "convinced" him to go with you. You were followed by his guys but you lost them. Said something about, "Mr. White will do something about this." You safely delivered him to Ted Newbury's Penthouse suite at the Marigold Hotel.

George "Bugs" Moran

Figurehead of the North Side
As with Capone the Newspapers tell of a gang war between the two sides of Chicago. They both want a piece of that bootlegging pie.

Mayor Eoin "Battling" Burke

A big man who carries himself like a prizefighter and wears a beard to cover mysterious scars on his jaw, Mayor Burke fills any room with his presence even before he starts glad-handing in his incongruously beautiful tenor voice. His tailored suits and goldtopped cane are familiar sights in Canaryville, where he relaxes with a drink or six as often as the pressures of campaigning and running the city will let him.

Ted Newbury

Longtime Chicago rumrunner and lieutenant under George Moran. Has penthouse at the Marigold. Runs many speakeasies but his love is the Lion's Den. A ladies man.

Louis Garcon 

Small in size but has a huge ego and confidence. You delivered Fat Dan Wellers truck filled with bottles of booze and who knows what else for 500 dollars. The drop-off point was at the Union Stockyards and "Packingtown". Over a square mile of livestock pens, slaughterhouses, and packing plants takes in and processes 12 million animals a year.

Claude "Screwy" Maddox

Leader of the Circus Gang, which are allies of Capone's Chicago Outfit. Cecil Manning and Ann-Marie Hill got a close up of him beating a guy to death at the Dil Pickle Club while they were looking for Cubs tickets.  He said something to the effect of "Wanna pick on people that can't defend themselves"? Then throws money down at the dead body and said, "Pay for his funeral." Then walked out. The man he killed was John Collins a mobster for G. Moran.

"Gorilla Al" Weinshank

7'2" Body guard for North-side gang. Mostly hangs out with Ted Newbury. He is a little slow in the head but loyal to a fault.

Gangland Map of Chicago

Click this map to see a hi-resolution of Chicago map made in 1931.

The Windy City

I have struck a city – a real city – and they call it Chicago… I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages.

~ Rudyard Kipling

A bit of History:

• Began as a campground to the Potawatomi Indians
• French and American Fur traders settled the site in 1783
• Fort Dearborn was built by US Army in 1803.
• 1812 Potawatomi came back and burned the Fort down and massacred its inhabitants
• 1833 the whites returned and rebuilt the settlement and Fort
• Industry bloom between 1833 and the War between the States.
• Chicago was the center of rail and canal traffic through the whole region; pop. 100,000
• Traded grain, milled steel, and slaughtered cattle and hogs.
• The War drove expansion of all those industries and added manufacturing of guns, clothing, plows, rail cars, engines, and reapers to the city's domain
• 1871 Great Fire struck most of the city destroyed
• Chicago rose from ashes and embraced new technologies: steel-framed skyscrapers, ghost rock refineries, electrical wires, telephones, and every modern convenience.
• 1893 Colombian Exposition(World's Fair) showed Chicago off as a model city for the world.
• 1909 the population reached 2.2 million of ALL nationalities (Irish, Germans, Chinese, Scandinavians, Italians, Hungarians, Poles, Jews, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Czechs, Croatians, and Greeks)
• Growth problems: Urban poverty, infant mortality skyrocketed, Offal and chemicals turned the Chicago River into a fizzy murk; coal smoke air. Labor Unions marched for 8 hour work days, fiery preachers called for reform and socialism, gangs warred over turf and protection, assassinated Pinkertons, and the big bosses cracked everyone's heads in riot after riot.
• Chicago became a magnet for the black population in the Confederacy. Black sharecroppers poured North during Confederate President Wilson's brief "New Opening" policy, seeking better jobs during the war, and better race relations. They called the "Great Migration".
• 1919 Prohibition Starts in the North. It still goes on today making bootlegging the number one criminal business in the north. The South and Canada profit off of the Norths Prohibition.

Headlines for the Year 1935

The Boulder (Hoover) Dam is completed.

The Emergency Relief Appropriation Act on April 8th  creates The WPA or Works Progress Administration to create millions of jobs for the North.

President Roosevelt signs the US Social Security Act on Oct. 22 Providing Unemployment compensation and pensions for the elderly.

The Great Plains are struck by one of the worst Dust Storms in U.S. history during April. Both the North and South suffer

Italy invades Ethiopia and the Second Italo-Ethiopian War begins in October.

Sir Malcolm Campbell breaks the 300 mph barrier to set a new land speed world record. (Some speculate Sir Malcolm used Ghost Rock to accomplish this feat)

Amelia Earhart flies solo across the Pacific. 

The first technicolor Mickey Mouse short film is released.

The Looney Tunes character of "Porky Pig" was first introduced.

FDR signs the Neutrality Act into law, preventing the U.S. exportation of war related items to nations at war. A wave of Fascism had begun sweeping over Europe as several dictators took power and started to gear up for war. American citizens were afraid of becoming involved in these conflicts as the devastating costs of World War I were still in the public's mind. The president had initially opposed the Neutrality Act but eventually bent to the will of the people in support of taking these, ultimately useless, steps.

The south still has exportation of war related items to nations at war. 

Babe Ruth hit the 714th and final home run of his career.

Persia is renamed as Iran

The great Labor Day Category 5 Hurricane with winds approaching 185 mph strikes New Orleans on Sept. 2nd. Louisiana calls for a state of Emergency as severe flooding wrecks havoc in the Big Easy and surrounding towns. - 566 dead/lost

Earthquake destroys Quetta in modern-day Pakistan - 26,000 dead

Delilah Gone Missin'

Session Two (11-17-2017) Part II

"Fat" Dan Waller owner of the most famous bar in the Big Easy the Old Absinthe House has contacted the heroes about Delilah Starr. He says she hasn't shown up at her last gig on Saturday night and got worried about her and sent a runner to her house and there was no answer. He offered to pay $100 in comp drinks at the bar to bring her back and also offered $50 comps if they bring back less happy tidings for their troubles. One side note: During the conversation you noticed a Texas Rangers Badge in his top drawer when you came up on him to talk.

You head over to her place at 637 Delaronde which was across the river in which you took a ferry to get to. Front porch was concrete and barren except a couple of planters of flowers. You find the door closed but unlocked as you enter. You find out the following clues:

• No sign of struggle
• simple crucifixes of Catholic icons on her walls place in very obvious places...like above her door frames and main living area.
• Papers were scattered throughout the house with several pay-stubs for a Rose Marie LaGrange from  Hexaco Oil for $17 a week.
• Receipts for milk delivery were bound together with twine and go back 5 weeks
• You found a unopened envelope of a crazed fan with no stamp or return address
• In the bedroom you found a lacquered chicken foot attached to a stick along with small bones of weasels and frogs
• Wardrobe consisted blouses and accessories one would associate with low-level professional girl. Her singing gowns were not to be found.

As you leave the house, an Officer named Larue approaches the heroes and asked what they were doing at Delilahs apartment eyeing them up suspiciously. Cis shows his PI badge and he backs off and tells them how he ruffed up a guy who was stalking Miss Starr. His name was Phillipe Deware and he'd be coming to the club for weeks to hear her sing. He started leaving love letters and they got a little too much so Fat Dan kicked him  out but he would continue to watch from the window. Friday night he recounts how he saw him stalking her back to her house so he approached him and put an end to it by "speaking" to him. You also find out that Phillipe Deware is a cashier at a bank in Uptown district.

After doing some Legwork you found out he works at the New Orleans Farmer's Bank in Uptown but getting his address was tricky. The banker, Frank Monroe, doesn't give out employees addresses so you tell him he might be in danger and he sends a runner but keeps you there so you can't follow him. But when he comes back and says no one answering the door he calls the cops and you overheard him telling the address to the cops. So you make a beeline over to his apartment.

Cis climbs up the fire escape to gain entrance after finding out the front door to the upstairs apartment was locked. He beats a little sense into Phillipe even though it was evident with a shiner already from the beat cop. But Cis didn't care and continued to beat him even more to get info. He tells you the following info:

• Never would hurt Miss Starr
• Admitted he followed her home Friday night after having a few drinks
• He remembered a car, '33 Packard with a rear bumper held on by wire also following her
• Then a cop beat him with his nightstick.

You essentially hit a dead end after that until you remember the paystubs from Hexaco Oil was addresed to Rose Marie LaGrange. So you head over to the main office in New Orleans at 2134 St. Charles in the Garden District. You find the following info:

• Meet secretary named Jane Row who doesn't know any Delilah Starr, but when you mentioned Rose Marie LaGrange she knows her. Said she was a secretary a few months back, but she said she quit or something.
• Regional manager, Josh Thaler isn't in the state so you can't talk to him about why she left. However, Anne-Marie Hille uses her persuasion to convice her she may be in terrible danger and gets a peak at her personnel file.
• In the file you find she was originally hired as a hand at one of their field camps, was highly regarded, and was then hired as a secretary here at the main office handling ingoing and outgoing mail.
• You also find out her original address in Manchac, a small town between Lake Maurepas and Lake Pontchartrain, about a half-hour drive northwest of New Orleans.