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